Thursday 29 July 2010
Sychron, provider of next generation desktop virtualization and automation solutions for deploying and managing server-based virtual desktops, announced today that Horseshoe Bay Resort, has selected Sychron OnDemand Desktop™ to reduce costs and improve desktop management. Horseshoe Bay Resorts evaluated a number of different desktop virtualization solutions and chose Sychron for its advanced automation and service level management capabilities, ease of use, and rapid return on investment (ROI).
“We have a blanket green IT initiative across our entire organization, and IT is especially focused on reducing our energy usage and lowering costs,” said Lyle Worthington, chief information officer at Horseshoe Bay Resort. “We have already virtualized our servers, including storage and backup, and are now phasing in virtual desktops. Reducing the number of servers and replacing traditional PCs with more energy efficient thin clients will be instrumental in helping us meet our cost reduction goals.”
Horseshoe Bay evaluated several desktop virtualization solutions and found none provided the automation and service level management capabilities necessary to scale a virtual desktop infrastructure. With Sychron OnDemand Desktop, no third-party virtual management solutions are necessary, nor is any SAN or NAS required, dramatically lowering the cost of entry and simplifying management for Horseshoe Bay.
“Fewer hardware resources translate to energy and capital expenditure savings. With Sychron OnDemand Desktop, we are able to reduce the number of gold images required to support our end user population, which directly impacts the amount of storage and servers necessary to support the virtual desktop infrastructure,” added Worthington.
Horseshoe Bay Resort has a dynamic organizational structure to meet operational needs of multiple facilities across a sprawling 7,000-acre facility. Automating the management of desktops drives new levels of efficiencies, especially when addressing support issues throughout the organization. Sychron OnDemand Desktop centralizes desktop support and management while still providing immediate access to pristine, secure desktops for users from any location at the Horseshoe Bay Resort.
OnDemand Desktop provides breakthrough automation technology that greatly simplifies the management of large numbers of virtual desktops for individual users and groups of users. It dynamically maintains a reservoir of virtual desktops, conserving resources by starting and stopping them based on service level guarantees and defined thresholds such as time of day, workload, location, and the type of user.
“As a leader in desktop virtualization and automation, Sychron put in the time and effort to design OnDemand Desktop as a solution that scales with our customers’ deployments,” said Steve Kiser, Sychron CEO and President. “No other approach to desktop virtualization can provide this level of automation and tie virtual desktop behavior to service level guarantees.”
About Horseshoe Bay Resort
Founded in 1971 and purchased by the Jaffe Group in 1996, Horseshoe Bay Resort is Texas’ original lakeside resort. Located in the Hill Country, the 7,000-acre resort offers three championship Robert Trent Jones, Sr., golf courses, in addition to a Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, currently under development. Horseshoe Bay Resort also offers an 18-hole putting course, swimming pools, a spa and fitness facility, a full-service marina, and 19 tennis courts. Accommodations include hotel rooms and suites at the Horseshoe Bay Resort Marriott Hotel, adjacent Paseo Villas, in addition to 50 luxury lakefront condominiums. A jet center with a 6,000-foot lighted runway is also available.
About Sychron
Sychron has pioneered a next generation desktop virtualization and automation solution designed to make enterprise desktop computing more agile, more secure, and more cost-effective to scale. Our flagship product, OnDemand Desktop, delivers highly automated provisioning, brokering, and load balancing for server-based, virtual desktops — all with guaranteed service levels. Sychron is privately held and headquartered in Austin, Texas, with offices in Oxford, UK, and Chicago, IL. For more information, please visit www.sychron.com.
Media Contact:
Steve Fulton
sfulton@sychron.com
(512) 371-5373
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Virtualizationomics
Over the long run, consolidation and virtualization are sure to yield financial results for the organization. But the challenge is in the initial stages where the investment could be high – owing to new purchases of hardware, software, new / additional data center facilities, etc. Also there is an investment in change management activities – training for the IT staff, process redefinition, etc., that has to be expended before the actual consolidation activities can take place. But once the initial investments are made, the returns are going to be ongoing.
Spend profile during the virtualization cycle
As seen in the above chart, there will be an increase in the capital outflow, but only to be followed by a steady and continuous drop in both capex and opex. In particular, the trend lines indicate that the cost model reflects a steady decrease in the outflow, rather than peaks. This helps an organization to plan for the cash model accordingly. This again emphasizes that virtualization helps in the long run. Also to be noted is that the breakeven point is not too long after virtualization is completed.
Virtualization Has Come to Engulf the Entire IT Landscape
Virtualization is changing all areas of the IT landscape. Starting from the core infrastructure to the application portfolio, everything can be virtualized. End-user computing, especially, has become really thin. The workstation of the yesteryears is now beginning to be replaced with thin clients, PDAs and pervasive devices – making mobile computing a reality and making computing power available to the wallet.
Do you know, even applications are energy guzzlers? Most of the thick applications are being replicated with newer technologies and web-based, service-enabled, so that they can be accessed through PDAs while on the go. Most of the dependencies on the end workstation have been removed and all the computing sent back to the back-end devices, making the end-user computing, very light.
