It has only been a couple of months since Microsoft released details on what it will offer in its cloud based services, which include Windows Azure, .Net Services, SQL Services and Live Services. The actual impact of these services to the Internet based application community will not be evident for some time yet. In the mean time Microsoft is calling for its current and new partners to get on board with Saas offerings. Microsoft is suggesting four ways that Independent software vendors(ISVs) can get involved in Saas or as they like to call it Software plus Services (S+S). Resell Microsoft Online Services Sell private label Microsoft based Saas services Resell Microsoft Dynamics CRM Resell Office Online This is an interesting move. When Microsoft announced the offerings of Windows Azure, they also announced that they would host and manage the new generation of services, making them, for the first time, a direct competitor to the ISVs in the marketplace. Microsoft has reportedly facilitated this with Dell, using some of Dells large datacentres. Microsoft is telling ISVs that they don't need to worry about the impact Azure and the other Services might have on their core business, yet. Microsoft Online Services is for the most part not available yet ...

Another year has passed. The second half of the year really seemed to fly. Bring on 2009. I don't know about you but mine will be busy. This year will see me start some new things and I am excited about them. I am not one for setting New Years resolutions and goals as such, rather having a rolling list of smaller and medium term goals. This year I am also going to try and put in some work at implementing my own version of time saving using the principles of 80/20 and the 4 Hour Work Week to concentrate on what is important to me. Tim Ferris really showed everyone that you can eliminate activities that waste time and start experiencing life. I do believe some of his success has to do with a good sense of timing. Simple things like reading email only twice a day is a great way to allow you to focus on the important things. The 80/20 rule is another good philosophy to try and make more out of your time. To put it simply, 80 percent of what we achieve in life comes from twenty percent of our time spent. In most cases that means we waste ...

Another year is almost over. I have been in a festive frame of mind now for a few weeks. I am looking forward to Christmas with my family and the bright eyes of my children. I wanted to take this opportunity to wish my regular readers a happy festive season. This blog has kept me fairly busy for the last four months, but it has been good. Next year I intend on continuing along the general theme of Virtualization, Cloud, Citrix and any other challenge or interesting article I come across. Here are some of the things I would like to get to in 2009: Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization Endeavors Application Streaming Product The latest Beta from Altiris SVS Professional The latest 3D acceleration features of VirtualBox Plus many more. If you would like to have a look at anything in particular let me know.   Interesting bits to wrap up the year This weeks interesting links and news bits all have a space theme. Virgin Galactic WhiteKnightTwo Is set to enjoy its maiden flight according to an article at NewScientist. The twin fuselage craft has been compared to the Boeing B29 in size will take its passengers to the edges of space for several minutes of zero gravity. It will be interesting to ...

A few months ago I reviewed the performance and use of VirtualBox. A new version has just been released. Version 2.1.0 is a major release and adds a whole new range of capabilities including: Better hardware virtualization support on the Mac OS X operating systems Better hardware virtualization support for Intel and AMD full VMDK support A better NAT engine A new swag of experimental technology, including 3D acceleration via OpenGL As well as whole range of fixes and minor items as well. The most interesting part of this latest VirtualBox release is the experimental support for 3D graphics acceleration using OpenGL. Up until now the only other product I knew of that had support or features for graphics acceleration was VMWare Workstation. It will also be interesting to see what the full VMDK support will really mean for VirtualBox users. In early 2009 I will give this product a test drive to see whether the new features have really changed much. If you are a user of VirtualBox what do you think of it?   Get the full details here

In part 1 I showed you the application packaging process using a snapshot package. But now what? To be able to use the package you need two other elements installed and configured. The Altiris SVS Streaming Server and the Altiris SVS client. The first step is to install and configure the Streaming Server. The installation is very straight forward and requires very little intervention. The SVS Streaming server was installed using the default Progress database instance, but you can also configure it to point to another existing database server. SVS will also install an Apache instance to run the console. Once the installation has completed open the Altiris SVS console, you will be prompted for a username and password. The initial default is Admin with a blank password. You will be prompted for some additional information to finish the setup configuration.   There are a lot of settings and configuration items you can make in the console, but for now I am not concerned with them. Add the applications Adding applications to the Altiris SVS console is very straight forward. In the console towards the bottom of the page click the Packages menu item. Then click add packages, browse to where you saved your application package and upload ...

