The virtual client computing (VCC) market has grown rapidly, despite the economic downturn over the past few years. The centralized virtual desktop (CVD, aka virtual desktop infrastructure or VDI) segment has led the way in facilitating this growth. IDC expects to see significant production deployments of centralized virtualized desktops in the near term and a continued strong adoption ramp through 2014. However, the traditional datacenter model is ill-suited to facilitate the growth of CVDs. Running virtualized desktop from the datacenter requires technologies that are optimized to handle the additional processing, bandwidth, and storage requirements that traditional datacenter model can't handle at scale. Additionally, implementing datacenter technologies that are optimized for CVD is exceedingly complex and cost prohibitive, stalling many on-premises CVD projects.

The benefits of server virtualization are widely accepted and the majority of organizations have deployed virtualization technologies. Organizations are virtualizing mission-critical workloads but must now consider virtualization's security and compliance implications. Virtualization and security professionals now understand that there are significant security challenges that must be addressed in the new virtualized reality. Companies now acknowledge the potential real-world threats against virtualized environments. As security awareness increases among virtualization experts, enterprises will struggle to find the most effective and efficient ways to proactively protect virtualized environments. Our research indicates that while many organizations are leveraging existing data center security appliances to address new virtual security and compliance issues, there is an increasing adoption of virtualization-aware and virtualization- specific security solutions for mission-critical applications and scalable cloud-ready deployments.

Centralized virtual desktop, or CVD, is a form of server-based computing. CVD utilizes a server-grade hypervisor to host multiple unique and isolated client operating systems aboard a single server or group of servers in the datacenter environment. The virtual desktops are delivered to end users' devices via the network. IDC expects that CVD will continue an upward growth trend through 2014. As CVD technology matures, it will become increasingly applicable to greater parts of organizations and a greater breadth of industry verticals beyond the typical healthcare, finance, government, and education verticals that dominate the CVD market today.

Business Challenge: CareCore National is a specialty benefit-management company that pioneered evidence-based medicine for treatments. Doctors and nurses access CareCore's decision-support systems to obtain prior authorization for procedures such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). CareCore applications are hosted on a private cloud built with the Vblock Infrastructure Platform, which includes Cisco UCST B-Series Blade Servers, Cisco Nexus® 7010 at the backbone, and Cisco® Nexus 1000V Distributed Virtual Switches at the access layer. The CareCore IT team needed an efficient way to isolate training server VMs from production server VMs. The training VMs and production server VMs belong to the same network domain, so isolating training VMs previously required four pages of security rules, based on source and destination IP addresses. Enforcing firewall security policies based on VM attributes instead of IP addresses would lower management overhead and the risk of configuration error.

Organizations deploying a desktop virtualization solution benefit by using servers that support many users and properly scale with additional servers. Using servers with high memory and processing capabilities lets and IT department save money by requiring fewer servers to support their virtual desktop load. In Principled Technologies' tests in our labs, a single Cisco UCS B250 M2 Extended Memory Blade Server built on Intel® Xeon® 5600 Series processors (X5670) running Citrix XenDesktop® 4 with Citrix XenServer 5.6 supported 112 Microsoft® Windows® 7 virtual desktops and scaled perfectly, without sacrificing performance, by supporting 784 virtual desktops when we added six more blades as measured by Login VSI Beta3 parameters.

The Cisco Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) Solution together with Citrix XenDesktop delivers unified virtual desktops and applications, voice and video services to users anywhere, anytime, and on their choice of device. The solution increases mobility and flexibility, resulting in greater productivity across a global workforce. Cisco VXI simplifies deployment, reduces overall cost and minimizes implementation risk of deploying the new virtual workspace with an end-toend, open and validated solution. It builds on Cisco's data center, network and collaboration technologies, combined with services, solution support and advanced desktop virtualization technologies from Citrix. The end result is a flexible, secure IT infrastructure with uncompromised user experience.

Growing adoption of the Unified Communications and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure creates the potential for conflict, as VDI solutions must support real-time voice and video applications, and vice-versa. But VDI combined with UC also offers opportunities to simplify desktop environments, and securely extend UC to mobile platforms. IT architects must proactively plan for the combination of UC and VDI or risk finding themselves with users disenfranchised from one or the other, wasted resources, and thwarted strategies.

Challenge: Serving Grand Rapids and the West Michigan area, Metro Health is an integrated health system that includes a new state-of-the-art hospital, the Metro Health Medical Group, other affiliated physicians, neighborhood outpatient centers, a philanthropic foundation, the Metro Health Village and campus, and more. To continually enhance its services, Metro Health decided early on that electronic medical records (EMR) were essential, choosing Epic as its EMR vendor. Yet the Metro Health team realized that simply implementing EMR was not enough. The system needed to be taken one step further by providing a highly available, efficient, and flexible desktop environment that would deliver EMR to caregivers and administrators whenever and wherever they needed it.

Oak Hills Local School District supports academic success by providing students with more access to the classroom. Challenge: The Oak Hills Local School District is located right outside the center of Cincinnati, Ohio. Encompassing both the Green and Delhi townships in western Hamilton County, the school district consists of five elementary schools, three middle schools, and one high school. In total, there are nine school buildings with approximately 8100 students. Oak Hills provides an increasing number of educational opportunities for students and adults with gifted programs, special education services, vocational options and community education.

Business Challenge: Beaufort Memorial Hospital (BMH) has been recognized for nine consecutive years as one of the nation's Most Wired Small and Rural Hospitals, according to Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. From robotic surgery to bedside medication verification, BMH uses technology to help deliver optimum patient care with flexibility and cost-effectiveness. The BMH data center supports approximately 1600 users at its main hospital and satellite physician offices with applications including: . Meditech, BMH's primary clinical application . Picture archiving and communication system (PACS) . Physician office electronic medical record (EMR) system . Microsoft Exchange and productivity applications

The Yakima School District encompasses 14 elementary schools, five middle schools, and four high schools to serve 15,300 students. Technology is an integral part of learning today, and the school board recently renewed its emphasis on implementing technology to prepare for the state's move to online testing and to provide students with the best learning platform possible.

