Topic: Virtualization

Virtual desktop infrastructure has come a long way since the terminal service days of the 1960s. Heck, VDI has come a long way since the 2000s thanks to plummeting prices for clients, better graphics cards and improved administration. By and large, though, VDI deployments remain more of a niche solution.

RightScale is one of the leading gateway tools between customers and public cloud service providers, allowing users to spin up compute and storage resources from multiple providers through a single console. Today, the company announced plans to add the ability to provision advanced networking controls just like users would handle compute and storage.

VCE, the data center-focused joint venture formed by Cisco and EMC/VMware, this week rolled out converged infrastructure systems designed to support the latest technology from the founding companies as well as specialized offerings for Oracle and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments.

For years now, we've been watching an ongoing tit-for-tat battle between VMware and Parallels. Both companies make virtualization apps--VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop--which let you run Windows (and other operating systems) on your Mac. Every year or so, the two companies release new versions of their apps, each trying to one-up the other. VMware has just fired its salvo for 2013, releasing version 6 of its Fusion and Fusion Professional virtualization apps.