As you’re evaluating how effectively your applications will run in the cloud, keep the ‘what happens during an outage’ lesson in mind. If these applications are mission critical, you’ll want to find providers who can ensure your business doesn’t suffer in the event of an outage.

There are applications where client hypervisors make sense: If you’re a helpdesk or QA employee, and you need to troubleshoot many user environments, it’s handy to run four different OS instances from your desk. But I suspect your average end user would prefer not to have to toggle between multiple desktop instances.

Wanova Mirage has some significant advantages over a hypervisor-based approach:

• No wipe and load: the Mirage client is a 2 MB MSI file that installs in minutes on any PC running Windows

• No change to user experience: Mirage runs as a service in the background. The user can install applications, personalize their PC and work exactly as they always have.

• Broad hardware compatibility: Mirage leverages Windows’ full hardware compatibility list, and Wanova does not need to consistently play ‘catch up’ as new drivers and models become available.

• No underlying, unmanaged OS: Mirage installs into (and allows management of) one single OS on the endpoint: Windows. There are no performance implications, as the client works within the OS, and the organization only pays for a single license for OS and apps.

When considering the breadth of available desktop virtualization approaches, make sure you clearly outline your objectives and requirements to find the best solution fit. For a good article outlining the capabilities and limitations of different DV approaches, check out Andy Wood’s article for The Virtualization Practice.

Wanova Mirage provides the centralization and manageability of VDI, but with the flexibility to work online as well as offline. Because I’m running a local copy of my centrally-stored desktop, I have full access to my documents, applications (those that are centrally provisions, as well as those I’ve installed myself) and the rest of my desktop. When our data center comes online again, any changes I’ve made will synchronize automatically with my centrally stored and maintained centralized virtual desktop (CVD).

Now, if I can only find my backup battery, I’ll be set until the end of the day.

Mirage 2.0 is the result of two years of active customer feedback, crafted into a desktop virtualization solution that is geared for the distributed enterprise. Mirage works on laptops – whether they are online or offline. It works over the WAN. But most importantly it works for IT, and it works for end users.

Mirage combines the manageability of VDI with the flexibility of a laptop. It’s easy to deploy, sensitive to network and storage resources, and now, scalable to meet the needs of the enterprise. We’ve added server clustering, with dynamic storage provisioning. We’ve added the Mirage Branch Reflector — a snazzy way to designate any branch-based PC as a proxy so that LAN-based peers can receive significant software updates (such as a Windows 7 image) without branch servers, and without bringing a network to its knees.  We’ve also extended our Centralized Virtual Desktop (CVD) layering so that administrators have even more control over restoring and repairing PCs.

We think Mirage 2.0 is pretty impressive. But don’t take our word for it – try it yourself, for free. We look forward to hearing what you have to say about it.

For anyone uninitiated to the joys of high tech marketing, a paying customer who is willing to talk to the media is more valuable than, well, just about anything else.

Anyway, all employees at Mellanox have laptops, and many are distributed around the world in various offices, creating an ongoing management challenge for IT. What they liked about Mirage was its ability to work optimally in their distributed environment, giving them centralized image management, and full desktop backup and restore - even across a WAN. Their helpdesk can now address end user problems far more quickly, allowing Mellanox to support their rapidly growing employee base without adding more IT staff. And end users are happier and more productive.

Happy customer. Happy me. Happy Friday!

Wanova Mirage is not traditional desktop management: it allows full centralization of each desktop so IT gets better control, single image management, and the ability to move this desktop around to support hardware migration, quick replacement of lost laptops, and other use cases.

Nor is Mirage a client-based hypervisor or ‘offline VDI’ solution. Instead, users run a local copy of their desktop without any type of hypervisor, so they get optimal performance, the ability to work online and offline, and the whole system is optimized to work effectively over a WAN.

It seems an appropriate time to reflect on what we’ve achieved in the past 365 days.

• Launched Mirage 1.3 in March, after an extensive (and oversubscribed) beta program. We are grateful for our active, vocal beta testers who helped make our product even better.
• Wanova was voted one of 10 startups to watch in 2010 by Network World.
• Gartner included Wanova as a ‘Cool Company in Client Computing’ for 2010
• Continued successful deployment of Mirage at customer accounts.
• Signed several significant partnerships (stay tuned for more on this!)

In any case, as a marketing person, I’m thrilled to stand behind a product that has been described by our customers as ‘groundbreaking’, ‘game-changing’, and ‘setup is flawless, quick and easy.’

Stay tuned – we have lots of great news to post at VMworld. We’ll be tweeting and blogging all week. Follow us on Twitter @wanova and @mborovac. See you at VMworld!

Wanova Mirage to the rescue! I called our IT guy, and – instead of spending a hour trying to remotely troubleshoot my machine – he executed an ‘Enforce Base Image’ from the Mirage console. In a few minutes, my Mirage client notified me that an update was in process. I had dinner, and was then notified to reboot my computer. When my system came up – everything was fixed.

So – what was happening in the background? Mirage centralizes the full contents of my desktop in our data center, synchronizing regularly to ensure my full system is backed up. Further, Mirage separates my desktop into virtual layers, so that IT is able to manage a Base Image (my OS and applications that IT manages for everyone, like Microsoft Office) separately from my user-installed applications and data. Consequently, when I was experiencing a problem that was likely somewhere in the Base Image, our administrator could just ‘Enforce’ the Base Image from the data center. Mirage’s network optimization also came into play during this re-alignment. Instead of having to package and send an entire copy of the OS and applications to my PC, Mirage simply scanned my PC to find the differences between my BI and the one in the data center, compressed those few files, and sent them to my machine. When I rebooted, all the missing or corrupted files had been replaced in my local copy of my desktop.

