VIP-IT Website

Cisco this week rolled out products and services designed to ease the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 for enterprise customers.

Cisco says the offerings address findings from an internal study that indicates IT is concerned about the security, deployment and maintenance of IPv6 and intends to seek assistance in managing the changeover. The company says its switches, routers and security devices have passed both international and U.S. government IPv6 testing, and that many were operating and on display in the InteropNet network at the recent Interop trade show.

That was the first time InteropNet, which supported more than 15,000 attendees and 400 exhibitors, ran IPv4 and IPv6 side by side, end to end, Cisco says.

Intel's Light Peak tech is coming to an Apple MacBook near you

The arrival of Apple's latest MacBook Pro models brings with it a brand-new connection technology called Thunderbolt. And by brand-new, we mean "just announced Thursday morning," which raises lots of questions about what, exactly, Thunderbolt is and why Apple has chosen to make it a flagship feature of the company's newest notebooks.

Here's what you need to know about the industry's latest connection standard.

What is Thunderbolt?

Thunderbolt (previously called Light Peak) is a new periphera connection technology, developed by Intel with collaboration from Apple, that combines data, video, audio and power in a single connection.

Based on the PCI Express and DisplayPort architectures, Thunderbolt allows for high speed connection of peripherals such as hard drives, RAID arrays, video-capture solutions and network interfaces, and it can transmit high definition video using the DisplayPort protocol. Each Thunderbolt port also provides up to 10 Watts of power to connected peripherals.

Apple approval sought for virtualisation management app

VMware is waiting for Apple to approve a software client for iPads that will allow IT staff to manage their virtualised environments.

The vCenter client was handed to Apple "fairly recently," said Fredrik Sjöstedt, VMware's director of product and solutions marketing in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He wouldn't say whether that meant this month or last. VMware doesn't know when the client will be approved, and so can't say when it will be made available to users, he said.

VMware CTO Steve Herrod first promised the app would arrive before the end of 2010, in a speech at the VMworld Europe conference. That release date was reiterated in a Youtube clip from the company.

The tablet version of the vCenter client won't offer all the management features currently available on the desktop client. Instead, it has been designed from the ground up for Apple's iPad and will have features IT staff are most likely to use while on the road.

They'll be able to see the status of virtual machines and whether there are any alerts, Herrod said at VMworld Europe. The Youtube clip also shows app having the ability to suspend, stop or restart a virtual machine and to show its memory and CPU use.

VMware is pushing the combination of virtualisation and smartphones or tablets on several fronts. Last week, the company launched the View Client for iPad, which allows users of Apple's tablet to access virtual Windows desktops on the device.

On Tuesday, View was the second most popular iPad application in the Business category in the App Store, eclipsed only by Citrix's Receiver client, which also lets users access virtual Windows desktops.

VMware is also continuing its efforts to put virtualisation on smartphones. In February, at Mobile World Congress, the company demonstrated its upcoming platform. It will allow users run a personal profile and a separate, secure profile for work applications on the same Android-based smartphone. The company first entered the space by acquiring Trango Virtual Processors in 2008.

Source: Techworld

VMware on Wednesday launched its VMware View software for Apple's iPad as it plays catch-up to tablet virtualisation products from Citrix and Wyse.

The software, available on Apple's App Store, gives iPad users access to Windows desktops, applications and data via virtualisation.

VMware View for the iPad will include access to Windows virtual desktops via PC-over-IP display protocol and multitouch support and on-screen track pad so users can use a traditional mouse set-up.

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see VMware belatedly gets into the iPad game on CNET News.

Source: Techworld