August 17th, 2009
Leostream releases Connection Broker 6.1
Leostream has released another upgrade of its multi-platform connector broker to ease the management of virtual desktops.
Connection Broker 6.1, which was released last month, features enhanced policy and reporting capabilities, Wake-on-Lan and power control for physical machines and browser access to Citrix XenApplications.
The connection broker, a virtual appliance, is a management layer that ties together desktop images in the data center to thin clients, laptop, desktop or web interfaces. This provides a virtual desktop experience equal to or better than a traditional desktop experience, the sofware developer claims.
The new release allows administrators to set policies at a more granular level to allow for enterprise wide customization. For instance, policies can be applied to hard-assigned desktops to ensure consistency for select groups of users. IT pros can set a policy to turn a machine off for a select period of time but keep users logged in.
Additionally, administrators can use policies to expand or limit the number of virtual machines for each user, thus allowing better control of license usage. This comes in handy when trying to control developer usage of vms, executives of the company said.
“There’s a significant set of policy enhancements including concept of release plans to allow us to build master plans,” said Michael Palin, CEO of Leostream, in Waltham, Mass. “It’s a productivity improvement for administrators. IT allows them to create an unlimited number of plans.”
In addition to setting power contol policies, Connection Broker 6.1 also offers Wake-on-Lan support and . With this, the broker makes call to Microsoft’s System management Server (SMS) calls to power up physical machines, including the ability to fire up a server from remote locations. This also helps control corporate power use.
The new release also offers web browser access to Citrix XenApp applications. This alows users to launch XenApp desktops and applications from the Connection Broker web browser.
Finally, support for bulk actions allows IT administrators to delete, refresh and release desktops in bulk mode. “This allows administrators to invoke delete virtual machines (VM), or refresh or release them by pool grouping,” Palin said. ”This gives them expedited control over their vm population.”
Paula Rooney is a Boston-based writer who has followed the tech industry for almost two decades. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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