Moving away from the confines of the data center, virtualization has reached end-user computing as well. Desktop virtualization along with application virtualization and streaming has become the key focus areas of an organization. Thin clients, PDAs and developments in pervasive computing have catalyzed the growth in this are. Another key impact area is cloud computing, where the features of virtualization are being used to the fullest extent.
Virtualization in all areas of IT
But has the back end become too heavy? No. This is where virtualization helps the IT organization to achieve lightweight and scalability to support the growing needs. It helps the organization to support the growing business demands of being agile and scalable – anytime…
Virtualization and Green IT
One of the key priorities for the business is to run an energy-efficient IT enterprise. These days enterprises are competing with each other to reduce energy consumption and cut down on emissions. Virtualization is a key technology and strategy to achieve green IT. Virtualization helps by reducing the server footprint, which reduces power consumption. The evolution of the hardware technology, from standard servers to blades, from voluminous chassis-based storage and network devices to modular, blade architectures, has helped organizations to adopt these technologies vigorously to reduce power consumption.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that the energy consumption by the servers in all the data centers in U.S. put together will double by 2011 to over 100 billion kilowatt hours. And Gartner says that over the next five years, most U.S. enterprise data centers will spend as much on energy (power and cooling) as they will on hardware infrastructure.
Says Rob Smoot, Product Manager at VMware Inc. “Every server virtualized saves 7000kWh of electricity annually or about $700 in energy costs” [1]
Worldwide, the average utilization of all the servers put together is rated around 30-50%. This provides a huge opportunity for consolidation and thereby reducing power consumption. Even a server that is in an idle state consumes around 50% of their rated power. And servers not being utilized properly leads to exorbitant power consumption. Hence it’s important to “right-size” the IT infrastructure. The key here is to utilize the server hardware rather than replace redundant ones.
These, combined with better data center management practices will lead to a large energy savings and reduced electricity bills for organizations. LEED and EPA are pioneering efforts to build and operate green data centers by laying out standards, procedures and best practices for energy savings. Advancements in power and cooling technologies, customized for data center environments, complement the IT infrastructure side of things.
Another incentive for going green has come from governments. Many countries have started Carbon Credit regimes and this has given the much-needed impetus for the organizations to look for ways to reduce carbon emissions. Also the technology vendors are matching up to the pace by churning out products that would consume much lesser power than its predecessors.
Virtualization Drives cloud
Tom Bittman of Gartner says, “”We believe that virtualization actually unlocks cloud computing. Virtualization leads inexorably down a path toward flexible sourcing, and cloud computing” [2]. He puts it simply as “Virtualization, private cloud, cloud – that’s the natural evolution”
The concept of cloud computing is catching on in large and medium enterprises alike. Cloud computing has become one of the most disruptive technologies in the recent times and many organizations are jumping onto the bandwagon. The service-oriented model(s) offered by cloud and the flexibility it provides to the business has become its unique selling point. Today, everything stands to be offered as a “service.” Applications, platforms, processes, infrastructure – whatever was running “in-premise” is getting ported to the cloud. The very idea of “pay-per-use” provides an attractive alternative for an enterprise to look beyond the normal mode of building and running the compute environment.
Cloud can be built in various fashions and flavors, just to suit the requirements of the customers. A private cloud can be built within an organization’s premises and provide “service”-based offerings, while the public cloud is an extended manifestation hosted in an ISV premises and accessed over the Internet.
At the same time there are other forms such as community and hybrid clouds that are different incarnations of the cloud concept.
Virtualization is one of the key enablers of cloud computing, which is powered by a combination of virtualization, automation and management. Every aspect of the IT infrastructure is virtualized and made available on a usage-based model. Public cloud service providers such as Amazon AWS, Google Apps, and Microsoft Azure offer platform and infrastructure services over the public internet. Similarly, products such as Eucalyptus, Enomaly, and Nimbus help organizations to build a private cloud within their own network.
According an IDC Survey, “By 2012, customers spending on IT cloud services will grow almost threefold, to $42 billion accounting for 9% of customer spending”. [3] Though the 9% might look small, but by 2012, cloud services growth will account for full 25% of the industry’s year-over-year growth. Adoption rates by SMBs are quite strong and are expected to fuel the cloud growth further.
Consolidation and Virtualization as a Strategy
Virtualization is a change-agent and will change the way IT has been operating over the years. Yet, the benefits and value of virtualization can’t be realized overnight, but over a period of time. It should be viewed as a long-term strategy rather than a quick win. Virtualization has become one of the “de-facto” strategies for IT optimization, transformation initiatives, in any organization – small, medium or large alike.
Virtualization as a Strategy
Best Practices
* View virtualization as a strategy to achieve the IT objectives and not just as another tool
* Align IT projects with virtualization and re-use – maximize returns
* Avoid virtualization-silos
* Club virtualization alongside of consolidation and IT optimization initiatives
When Not to Virtualize?