Seattle University (SU) is a Jesuit Catholic school located on Capitol Hill in Seattle, Washington. SU is the largest, independent, multidisciplinary university in the Northwest, with 7751 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs. SU was ranked the seventh best school in the Western region in U.S. News & World Report's "Best Colleges 2010" list, based on its full range of master's and undergraduate program offerings. "SU is one of the most culturally diverse, genuinely urban universities in the Northwest region," says Bob Dullea, vice president of University Planning for Seattle University. "We are dedicated to educating the 'whole' student into professional formation, and empowering leaders for a just and humane world."

This white paper sponsored by HP + Intel discusses Exchange business drivers, market dynamics, and storage trends -- and how HP + Intel storage solutions can enhance an Exchange environment. Organization large and small need to consider all the factors in determining the right infrastructure and HP storage solutions delivers 100% availability, reliable and predictable performance, and comprehensive data protection.

Learn how HP CloudSystem Matrix and HP 3PAR Utility Storage provide a solid, flexible foundation for your cloud environment.

Server virtualization has transformed corporate IT -- companies have enjoyed major cost savings and have gained flexibility and efficiency. But this has also led to a proliferation of virtual machines and servers that threaten to overwhelm data movement and storage technologies. In this IDG Tech Dossier, learn how utility storage makes for massive consolidation, flexibility and scalability, so IT departments can reduce storage infrastructure and lower costs while improving their ability to respond to fast-changing needs of business units.

Committed to providing a first class education for the "whole child", Bensalem Township School District's technology team has innovated the learning experience with "technology infused instruction". Read this case study to find out how!

Bryce Olson presents key findings from a survey of 200 IT professionals to find out how they are addressing challenges of cloud computing, especially cloud computing security issues.

Why you should read this document: This report describes key findings from a survey of 200 IT professionals that can help you plan security into your cloud initiatives, including the following: . Protecting platform and infrastructure resources are top concerns. . Security plays a foundational role in the decision to implement a private cloud. . Nearly half of the overall organizational investment in cloud initiatives is security related. . Security drives outsourcing decisions.

Today's small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) have ever-growing storage needs. This often translates into a requirement for terabytes of storage and a level of high-availability typically associated with large-scale, enterprise deployments, managed without having a large IT staff. Given IT staffing constraints, storage solutions for SMBs must be easily installed and managed by existing IT staff, which is why HP introduced the new HP X5000 G2 Network Storage Systems, powered by Intel® Xeon® Processors. Independent tests show the HP X5520 G2 Network Storage System can be installed out-of-the-box to a fully-functional, high availability system joined to a Microsoft domain in less than 90 minutes with the help of an automated HP Configuration Tasks Tool guide.

The new HP X5000 G2 Network Storage Systems is ideal for midsize companies. The solution is a two-node Network Attached Storage (NAS) cluster with shared storage built on HP BladeSystem technology. In this datasheet, you will find a in-depth look into the HP X5000 G2 Network Storage Systems including key features and benefits that set this unit apart from the rest of those in the market.

The new HP X5000 G2 Network Storage Systems powered by Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition are Network Attached Storage (NAS) solutions, with two-node integrated into a converged 3U chassis that are designed for a better file serving experience. In this quickspecs datasheet you will find a in-depth look into the HP X5000 G2 Network Storage Systems. A view into the key features and benefits that set this unit apart from the rest of those in the market.

Get the freedom and flexibility to provision infrastructure and applications in minutes rather than months. If you are like most companies, you have been adding servers, storage, and networking devices to keep pace with your business demands. You could be spending upwards of 70 percent of your IT budget on operations and maintenance, which means you are spending 30 percent or less on innovation that is critical to growing your business. You don't have to be captive to unmanageable IT sprawl. Solutions are available today to help you realign traditional technology silos into virtual pools shared by any application and flexible enough to change as business needs evolve. HP CloudSystem Matrix offers a self-service infrastructure portal for auto-provisioning and built-in lifecycle management to optimize infrastructure, monitor applications, and increase uptime for your cloud and traditional IT. This solution brief will help you understand the benefits of the HP CloudSystem Matrix which provides a unified solution for physical and virtual environments that's perfectly suited as an IT consolidation platform.

If you manage technology today, you know the story: everything is mobile, connected, interactive, immediate, and fluid. Expectations are high. On any given day, it's all about service delivery. You need to provide technology-enabled services to your people whenever and wherever they need them-and you need to do it cost-effectively, securely, and quickly. This is one of the driving forces behind the rise in cloud computing. Cloud computing can provide new levels of collaboration, agility, speed, and cost savings for enterprises of any size and type. HP is driving the evolution of what we call the Instant-On Enterprise. It is an enterprise that embeds technology into everything it does to better serve citizens, partners, employees, and clients. We believe that today's Instant-On Enterprises need to think differently about how they source and deliver services that are enabled by technology. They need to take advantage of a hybrid delivery model-one that truly optimizes the mix between traditional IT, private cloud, and public cloud.

Gartner: Best Practices for Addressing the Broken State of Backup

Enterprise storage has undergone many changes in recent years - with converged storage and infrastructure 2.0 paving the way for reduced IT infrastructure costs and greater performance. This report sponsored by HP + Intel discusses the latest trends that are setting the stage for the next era of computing. Learn about the new infrastructure and storage trends that are changing the way business storage works today.