451 Group Report on Upcoming Neocleus Beta

March 7, 2009

Last Friday Rachel Chalmers of the 451 Group wrote a nice piece capturing the excitement and opportunity for Neocleus’ upcoming beta  of our Client Management & Virtualization suite, code named “Mako”, which is built upon the 2nd generation Client Hypervisor.  She describes how our platform can reduce the cost and complexity of managing PCs in the Enterprise while providing a new level of security that has not been attainable with the “one-OS-per-computer” model in place with desktops and laptops today.  Now that VT-enabled desktops and laptops can be a reality, there is a new paradigm emerging – one that we’ve seen in the data center over the past few years – where single computers will have multiple OS instances running simultaneously.  The shift to now virtualize desktops and laptops will completely transform client computing.

However, this next generation of client computing will not completely negate or require ripping out of old solutions.  Rather, an evolving ecosystem of partners where new solutions complement existing ones will emerge.  For instance, within the configuration and management arena while a new class of capabilities will be needed to manage the OS containers, existing tools will still be required to run the applications that sit inside them.  The upcoming Neocleus ”Mako”  product for example is built to work in conjunction with the existing tools such as Microsoft SCCM, Avocent / Altiris, BigFix and others.  Our centralized management and virtualization platform is designed to provide “container” management of the VMs running on the target endpoints, but not to supplant the existing management platform on these machines. OS instances that run on Neocleus operate just like native OS instances to the Change & Configuration management tools.  As a result, patching the OS, adding applications, changing settings, etc. are implemented in the same manner as without virtualization – it is just easier and more efficient with Neocleus. 

The Neocleus platform also complements VDI based solutions.  Using Neocleus, users can “check out” a VM or image from the VDI data center to take on the road with them, then “check it back in” when reconnected.  With Neocleus organizations realize increased security, centralized management and flexibility on the client while protecting and extending the investment in VDI.

We realize client virtualization will not be the only way to address the systemic desktop and laptop challenging facing IT.  However, by bringing virtualization to the endpoint, new levels of flexibility, supportability and security can finally be realized.  We’re excited that Rachel sees Neocleus as the initial driver in the industry and look forward to working with partners to deliver awesome solutions for customers.
 

 

 

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Posted by Bill Corrigan

Obama’s Helicopter and the case for SECURE CLIENT VIRTUALIZATION

March 3, 2009

Just in case you missed it amidst the mutliple bailouts, economic stimulus package, tanking stock market and other news across the world this week, there was a pretty important story about President Obama’s helicopter, Marine Corps One - and how sensitive engineering and communication information about the helicopter were compromised due to a peer to peer communication program running on a defense contractor’s computer.  Wow!  You might ask yourself, “why in the world was a P2P program running on a computer alongside critical top-secret information such as engineering specs of the newly-elected President’s helicopter?”   In a perfect world, this would never happen.  However, in the real world, we all know that the “first name” of a computer is “personal” and all users tend to personalize their laptops and desktops. 

This is a perfect example of the mission-critical need to implement technology that enables IT to lock down the corporate desktop while providing users’ the ability to personalize his/her computer.  We of course are biased, but Neocleus’ client-hosted virtualization and management platform is a breakthrough technology that hits this solution out of the park, providing IT the ability to separate corporate applications and data (such as Obama’s helicopter diagrams) from any personal applications (e.g. Skype, iTunes, Facebook, Twitter) with 100% isolation and full native OS performance.  This is just one of several use-cases for this platform, and hence why we are so excited about the upcoming solutions for customers.

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Posted by Bill Corrigan