Though virtualization provides a host of benefits, it also comes with its own share of concerns and disadvantages. It is prudent to avoid virtualizing resources under certain circumstances. These include:
* Migrating applications that do not support virtualization
* Resource-intensive and proprietary applications
* Applications that makes heavy system calls
* Real-time applications
* Large databases
Virtualization Challenges
Realizing all the benefits is not easy. As with any other new technology being rolled out, implementing virtualization comes with its own set of challenges. It would be prudent for any organization to consider these challenges and impact on the business, before rolling out virtualization. Some of the key challenges are:
1. Change in technology: Virtualization helps to move from a “siloed” to a more “shared and pooled” infrastructure. This is a big change from an operations and management perspective. The operations team must be prepared well ahead to get accustomed to the new technology. This also calls for a change in the process definitions. Successful virtualization implementations have gone hand-in-hand with a defined service management framework (ex. ITIL based). Hence a technology change management (TCM) process becomes very critical
2. Performance overheads: Every virtualization solution has its own overhead. These overheads must be carefully identified, measured and accommodated during the design stage. Any organization that tends to overlook this aspect will invariably end up either not implementing the planned solution or even abort virtualization midway
3. Time: A complete implementation of virtualization in an organization takes anywhere from 12 to 24 months. Though this timescale is not very high, but considering the rate of change of technology and the challenges faced in adopting the newer versions of the solution will pose serious change management issues. An organization should plan ahead in taking into account the changes of technology that might come in during the timeframe
4. Application migration to the new environment: A key and critical requirement is to ensure that all the business applications run on virtual servers. Without extensive testing of the applications on the target environment, it’s not recommended to migrate to the virtual environment. Though most virtualization software claims that compatibility is not an issue, proper testing has to be done prior to rollout. The cost of such incompatibilities would be much more than the benefits realized using virtualization.
There are a host of other challenges and obstacles – both technology and business – that you will encounter during the rollout. The success of the rollout depends on how quick and effective these challenges are addressed and remedial steps taken.
Conclusion
Change is inevitable. Virtualization is here to stay and is one of the key IT strategies that organizations of all sizes should adopt and embrace as part of the IT optimization journey. Apart from the cost benefits, virtualization brings in a host of other qualitative changes to the way IT has been managed and operated. Whatever the size of the infrastructure footprint, there is always a compelling business case for adopting virtualization.
Virtualization provides the business value and at the same time nothing is compromised – neither performance nor security. It’s only natural for an organization to expect a mature IT solution to augment the ever-increasing business requirements. And that is exactly what virtualization aims to provide.
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Altor Networks, a leading innovator and provider of security for virtualized data centers and clouds, today introduced the latest version of its flagship product, Altor 4.0. This release is packed with breakthrough security innovations that leverage virtual machine introspection to bring X-Ray like visibility to internal virtual machine (VM) states, delivering accurate compliance assessment and automated security enforcement. In addition to a comprehensive platform for protecting their virtual data center and cloud deployments, Altor customers derive immediate value from v4.0 in the form of a detailed virtual infrastructure audit and assessment of virtual machine risk states, according to common industry best-practices and leading compliance regulations.
“More and more companies are broadening their virtualization deployment across the IT infrastructure”
“Companies turn to Virtustream and our xStream cloud computing platform to realize the benefits of cloud computing while lowering total cost of ownership, increasing uptime and deploying applications to scalable infrastructure,” says Julian Box, chief technology officer of Virtustream, an infrastructure services firm. “Based on our long history deploying virtual environments, we have incorporated several different security technologies into our cloud computing platform, including Altor’s solution, which provides a granular view of the network traffic within the cloud.”
Leveraging its unique hypervisor-based footprint, Altor 4.0 automatically detects unauthorized changes to VMs in virtual and cloud environments, and can selectively quarantine the offending VMs while alerting IT administrators about the exceptions to corporate policy. Altor’s 4.0 also inspects all traffic to and from each VM to eliminate blind spots, and enforces policies at the global, group, and per-VM level. With the Altor 4.0, enterprises can granularly define security policies within zones of trust and precisely control how VMs within these zones can communicate with one another, ensuring isolation between and within trust levels and allowing for precise micro-segmentation.
“More and more companies are broadening their virtualization deployment across the IT infrastructure,” said Brett Waldman, senior research analyst for Software Appliances and Virtualization at IDC. “However, as companies virtualization solutions mature towards a private cloud scenario, they are finding existing networking and security solutions are being stressed to their limits. Simultaneously, VM density is increasing per server, putting more eggs into a single basket and making each server a mission-critical server. To address these challenges it is time for a new security paradigm purpose-built for virtualization.”
Altor 4.0 brings forward powerful new features that automate security and compliance enforcement within virtualized datacenters and clouds. By leveraging Introspection to collect VM attributes, such as installed applications, and coupling it with Altor’s deep knowledge of the virtual network, Altor 4.0 creates a powerful database of control points by which security policies and compliance rules can be defined. Altor makes this rich data available in intuitive user interfaces (UIs) that let administrators build the entire range of policies from corporate rules on global protocol handling to discrete regulation and compliance driven policies for how VMs should be configured. Built-in templates help jumpstart the process of building policies while intuitive tools make quick work of customizing the rulesets.
