Introduction
Virtualization has become mainstream. More than 90 percent of midsize and large businesses have implemented virtualization at some level, according to research conducted by CDW in 2010. However, while many organizations have implemented virtualization, there is still tremendous room for growth. In the CDW survey, respondents said roughly a third of their total server infrastructure consisted of virtualized servers. Virtualization deployment will continue to grow dramatically, fueled by a variety of factors, including continued use of virtualization to support consolidation efforts; growth of virtualization use in mission-critical applications and workloads; growth in virtualization among small and midsize organizations; successful deployment of virtualization as a strategic initiative to enhance business agility; and virtualization as the foundation for next-generation cloud computing services. IDC has predicted that the compound rate of growth in servers for virtualization will be more than double the growth of the overall server market through 2014.

Virtualization is not only here to stay, but it will continue to be one of the most critical initiatives for IT organizations in businesses of all sizes. As IT decision-makers go through the process of determining how virtualization can be deployed more thoroughly and strategically within their organizations, these are some of the key points they will need to address:

1. What are your ultimate goals with virtualization? Are you content with some of the traditional benefits of virtualization, such as consolidation, or is your “head in the cloud?”
2. Which workloads and applications will you be virtualizing, and why?
3. Is your organization ready to virtualize mission-critical applications?
4. Which virtualization software platform(s) are you considering or using?
5. Have you thought about your virtualization platform from a strategic perspective – in other words, have you considered how virtualization ties into your existing server environment today and how it will tie into your possible transition to the cloud in the future?
6. Which hardware solutions and platforms will deliver the best performance, scalability, ROI and the overall best chance of a successful deployment?

Wherever you are now, and whatever your rationale is for moving forward with virtualization, choosing the right virtualization platforms – hardware and software – will be among the most critical decisions you will be making to secure your IT infrastructure investment for the future. The reality is that businesses of all shapes and sizes are looking at the benefits that can be delivered by virtualization, including the benefits of cloud computing which can enable increased agility, continuity, scalability and performance, while continuing to keep costs under control.

Title:	Taking the Next Steps with Virtualization
Date:	2012-05-30
File Type:	pdf
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Download Link:	Taking the Next Steps with Virtualization

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For external partners/clients to send emails to a particular distribution list, you must make sure that you do not require all senders to be authenticated. Here is an error of what might happen if authentication is enabled under the mailflow restrictions options:

Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups:

colo.alerts@mycompany.com
Your message can't be delivered because delivery to this address is restricted.

Diagnostic information for administrators:
Generating server: mycompany.com
colo.alerts@mycompany.com
#550 5.7.1 RESOLVER.RST.AuthRequired; authentication required ##rfc822;colo.alerts@mycompany.com

Here is a screenshot of the options and walk through:

• Open Exchange Management Console
  Under the Recipient Configuration, click on the Distribution Group
  All the distribution groups in your forest should populate in the console.
• Select the distribution group you would like to edit and double click OR right click and select properties
• Select the Mail Flow Settings Tab
• Double click the "Message Delivery Restrictions" option or select it and click on Properties button
• Make sure that the "Require that all senders are authenticated" option is UNCHECKED
• Click OK button and then Apply or OK button to close the distribution group properties options.
• Test by sending email from an external email address!

Exchange 2010 Distribution Group Properties

If you have any questions or comments or need further help with the above issue, drop by our forums and share. Thanks.

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In addition, WinOnX 1.3 now includes automatic problem analysis — making it fast and easy to diagnose and resolve errors — and the ability to rate, review and comment on program compatibility right from the status bar. WinOnX supports over 70 percent of Windows programs, requires no Windows boot time and has a low cost, easy setup. The latest enhancements are a big win for customers that must navigate between the incompatible worlds of Apple and Microsoft Windows software.

The first release of WinOnX promised Mac users a way to run their critical Windows software without the complexity and cost of virtualization programs, purchasing additional licenses, time spent setting up Windows or resorting to the command line — and it delivered. WinOnX 1.3 continues delivering on that promise by making the software even more robust and easy to use. Users can interact more naturally with Windows applications due to the application’s improved full screen view and better multiple printer integration.