I started looking at application streaming options back in 5 options for application streaming. So far I have shown you Citrix Application Streaming and VMWare ThinApp. In this blog I am looking at Altiris Software Virtualization Solution (SVS) Professional. Altiris SVS Professional is the Symantec application streaming product, formally known as AppStream. Altiris SVS features include: On-demand application streaming User based provisioning Easy packaging Direct MSI conversion Dynamic license management There are many more features as well. This is the first time I had used the Symantec offering and was not really sure what to expect from the product. If you are only using Altiris SVS Professional and not integrating it with other Altiris products the installation is very simple. I have not used it in an integrated manner at all. The three basic components required are Streaming Composer, Streaming server and Streaming client. To start creating packages you will need a clean machine, I recommend that you use a virtual machine that is as close to the end devices as possible. With the virtual machine as the streaming composer you can snapshot it and roll back after every build. This will save you a lot of time. Creating your Packages. Once you are ready to start install the ...

The benefits and risks of Cloud computing have been mentioned quite a lot lately by industry heavy weights, IT professionals and myself. The aim of Cloud computing is to simplify IT delivery, management and reduce costs. If the majority of your applications become cloud born then do you really need a dual core or quad core workstation sitting on your desk at work? For all the on paper savings virtualization promises to yield, it is still quite expensive to implement a virtual environment properly. That money may be made back within three to five years but many organisations simply cannot get the capital, especially in today's economic climate. Open source software is starting to be accepted by a small part of the IT industry, but Microsoft does not need to worry about losing any market share. Cloud computing and Saas services have been fairly specialised up until now, serving CRM applications mainly. That is changing very fast though. So how can organisations adopt cloud computing, virtual infrastructure and server virtualization without robbing the proverbial Fort Knox? I have used Linux on and off when I needed to, but prefer my Windows workstation mostly. It is also great to be able to get open ...

Amazon has added some core database services to its web services. The SimpleDB beta gives you the ability to index and query data with the cloud. The service works closely with Amazon S3 and EC2 offerings. SimpleDB requires no database schema like traditional relational database management systems. Simply use the available API's to store you data and manipulate it. Data is stored in domains and uses items which are attribute value pairs. A domain is like a worksheet which comprises of rows and attributes of data. Using the API's you simple: Create the domains Add, get or delete the data query and manipulate the data The process seems to be a very simple concept and is similar in nature to what other databases in the cloud will offer in the future. The pricing seems fairly good as well. For basic machine utilization you get the for 25 machine hours a month for free, then $0.14 USD per machine hour after that. Data transfer is free for the first GB in and out and then charges apply. $0.100 USD per GB inwards and $0.170 USD per GB outward. The first GB of storage per month is also free for now and then charged at $0.25c per GB after. The latest service addition ...

There has been a lot of talk and hype about Cloud computing lately. Many organisations that were involved in web based services are rebranding as fast as they can to be included. So with the future focus of cloud computing who can benefit and why? The two real users are small/medium and enterprise businesses. From these two groups there are effectively three different reasons why they enter into the cloud arena. Small/Medium Business Cloud computing or more precisely Saas and Daas services are the real benefit for small and medium businesses. The arrival has now provided a means for small organisations with little or no technical know how or limited budgets to establish infrastructure, services and products for their customers rapidly. The lower entry costs and pay for what you use mentality is a huge enabler. These organisations are hoping to achieve from cloud computing: lower costs and removing large capital requirements modernise their business processes though access to quality services and software remove the need for dedicated in-house technical staff lower TCO for infrastructure These organisations generally do not have data centres stacked with servers. Many have PC class hardware or low end white box servers. Cloud computing options like Saas and Daas allow these organisations to move ...

It is not quite subspace communication but NASA has successfully tested an Internet style network for communication with objects in space. This new system will enable automatic communication from spacecraft, probes and satellites, taking away the hugely inefficient manual communication processes. The system uses a Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) protocol to store and forward messages to each node in the network. The new system is expected to be added to the International Space Station by mid 2009. Maybe in the future we will see a satellite communication network distributed through space, orbiting planets and moons to provide a constant flow of information. [via NewScientist.com]