“Altor has led the virtualization security market on a number of fronts with a purpose-built, hypervisor-based and now VM Introspection-powered approach that is unique to the industry,” said Amir Ben-Efraim, CEO and co-founder of Altor Networks. “Our vantage point in the virtualized fabric lets us pinpoint the weak spots for customers and seal them with the strongest possible security [policies/controls], while leveraging automation to simplify administration, monitor VM compliance and avoid costly errors.”
Altor 4.0 adds significant enhancements that improve the security posture for both new and existing customers.
Features available in the release of Altor 4.0 include:
* Visibility: full view of all inter-VM network communication. Deep knowledge of internal VM state including installed applications and services through VM Introspection.
* Compliance: enforcement of corporate and regulatory policies for required applications, services and VM settings. Segregation of duties via policy automation to ensure VMs are assigned to the right trust zones inside the virtual environment.
* Control: access control over all inter-VM network traffic via firewall policies and enforcement. Deep inspection of allowed traffic for malware suppression and intrusion detection.
For more details on this information, please visit our blog.
Pricing and Availability
The Altor 4.0 is currently in beta and will be available in early Q3’10. Pricing starts at $1,500.00 per CPU socket. Evaluation copies are available at Altor’s website:
www.altornetworks.com.
About Altor Networks
Altor Networks is the leading innovator and provider of security for virtual data centers and clouds. The company developed the world’s first firewall purpose-built for virtual networks. Now in its fourth release, Altor’s hypervisor-based software is a comprehensive security package featuring integrated intrusion detection (IDS), VM Introspection, security automation and compliance assessment. Recently named the RSA’s Conference Innovator of the Year and a Gartner Cool Vendor, Altor’s virtualization security solutions are currently protecting some of the world’s most demanding virtual environments including those of media giant Nielsen Corporation and the US Army’s Human Resource Command. Founded in 2007 by security and networking experts from Check Point Software, Cisco and Oracle, Altor Networks is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California. For more information, please visit us at www.altornetworks.com.
Contacts
Voce Communications
Leah McLean, 415-848-2524
lmclean@vocecomm.com
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The Up 2010T cloud computing conference is an annual review of cloud computing developments, on the cloud’s impact on world economy and society, and an aggregation point for the study of future trends.
“We are delighted to launch UP 2010 Conference, which is a new and exciting complementary offerings to our growing Cloud portfolio. Our aim to help current mainstream users of ICT and particularly those”
Organized by leading experts and authorities of cloud computing, this five-day conference will highlight key findings, advancements and innovation by industry leaders, whose continued support and contributions are helping to shape the future of cloud computing.
The conference’s hybrid approach will make the best use of both face-to-face meetings and virtual collaboration via the cloud, and is itself an example of how traditional and new media approaches can work together synergistically. Creators leverage deep knowledge of both physical & virtual (online) conference capabilities to produce a leading edge of collaboration within cloud computing.
UP 2010 provides public and private sector end users of Information & Communications Technology – (ICT), with insights into cutting edge research & development, and understanding of evolving ideas and best practices, and real-world business use cases. It will also provide a virtual platform to network with leading experts of cloud computing.
Commenting on the announcement today, Cloudcor IncT Chairman – Khazret Sapenov said, “We are delighted to launch UP 2010 Conference, which is a new and exciting complementary offerings to our growing Cloud portfolio. Our aim to help current mainstream users of ICT and particularly those “cloud skeptics” out there, to better understand the benefits and efficiencies associated with embracing cloud computing. We are entering a period where the cloud computing industry needs more openness and transparency and a multilateral commitment to reaching appropriate standards. Our collaborative efforts aim to provide the roadmap in enabling us to work with the right stakeholders to achieve this goal.”
Today’s announcement also marks the official opening of the “Call for Papers” for the UP 2010 conference.
Core Areas of focus for the UP 2010 conference will be:
* Technology & Innovation
* Government Cloud adoption
* Industry Implementation Insights
* Cloud for Business Computing
* Business Models and Best Practices
* Legal Aspects; Governance & Enforcement
* Research & Findings
In addition, UP 2010 will take a look back at 2010 in what is shaping up to be the “year of the cloud”, with a full review and in-depth analysis of what you can expect to see in 2011 and years to come.
Those considering participation in UP 2010 should visit the official event website at http://www.up-con.com/content/call-proposals to find details on conference participation.
Commenting on the announcement today, Mike Karp, VP and principal analyst at the Ptak/Noel consultancy, said, “IT organizations are constantly looking for ways to reduce costs and streamline business and operational processes. This mix of physical meetings and virtual interfaces via cloud conferencing can offer the best of both worlds in terms of efficient information delivery and efficient use of the participants’ time. This conference comes at just the right time”
Also commenting today on the announcement of UP 2010 Bojan Simic – Expert Industry Analyst at TRAC Research said, “Organizations are increasingly recognizing the benefits of cloud computing, but they are also looking to learn more about technologies and processes that would enable them to seamlessly move their IT services to the cloud. UP 2010 allows organizations to access actionable and credible information about cloud computing by providing them a platform for interacting with their peers, thought leaders and forward-thinking technology companies.”