WinOnX is based on the latest version of the open source Wine library, version 1.4, and launches faster than other virtual environments. Users simply install WinOnX 1.3, locate their Windows application and double-click — that’s it. Unlike with other tools, there’s no need to wait for virtual environments to load; once WinOnX is installed, users can launch their Windows apps directly with no extra steps. Even better, at $4.99, WinOnX is an affordable way to have access to the world of Windows software without leaving the Mac.

Customers that have tried the latest release, WinOnX 1.3, are pleased; one user commented,

“Unbelievable, but it works. When I consider how Parallels slowed down my system, not to talk about the booting time, this program is a real liberation for my Mac.”

System Requirements
WinOnX requires Apple Macintosh OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or later and at least 91.3 MB of space to install.

Pricing and Availability
WinOnX is priced at $4.99 and can be found in the Apple Mac App Store.

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The new performance results were enabled by the new Microsoft SMB Direct protocol implemented in Windows Server 2012 Beta. SMB Direct takes advantage of Mellanox’s RDMA interconnect technology to provide for greater performance and reduced CPU overhead in enterprise data center applications. Mellanox’s RDMA-based interconnect technologies include the company’s FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand and 40GbE with RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) interconnect products.

“A highlight of Windows Server 2012 is its great improvement in storage performance, as demonstrated by the preliminary benchmark results that SMB Direct has achieved,” said Mike Schutz, Senior Director, Windows Server and Virtualization, at Microsoft. “With this new technology, customers can access storage over the network at the speed of local storage. As a result, a virtualized server infrastructure can utilize shared JBOD storage through the use of RDMA-enabled network interface cards (RNICs). This approach significantly increases data center efficiency.”

“Data demand continues to exceed the capabilities of traditional spinning media, more and more businesses are seeking out ways to make their critical applications perform with the lowest-possible latency data throughput,” said Tyler Smith, Vice President of Alliances, Fusion-io. “We are pleased to work with esteemed partners like Mellanox and Microsoft to bring end-to-end solutions into the marketplace that address the enterprise need for performance and efficiency while supporting the latest applications with ultra-low latency access to the data that supplies them.”

“The increasing demand for business-critical information and rich content analytics within enterprises continues to shape data center application needs,” said Gilad Shainer, vice president for market development at Mellanox Technologies. “Using SMB Direct over Mellanox’s RDMA-enabled interconnect solutions provides a highly efficient data center infrastructure for storage file system, delivering the highest of performance at a lower cost.”

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Leveraging Existing Infrastructure
VDI solutions offer an alternative to the increasing cost, maintenance, and security concerns associated with company-supplied PCs. However, VDI solutions can also increase infrastructure costs, introduce scaling challenges in large deployments, and reduce performance due to the inherent latency of wide area networks (WANs). Unlike other proprietary solutions, F5® BIG-IP® products do not require changes to the delivery infrastructure, thus offering the perfect complement to all VDI deployments.

“Many organizations aren’t aware that they can overcome the most significant challenges of VDI deployments by leveraging their existing network infrastructure, specifically, their BIG-IP advanced application delivery controllers,” said Erik Giesa, SVP of Product Management and Product Marketing at F5 Networks. “BIG-IP products are unique in that they integrate authentication, directory services, SSL offloading, and other services throughout the desktop infrastructure so organizations can optimize virtual desktop delivery with fewer resources, while also supporting network and application access control for non-VDI enabled applications. Unlike the current alternatives, BIG-IP gives organizations the flexibility to implement a VDI solution that best meets their needs today, as well as tomorrow, while keeping infrastructure costs down.”

BIG-IP Enhances VDI Deployments

BIG-IP solutions help organizations make the most of their VDI deployments by delivering the following benefits:

• Superior Performance and User Experience – With a large number of virtual desktops, corporate networks can see a considerable increase in traffic due to greater amounts of data being transferred between clients and desktops in the data center. When clients access their desktops using a WAN or the Internet, performance can quickly deteriorate. BIG-IP solutions improve VDI performance by reducing server load, optimizing TCP connections, and intelligently managing both local and global traffic. In addition, BIG-IP provides Quality of Service and supports Multi-Stream ICA, improving the performance of latency-sensitive traffic such as VoIP.
• Infrastructure Savings – Many add-on components are often needed to maximize the performance of VDI deployments, which can rapidly increase costs. Because BIG-IP integrates easily into most existing infrastructures, it can substantially reduce the ancillary costs associated with new VDI deployments. For Citrix XenDesktop deployments, BIG-IP v11.1 provides additional savings with its integrated web interface service, which eliminates the need for Citrix web interface servers and ticketing servers.
• High Availability and Scalability – In addition to offloading computationally intensive tasks from servers and optimizing TCP, BIG-IP’s intelligent traffic management features enable it to route users away from data centers that are overloaded or experiencing downtime. This not only improves availability but also enables organizations to easily scale their VDI deployments as their needs change.
• Improved Security – For most organizations, security is a paramount concern as more workers want access to corporate resources using personal devices such as smartphones and tablets. BIG-IP significantly enhances security of VDI deployments by enabling IT to apply unified access and security policies across all devices and users, both internal and external.
• Quick Deployment and Simplified Management – BIG-IP solutions include native iApps™ templates for VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop. Because iApps templates markedly shorten deployment time, reduce the chance of manual configuration errors, and make it easier to manage VDI deployments across multiple data centers, BIG-IP also helps reduce operating expenses.

Availability
Support for VDI solutions is available today in version 11 of various BIG-IP products, including BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager™ (LTM™), BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager™ (GTM™), BIG-IP Access Policy Manager™ (APM™), and BIG-IP Edge Gateway™. Integrated web interface service and support for Citrix Multi-Stream ICA are new features of BIG-IP version 11.1 products, also available today. No additional licensing is required to support VDI.

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“It was clearly a strategic decision for us to integrate a storage virtualization platform in order for us to benefit from greater flexibility, higher levels of business continuity and unified management,” notes Alexey Ternovsky, Senior Infrastructure Technology Researcher at Kaspersky Lab. “We evaluated a number of different virtualization approaches and found that DataCore was the perfect fit to meet our demands and help us lower the rising costs for managing and extending storage in the long run. The DataCore storage hypervisor gives us the power to manage huge amounts of data and lets us build our own storage infrastructure with our choice of features and performance characteristics.”

Kaspersky Lab’s decision was primarily driven by SANsymphony-V’s ability to leverage existing storage environments and enhance their enterprise functionality by providing a higher level of availability for business continuity; by adding centralized and simplified management over all their storage assets; by increasing performance; by enabling fast remote site disaster recovery capabilities and by maximizing the utilization of their current investments. Strategically, the flexibility to expand the storage infrastructure vendor and hardware independently on an as-needed base were critical requirements.

Over the next year, the two Kaspersky locations plan to virtualize nearly ten petabytes of their data (i.e., ten thousand terabytes, or 10,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) spread over a mix of storage devices. This will enable the company to offer both centralized IT services for internal requests as well as new services for external customers who rely on Kaspersky Lab’s data center services and solutions. The DataCore SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor software will be installed at the two data centers and will synchronously mirror all the production data currently located on diverse storage systems each with different characteristics tied to each vendor’s hardware-based platforms.

High Performance Shared Storage for Microsoft Hyper-V
In the Kaspersky Lab environment, very high performance is critical and the performance demands will continue to grow alongside the ever expanding environment of Microsoft Hyper-V virtual servers and desktops. Ternovsky and his team identified SANsymphony-V to be the most efficient way to provide shared storage for the overall virtualized infrastructure. As the performance needs continue to grow, more memory can be added to boost cache performance and new server technology can be easily inserted without interruption to further scale performance.

SANsymphony-V helps Kaspersky Lab to expand and optimize capacity on an as-needed basis without hardware vendor lock-in or having to acquire huge amounts of unused disk resources. With lots of automated storage capabilities, such as transparent auto-failover, systems can stay up when underlying devices fail. Moreover, powerful “Quick Serve” commands automate the management of storage provisioning. In addition, auto-tiering automates the progression and demotion of data across different storage devices – based on performance and cost criteria. Bottom-line: SANsymphony-V greatly automates and simplifies the administration and storage tasks found in the huge SAN environment of Kaspersky Lab.

