It’s official. The iPad and the iPhone have cemented themselves as part of the day-to-day infrastructure of business.

Of course, every company in the world seems to be pouncing on the phenomenon like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Everyone wants to get into the game. A perception has suddenly arisen that whether you’re a brick-and-mortar retailer or an enterprise software vendor, you *must* have an iOS app.

Here at MokaFive, we’ve long since known that we wanted to extend the functionality of our award-winning MokaFive Suite to the iPad—providing secure, managed access to corporate data. However, we resisted the urge to hastily slap something together and toss it out into the marketplace. Instead, we stood back awhile to study this new platform and see how it could best be leveraged.

What we found was that there were three basic types of solutions out there, each of them with their own distinct deficiencies.

1. Solutions that involve accessing and navigating a full Windows desktop from an iPad. This includes VDI (Citrix Receiver, VMware View App), Remote Desktop products (LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, etc.), and Hosted Desktops (usually hosted by managed-service providers, and mostly not enterprise-class solutions).

   Caveats: These are awkward to navigate (Windows was designed to be used with a mouse, not with a fingertip!) and cannot be used offline. In general, we see these solutions as overkill—providing an interface that is unnecessarily heavy, but which adds no value.

2. Data Sync solutions/cloud-based file repositories (DropBox, Box.net, etc.).

   Caveats: In general, these solutions have weak management controls and poor security.

3. Mobile Device Management Solutions (Zenprise, Mobile Active Defense, MobileIron, and Good Technology).

   Caveats: Like VDI, these solutions are also overkill, albeit in a different way. They force you to manage the whole device, instead of just being concerned with what is truly important—your data. They also are not workable with bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs, since the penterprise must take full control over the entire device. Personal data cannot co-exist in this model.

One size does not fit all

Now, some of the solutions I mentioned above might be perfect for your environment. Perhaps you *do* want to manage a whole device and disallow personal devices or personal user of corporate devices. Perhaps you already have VDI installed and deployed, and so a Citrix Receiver or VMWare View App would be just right for you.

However, MokaFive has developed all of its products with the same philosophy in mind:

1. Provide a secure, encrypted data container to allow users to run data anywhere—even on a personal device (enabling BYOD)—without subjecting that data to risk or leakage.
2. Employ just a single console to allow for central management of every device in the enterprise.
3. Ensure that data is available both online and offline.

And MokaFive for iOS does all of the above. We created a secure, encrypted container that could run on an iPad or iPhone (even a personally owned device), isolated from user data and applications. This data “bubble” is easily managed by IT in the same fashion it manages its corporate images and data—no need for a separate management console. If an iPad is lost or stolen, or if an employee leaves the company, IT can remotely wipe out the entire data container. And instead of a Windows VM, we created an app with a true iOS interface.

A secure, manageable data “bubble” for multiple uses

Here are a few of the use cases for MokaFive for iOS:

• Providing physicians with secure access to electronic patient records from home or from the road. Likewise for pharma companies who possess HIPAA-controlled data.
• Let corporate board members carry confidential data on a personal iPad without risk.
• A contractor might have company data for more than one client on her iOS device. MokaFive for iPad can create one secure data container for each company and isolate your corporate data from the contractor’s other personal data or data belonging to other clients.
• Teachers can use MokaFive for iOS to connect to student grade portals from their iPads.
• Mobile professionals can get access to corporate file shares, network resources, and even data from their MokaFive LivePCs that have been backed up into the cloud.

Our new iOS solution fulfills the MokaFive “promise.” Its performance, user experience, and management capabilities are unparalleled. Its security is customizable and strong enough to comply with any set of government or corporate standards or regulations. And it allows users to access corporate data on personal devices without risk to intellectual property.

At $50/user/year, we think it’s the best deal going.

Warm Regards,

Purnima Padmanabhan,
COO
MokaFive

It seems as though a single day doesn’t go by without me seeing a slew of new articles published about the iPad and its increasing penetration of the enterprise market. In fact, the iPass 2012 Mobile Workforce Report recently found that 64 percent of mobile workers now carry a tablet (the vast majority being iPad); most using it for work—at least occasionally. And the iPhone is even more pervasive.

We at MokaFive have long since recognized the utility of Apple in the enterprise, and wanted to extend the security and management of our MokaFive Suite to these now near-ubiquitous devices. As a result, it is now my great pleasure to introduce MokaFive for iOS.