UP 2010 Conference registration is now open for attendees wishing to participate and meet the leaders in the cloud computing space. With over 1,500 executives scheduled to tune in to the live conference, the early bird registration fee is only $40, and available until July 15. General admission to UP 2010 is $52, with additional VIP tickets and corporate group discounts available.
“The importance of cloud computing to the business economy is understated and with the introduction of UP 2010, comes the ability to get insight on the latest research and trends in cloud computing. Getting education on what any organization can do to be successful from IT to business is critical and Ventana Research is glad to be a premium partner to help this great program.” Said Mark Smith – CEO & EVP of Research at leading analyst firm Ventana Research.
You can follow all the exciting developments relating to UP 2010, as well as get access to latest news by visiting www.up-con.com or email: info@up-con.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
You can also plug into Cloudcor’s extensive social media networks on Twitter @UP_Con and also LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/61513/6213F13BB1AA.
About Cloudcor IncT
Cloudcor Inc provides industry leaders and professionals insights into leading edge conferences, research, analysis and commentary, as well as providing a platform to network with leading experts in the cloud computing & IT industry. Cloudcor Inc also offers project, implementation, and industry-focused services to support customers and business partners. Additionally, Cloudcor Inc provides knowledge transfer to help deploy cloud computing solutions on your own, customized off-the-shelf solutions technology, delivery of a ready-to-use enterprise system, as well as a range of other services to meet your needs.
About Up-2010T (Up-ConT)
Up 2010 is a cloud computing conference, which aims to leverage deep knowledge of both physical & virtual (online) conference capabilities, to produce a leading edge of collaboration within cloud computing. Produced by leading experts and authorities in cloud computing industry and backed up by the world’s largest cloud computing community” is an affordable way for industry leaders to exchange ideas and experiences.
Up 2010 opens new practical working cases and strategies and serves to reflect on and look upward to positive trending best practices in the world of cloud computing.
If you would like more information about Cloudcor Inc or UP 2010 please contact Khazret Sapenov at k.sapenov@cloudcor.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Kaviza, the pioneer in affordable desktop virtualization, today announced that Matrix42, the German-based systems and service management vendor, has selected Kaviza VDI-in-a-Box™ as the favored solution for integration with its IT-Commerce offering. Matrix42 will offer VDI-in-a-Box as a co-branded solution to its customer base, enabling medium-sized businesses to cost-effectively leverage the benefits of virtual desktops. To find out more visit: www.kaviza.com or www.matrix42.de.
“Kaviza VDI-in-a-Box perfectly complements our IT-commerce portfolio and is available via our Service Catalog,” said Matrix42 CTO, Jochen Jaser. “With Kaviza we can enable customers to procure and deploy virtual desktops as a service from our Service Catalog — in exactly the same way they procure other IT services today. This allows us to meet our business objectives of enabling customers to increase service levels while lowering manual costs simply by automating the procurement and management of IT services, whether they are virtual or physical.”
“We are delighted to work with Matrix42 — their approach to making IT services easy to procure and manage fits perfectly with Kaviza’s focus on making virtual desktops simple and affordable. Together, we can offer virtualization as a Plug-and-Play service,” comments Kaviza CEO, Kumar K. Goswami.
Matrix42 customers can successfully leverage virtual desktops without requiring investment in special storage or servers, or any special expertise. Kaviza VDI-in-a-Box is a turnkey solution delivered as a virtual appliance that enables organizations to be up and running with virtual desktops in less than two hours, using inexpensive commodity hardware. All virtualization components are fully integrated and Kaviza automates desktop provisioning, management and high-availability. The barrier is further lowered by the affordability of the solution. Kaviza can be deployed within a PC replacement budget — no expensive hardware components need to be purchased, IT-staff does not need to be trained and there are no hidden costs.
For more information visit www.kaviza.com or www.matrix42.de
About Matrix42
Matrix42 combines client lifecycle management and IT service management into IT-Commerce. This combination gives Matrix42’s customers and potential customers the ability to have a single pane of glass for management of the endpoints and servicing of IT customers. IT-Commerce Suite lets Matrix42 redefine how IT departments interact with their customers; the customer is no longer helpdesk dependent to fulfill software requests or other IT related services. Based on Microsoft Workflow Engine, IT departments can now automate many tasks that today are labor intensive. Matrix42 is reshaping how IT departments manage the environment by aligning the IT department to their company goals and objectives to reduce cost and enhance the level of services.
Kaviza
Kaviza VDI-in-a-box™ — the industry’s first and only affordable turnkey virtual desktop solution designed specifically for desktop budgets, desktop IT, and desktop user needs — employs patent-pending grid architecture to lower costs and eliminate the need for expensive infrastructure. Kaviza was founded by virtualization and VDI veterans from HP and IBM to create the next generation VDI that is simple and affordable. Kaviza is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA and is funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation and Citrix Corporation. For more information, contact: Kaviza.
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Datalink /quotes/comstock/15*!dtlk/quotes/nls/dtlk (DTLK 4.31, -0.10, -2.26%) , a leading provider of data center infrastructure and services, today reported results for its fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2009.
