VDIworks integrates with Microsoft Hyper-V

Microsoft’s virtualization positioning may have just gotten a boost from ClearCube Technologies’ spinoff VDIworks. The virtual desktop software company announced a new product that would integrate with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, and as such, ClearCube becomes the first virtual desktop management vendor to integrate with Hyper-V and the System Center management offerings.

The new VDIworks plug-in is cleverly called VDIvision for System Center and it brings desktop virtualization management capabilities to Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor technology.

The VDI model provides server side computing that offers IT administrators the capability to centrally control, deploy, and manage desktop virtual machines from the datacenter to provide a secure desktop experience to the end users.

As big as server virtualization is today, many in the industry are expecting desktop virtualization to eventually outpace and outnumber the server solution. As the virtualization technology matures, as multimedia and video playback are worked out, as thin client hardware prices drop, and as companies like VDIworks continue to come out with connection-broker-style software to tie things together, this type of market will continue to accelerate.

“Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V delivers the next-generation of hypervisor-based server virtualization technology and when coupled with the System Center enterprise offerings, customers have the solutions they need to deploy and manage a server virtualization infrastructure,” said Dai Vu, director of virtualization products and solutions at Microsoft. “By integrating VDIworks with Hyper-V and System Center, customers have available a broadened set of functionality for extending the management of end-to-end virtual desktops through a single user interface.”

Leveraging the VDIworks integration, users will be able to:

• Discover their entire virtual desktop environments, including thin clients, multiple hypervisors, hosts, and other systems from within System Center.
• Generate comprehensive virtual desktop usage, inventory, and health reports using VDIworks reporting functionality.
• Utilize connection broker functions, including connecting thin clients to virtual machines, users to virtual machines, thin clients to physical hosts and users to physical hosts. Support for 1:1 connections and shared connections is available.
• Use VDIworks’ configurable load balancing, which allows the best virtual machine to be allocated to the end-user based on whether the user’s application load is memory-bound, CPU-bound, or consumes other resource types.
• Perform comprehensive end-to-end, virtual and physical management of all virtual desktop resources using VDIworks support for Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), Intel vPro and soon, the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI).
• Provide fine-grained control to system administrators, help desk administrators and other IT staff involved with virtual desktop management using VDIworks’ rights delegation functionality and integration with Microsoft’s Active Directory.

VDIworks said that pricing for this technology will start at $29 per seat.