Consumerisation - are you adopting it?

We have all heard of the trend consumerisation it has been around for many years and will continue to be around for a good few more. Here at Equanet we are having many conversations per day around this topic, MDM and BYOC.

Sadly, there are many companies out there who are closing the door on this opportunity rather than embracing it. Consumerisation does require a strategic approach with flexible policies and adequate security to ensure good experience. And let's face it consumers always win!

In our experience the majority of reasons for not adopting consumerisation is a lack of understanding and largely a lack of trust that your employees will be on Facebook rather than working. We think that you should put some effort into researching this trend and understand the value it can bring to your business. If you can't find an opportunity at least you can say that you have tried, but we are pretty confident that you will find pockets of opportunity within your business today to adopt it.

It is fundamental to have a plan, that plan should be strategic rather than tactical and should span the entire length and breadth of the business. A formal working party should be created that includes all stakeholders in the business and make sure you include HR; it has a big impact on their policies typically.

In our experience it is a great opportunity to cast the net out to the entire business and get some feedback on the perception of the IT service. This, when coupled with what your users would like to receive should highlight a big disconnect but also expect some fantastic internal PR. When was the last time you asked your users what they wanted from IT instead of dictate it?

One you understand the areas of the business to benefit from consumerisation you will need to assess your policies and get them up to date to match the new world of working.

In parallel to this IT need to ensure that the infrastructure is fit for purpose and can provide the best level of service to your users; but ensure that the service doesn't compromise data integrity.

You need to ensure that you have the appropriate tools in place to manage the devices that are attaching to your network through MDM technologies. You will need to ensure your applications can be accessed, there is no point in supporting tablets in the enterprise if you cannot connect to business systems. You will need to consider the cost of application redevelopment into an enterprise application store which would be native to the device, or look to integrate application virtualisation technologies (eg Citrix, Microsoft or VMware) to bring windows based applications to the device ensuring a faster time to value.

The benefits of consumerisation are clear from a high level you now need to understand how they benefit you as a business. Equanet are uniquely placed to help you address consumerisation through leveraging our consultants knowledge in developing your strategy. Once we understand your strategy we can help you realise it through our design, funding, implementation and support services.

Remember consumers normally win!

Location:In the air

Hyper-V 3.0 Some more details

Microsoft continues to drip feed information into the blogosphere about the new capabilities to expect in Hyper-V 3.0 and to be honest the product is shaping up to look like a great compete to vSphere.

Some of these features are:

160 logical processors on Hyper-V hosts
2TB RAM of RAM per host
32 vCPUs with up to 512 GB RAM per VM
NUMA in the guest, so that the VM has processor and memory affinity with the host
Storage Live Migration,without a shared storage backend.
New virtual disk format, called VHDX with a 2TB limit for the currently used VHD format, with a maximum of 16 TB.
Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX), enables offload storage features to the backend storage (comparable with vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) by VMware)
Multiple concurrent Live MigrationsActive Directory will be virtualisation aware, providing snapshot support for VMs running Domain Controllers
Virtual Fibre Channel Support and direct access to SAN LUNs using MPIO
VM boot support from fiber channel and iSCSI SANs
Updated virtual switch, providing multi-tenancy capabilities
CPU metering
Resource pools
Hyper-V replica providing asynchronous/consistent replication functionality
Remote Desktop Session Host now fully supports RemoteFX
Support for NIC Teaming, load balancing and failover in the OS
Support for Bitlocker on Clustered disks.
Cluster Shared Volume 2.0 with built-in replication and hardware snapshotting
Support for Data de-duplication
Windows Server 8 provides the ability to turn on and off the GUI

That's a lot of known features, we wonder what will be the surprise features that are not announced yet!


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Microsoft nails live migration across subnets with Hyper-V 3.0

In the next release of Windows Server Microsoft has nailed one of the most difficult problems in virtualisation: moving a running VM across a WAN.

Microsoft announced this at the Microsoft Build conference. It will be available in Microsoft's Hyper-V 3.0 included in Windows Server. This capability has certainly proved Microsofts maturity in virtualisation.

With live migration, a running VM is moved across computers without any disruption to the guest VM. Most hypervisors have the capability to do live migration across the same LAN segment and it is a given feature now.