For the fourth quarter, revenues were $51.8 million compared to $48.2 million for the prior-year period. Revenues for the full year were $178.1 million compared to $195.6 million for the prior year. Datalink’s results for the 2009 fourth quarter and full year include $4.4 million of revenues from the value added reseller business of Incentra, LLC, which the company acquired on December 17, 2009.
GAAP Results
On a GAAP basis, the company reported a net loss of $158,000, or $0.01 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2009. This compares to net earnings of $843,000, or $0.07 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2008. For the year ended December 31, 2009, the company reported a net loss of $555,000, or $0.04 per diluted share, compared to net earnings of $3.4 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, for the year ended December 31, 2008. Included in the 2009 results was a $624,000, or $0.03 per share, charge for cash and non-cash items related to the severance agreement with Datalink’s former President and CEO. Excluding the third quarter charge, 2009 net earnings would have totalled $69,000.
Non-GAAP Results
Non-GAAP net earnings for the fourth quarter of 2009 were $1.3 million, or $0.10 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net earnings of $1.1 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2008. For the year ended December 31, 2009, the company reported non-GAAP net earnings of $1.8 million, or $0.14 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net earnings of $4.5 million, or $0.36 per diluted share, for 2008. Included in the 2009 results was a $329,000, or $0.02 per share, charge for cash items related to the severance agreement with Datalink’s former President and CEO. Non-GAAP earnings per share exclude the effect of purchase accounting adjustments from the Incentra VAR Business acquisition to deferred revenue, acquisition and transition costs related to the acquisition, stock-based compensation expense, amortization of acquisition related intangible assets, and the related effects on income taxes. A detailed reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP information is found at the end of this press release.
Paul Lidsky, Datalink’s President and CEO, commented, “Despite a challenging economic environment, we are very pleased with our performance in the fourth quarter and our accomplishments in 2009. Fourth quarter revenue of $51.8 million was up on both a year-over-year and sequential basis. Additionally our backlog was up over 39 percent from the prior year. While net earnings, on a non-GAAP basis, exceeded the guidance we had provided last quarter, GAAP net earnings came in slightly below the guidance range as a result of the transaction and integration costs associated with the acquisition of Incentra’s reseller business. We will complete the organization and back office integration of Incentra within the next couple of weeks and will continue to work to extract the synergies of our combined business.”
“While a sluggish economy dampened demand throughout 2009 and delayed the start of larger project implementations, we focused on positioning the company for future growth and success,” continued Lidsky. “Our efforts culminated with the completion of the acquisitions of Cross Telecom’s networking business and the reseller business of Incentra. Through these acquisitions we have positioned Datalink as a national solution provider expanding our footprint into 32 markets with more than 2,500 customers and while significantly expanding our skill sets related to storage, networking and enterprise computing.”
In 2009, Datalink continued investments in its data center strategy. The company’s strong legacy of storage solutions and expanded expertise in networking and computing combined with its keen focus and expertise in virtualization will help customers build next generation data centers. Focusing on our customer centric approach and offering a robust set of product solutions and services continues to be the cornerstone of the business. Through our acquisitions in 2009, the company has strengthened its ability to provide customers with solutions that span the data center. Datalink can now deliver solutions that solve the complexities of a virtualized data center, which in the long-run delivers increased productivity and efficiency for its customers’ IT operations. Over time, Datalink believes that this comprehensive solution set will result in expanded relationships with current clients as well as the addition of new clients.
“In summary, we are pleased with the company’s stability during the recent economic turbulence and our ability to remain focused on growth opportunities including acquisitions and continued expansion of our sales and field engineering organizations. As we enter 2010, our focus remains on expanding our wallet share with our current customer base, expanding our market share with new customer acquisition, increasing productivity and profitability, and continuing to leverage and actively market our specialization in designing and implementing next generation data centers. At the end of the first quarter we will have completed the organization and back office integration of the Incentra business and will continue to work to extract all operational synergies from the acquisition as we move forward. We look forward to continued growth and progress throughout the new year,” concluded Lidsky.
Outlook
The company ended the fourth quarter of 2009 with a record backlog of $46 million. This backlog includes approximately $9 million carried over from the Incentra VAR Business acquisition in December 2009. Based on this backlog and the current business environment, the company expects revenues to be between $62 million and $66 million for the first quarter of 2010. Datalink’s first quarter expenses typically increase due to payroll taxes, accounting for employee benefits and audit related costs. In addition, the company expects to incur some transition expenses associated with the Incentra acquisition, through the end of the quarter. As a result of the sequentially higher expenses and transition costs applied to the forecasted range of revenues for the quarter, the company expects a net loss per diluted share in the first quarter of 2010 to be between $0.08 and $0.04 per diluted share on a GAAP basis, and a net loss of between $0.02 and net earnings of $0.02 per diluted share on a non-GAAP basis. This compares to revenues of $39.9 million with a GAAP loss of $0.05 per diluted share and a non-GAAP loss of $0.02 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2009.
Non-GAAP earnings per share exclude the effect of purchase accounting adjustments from the Incentra VAR Business acquisition to deferred revenue, acquisition and transition costs related to the acquisition, stock-based compensation expense, amortization of acquisition related intangible assets, and the related effects on income taxes. The company estimates this total effect will be approximately $.06 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2010.
