When the topic of virtualization comes up, there are really only four companies that come to mind: Citrix, Microsoft, VMware, and Virtual Computer.  Right? 

The folks at SAP recently finalized the agenda for their upcoming SAP Virtualization Week 2009, scheduled for April 20 – 23 in Palo Alto, CA.  One of the highlights of the event will be a panel discussion that will feature our own Alex Vasilevsky along with Simon Crosby of Citrix, Mike Neil of Microsoft, and Steve Herrod of VMware.  I am guessing that it will be a lively and entertaining discussion.

The event agenda and registration details can be found on the SAP web site.  The SAP event timing and location lines up very well with the IDC Virtualization Forum West if you happen to be attending that event.  Travel budget in shreds on the floor?  SAP is also offering an option to view a webcast of the event via Citrix GoToWebinar.

When we were in the early stages of developing NxTop Engine, our bare metal client hypervisor, one of the more challenging exercises we faced was determining how to best address the various input/output (I/O) paradigms on a PC. On one hand, we wanted to fully abstract the hardware from the operating system, so we could have a common virtual hardware platform and eliminate driver management headaches as part of our broader mission to make PCs easier to manage, maintain, and secure. On the other hand, there are a number of I/O touch points with a PC end-user, most notably in areas such as graphics, USB, disk, and networking, where the performance expectations are extremely high.

When it comes to dealing with I/O on a client hypervisor platform, a number of options exist. The first I will mention is full hardware device emulation. Complete emulation of physical devices is the “bread and butter” of virtualization technology. It does come with a performance price when compared to an operating system running on native hardware. This makes emulation a suitable option for less intensive I/O activities for which a slight performance hit is indiscernible to a PC end-user.

Another I/O virtualization technique is paravirtualization (also known as “enlightenment” in Microsoft Hyper-V parlance). With paravirtualization, optimizations (in a form of specialized class drivers) are made within the guest operating system that enables it to more effectively share physical hardware resources with other guest operating systems, achieving near-native I/O performance. This makes it an ideal approach for I/O activities with higher performance requirements, as it provides the end-user with the look and feel of native PC performance without “breaking” the virtual hardware platform abstraction model that makes life so much easier for the IT team to manage desktops. To build great paravirtualized I/O subsystem is a huge undertaking, but our awesome engineering team made it look easy.

When all else fails in attempting to achieve true virtualization on a client hypervisor, a final I/O approach that can be utilized is a technique called “pass-through.” As the name suggests, pass-through allows a guest operating system, such as Windows, to achieve native I/O performance by bypassing the hypervisor and using the same collection of Windows drivers that IT folks love to hate to access the physical PC hardware. For a virtualization vendor, a pass-through approach is a tempting way to avoid the whole issue of building a high performance paravirtualization I/O subsystem. Perhaps the engineering skill set to do that is just not there, so why not just use some hardware PCI mapping tables and off you go. However, if you think that native Windows drivers, bypassing the hypervisor and talking directly to physical PC hardware is a “visionary” virtualization technique (as another virtualization company likes to call this approach), then I have a famous bridge to sell to you.  We view pass-through as an I/O technique of last resort to use in a client hypervisor, because that model of I/O virtualization makes desktop management more complicated and more expensive. And after all, isn’t desktop virtualization is all about simplifying and reducing management costs? If a client hypervisor doesn’t make PC management easier, what’s the point?

As we were designing NxTop, we painstakingly analyzed each I/O requirement of the client PC and selected the most appropriate approach for each. In doing so, we struck what we feel is the most optimal balance between PC manageability and security for the IT team and a better overall user experience for end-users. Early feedback is that we have hit the mark.

Virtualization Congress has posted a list of proposals for presentations that will be a part of Virtualization Congress 2009 in Las Vegas. Head on over to vote for the presentations you’d be most interested in attending, such as Mobile Desktop Virtualization with Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery.

Alex Vasilevsky and I had an enjoyable discussion yesterday with Dan Kusnetzky of the Kusnetzky Group, and he posted an update on our company this morning on his ZDNet “Virtually Speaking” blog. It is quickly becoming clear that Dan is one of the hardest working guys in the virtualization business. When we originally came out of stealth mode back in September, he made time for a briefing on Labor Day morning (sadly, we were all in the office making a final push towards VMworld), and clearly he is powering through the late December holiday lull as well.