A more taxing problem is the ability to move a live VM across different subnets, or separate WAN sub-networks. Network latencies and addressing complexities have made this task of many complexities.

At a basic level each virtual machine gets two IP addresses. One address is the home address for the VM itself, which it uses to communicate with the rest of the network. The second IP address will be available for the local data centre.

VMware also offers similar functionality but requires CIsco and its OTV (Overlay Transport Virtualization) technology.

This capability really starts to help with Hybrid clouds and how we can enter into the public cloud and importantly exit the cloud. This provides far more control over your operating environment.

Other new features in Hyper-V announced so far are:

Live migration of the VM's virtual hard disk
Scalability to support up to 32 virtual processors for each VM
Each VM can now have 512GB RAM
VHDX file system to create virtual storage disks up to 16TB in size.

And we are sure that there are plenty of other features that haven't even been announced yet. Good work Microsoft.

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Windows 8 to Sync user settings and apps

Since the Microsoft Build event the other week features have been coming out of the woodwork about some of the new capabilities of Windows 8.  One of the key capabilities is the ability to allow Windows 8 users the option to log onto their devices with their Windows Live ID.  The benefits of which are below.

Microsoft revealed at the Build conference that users will be allowed to sign into their Windows 8 PCs using a Windows Live ID, this is only an option and not compulsory.  Some of the key features stated by Microsoft in doing this are as follows:

• Associate the most commonly used Windows settings with your user account. Saved settings are available when you sign in to your account on any Windows 8 PC.
• Reacquire your Metro style apps on multiple Windows 8 PCs. (”The app’s settings and last-used state persist across all your Windows 8 PCs.”)
• Save sign-in credentials for the different apps and websites you use and easily get back into them without having to enter credentials every time.
• Automatically sign in to apps and services that use Windows Live ID for authentication

The Windows 8 control panel has a section called Sync PC Settings to enable of disable this capability.  This can be dictated by users or administrators through GPO.  The configuration allows for variable settings to be synced such as Personalisation, Themes, Ease of access, Language preferences, Apps, Web browser and Some passwords.

The syncrhonised settings data is stored in the Microsoft cloud separately from users’ other Windows Live data.

Microsoft said on their blog “Using the new Restore/Refresh tools, it is possible to easily create an image that has your preferred desktop apps installed, and then use that as a refresh point.  If you do want to roam your settings for desktop apps then you can continue to use the mechanisms available for roaming profiles and client side caching of files available with Active Directory and Windows Server.”

Should make the transition between tablets and desktop a lot smoother allowing for personalisation of the user profile is a key concept that businesses consider when transforming to Windows 7 or virtualising the desktop.  We think that this is a shrewd move by Microsoft to close the gap between desktop and tablet.

New GUI for OpenStack

The cloud management platform OpenStack has had a makeover through a new graphical interface and unified authentication management system.

The goals behind this update have been to make OpenStack easier to use and administer and to scale for large multi thousand server clouds.

Overall, this release, named Diablo, will include over 70 new features and enhancements.

The software has a new distributed scheduler for deploying virtual machines anywhere in the system, even if nodes are scattered about in different data centers around the globe. A new multicluster container sync feature can be used to replicate data across different remote clusters.

The new graphical user interface allows administrators to provision resources through a portal interface.

The unified identity management system, called OpenStack Keystone, ties together the different authentication systems previously deployed for individual components. It can integrate with external directory systems, such as Microsoft Active Directory or other authentication systems based on LDAP.

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Why it is important to distinguish virtualisation from cloud

So many businesses are looking to cloud for many reasons and we in IT have become responsible for devaluing the opportunity that can come from it by over using the terminology without a clear definition about what it means.

One thing we always make people aware about is that cloud and virtualisation are based upon principles that have been around for decades; those principles being both business and technical principles. The key thing to remember is that we are now better armed than when we tried this similar concept in the past; we have better computers and importantly faster, ubiquitous networks.

Virtualisation is an infrastructure management tool to provide consolidation and higher availability of systems; most of which have nothing to do with the cloud. The technology allows enterprises to use a single piece of physical hardware, to perform the work of many.

Cloud computing, is access through the Internet to business services running in a non-local environment. Cloud computing can certainly take advantage of virtualisation but cloud computing can be (and has been) accomplished without the use of virtualisation.

