Definition

Application deployment aims to improve asset utilization, operational efficiency and business agility for enterprises.

Business Applications

As data loads get heavier and heavier, many enterprises are seeing application performance suffer. Helpful to application deployment, the  rise of application-delivery platforms has helped somewhat. But many of the  leading systems are not flexible enough to meet changing business demands. For  instance, Seattle’s F5 networks offers a solution—F5 Boosts Application Delivery Platform—not only to trim the number of controllers needed in the  data center, but to support some of the newer resource-hungry services such as  Web-application firewalls, content transformation and application-specific  acceleration. Shipments of F5’s BIG-IP 6900 platform are expected by the end of  2008.

Deployment Concerns

The real effort at the moment is establishing third-party relationships aimed at smoothing out many of the deployment issues. VMware, the  market leader in virtual desktops, announced its vClient Initiative, to establish a “universal client” that will be available to users from any end  point. VMware customers will be able to use a tool called SmartClone Volumes that  streamlines virtual desktop deployments by replicating volumes and data sets without having to add storage to ease multiple system images.

Technical Details

A recent report from IDC claims that with the current global economic downturn, corporations will increasingly turn to desktop virtualization as a cost-savings measure. VMware stands to benefit.

Meanwhile, IBM wants to show that it can provide a DV platform without help from Microsoft. The company has teamed up with Canonical  and Virtual Bridge to provide a Linux-based system  that the company says will cost half as much as a comparable Windows solution. The system bundles IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution with Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux and VB’s virtual desktop software.

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