December 2010/January 2011 | Vol. 4 | No. 1 VirtualizationReview.com This combined issue brings you a virtual cornucopia of products and vendors. Can you guess who dominates the RCA awards? The 2011 Virtualization Review Readers Choice Awards Ultimateand Buyers READERS CHOICE AWARDS Guide Our readers rate products, and we reward them with the hands-down, most-informative, must-read print guide to virtualization and cloud products. By Bruce Hoard 2 | December 2010/January 2011 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com FEATURE | The 2011 Ultimate Virtualization Buyers Guide and Virtualization Review Readers Choice Awards elcome to the combined 2011 Application Virtualization Virtualization Buyers Guide and Virtualization Review Readers Readers Choice Award Winner VMware ThinApp 4.5 – VMware Inc. Choice Awards. By combining (43.6%) W $5,000 n vmware.com n 877-486-9273; these two editorial efforts, we are able to 650-427-5000 showcase both the virtualization and cloud This is a big win for VMware in a category where Citrix is extremely well established with its XenApp product, which products that you voted as your favorites has been around for many years. ThinApp no doubt benefited from its ability to ease the migration of existing apps to and many others that will be vying for your Windows 7. Merit Award winner Citrix was joined by Parallels, attention during the coming year. All told, which finished a distant third, but is favorably viewed as a technology trendsetter. we amassed some 211 products from 106 VMware ThinApp isolates applications from the operating vendors, and placed them in 15 categories for environment, enabling enterprises to manage applications from a central source and deliver them instantly to nearly both the Readers Choice Awards and Ultimate any device, while streamlining security, updates, patches and performance. Virtualization Buyers Guide. Regarding the Readers Choice Awards, Merit Award Winners Citrix XenApp 6 – Citrix Systems Inc. VMware dominated the competition, finishing (41.9%) Starts at $350 per concurrent user n citrix.com n first in 10 of the 15 categories, and second in http://deliver.citrix.com/go/citrix/OTH another. The market leader took the top spot in Citrix XenApp 6 centralizes application management to reduce cost up to 50 precent and deliver instant, secure access to everything from Server Virtualization to Best Windows apps over any network, with scalability features, a rich Virtualization Training Vendor. Can you say multi-media experience and self-service apps from any device. juggernaut? Parallels Virtuozzo Containers – Turning to the Ultimate Virtualization Buyers Parallels (3.8%) Call for price n parallels.com n 425-282 6400 Guide, we extensively surveyed an industry- Parallels Virtuozzo Containers is an operating system wide list of vendors, capturing their most virtualization solution that harnesses the full power of your IT recent products and pricing. We also combed infrastructure by increasing the utilization of existing servers by 2X–3X over hypervisor solutions. Virtualization at the host through submissions from last year’s guide and operating system provides a lean, efficient virtualization layer that enables higher density ratios of virtual servers to physical culled out and updated many offerings that are servers along with complete isolation between workloads. This still relevant. For more detailed information, isolation allows multiple workloads to exist across business silos without one workload affecting the performance and you’ll want look at the expanded PDF version security of any other. of the guide, which features expanded 2X ApplicationServer 8.1.875 –2X Software product descriptions, and is accessible at $990 for one server n 2x.com n 866-970-6262 Publish any Windows application to remote desktops to VirtualizationReview.com/2011RCABG. simplify administration and reduce support costs. With the 2X ApplicationServer for Windows Remote Desktop Services/ Windows Terminal Services, companies can reap the benefits of virtual computing to deliver all your Windows-based applications and desktops to any location from your network. Rather than manually deploy Windows applications to desktops, increasing demands for administration and support, 4 | December 2010/January 2011 | Virtualization Review | VirtualizationReview.com FEATURE | The 2011 Ultimate Virtualization Buyers Guide and Virtualization Review Readers Choice Awards use the 2X ApplicationServer to manage application and InstallFree Bridge 2.0 – InstallFree desktop delivery from a central location, providing continuous Call for price n installfree.com n 203-267-1460 availability, resource load balancing and complete end-to-end InstallFree provides application compatibility, portability