Unlike most IT projects, cloud computing and virtualisation impact almost everyone in the enterprise which means that non-technical people are involved in the implementation and deployment processes.

The risk of not knowing the difference between virtualisation and cloud computing can be a costly one as hype around these two technologies reaches a crescendo. Too many vendors are over simplifying the entrance into the cloud through a simple swipe of a credit card and hey presto you are now in the cloud.

Equanet firmly believe that a full feasibility study needs to be performed to define your virtualisation and cloud strategies before moving forward, failing to do so typically means confusion about strategies and over spend of budget whilst under delivering on capability.


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Cisco and Microsoft Collaborate on Hyper-V 3.0

Cisco has collaborated with Microsoft to provide virtual switch support which should make the offering more attractive to those who are debating VMware following their recent licensing changes.

Cisco is set to offer virtual switch support for Hyper-V which is currently found within VMware through it's Nexus 1000v virtual switch.

This joint collaboration will provide customers with greater control and monitoring across their Hyper-V estates.

How important this will be is yet to be determined as it is unclear how important enterprises place granular control and monitoring across the virtual switch. You would expect this granularity to be important for those customers who have a large investment in Cisco equipment and will also become a more determining factor when looking at hybrid cloud solutions.

The support for Hyper-V will only come once Microsoft release Windows Server 8 which has Hyper-V 3.0 integrated.

Cisco will provide customers two ways to analyse data across the switches these are:

Cisco Nexus 1000V switch is designed to be a distributed virtual switch, this kits each Hyper-V guest with a virtual Ethernet card that can be managed through a Cisco Virtual Supervisor Module.

The other alternative Cisco will offer is a new version of Cisco Unified Computing System Virtual Machine Fabric Extender, which extends Cisco management to virtual environments.


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VMworld Desktop Announcements

So we have been meaning to provide this update since the event but have only just got round to it – apologies.

So what announcements were made?

• VMware Horizon App Manager will support Windows apps through ThinApp
• The mobile phone hypervisor, MVP, will be Horizon Mobile
• View 5.

VMware Horizon App Manager

The vision of VMware Horizon is pretty neat, and VMware is extending this vision further to include the deployment ThinApp packages.

The process behind the publishing of the application through Horizon involves the addition of a DLL to the ThinApp package which allows Horizon to manage it.  Once the change is made you direct your Horizon environment at the Thinapp store whereby a Horizon scan is performed.  Once the scan is complete you then compile your application catalog and align them to the users for self subscription.

Horizon will be the ideal platform for Thinapp application delivery and is long overdue.  Once end user take up of Horizon is seen it is clear that the delivery of SaaS applications and other web based applications will become the next phase of deployment again fueling adoption.

At the moment Horizon is aimed at View desktops for integration and is understandable but as the product evolves the future focus will be on all Windows desktop environments, and you can also imagine Google Chrome OS and other mobile devices.

VMware MVP (Horizon Mobile)

It is hard to believe that it has been nearly three years since VMware acquired Trango to provide the MVP capability.  The concept is a type II hypervisor model, in that you own a phone a native (personal) OS, then you have a second Android OS (corporate) instance that runs in a VM on top of the native OS. The corporate VM can run a different version of the Android OS from the personal one, and it can be totally controlled by the IT department through native management or integrated as part of your MDM strategy.

The corporate VM can be connected to a VPN while the personal environment is not. All of the apps and encryption can be controlled by IT.

VMware is branding this as Horizon Mobile.

VMware View 5

VMware also announced the next version of VMware View – version 5.  The key features of View 5 are:

• View Media Services for 3D Graphics
• View Media Services for Integrated Unified Communications
• View Persona Management
• PCoIP Extension Services
• PCoIP Optimisation Controls
• PCoIP Continuity Services
• View Client for Android
• Enhanced Security Settings
• vSphere 5 support.

Microsoft to reduce the gap between PC and tablet

Microsoft is looking to slow down the progress of Apple and iPAD on Tuesday of this week with the introduction of software to turn touchscreen computing into something more familiar with PC users.

The software will be shown off at a Microsoft conference for software developers in California.

The beta version of the forthcoming Windows 8 operating system represents a bet that iPad does not represent the final shape of tablet computing.

A trial version of Windows 8, is expected to be released to developers this week.

