Splunk goes virtual, unveils broad IT search capabilities for Citrix XenServer

Splunk, which provides indexing and search technology for IT infrastructures, this week made its move into the virtual realm with the announcement of Splunk for Citrix XenServer Management.

The San Francisco company says this is just its first foray into search support services for virtualization and that it will release similar applications for each of the leading server virtualization platforms in the near future. [Disclosure: Splunk is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

The Splunk announcement comes during a Citrix cavalcade of news and developments, including the expected delivery of its desktop as a service portfolio.

While server virtualization provides significant efficiency and utilization improvement benefits to datacenters, it also brings complexity in troubleshooting glitches. Performance and capacity issues can arise when applications share the same physical host. With multiple virtual machines (VMs) sharing a pool of server, storage and network resources, changes to any one layer or VM could potentially affect others – and the applications they contain. Root cause analysis is even more of a challenge when instances of virtualized containers and runtimes pop in and out of use via dynamic provisioning.

Splunk indexing and search approach aims to provide a full view of IT-generated use data, not only from the hypervisor and VM, but from the server, guest operating system, applications, and the network. Splunk’s technology indexes data across all tiers of the infrastructure in near real-time. This allows operators and administrators to maintain a large, dynamic IT environment with fewer people, with higher automation and easier service performance management.

Splunk for Server Virtualization Management supports virtualization planning, workload optimization, performance monitoring, root cause analysis and log management, says the company.

The new product is available immediately. Users can download a free 30-day trial from the company's Web site.

Splunk has been in the news lately, and on Monday announced that communications provider BT has agreed to license Splunk's IT search platform technology to build a managed-security product that will allow customers to preserve 100 percent of the logs on a network.

Three weeks ago, the company unveiled Splunk for Change Management, an application to audit and detect configuration and changes, and Splunk for Windows, which indexes all data generated by Windows servers and applications.

IBM executive defines next generation of enterprise datacenters through cloud computing

IBM Vice President for Enterprise Systems Rich Lechner took the stage at the Forrester Research IT Forum on Tuesday to explore the definition of new enterprise datacenters that will enable new levels of business innovation.

Factors buffeting the definition of the new class of datacenterinclude globalization, a rising tide of information and need for expanded flexibility and adaptability for business models.

To compete, companies need to operate without boarders, and bcome a globally integrated enterprise. "There are huge resource pools emergig around the world ... with new ideas and creativity," said Lechner. It's more than outsourcing, he said, it's about integrating these resources.

The tide of data and devices, of resources, and assets will continue to explode. How can you best use the data that flows all around you?

New business models will evolve, said Lachner. The impact of social networking and peer influences on buying decisions are just beginning to be felt.

Virtualization will remake the landscape IT, as will cloud computing, virtual worlds, and high new levels of scaling when it comes to compute power, said Lechner.

Cloud computing allows an unbounded aspiration of the best user experiences. "It provides anytime, anywhere access to IT resources deliver dynamically as a service," he said. Cloud computing expands capacity almost indefinitely.

IBM's cloud initiatives are allowing technology incubation, data-intense workloads, government-led initiatives and new types of software development support.

IT plus cloud computing can enable change. How to get started? Simplify using virtualization, share infrastructures via SOA, and create a dynamic ability to access data and knowledge, said Lechner.

The world is changing to enterprises without borders, unbounded IT infrastructure, and huge more data sets, and a need for collaboration that increasingly crosses many organizational and sourcing types, he said.

Additionally IBM is learning a lot from Google and vice versa when it comes to cloud computing, said Lechner. Cloud computing allows its practitioners to isolate compute units and make their use far more efficient economically via dynamic provisioning.

For data security, users can physically isolate data using partitioning. IBM for years has been hosting multiple companies on single mainframes with no data protection or privacy issues. The technology exists to leverage the economics of cloud computing while protecting data, said Lechner.

"It's about removing IT has an inhibitor," he said.

Business imperatives theme dominates Forrester's IT Forum conference opener

Forrester Research, the Cambridge, Mass. market research and analysis firm, kicked off its influential IT Forum conference today in Las Vegas with a keynote address by founder and Chairman George Colony on CEO success imperatives.

What the success imperatives do you have? Colony asked a series of CEOs. Here are the seven answers he got:

• Getting, keeping and building the best people.
• Engendering collaboration.
• Reaching global markets.
• Increasing profit.
• Building a positive culture.
• Customers, customers, customers
• Driving innovation.

What was missing from the list? Colony asked the crowd. Technology ... it didn't make the top imperatives, based on CEO priorities. So to move from IT to business technology, there needs to be more connection between what the IT executives focus on to what the CEO focuses on.

Colony ended his introduction to the event with the pithy conclusion that technology is buried in business imperatives, rather than is an imperative itself.

Then Forrester executives and research directors Mike Gilpin and Eric Brown took to stage to welcome the 1,400 conference goers to the 14th annual IT Forum at the Sands Expo Center. They showed McKinsey research that shows that innovation is essential to companies and their growth.

They define innovation as top down and bottom up inside of companies. The cite the iPhone as an example of this innovation. And they cite Amazon's one-click buying process as another. Also, the one laptop per child intitiative and mobile networks in developing markets signal innovation.

Business innovation needs to pull this all together, say Gilpin and Brown.

Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Bobby Cameron implored the conference crowd not to wait to innovate. Businesses need innovation but IT is disconnected from innovation, Cameron said. Part of the goal of the conference is to rectify this.