Conference Call and Webcast Today
Datalink will hold a conference call at 4:00 p.m. central time, during which Datalink’s president and chief executive officer, Paul Lidsky, and vice president of finance and chief financial officer, Greg Barnum, will discuss company results and provide a business overview. Participants can access the conference call by dialing (877) 277-9804. Participants will be asked to identify the Datalink conference call and provide the designated identification number (59383464). A live Webcast of the conference call can be heard via Datalink’s website at www.datalink.com.
About Datalink
A data center infrastructure solutions and services provider, Datalink helps organizations leverage and protect their IT investments. The company’s solutions and services span the data center stack of storage, server and network with specializations in advanced networking, virtualization and data protection. Serving the Fortune 500 and mid-tier enterprises from analysis and design to implementation, management, and support, Datalink is focused on maximizing the business value of IT. For more information about Datalink services, contact Datalink at (800) 448-6314, or visit Datalink online at www.datalink.com.
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a “safe harbor” for certain forward-looking statements. This press release contains forward-looking statements, including our internal projections of anticipated 2009 results, which reflect our views regarding future events and financial performance. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including those identified below, which could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or those anticipated. The words “aim, “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “estimate” and other expressions which indicate future events and trends identify forward-looking statements. Actual future results and trends may differ materially from historical results or those anticipated depending upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to: the level of continuing demand for storage, including the effects of current economic and credit conditions; competition and pricing pressures and timing of our installations that may adversely affect our revenues and profits; fixed employment costs that may impact profitability if we suffer revenue shortfalls; revenue recognition policies that may unpredictably defer reporting of our revenues; our ability to hire and retain key technical and sales personnel; our dependence on key suppliers; our ability to adapt to rapid technological change; risks associated with integrating possible future acquisitions; fluctuations in our quarterly operating results; future changes in applicable accounting rules; and volatility in our stock price. Further, our revenues for any particular quarter are not necessarily reflected by our backlog of contracted orders, which also may fluctuate unpredictably. We cannot assure that our recent acquisition of Cross Telecom assets will increase our revenues or profits. We also cannot assure that in conjunction with our recent acquisition of certain assets and assumption of certain liabilities of Incentra, LLC’s reseller business we will retain Incentra’s employee base, customer and advanced technology certifications, or generate anticipated revenues or profits from the acquire business.
Non-GAAP Details
Non-GAAP financial measures exclude the impact from purchase accounting adjustments to deferred revenue, stock-based compensation expense, amortization of intangible assets, integration costs related to acquisitions and the related effects on income taxes. These non-GAAP measures are not in accordance with, or an alternative for measures prepared in accordance with, GAAP and may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies. In addition, these non-GAAP measures are not based on any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles. Datalink believes that non-GAAP measures have limitations in that they do not reflect all of the amounts associated with Datalink’s results of operations as determined in accordance with GAAP and that these measures should only be used to evaluate Datalink’s results of operations in conjunction with the corresponding GAAP measures.
These non-GAAP financial measures facilitate management’s internal comparisons to the Datalink’s historical operating results and comparisons to competitors’ operating results. We include these non-GAAP financial measures in our earnings announcement because we believe they are useful to investors in allowing for greater transparency with respect to supplemental information used by management in its financial and operational decision making, such as employee compensation planning. Datalink believes that the presentation of these non-GAAP measures when shown in conjunction with the corresponding GAAP measures provides useful information to investors and management regarding financial and business trends relating to its financial condition and results of operations.
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The Armada Group, a leading Silicon Valley technology consulting firm, announced today that Vasanthan Dasan has joined Armada’s executive staff as Chief Technology Officer and Executive VP of Engineering. Mr. Dasan comes to The Armada Group from Sun Microsystems where he served as the Chief Technologist for Sun’s Cloud Computing practice, responsible for providing global technical strategy and execution in the arena of cloud computing.
“Vasa brings an impressive depth of real-world enterprise business consulting experience and technical expertise to The Armada Group, especially in the Virtualization, Service Oriented Architecture, and Cloud Computing arenas” said Jeff Tavangar, Armada’s President and Chief Executive. “Customers expect Armada to be on the leading edge of major industry trends. Vasa’s addition to the team will give our customers’ access to the strategic advisory services they need to cut through the cloud hype, and make informed decisions when it comes to selection, implementation, and integration of a wide variety of cloud-based technologies.”
The new CTO position will have direct management responsibility for The Armada Group’s Smart Infrastructure engineering and IT consulting delivery teams, which provide cloud computing, virtualization and SOA strategy and implementation services to Fortune 500 clients, emerging technology companies, and cloud service providers.
Mr. Dasan’s 17-year work history in the realm of engineering services is extensive. While at Sun, he served as Chief Technologist for Sun’s emerging Cloud Computing practice, Chief Technologist for the $5 billion dollar per year Sun Services Business Unit and, in his role as a Distinguished Engineer at Sun, served as a trusted advisor to leading global enterprises. Prior to Sun, Dasan held key engineering positions at Intergraph and Hewlett Packard.
