Virtualized 3D GPUs, platform heterogeneity part of Microsoft strategy

What Microsoft characterized this morning as a "new" virtualization strategy looks curiously like its existing one, only now it has a new partner and an acquired company to help bring it about.

As BetaNews reported yesterday would be likely, today's announced acquisition of Calista Technologies by Microsoft will give a future virtualization product the capability of producing server-based 3D graphics for network clients that don't have 3D cards. And as a key Calista official confirmed today, that graphics capability will be DirectX-compatible.

"Think of us as the people that have set out to create technology," stated Calista founder and chairman Neil Margulis in his inaugural post to the virtualization blog of his new employer, "which, when IT departments deploy centralized desktops and applications, ensures that users will enjoy the same rich user experience as with a locally executing desktop: Full 3D graphics with support for DirectX, Vista Aero and WPF applications, full frame rate video with 100% coverage for all media types, and fully synchronized audio. Except that 'their' desktop is actually running in the data center, and they are accessing it remotely using Microsoft's remote desktop protocol (RDP)."

This feature could become especially important for future users of SoftGrid, a product the company acquired a few years back. SoftGrid enables servers to deploy virtualized applications which can then run on network clients as though they were installed on those clients. The user never sees the difference...unless he's running Vista, in which case applications' windows don't appear to be running under the full Aero environment. With Calista's 3D RDP provider as part of Microsoft's arsenal, that could change; what's more, the virtualized application may actually run faster now with Calista's implementation of RDP (ironically a Microsoft creation).

In November, Microsoft had changed the name of SoftGrid to Microsoft Application Virtualization; but in a memo to customers this morning, senior VP Bob Muglia reverted to calling it "Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization." "SoftGrid dramatically accelerates application deployment, upgrades, and patching," Muglia wrote, "by simplifying the application management lifecycle."

Muglia's memo outlined four key pillars of Microsoft's virtualization strategy -- actually the same four the company outlined as far back as 2006 -- with SoftGrid playing one role. The other three belong to Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V hypervisor, to be officially released this spring and whose support will be built into future computer hardware from Intel and AMD; presentation virtualization provided by Windows' long-standing Terminal Services feature; and desktop virtualization, part of which is handled by the company's existing Virtual PC product.

But another part of that last pillar will be provided by something called the Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop. This component -- one of those developments whose secrecy has been about as plain as a camouflage canopy over a volcano -- will make it possible for servers to host a complete desktop session on behalf of very thin clients. Imagine all the processing power in an enterprise network client actually being housed on the server, with the client-side computer being basically a dumb display with a keyboard. (Talk about everything old being new again.)

In a very unique licensing scheme, Microsoft will be making the centralized desktop available to networks as a service, to which businesses can subscribe for an annual fee of $23 per client per year.

Making that part of the pillar foundationally sound is the focus of an expanded agreement announced this morning between Microsoft and Citrix, the producer of the XenSource virtualization technology for Linux. Actually, the agreement between Microsoft and XenSource was forged in July of 2006, though Citrix acquired Xen last August.

Now Citrix has the objective of opening Microsoft's virtual machines for hypervisor control under a Linux desktop; and since Microsoft has the reciprocal goal, the two companies agreed to use the agreement that was already in place, as a starting point for sharing technologies. Later this year, Citrix will produce a desktop-based hypervisor product called XenDesktop, which under the new agreement will be capable of managing virtual machines hosted on Windows-based servers.

Likewise, the two companies plan to make it possible for existing virtual machines for both Microsoft and Citrix environments to be transportable across each other's platforms, so a Citrix-hosted VM can be hosted under a Windows-based computer equipped with Hyper-V.

"By separating the layers of the computing stack, a virtualized IT environment makes it possible to quickly deploy new capabilities without having to configure components," Microsoft's Muglia wrote. "In a virtualized environment, testing requirements and application compatibility issues are reduced, processes are easier to automate, and disaster recovery is easier to implement."

As a footnote that will not be lost on the multitude of everyday consumers who were expecting, thanks to yesterday's leak, that today's news would pertain mainly to them, Microsoft has relented on its earlier reticence and will now be allowing Windows Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium editions to be virtualized under Virtual PC and other environments. Last February, in a strange about-face, Microsoft declared that virtualization was not really a mainstream technology, so it would be better if consumers refrained from trying to virtualize the Home editions.