At Carousel we get a lot of questions from customers about the BYOD (bring your own device) trend. One topic that comes up over and over is how to securely enable employees to interact with the corporate network from any device while allowing them to be as productive as possible. In this regard, Virtual Desktop, or VDI, is a powerful solution – albeit one that is part of a comprehensive, holistic solution and does not exist in a vacuum. We had a chance to catch up with Phil Magnuszewski, the Director of Cloud and Virtualization Solutions at Carousel, to discuss… Continue Reading ›
Virtual Desktops: A Key Component of BYOD Success
May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Defining Use Cases is Critical to a Successful Virtual Desktop (VDI) Rollout
April 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment
We’ve discussed previously how getting the proper infrastructure in place is one key to a successful virtual desktop deployment. Another is defining exactly how the platform will be used by various groups of users, and ensuring you meet all of their requirements. These definitions are known as “use cases,” meaning a common set of functional requirements for a given set of users. Whether it’s contact center agents or sales people, each group within a company has certain software that they use, including operating systems and applications, along with hardware requirements, from desktops and laptops to tablets, printers and input devices… Continue Reading ›
Tracking Virtualization Trends
April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Virtualization software has been with us for some time now, so long that it’s almost hard to believe. Consider that VMware’s first product, VMware Workstation, shipped nearly 13 years ago, in May 1999. Where does the time go? But the point of this post isn’t to make everyone feel old. Rather, it’s to assess where virtualization is today and what trends we’re seeing now that the technology is “mature,” as they say. To do that we talked with talked with Phil Magnuszewski, director of data center technologies at Carousel Industries, who quickly rattled off a number of trends he’s seeing… Continue Reading ›
Picked Up Pieces from the Show Floor at Enterprise Connect
April 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
For those who couldn’t attend the recent Enterprise Connect event in Orlando, we wanted to get a sense for what the buzz was at the show so we talked to Jason Aubee, who is Principal, Strategic Consulting Services for Carousel Industries. This was Aubee’s third time attending Enterprise Connect so he offered some perspective on how this year’s event compared to the others he attended. Attendance Up, at Least on Paper For one thing, attendance was up this year from both the sponsor and attendee perspectives, Aubee said. “That means more people are interested in what’s going on and thinking… Continue Reading ›
How to Ensure Your Network Infrastructure Can Handle Virtual Desktops
March 29, 2012 By 1 Comment
We’ve covered previously the various benefits companies can get from virtual desktop deployments, including improved management, security, business continuity and mobility. But achieving these benefits requires having the proper network infrastructure in place to support the increased demand that VDI will generate. Assessing VDI Computing Power Requirements The first consideration is the input/output (I/O) impact that VDI will have on the network. Having desktops reside on corporate servers will mean lots more I/O requests to those servers, all of which traverse the network. You’ll need to predict your requirements, based on Desktop Use Cases defined for each user, and by… Continue Reading ›
Heading to Enterprise Connect? Connect with Carousel
March 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
If learning more about unified communications has been on your IT to-do list, you’d do well to make it down to Orlando later this month to Enterprise Connect, “the leading conference and exposition on enterprise communications and collaboration,” as it’s billed – and with good reason. As an industry leader, Carousel Industries will be highly visible at the event, to be held March 26 – 28, showing off both our products and our people. Four Stations on Virtualization, Video and More We’ll be offering four stations, each featuring a different technology. We’ll demonstrate our UC and virtual desktop technology in… Continue Reading ›
Addressing the Security Issues that Virtualization Presents
January 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Virtualization technology is helping companies save money by consolidating data center infrastructure while increasing their agility in terms of being able to meet business requirements. But the more companies delve into virtualization, the more they realize it’s also creating substantial new challenges in terms of security. Limited Visibility with Virtual Servers The problem stems from the fact that much of the data traffic in a highly virtualized environment is completely invisible to traditional network monitoring and security tools. As Peter Peter McMullen, Cloud Security Specialist at Juniper Networks explained during a recent conversation, “The reason is these tools – whether… Continue Reading ›
Differences Between Virtualization and Cloud Environments
January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Virtualization Does Not Equal Cloud, But They Are Related As Director of Cloud and Virtualization Solutions at Carousel Industries, Phil Magnuszewski gets asked lots of questions about IT architectures and technologies. One question he gets frequently of late, he says, is something to the effect of, “Is cloud technology essentially the same as virtualization?” The short answer is, “no,” Magnuszewski says, although virtualization does enable a cloud environment. To shed light on the subject, today we’re going to offer our perspective on what constitutes virtualization and how it relates to private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud technologies. (For information… Continue Reading ›
Desktop Virtualization ROI: 4 Benefits that Change the Equation
January 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Desktop virtualization technology has been rather slow to gain favor in the enterprise in part because of perceived cost concerns. Let’s face it, with the plummeting cost of hardware, you can likely buy replacement desktops for $600 to $800. The cost to implement desktop virtualization may run closer to $1,000 per seat. But those figures are misleading, says Phil Magnuszewski, director of data center technologies at Carousel, because they don’t take into consideration the many benefits that desktop virtualization delivers. When you add up the soft dollars associated with these benefits, the cost equation quickly tips in desktop virtualization’s favor.… Continue Reading ›
How To Plan Effectively For Your Server Virtualization Project
December 16, 2011 By 1 Comment
At Carousel, we pride ourselves on properly planning our IT projects to ensure success, and virtualization projects are no different. After working on dozens (hundreds?) of virtualization projects over the years, we’ve come up with a number of planning steps that can help ensure your project goes more smoothly – and ends in success. Take Inventory Before Diving in to Virtualization Before you can start virtualizing servers, you need to have detailed data on what your IT infrastructure looks like, which means performing an IT audit. Only with this data in hand can you make informed financial and functional decisions… Continue Reading ›