This new product—which uses an encrypted data container called “LiveData”—appears to end users as an iOS app. It offers secure access to sanctioned corporate network resources and fileshares. They can view files, and even cache them locally for offline use.

Of course, this being MokaFive, everything is centrally managed. LiveData can be wiped with a click of a button.

Remote desktops can leave you stranded.

As opposed to being a remote desktop (like Citrix Receiver, for example, which requires you to access a heavy weight Windows virtual machine over the network connection, from an iPad or iPhone), MokaFive for iOS is purpose-built for a rich, native experience. We based our approach on three core tenets:

1) Manage what matters—your corporate data. (The device is immaterial, whether corporate-issued or BYOD).
2) Ensure that data is always available, both online and offline.
3) Enable security and management from a central console.

So when it came time for MokaFive to develop our own iOS app, we thought long and hard about how to integrate these three tenets. We wanted to avoid the deficiencies we saw in competing solutions.

For example, VDI solutions do not work offline. Not good enough. It is also difficult and clumsy to navigate a virtual Windows desktop with a fingertip. Also not good enough. Data sync applications are often unmanaged. Lastly, MDM solutions put the whole device under management, ignoring users’ concerns about privacy around their personal apps. These solutions are overkill. They remind me of Abraham Maslow’s quote, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

MokaFive LiveData provides security… and a rich online/offline experience.

So we created a secure, encrypted container that could run on an iPad or iPhone, isolated from user data and applications. This data “bubble” is easily managed by IT in the same fashion it manages its other corporate images and data—no need for a separate management console. If a device is lost or stolen, or if an employee leaves the company, IT can remotely wipe out the entire data container (without affecting any personal data on the device). Instead of a Windows VM, we created an app with a native iOS interface, not a kluged Windows OS “smooshed” into a tablet.

MokaFive for iOS can connect to any network resource or file share. Data in the cloud can be downloaded to the iOS device and cached locally for offline use. Users can also download data from their MokaFive Live PCs (if have been have been backed up to a corporate cloud).

MokaFive for iOS is customizable by way of dozens of policies and security settings. Don’t want users to email documents to themselves, or want to prohibit copy-and-paste from their corporate data container to their personal folders? No problem. IT can control all of that. This infinite customizability makes the product incredibly versatile.

So, as we get set to release MokaFive for iOS, I feel we have found a way to fulfill key enterprise requirements without incurring the liabilities we have seen in so many other products.

• Enable secure data access from BYO iPads and iPhones.
• Provide an interactive, native iOS experience.
• Control and manage the important stuff—your data.
• Run on BYO devices with a rich user experience.

MokaFive for iOS is priced at $50/user/year and can be deployed in conjunction with MokaFive Suite for your desktops and laptops.

Now MokaFive truly offers a single solution for managing your data across all devices— laptops, desktops, tablets; corporate-issued and personal BYOD machines and devices.

Warm Regards,
Purnima Padmanabhan, COO, MokaFive

MokaFive recently attended MacWorld/MacIT. These are two separate shows/conferences held at the same time at Moscone Center West. MokaFive had both a kiosk at MacIT and a booth at MacWorld.

If I do say so myself, the M5 team did a phenomenal job pulling in the crowds and showing off our new Mac In Minutes for MokaFive Suite—a product that enables IT departments to set up a MokaFive Management Server and start deploying virtual Windows desktops to Macs in under an hour.

To celebrate the release, our marketing team created some beautiful packaging, sporting a silver embossed MokaFive logo on the front, and a branded USB key inside loaded with Mac In Minutes for MokaFive Suite. The visual impact was stunning, and the “oohs” and “ahhs” came both from the media and the attendees. The juxtaposition of this elegant box against the tiny little USB key seemed to communicate that our solution is light and easy to implement. Also, our demo of the MokaFive Mobile Player for iOS was very well received by the media.

Here are some pictures of the MokaFive team at the events.

In my previous blog, I wrote about today’s Mac revolution that has been spawned by the popularity of the iPad and propelled by the more recent success of the MacBook Air. Mac has historically been a consumer device of choice, but it’s clear from talking to our customers that the consumerization of IT is upon us and Mac is the driving force behind this transformation. In addition to their iPads, the workforce wants their MacBook Air and MacBook Pros for work and for play, and IT is tasked with trying to support Mac, whether they like it or not.