“Cloud computing is at an inflection point as it climbs towards mainstream adoption,” said Dasan. “With its deep customer relationships and world-class technical talent, The Armada Group is uniquely poised to help drive that adoption and I am excited to join an experienced team.”
About The Armada Group
Since 1995, The Armada Group has been a premier Silicon Valley-based professional services firm that helps companies implement their next generation technology strategy. As a trusted advisor to leading global technology companies such as Cisco and eBay, Armada delivers the people and advice to build smart, scalable technology infrastructure that leverages the best practices, technology and business models to promote company growth.
For more information about The Armada Group, please visit www.thearmadagroup.com or connect with us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/thearmadagroup), Twitter (http://twitter.com/TheArmadaGroup) or LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/companies/the-armada-group).
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Xsigo Systems, a technology leader in data center I/O virtualization, today announced that Xsigo Systems Japan partnered with Itochu Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) (TSE: 6501) to jointly offer I/O virtualization solutions to the Japanese market. The companies offer immediate availability of a jointly developed solution that will allow enterprise customers to rapidly implement cloud computing environments. The combined solution includes Hitachi storage and integrated system management software, the Xsigo I/O Director, and pre-configured templates that facilitate deployment in as little as half the time required for custom made systems.
This joint offering is the first product of an ongoing agreement among the three companies to develop, sell and support solutions designed specifically to meet the needs of cloud infrastructures. CTC, a leading systems integrator, will develop and sell the solutions; Hitachi will provide storage, system operation management software and technical support; and Xsigo will provide I/O virtualization products and technical support. The three companies will also cooperate on marketing, technical verification and training.
Benefits of Xsigo I/O virtualization in cloud computing environments
Xsigo’s virtual I/O technology addresses multiple server I/O issues encountered in cloud computing deployments. When servers run large numbers of virtual machines, server I/O can become a bottleneck, slowing system response time and degrading memory and CPU utilization. Compared with alternative Ethernet approaches, Xsigo virtual I/O provides:
– Two to four time more bandwidth to each server, thus optimizing the use
of server resources
– Dynamic bandwidth allocation that delivers performance on-demand to I/O
connections
– Embedded quality of service features that enhance application
performance by reducing the risk of I/O resource contention
Cloud architectures also require that all data center resources be available to whichever servers require those assets. Xsigo virtual I/O delivers the needed “any-to-any” connectivity while eliminating the constraints of traditional I/O cards and cabling.
Benefits of the combined Xsigo/CTC/Hitachi solution
The combined Xsigo/CTC/Hitachi solution facilitates rapid deployment of an enterprise cloud environment with pre-certified configurations that include Hitachi storage, integrated system management software, and the Xsigo I/O Director. Templates allow users to install the platform up to 2X more quickly than is possible with custom made systems. The fully virtualized infrastructure also reduces equipment costs by up to 50% when compared with traditional I/O.
Other solution benefits include:
– End-to-end support, from design, to installation, to operation
– Comprehensive training programs
“We are very pleased to work with CTC and Hitachi to create this groundbreaking solution,” said Lloyd Carney, CEO of Xsigo. “Cloud computing is the logical extension of server virtualization, and promises to do for the data center as a whole what server virtualization did for the servers themselves. Together, CTC, Hitachi, and Xsigo have paved the way with easily implemented, proven configurations that will help data center managers save time and money.”
About Xsigo Systems
Xsigo Systems, Inc. is the technology leader in data center I/O virtualization, helping organizations reduce costs and improve business agility. The Xsigo VP780 I/O Director consolidates server connectivity with a solution that provides unprecedented management simplicity and interoperability with open standards. The privately held company is based in San Jose, CA and funded by Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, Greylock Partners, and North Bridge Venture Partners. For more information, visit www.xsigo.com.
Press Contact
Lisa Copass
Stepping Out Communications
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Demartek announces that Dennis Martin, Demartek President, will present two data center infrastructure
sessions at the Spring 2010 Storage Networking World (SNW) Conference in Orlando, Florida. The two sessions, “Unified Storage Networking” and “I/O Virtualization – The Next Virtualization Frontier,” will be presented on April 12 and April 13, 2010, respectively. Abstracts and other details for these sessions are provided at: http://www.demartek.com/Demartek_Presenting_SNWUSA_DCB-FCoE_IOV_2010- 04.html.
The “Unified Storage Networking” session covers Data Center Bridging (DCB) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) technology, what is available today, and what will become available in the future. Mr. Martin will share his experiences testing various DCB and FCoE technology in his lab.
The “I/O Virtualization – The Next Virtualization Frontier” session covers an emerging type of data center connectivity virtualization that is complementary to server virtualization called “I/O Virtualization.” New technologies and standards such as SR-IOV, MR-IOV and server bus extensions will be discussed and compared with other existing and new technologies.
About Demartek
Demartek provides real-world, hands-on research & analysis by focusing on industry analysis and lab validation testing of server, network, storage and security technologies, for the small and medium business (SMB) environment and the large enterprise. Information about Demartek is available at: http://www.demartek.com/Demartek_about_us.html. Mr. Martin’s public speaking schedule is available at: http://www.demartek.com/Demartek_Events.html.
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