“The flexibility, performance and management scalability of the DataCore solution make it an effective shared storage solution for our large number of virtual machines running under Microsoft Hyper-V,” adds Ternovsky. “We now benefit from a better cost infrastructure which allows hardware interchangeability adding a new level of savings and agility to managing our systems and their cost. Our IT administrators have a lot of know-how with Microsoft Windows and virtual machines under Hyper-V, so it was important that SANsymphony-V is not only Microsoft-certified but is intuitive and familiar – with a similar look and feel and many automated features that make storage administration in such a big environment much more practical and easy.”

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Microsoft RemoteFX advances virtual desktop performance of Devon IT and Dell thin clients running WES7 in a Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services environment. Microsoft RemoteFX features virtualized graphics resources and intelligent codecs to accelerate graphics even for remote users. Devon IT is one of the first thin client vendors to achieve Microsoft RemoteFX logo certification.

“Devon IT is excited to work with IT giants like Microsoft and Dell to deliver powerful solutions for our clients,” says Joe Makoid, president of Devon IT. “Cutting edge tools like Microsoft RemoteFX developed by major IT organizations accelerate the momentum of virtual desktop computing, providing users of all intensity levels with PC-like performance while retaining all the benefits of thin client computing.“

Devon IT and Dell thin clients running WES7 with RemoteFX deliver significant user experience and security benefits. WES7 leverages GPU virtualization and advanced codecs to deliver the full modern Windows 7 desktop experience, including multimedia and multiple displays, to thin client devices. RemoteFX allows users to take advantage of rich media features, such as 3D user interface, full-motion video, animations, and portable graphics stacks like Microsoft Silverlight and Flash. WES7 also features an enhanced, highly secure environment with seamless connectivity between the thin client and the network to protect critical data.

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"IT leaders tell me that private cloud computing promises to help them focus on innovation over maintenance, to streamline costs and to respond to the need for IT speed," Nadella said. "We are delivering on that promise today. With System Center 2012, customers can move beyond the industry hype and speculation, and progress into the here and now of private cloud."

All Together Now: Private Cloud Simplicity and Best Economics

New advances in System Center 2012 demonstrate Microsoft's commitment to easing the acquisition, deployment and economics of private cloud computing.

"A private cloud is our answer to corralling our server infrastructure into a single entity we can use to more rapidly deliver services that really matter to our business," said Peter Daniels, vice president of IT at T. Rowe Price. "System Center 2012 is truly a game changer."

System Center 2012 integrates eight separate component products into one unified solution, streamlining installation and reducing the time it takes to deploy from days down to hours. The number of product versions has also been simplified, so customers will be able to choose between the Standard and Datacenter editions of the product, based on their virtualization requirements. And because System Center 2012 Datacenter edition licensing covers unlimited virtual machines, customers can continually grow their private clouds without additional licensing costs for virtualizing their infrastructure and applications.

The Microsoft Private Cloud: Built for the Future. Ready Now

Lufthansa Systems and Unilever are also relying on System Center 2012 and the Microsoft private cloud.

"We are making the move to cloud computing across our company, and after looking at our options, Microsoft offers the right solutions for us," said Holger Berndt, head of Microsoft Servers at Lufthansa Systems. "With the integrated approach and technology, we can use the people and skills we have in place now to build the private cloud services we need to meet the complex IT requirements of our customers. Microsoft brings it all together, including the clear path to public cloud on Windows Azure."

"Our private cloud will help us meet our goal of doubling Unilever's business without increasing our environmental footprint," said Mike Royle, enterprise services IT director at Unilever. "Working with Avanade, we are betting on System Center 2012 as the management platform to extend our investments in virtualization toward private cloud, to automate processes, and to ensure the reliability of our infrastructure and application services."

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Primadesk is releasing an Internet and mobile application that provides users with centralized access to their wide range of digital data dispersed across multiple online services. The Primadesk app brings order to online life, enabling users to search, manage and backup online accounts with one simple interface, no matter what device they use. Primadesk is the only service of its kind, incorporating the ability to drag and drop content (documents, emails, and photos) from one service provider to another.

