As the author mentions, there are a large number of useless solutions out there. This one rocks – simple, works, no chaff.
Thanks Seth!
Monday, April 29, 2013
Virtual Computer (NxTop) moving to Citrix
(note: this sat in my 'drafts' folder for some time...)
I’m STOKED – Virtual Computer has been bought by Citrix! These guys have a phenomenal product to offer – “NxTop”. They created a nice clean Type 1 hypervisor with a network-based image management client integrated into it. So basically, it boots a teeny tiny OS, that’s just smart enough to talk to their management server and sling virtual disk images back and forth to it, and boot the virtual images. They even made it capable of working with differential images or something similar, so you’re not sending a 5GB disk image over the network every time you need to push an update. Pack that in with an excellent management server with a boatload of crazy-useful features, and it’s literally the best solution I’ve ever seen for centralized enterprise workstation/laptop management. I’ve looked into a huge range of options, from simple AD management to (funny enough) XenClient, Msoft SCM, home-brewed scripting of ImageX, blablablah etc. I spent a couple months in spring 2010 trying to figure out the best solution for a local non-profit, and these guys were the *clear* winners in terms of their solution’s approach and ease of management for mid-level technically skilled administrators. the *only* downside was their HCL and their licensing fees, neither of which was a significant barrier – I think the license was ~5K for something like 30 machines, and the machines just had to have intel chips with VT-X, and I just heard that they’ve begun to support some amd chips as well. You couldn’t deploy this on a network with a bunch legacy machines, of course, but with this type of solution, you *have* to factor in the decreased administrative costs into the budget picture, so in the network I was looking at, it would still have been a cost savings after factoring in replacement of legacy machines. Here’s some other dude that likes them too.
I’m STOKED – Virtual Computer has been bought by Citrix! These guys have a phenomenal product to offer – “NxTop”. They created a nice clean Type 1 hypervisor with a network-based image management client integrated into it. So basically, it boots a teeny tiny OS, that’s just smart enough to talk to their management server and sling virtual disk images back and forth to it, and boot the virtual images. They even made it capable of working with differential images or something similar, so you’re not sending a 5GB disk image over the network every time you need to push an update. Pack that in with an excellent management server with a boatload of crazy-useful features, and it’s literally the best solution I’ve ever seen for centralized enterprise workstation/laptop management. I’ve looked into a huge range of options, from simple AD management to (funny enough) XenClient, Msoft SCM, home-brewed scripting of ImageX, blablablah etc. I spent a couple months in spring 2010 trying to figure out the best solution for a local non-profit, and these guys were the *clear* winners in terms of their solution’s approach and ease of management for mid-level technically skilled administrators. the *only* downside was their HCL and their licensing fees, neither of which was a significant barrier – I think the license was ~5K for something like 30 machines, and the machines just had to have intel chips with VT-X, and I just heard that they’ve begun to support some amd chips as well. You couldn’t deploy this on a network with a bunch legacy machines, of course, but with this type of solution, you *have* to factor in the decreased administrative costs into the budget picture, so in the network I was looking at, it would still have been a cost savings after factoring in replacement of legacy machines. Here’s some other dude that likes them too.
Anyway, I’m rambling – I hope Citrix’s price point is reasonable, and that they push the hell out of the new product (I think they’re calling it “XenClient Enterprise”) – if I had to pick one management solution for every network I touched, it would be this one.
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