So why doesn’t IT jump at the opportunity to make their employees happy by granting their Mac wishes? Following are some of the key reasons we most often hear at MokaFive:

1. Skills & Knowledge – The skills and knowledge needed to support Macs simply don’t exist in today’s IT organizations. The ability to support Mac is often viewed as somewhat complex, especially given today’s corporate Windows ecosystem.
2. App Support – Many enterprise applications don’t work on Mac. Even when utilizing Boot Camp or a client hypervisor like Parallels or Fusion, it’s just not the same seamless user experience. In addition, Windows applications – from Word to Excel to PowerPoint – are still highly critical in today’s business world.
3. Security – The enterprise doesn’t really know how to secure Macs. Some brush it aside by assuming Macs are safe. The security tools IT trusts are typically Windows-based, and securing Mac to standard security guidelines appears daunting from a risk versus reward standpoint.

While these issues have all been barriers of entry to date, I have news for enterprise IT faced with a revolt from their end-user community. With MokaFive, finally, Mac in the enterprise is a reality. MokaFive provides a simple solution that lets IT support Macs in a snap. We simply place the virtualized corporate Windows desktop, called LivePC, on a Mac in a secure bubble. This provides users with all of the business apps, data and productivity tools they need to get their work done. At the same time IT can centrally manage, secure and update the LivePC (Windows image) on multiple user machines, including Macs.

MokaFive enables IT to:

1. Support Macs at no additional costs. IT can easily provision a Windows container, LivePC, to an employee’s Mac. No need for enterprise IT admins to have specialized Mac skills. They simply control and apply updates to the LivePC Windows image without incurring incremental costs or needing any additional skill sets.
2. Give employees choice (their Mac). With MokaFive, employees can choose the hardware they want (Mac or PC) and IT can feel 100 percent confident in managing and securing these devices.
3. Support work flexibility. Employees can have access to both their personal and their corporate environment on one device. Employees use the secure MokaFive LivePC to run their corporate applications. When the work is done, employees can switch to using the Mac apps they love, from iTunes to Safari.

Bottom line: we’ve created a world where employees and IT both win, without the need for any “give and take” when it comes to using great devices at work versus the need to manage and secure them effectively. For more on the topic, we put together a case study with our customer—Wilson Sonini Goodrich & Rosati—that dives a bit deeper. It’s worth a read and be sure to check it out.

- Purnima Padmanabhan, VP of Products and Marketing

I recently talked with Guy Yardeni, Partner/Principal Consultant with Convergent Computing. Guy has been implementing MokaFive Suite and shared with me some best practices he has developed. I asked him if he would put together some recommendations for other MokaFive customers and partners who are implementing large scale deployments. Guy was describing his experience setting up MokaFive for 2,000 endpoints. He has prepared his set of best practices which he is graciously sharing with us.

Purnima: Guy, can you describe how you have approached Mokafive virtual desktop deployments?

Guy: Many considerations go into designing a scalable robust application infrastructure. Those considerations vary quite a bit from application to application and organization to organization. In fact, agreeing on the goals and constraints of the proposed system is typically the most important task in ensuring an efficient, relevant architecture.

When considering a MokaFive deployment, the following goals are typical and will be used to drive the example design covered in this post:

• Minimize WAN traffic
• Minimize user wait times for initial deployment and updates
• Meet 4 hour SLA in the event of a server failure
• Meet 24 hour SLA in the event of a site failure
• Eliminate single points of failure within application
• Support up to 2000 users

Purnima: How do you design the system to meet these goals?

Guy: Meeting these goals will be achieved using the following system design components:

• Dedicated database servers
• Geographically distributed image store infrastructure
• High availability configuration
• Disaster recovery configuration

The result is focused on classifying each data source within the MokaFive system based on the amount of data it typically carries. Since the policy and reporting data transferred between management servers and client as well as between management servers and database servers is of a small size, those systems will be centralized with multiple systems provided for redundancy only. On the other hand the image stores carry, replicate and deliver larger amounts of data and are therefore designed with a distributed approach to minimize WAN traffic and delivery times in addition to providing disaster recovery and high availability.

Purnima: You have emphasized business continuity planning design as a major consideration before deployment, can you describe your approach?