Windows 8 will have two interfaces: the traditional “desktop” familiar to PC users, and a touch-based interface using the same large “tiles” used on Windows software for smartphones.

The software will also be designed to bridge the gap between the “apps” found on tablets and smartphones and the full-featured applications of PCs.

Microsoft will have to make its operating system function for the first time on different chips, while also creating a way for developers to write software that works with different interfaces.

We are pretty confident that Microsoft will enter this marketplace with a very compelling proposition that will demonstrate their desire to succeed against the dominant apple.

Microsoft releases Release Candidate of VMM 2012

Microsoft have announced the availability of the Release Candidate of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 as publicly available.

SCVMM will no longer be virtual machine manager tool and will transition to a Service Management and Fabric Management tool, by providing lifecycle management of VMs and the applications inside them.

SCVMM includes Server App-V.  Server App-V provides application virtualisation technology for backend services, the technology will also become available as a complementary technology to Windows Azure (PaaS).

Communication with the storage will be supported through the Storage Management Initiative (SMI-S) providers, so that SCVMM will be able to provision LUNs at the cluster level, currently three providers are available NetApp FAS, EMC CX,VMAX and HP EVA (Built-in to HP StorageWorks CommandView EVA 10.0).

The RC introduces the following new features:

• Support for upgrade to RTM when released
• Hyper-V and Cluster Lifecycle Management
• Network Management
• Storage Management
• Update Management
• Power Optimization
• Performance & Resource Optimization (PRO)
• Service Lifecycle Management.

Some pretty nice features I am sure that you will agree.

HP Unveils OpenStack Cloud Offerings

Yesterday HP released its first two public cloud computing services for private beta, and they’re based in part on the open-source OpenStack code. The services, are HP Cloud Compute and HP Cloud Object Storage.

HP VP of Cloud Solutions suggests that the new services aim to compete directly with other developer-focused cloud services such as Amazon Web Services and Rackspace, which leads the OpenStack project.

HP is the first major provider other than Rackspace to publicly use OpenStack code in an available offering.  Both offerings are based on HP’s  hardware and software with key elements of HP Converged Infrastructure and HP Software combined with a developer friendly integration of OpenStack.

HP is not providing further comment at this time. Just launching the services is enough to generate buzz and integrating with OpenStack is sure to generate a lot of interest.

Where are you going with your apps?

We are constantly craving the ability to access information from a plethora of devices be that information in the public, personal or private cloud.  The accessibility of data from within the public or personal cloud is a simpler process than that of accessing within the private cloud; largely due to the complexities of accessing systems behind the corporate firewall (not just technical complexities but ones of security and HR process). The consumerisation of IT has driven this desire to get access to data wherever it is needed thus providing the business intelligence to make timely and accurate decisions.  This fueled by the adoption of tablets and smartphones is only going to be further exacerbated.

After tablets and smartphones, mobile applications are the next technology wave sweeping the mobile industry, we saw this in niche verticals around 2002 through to 2004 but it is once again proving a popular activity for businesses to assess and adopt. According to a study by Ericsson, 35% of smartphone owners use their apps even before getting out of the bed.  However, as of today, the mobile applications lack the ability to communicate with the enterprise software systems.

As most employees own multiple smart devices today businesses must provide access to their enterprise applications from such devices, supporting initiatives such as BYOC or BYO-3. Mobilising your enterprise applications is a fantastic way of boosting productivity of employees. It allows mobile employees to access the enterprise applications over wireless connections from home or when they are on the road.

The best way to make the applications available to the employees is through an enterprise application store.  Accessing applications from an Enterprise App Store allows IT to track software licensing costs by maintaining an inventory of all the assets and deploying applications to the relevant users. It also enables IT to recommend and deploy “best of” public app store applications to the employees.

However, IT admin cannot manage applications well if they cannot manage mobile devices. So it goes without saying that it is a best practice to have a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution in place to manage corporate assets and corporate applications.

In the SaaS era, putting your enterprise applications in the cloud is a favorable model. It not only minimizes IT support but also reduces storage and distribution bottlenecks.

Has this got you thinking?  The opportunity to exploit tablet devices has never been better, but careful planning and deployment is critical to ensure that they do not become an expensive notepad.  So if you need help in your MDM and application development strategy come and talk to us to see how we can help.