"Companies say that technology is transformational, but they invest in technology to improve efficiency or reduce costs," said Cameron, based on his research. "They don't do what they say."

Innovation gets stalled. "Sludge in IT's engine stymies innovation," said Cameron. IT needs to stop hesitating, not just focus on costs, and move beyond "heavy processes" and grow more fleet.

Business innovation needs to transform processes, and boost the value and impact of the business on customers and partners, he said

There is confusion on what leads to innovation, said Cameron. "People aren't asking the right questions," he said, adding that investments are decoupled ineffectively from game-changing ideas.

"The innovation continuum" needs to extend across all aspects of business investments and thought leadership and new ideas. There needs to be a better way to join the two, and to get the money to act on good ideas, said Cameron.

Collaboration networks can help bring inventors and transformers into the innovation continuum, even if they exist outside of the company. IT shops need to play the role of brokers for innovation, he said, and to better play the roles of inventor, transformer, financier (to a lesser extent), and broker.

IT should build out innovation networks to become transformation agents. And these IT departments need to make it clear that they play this role.

It's up to the business to become adept at funding innovation, on an ongoing and sustained basis. Part of securing funding requries innovation context, innovation networks, and a process for ownership of funding, said Cameron. The result should be an "Innovation Pipeline," that has its own funding, is governed by an innovation team, and which takes in ideas generated from anywhere, said Cameron.

This pipeline runs in parallel to regular business activities. This allows for sustained innovation, year after year. More businesses need to become innovation leaders, said Cameron.

How to start? Build an innovation culture, by bringing in the right people. Make innovation part of the process, using portfolio management and analyzing the portfolio to identify where innovation already exists. Technologies also need to be in place to capture innovative ideas.

MokaFive announces general availability of LivePC desktop-as-a-service offering

MokaFive, a desktop virtualization company, has announced the general release of v.10 of its Virtual Desktop Solution, a cross-platform desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) product.

The Redwood City, Calif. company says its DaaS solution is already deployed in nearly 50 pilot programs and has been downloaded over 80,000 times. The virtual desktops, known as LivePCs, run on Windows, Macintosh, and MokaFive's BareMetal Linux operating systems.

I've blogged about MokaFive's DaaS product before and have explained how it operates:

By creating a "Live PC" desktop, which contains the operating system and application stack, and having it hosted by MokaFive, administrators can distribute, manage, and update the desktop from a single copy on the host computer. Users sync their local desktop with the copy in the cloud, allowing them to always be able to access the latest pristine version.

When synced with the Live PC, the desktop is loaded onto the local device, whether a PC or even a flash drive. It then runs as a virtual machine on that device and users can work online or offline. Changes made by administrators are reflected in the local device whenever users connect to the Live PC. By using a flash drive, users can access their desktop on any x86-based machine, having all their productivity tools at their fingertips, but leaving no footprint behind once the flash device is unplugged.

MokaFive Virtual Desktop Solution is available in two versions. MokaFive Professional is for enterprise and workgroup deployments and will be sold via annual subscription. MokaFive Express, designed for home users and developers, is available as a free download. A library of LivePCs, created by MokaFive and the user community, is available at the MokaFive lab.

Panda Security delivers cloud-based security management service for SMBs

IT security provider Panda Security has unveiled its Managed Office Protection solution, a security-as-a-service offering aimed at small and medium businesses (SMBs) as well as large companies with a significant number of geographically dispersed offices.

The service from the Panda keeps the total cost of ownership (TCO) to a minimum by hosting all information in the cloud and providing a Web-based console through which administrators can configure security resources.

The lower cost also comes from the small footprint of the Panda agent on each PC, at about 5 MBs it's much smaller than other malware download agents. More details at Panda's blog.

Administrators can also assign profiles across the organization to adapt security measures to individual and department requirements. The service-based protection is also geared toward SOHO workers, who may just use outsourced IT support and repair shops or consultants.

The managed protection product provides "collective intelligence" that automatically detects, correlates, and responds to malware across a network of PCs. The remote management tools, allow IT managers -- or support shops -- to use any computer on the Internet to change user specifications, track IP addresses, and enable and disable security features.

Using a centralized Web console, administrators can configure updated information to protect against zero-day attacks. Updates are completed via peer-to-peer networks from the nearest desktop, minimizing bandwidth consumptions.

Real-time information about detection activity can be accessed by administrators on the Web console. Administrators can be sent suspected threats to PandaLabs for analysis. Periodic security audits can ensure compliance with such regulations as SOX, PCI, HIPAA, among others. Panda provides an ongoing list of current threats.

Because it's a cloud-based service, it can react in near real-time to Internet hazards as they arise, then jettison the updates as small deltas out to the admins or directly to supported PCs. Naturally, the service only supports Windows, but it goes back as Windows 95 and up to Vista. Panda is looking at Mac OS X and Linux support, but demand has not been there, given Windows propensity as a malware target.

Managed Office Protection is available to value added resellers looking to offer security services to clients. Pricing is in the $40 per user per year range. In a related announcement, Panda said that Tech Data Corp., Clearwater, Fla., has signed an exclusive distribution agreement for the product.

I'd like to see the remote access and remore PC support crowd coordinate better with suppliers like Panda. Any and all PC support shold just include services like this. Already many do, but the SOHO market still needs more convenient approaches at the price point Panda is providing.

Panda Managed Office Protection is available immediate and can be downloaded from the Panda Web site.