Announcing Free, Pro and Mobile Versions

Primadesk Free Version provides search and manage capabilities across any 5 service providers. Pro Version also includes the ability to backup personal online content, by folders or albums or the entire account. In addition, Pro Version provides unlimited access to more than 25 online services. Primadesk is currently developing several new features for Pro Version, including single sign on to all other online applications regularly accessed by users. Stay tuned.

Primadesk Mobile Version provides users the ability to view all recent content from online accounts on their iOS or Android devices. Users can also search and view all their photos and documents in one place. Mobile Version puts users’ cloud data right at their fingertips, so they can easily copy content from one service to another on the go.

Own Your Cloud
Microsoft Research estimates that the average Web user has approximately 25 online accounts.
Moreover, people are left adrift in a sea of proprietary services, with each one requiring its own
login credentials and holding a different slice of online life, and without the ability to easily integrate views and seamlessly share data. Primadesk is a solution for organizing, viewing and interacting with this dispersed personal cloud content. With Primadesk, the consolidated Web experience travels with the user from device to device, connecting cloud services wherever the user might be.

“The rapid growth of Web‐access devices and cloud services has vastly increased the amount of data that is created and stored on the Web”, said Srinivasa (Venky) Venkataraman, founder and CEO of Primadesk. “Primadesk not only makes it easier for users to access and manage that data with Pro Version, we also help them protect that data through automatic backup. No matter where your content is located, you run the risk of inadvertently losing it if you have only one copy in the cloud.”

“Primadesk in an excellent complement to Sugarsync”, said Laura Yecies, CEO of SugarSync. “With Primadesk, our users have the ability to easily copy content from their cloud services into our platform, making Sugarsync their de facto content store no matter where the content comes from.” Primadesk is now listed on Sugarsync’s App Directory.

“IDrive EVS provides a unique technology for encrypted and secure cloud storage. Partners like Primadesk add immense value to our platform”, said Raghu Kulkarni, CEO of Pro Softnet Corp. “ IDrive provides secure backup of your PC, Macs and mobile devices, and with Primadesk our users can also protect their cloud based content using our platform.”
“When we launched the Startup Accelerator program just a year ago, we expected our seed investments to help place us at the forefront of industry trends. We are excited to see our first investment, Primadesk, make excellent progress in the personal cloud content management space. We expect them to make significant strides this year as they continue to get market traction and attract more investors.” said John McIntyre, Managing Director of Citrix Startup Accelerator.

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The Microsoft System Center Alliance is a network of leading IT vendors whose solutions support and integrate with Microsoft System Center.

“Microsoft partners with the world’s leading solution providers to bring companies the IT tools they need for achieving business goals,” said Andrew Conway, director of System Center product management at Microsoft. “DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor complements System Center, with additional tools that help businesses create, manage and monitor a dynamic storage environment and reap the benefits of their infrastructure investments.”

Building on a 13-year history of creating innovative storage virtualization solutions designed to work on Microsoft platforms, DataCore’s SANsymphony™-V storage hypervisor enriches Microsoft’s virtualization solution by harnessing the native capabilities of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server Hyper-V to address critical storage challenges. The DataCore™ SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor enhances the value of diverse storage resources by unifying advanced services, such as provisioning, auto-tiering, replication and performance acceleration, through a common storage virtualization layer.

Recently, DataCore introduced the SANsymphony-V Monitoring Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2008 R2, providing constant visibility into the health, performance and availability of virtualized storage resources from within System Center. The combined solution encompasses both on-premise and cloud-based, off-premise components, including redundant high-availability elements and those in remote disaster recovery sites. Information appears on a “single pane of glass” alongside other facets of the data center, simplifying end-to-end service management of diverse storage environments. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V Monitoring Pack easily integrates with System Center Operations Manager 2007 and the upcoming System Center Operations Manager 2012.

In addition, SANsymphony-V’s snapshot and volume shadow copy service capabilities work with System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 to ensure consistent, seamless backups without disrupting any applications running at the time.

“Since its founding, DataCore storage virtualization solutions have been designed to support and integrate with Microsoft solutions,” said Carlos Carreras, vice president of alliances & business development for DataCore Software. “Becoming a System Center Alliance Partner was a very logical step, and as organizations continue to explore and build private clouds, they will look to Microsoft and DataCore to help them succeed.”

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