Guy: Before digging into the design, let me define the terms as I’m using them (these terms tend to be used to mean different things by different people):

• Business continuity planning (BCP) – a process that creates a design taking into account a variety of potential risks and identifying approaches to mitigate as many of the risks as possible. The BCP guidelines are typically provided by the business in the form of required uptime and allowed downtime during incidents for different systems and data sources.
• Disaster recovery (DR) – a configuration created to meet BCP requirements that supports risk mitigation during a significant incident, typically involving the temporary or permanent deactivation of a data center or site.
• High availability (HA) – a configuration created to meet BCP requirements and provides rapid service resumption in the event of a local outage such as a server or component failure.

In the case of a MokaFive system, the ability for the system to recover from a local server or component failure (HA) or a site failure (DR) relates to the configuration of each of the following components:

Database – MokaFive uses a Microsoft SQL database to store policy, client and configuration data which is used to drive the implementation and management of clients and images.

Application server – all communication with the platform is managed by the application server. It is the primary contact point for clients, administration consoles and automation scripts.

Image stores – delivering the content of virtual images is performed by the image stores. Both primary and replica image stores are supported by MokaFive with the former being a read/write copy that is used for authoring and staging while the latter is a read-only copy typically used as a distribution point for clients.

The design of each of these components to support the hybrid centralized/distributed model will be covered in the following sections:

Database design

Database redundancy for both HA and DR leverages capabilities built into the MS SQL product. In order to keep costs down, this configuration is designed with the standard edition of SQL in mind.

High availability is achieved using a two node database cluster. This configuration does increase cost due to the need for shared storage but ensures minimal downtime in the event of a SQL server or component failure.

Disaster recovery to a second data center is achieved using log shipping which allows SQL to replay back copied logs on a stand-by database server. This choice avoids the need for SQL Enterprise edition, which is required to support asynchronous database mirroring, the other alternative for database redundancy across a WAN link.

Application server design

The application server component doesn’t store any data and as a result, very little needs to be staged in advance to support failover either locally within a data center or across data centers in a site failure scenario.

The installation media can be used to deploy the software on a warm server, which should be patched regularly and ready for the application deployment. The deployment does require manual intervention but is very simple to execute and should be configured to use the active database server and image store during installation.

Access to the application server by clients is provided using an alias DNS record (a CNAME) which is also used for the SSL certificate and configured within the MokaFive console. This configuration requires a simple additional step of manually modifying the DNS record in order to complete the failover process. This action can also be scripted.

In order to make sure that clients and replicas are deployed using this alias rather than the server FQDN, we simply need to modify the server’s DNS name entry in the iConfig administration console under the General tab in the Network section. The value should match the alias stored in DNS and used in the SSL certificates protecting the system.

Image store design

Configuring redundancy for the image store is primarily an exercise in file replication. The image stores – both primary and replica, are just a set of files that need to be available to clients and to the application server. There are two components that must work together to ensure the redundancy – availability of the primary image store and the ability of replicas and the Creator application to access the required information from the correct location as needed.

Maintaining availability of the primary image store can be accomplished with any file replication tool. I typically use Microsoft’s Distributed File System Replication (DFSR) because it’s built into the server I use and is efficient, secure and easy to configure. The latest version of MokaFive as of this writing, version 3.5, includes a new primary image store replication option that will likely provide the required functionality for most organizations without the need for a separate replication tool.

The built in replication mechanism is very easy to configure within the iconfig administration console. The first step is to enable incoming replication on each primary store under the General tab, Sync page. Once the option is enabled, enter the URL for the target primary store.

If for any reason, the application mechanism isn’t suitable, DFSR or another replication tool should do the trick just fine. Make sure to select a tool that supports replicating changes only because the image store tends to contain very large files that are only changed a little bit at a time.

Replicating the primary store to a second server within the same data center and a third server in the DR data center will create a topology that mirrors the database and application servers (in fact, the application server is often used for the primary image store).

Once the primary image store is redundant, we just need to make sure that the replicas and Creator can find their primary. This is achieved using the same alias based mechanism that ensures access to the application servers. If the primary image store is stored on the application server (my typical best practice), then no additional configuration is required. If the primary image store is on a dedicated server, it must be registered in the administration console using the alias name (in this case you will need a total of two aliases, one for the application server and one for the primary image store)

One big note: a lot of this configuration can be simplified when using a global application level load balancer but since many organizations do not have those, this approach serves as a better general best practice that can be used anywhere.