and network transparency for administrators. virtualization solutions to accelerate the adoption of new operating systems and applications, solve conflicts and reduce AdminStudio 9.5 – Flexera Software cost and complexity. Call for price n flexerasoftware.com n 800-809-5659; +44 (0) 870 873 6300; +81-3-4360-8291 Radware vAdapter – Radware AdminStudio is the fastest way to convert applications to Free n radware.com n 877-236-9807 virtual formats. It is the only automated, vendor neutral Radware’s vAdapter automatically synchronizes changes between packaging solution that identifies candidates for virtualization, the virtualization infrastructure and ADC configuration in real- automatically repackages non-MSIs, and batch converts MSIs time, without manual configuration or complex scripting. Offered to leading virtual formats. complementary with Virtual ADC-ODS3. App-V – Microsoft Radware Virtual ADC-ODS3 – Radware Call for price n microsoft.com n 800-386-5550; 425-882-8080 Starts at $73,995 n radware.com n 877-236-9807 Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) transforms This is the industry’s first truly virtualized ADC device, offering applications into virtualized, network-available services. simple, agile, and risk-free virtualization with resilient and It delivers software applications without requiring costly predictable performance. Via a unique hypervisor, multiple virtual compatibility testing, deployment, or installation, and ADC instances can cost-effectively run on one physical ADC. eliminates application conflicts that are typical with traditional software. App-V enables IT to be flexible and Specops Deploy 4.1 – Specops Software responsive to business needs, significantly reducing the cost of Call for price n specopssoft.com n 877-773-2677; 416-849-5325 PC management, application and operating system migrations, and application version co-existence. Specops Deploy makes it possible to take advantage of Microsoft App-V application virtualization directly, using AppZero 4.5 – AppZero only existing investments in infrastructure and knowledge. Starts at $500 instance per year n appzero.com n 866-980-2770 Accomplish this by combining the power of Group Policy and Microsoft App-V. Server-side applications are decoupled from operating systems -- packaged, run, and maintained -- as virtual application Spoon Browser Sandbox – Spoon appliances (VAA). Extending the well known and widely used Free n spoon.net n 877-223-3551; 206-774-8769 concept of virtual appliance (VA) to the application layer, an AppZero VAA encapsulates an application with all its The Spoon Browser Sandbox lets users run all major web dependencies in a pre-integrated, self-contained unit. VAA browsers, including IE 6 through 9, Firefox 2 through 4, and differs from VA in one critical way that has far-reaching Chrome 4 through 6, with no installs. The browsers run in ramifications: VAs package applications with “just enough isolated sandboxes and executes side-by-side without conflicts. operating system” (jeOS) to get the job done; AppZero VAAs package applications with zero operating system (zeOS). VAA Spoon Server – Spoon $7,995 n spoon.net n 877-223-3551; 206-774-8769 applications are no longer deployed, installed, and configured - they are simply accessed on any given server - physical, Spoon Server lets IT managers publish applications in private virtual, or in the cloud. The result is that applications can be clouds for distribution on intranets and portals such as moved from one environment to another as quickly as business SharePoint. Spoon applications launch instantly from any circumstances require. And that is precisely the attribute that desktop, with no installs or conflicts. is needed to realize the full benefit of virtualization. AppZero is software to create, control, and maintain VAAs. Spoon Studio – Spoon $2,395 n spoon.net n 877-223-3551; 206-774-8769 AX Series – A10 Networks Inc. Spoon Studio allows developers and IT managers to virtualize Call for Price n a10networks.com n 888-210-6363; 408-325-8616 Windows applications for deployment in standalone EXEs, The AX Series is a new generation server load balancer with private clouds, and the web. Spoon Studio 2011 includes the industry’s best price/performance, helping enterprises and support for 32- and 64-bit applications and Windows 7. ISPs to scale and maximize application availability through the world’s most advanced application delivery platform. The Symantec Workspace Virtualization 6.1 – Symantec Corp. AX Series load balancing family is revolutionary by current Call for price n symantec.com n 800-745-6054 market standards due to its Advanced Core Operating System Symantec Workspace Virtualization virtualizes applications and (ACOS) with a native multi-core CPU and