It’s cool when the technology you market actually works!

While we at Wanova are aware of how easy it is to install and work with Wanova Mirage, I thought it might make sense to clarify. Wanova Mirage software gives you the benefits of VDI: centralized management, data protection, and simplified desktop support, plus the benefits of traditional imaging and software distribution tools, like single image management and patching, without the complexity. And, it works with your remote and mobile workers as well.

To run Mirage, you need:

• Mirage Client software — a service that installs directly into the OS on the endpoint (ANY Win XP or Win 7 PC. Mirage doesn’t need Intel V-Pro, or a client hypervisor).
• Wanova Mirage server software — a standard Windows Server service that hosts and manages the desktops images (without executing them (execution runs on the endpoint). A standard quad core 8GB server can manage up to 1000 endpoints.
• Wanova Management service — used to manage the Wanova system.
• Low-end storage – to host desktop images (We love SATA drives).

That’s it. Compare this to a typical VDI deployment, where you need:

• Thin client application or device –  including RDP support and other vendor-specific client software.
• Connection broker – mediates access from thin endpoints to the hosted desktop farm, including user entitlement, pool management etc. To avoid it becoming a single point of failure, a redundant broker is required, adding further complexity.
• VDI agent – application that installs in the Windows OS that runs on the hosted images and interacts with the connection broker.
• Image management service – application that runs in the hosting virtualization platform and manages the images.
• A farm of servers — used to execute workloads of active desktops. A typical quad core 8GB server can typically host a few dozen desktops. Imagine how many of those you need for a deployment of thousands of desktops.
• Primary, high-end storage –  to host the desktops if you want access rates similar to the  local disk access in physical desktops.
• Virtualization infrastructure and management service – to provision/deploy virtual machines for the hosted desktops.
• Management service — web-based management application (runs on client and server).

I was pleased to hear an IT Director tell me that Brian Madden, during an impromptu session on the show ‘demo’ floor, commented (I’m paraphrasing), “If what you want to do is improve your control of your desktop environment, you don’t need VDI. You should look at Wanova.”

If you would like to see Mirage simplicity in action, you can sign up for a live demo and webinar, and we’ll be posting some video demos soon.

1. Single disk image for many users
2. Remote display protocols that are indistinguishable from local
3. Local / offline VDI
4. Broader compatibility for app virtualization

I (of course) was pleased to see that he mentioned Wanova in several of these categories, but I thought it was important to clarify a few points. With the emergence of XenClient and other proposed ‘offline VDI’ technologies, I find people assume Wanova is addressing the problem in the same way, using a hypervisor with some sort of ‘check-in/check-out’. This couldn’t be further from reality.

When we built Wanova Mirage, we started with the idea of how best to address real customer pain: helping IT better manage, support and protect desktops, especially for remote and mobile workers, without compromising user experience. We were not trying to force fit a technology that made perfect sense for servers to fit a mobile desktop model. That gave us a lot of flexibility.

Instead, we engineered a software solution that works within Windows. Hypervisors of any sort, while supported, are not required. Wanova Mirage centralizes the full contents of the desktop in the data center for management and protection, but distributes execution to the endpoint for optimal user experience (added benefit: no need for a massive server farm to run each desktop). Mirage’s virtual layers allow IT to create a single image and apply it to hundreds of users, easily addressing Brian’s first point. Because users are accessing a local cache of the centrally stored desktop, we can stay out of the ‘protocol’ war. Point 2 – Check.

And while connected, Mirage continuously and bi-directionally synchronizes the endpoint cache with the centralized desktop: IT changes to the managed image layer propagate down to endpoint caches, and user updates to the personal layer propagate up to the central desktop instance.  Further, Mirage employs in-data-path and sophisticated network optimization technologies that enable extremely efficient data transfer. The bottom line is that with Mirage, the desktop is always ‘checked-in’ and resides at the data center. It just leverages the available CPU cycles of the endpoint cache to execute desktop workloads. This architecture makes it possible for users to easily work online as well as offline, with full performance and complete access to their entire desktop. Point 3 – Check.

Finally, in the Mirage layered model, IT can define core applications that can be managed and distributed as part of the Base Image (typically, Office, antivirus, etc.). But in the second layer reserved for user-installed applications, Mirage is agnostic to how these are provisioned. They can be installed by the user, or provisioned centrally through SCCM/Altiris, or virtualized. Whatever works best for your organization. Point 4 – Check.

In my view, easier is better. Why create a whole infrastructure with connection brokers, server farms, high-performance storage, new clients, synchronizers, hypervisors, and the list goes on to virtualize everything, when you can just as easily manage what you have today?

Ah, the challenges of marketing in tech.

Anyway, Brian asked a lot of great questions and provided some good insights as Ady gave him a great deep dive into Wanova Mirage distributed desktop virtualization software. Highlights include a tour of the management interface, and a full restore of a complete desktop to new (and different) laptop hardware, complete with all user-installed apps and data. Oh, and did I mention the Mirage server is located in Israel?

Enjoy! http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/videos/archive/2010/06/07/video-demo-of-wanova-s-offline-laptop-disk-management-thing-it-s-really-cool.aspx