Dan keyed in on an important aspect of our value proposition: the fact that we are building an end-to-end solution that includes both a feature-rich management system and a type 1 (“bare metal”) client hypervisor.  Doing both is hard, but we saw it as the only way to create real value for our customers.  While we are not a consumer technology (yet, anyways), we take our cue from MP3 players.  They existed before the iPod, but it was only when Apple brought together a great management tool (iTunes) that worked seamlessly with a great player (iPod) that downloadable music really took off.

Here is Dan’s take:

Unlike some competitors that focus on the hypervisor and just assume a management system exists that would help the IT administrators manage the encapsulated workloads, Virtual Computer started with the management system and then built a small hypervisor/client management tool.

This approach appears likely to result in a very well managed, optimal environment.

This week, Burton Group is holding its Catalyst Europe conference in Prague. If you are planning to attend, be sure to check out Chris Wolf’s “Debating the Hypervisor’s Future” panel Tuesday afternoon. Our fearless leader Dan McCall will be joining other virtualization industry thought leaders, such as VMware CTO Steve Herrod and Citrix’s Ian Pratt, to debate the future of hypervisor technology.

It should be a spirited discussion that will likely cover a range of topics such as proprietary versus open source hypervisor approaches and the emergence of the client hypervisor. We are pleased to be have been invited to join the panel and proud of the fact that in less than two months we have gone from stealth company to a unique new voice on the global virtualization industry stage.

Even IT teams that are sophisticated enough to have central Windows image management struggle with image bloat. They start off with one master corporate image for Windows XP. Over time, they create one-off images of the same operating system to account for department-specific application needs and hardware compatibility requirements such as special drivers. Before long, they wake up one day and find that their “master” copy of Windows XP is really 50 master copies of Windows XP.

With NxTop, IT teams can install applications that are common to all users directly into the base image but employ application virtualization to deal with user or group specific applications. Also, because Windows is talking to NxTop’s virtualization layer instead of the physical PC hardware, managing driver and other hardware compatibility issues becomes orders of magnitude easier.

We are unique from many startups in that the problems we are trying to solve are not new.  The challenges and pitfalls of maintaining and securing PCs are well documented, and there are many existing companies attempting to tackle different aspects of the problem.

The advantage we have as a new entrant is that we are in no way limited by “the way things have always been done.”  Since we have no stake in the status quo, we bring an entirely fresh perspective, as well as an architectural approach that was not technically feasible prior to recent advances in virtualization software and hardware technology.

Over the next couple of days, I’ll post some thoughts on how age old PC management challenges can be tackled in a completely different way using NxTop, our PC management platform.

These thoughts are around the top five PC management challenges we’ve been hearing about:

1. Complex patch management
2. Too many agents
3. Flawed security model
4. Image bloat
5. Tough to recover from problems

(Note: This post has been updated with links to all five PC management challenges.)

If you’re attending VMworld next week, stop by booth 562 and say hello. We’re going to have some fun contests, giveaways and much, much more.

As you have probably seen on our home page, we’re going to have a Then vs. Now Bowling Challenge. What exactly is that? You’ll have to stop by to find out…though the graphic in our flash animation should be a dead giveaway (and I promise that those up to the challenge won’t go home empty handed).

And what else will we have at VMworld? You’ll have to wait and see!

Virtualization.com picked up on our company launch news and talks a little about what we’re doing:

The software would be designed to isolate a laptop’s four major components — hardware, operating system, applications and user data — and create versions on the laptop of those components that operate remotely, without a network connection. The software would operate transparently for the user and it would enable wholesale security updates and other types of upgrades when connected to the network. Isolating the portions of the system enables it to limit access to work-related applications while enabling users to install their own personal preferences on the device.

As I said earlier, much more to come. Contact us at info@virtualcomputer.com and let us know what you think or leave us a comment here on the blog.

Mass High Tech broke the news on our upcoming company launch in their cover story: Stealthy virtualization startup makes laptops more secure, manageable.

The entire article is an excellent read and lets you know a little about what we’re doing:

The [Virtual Computer] software would be designed to isolate a laptop’s four major components — hardware, operating system, applications and user data — and create versions on the laptop of those components that operate remotely, without a network connection.

There’s more to it and those that know what we’re up to are excited. Chris Wolf, of the Burton Group, says “They’re going to redefine how organizations can deploy virtualization to a mobile workforce.” That’s exactly what we aim to do…make it easy to manage all of those laptops that your organization has and will have, in a secure environment.

As you can no doubt tell, all of us here at Virtual Computer are passionate and excited about what we’re doing. Check back next week for more details.