Guy Yardeni, Partner/Principal Consultant with Convergent Computing-With over 15 years experience designing and deploying infrastructure solutions, Guy Yardeni has extensive experience delivering Microsoft IT solutions. Solving business problems using IT technologies, including directory, messaging, management and security solutions is the core of Guy’s expertise.

If you would like to contribute to the MokaFive blog, please contact Purnima via email and get introduced! ppadmanabhan@mokafive.com

Yesterday, I was having a chat with MokaFive’s CTO, John Whaley, and Burt Toma, our Director of Products, about the just-announced MokaFive BareMetal.  Where, we wondered, does BareMetal fit into the architectural ecosystem?

As we deconstructed the issue, we found ourselves replaying one of computer science’s most notorious debates: monolithic versus microkernel architectures.

Linus vs Tanenbaum

The infamous debate began almost 20 years ago, with Linus Torvald, the originator of Linux, arguing the benefits of a monolithic approach, and  Andrew Tanenbaum, a computer science professor and founder of MINIX, arguing for a microkernel approach.

In the end, although each side acknowledged the merits of the other, nearly all of today’s popular OSs—Linux, OS X, Windows–uses the monolithic approach.  Its inherent simplicity, performance and portability are better suited for real world.

MokaFive BareMetal also employs the tried and tested monolithic model.  In contrast, Xen uses the microkernel approach, which is sometimes touted as a more elegant one.  Just like the debate from 20 years ago, you may hear arguments on both sides of the table.

But at the end of the day, we all agreed—and we think you would too—that the answers must be informed by the business problems that we are trying to address.

First principles

MokaFive’s goal has always been to simplify desktop management—making IT’s job easier, saving money, and keeping users happy—all without sacrificing security.

But we understood that these problems must be addressed in a holistic fashion, or we’d risk developing a substandard solution.

For example, if management wasn’t an issue, you’d need nothing more than a standard OS that could be dropped onto any hardware and then be completely locked down.  If performance were the only issue, you could easily use a host’s native OS, fine tuning it for performance, and go home for the day. And if security wasn’t an issue, you could let users bring any old PC to work without worrying about compromising the security of the entire enterprise.

The bottom line is that you need *all* of it.  Hardware independence, performance, security and centralized management are all critical to your enterprise.

Best of all worlds

Which brings us back to BareMetal.

BareMetal installs directly onto the hardware, so it doesn’t require an existing OS.  It uses a thin service OS, based on a hardened, fast-booting Linux kernel, with an embedded hypervisor.  The Linux base and the hypervisor are in the same address space (monolithic) which allows BareMetal Player to leverage the large universe of Linux drivers and drive nearly any enterprise desktop or laptop hardware.

BareMetal also has a strong management engine that can update the VMs (LivePCs) as well as the underlying BareMetal stack.  Even better, since the image is virtualized, IT can deploy a single golden image to any hardware—giving organizations hardware independence.

The lightweight, hardened BareMetal is only 350 MB, so it presents a very small attack surface and minimizes drain on the CPU.  This offers tight security and near native performance.

The full picture

Unlike anyone else in the industry, MokaFive with BareMetal provides the same management console and the same levels of quality and security to Type 1, Type 2, Mac, PC, Windows, Linux . . . whatever you’re running. Furthermore, we’ve added a set of unique features and capabilities that Citrix XenClient does not have, many of which are not included in Virtual Computer’s NxTop, including:

• Zero-touch update process
• Dynamic driver installation at boot
• Image compression and encryption
• Remote support through any network connection
• Fast start up / early authentication
• Optimized TRIM support for SSD drives
• Image updates without disrupting user customizations
• Off-network AD domain join
• Single sign-on to images
• Auto-lock of images when host sleeps

At the end of the day, we dropped the debate.  Because purist arguments about monolithic vs microkernel architectures, or Type 1 vs Type 2 for that matter, really don’t matter.  You just need to solve your business problems.

BareMetal tackles all the key business problems we heard from our customers. Take that, Torvald and Tanenbaum—MokaFive has your answer.

Interested in learning more?  Check out BareMetal. You can sign up for a free trial here.

Cheers,

Purnima Padmanabhan, VP Product and Marketing, MokaFive

Earlier this morning, Quest announced a partnership with MokaFive to bring a joint solution to the market that will bring tremendous benefits to our collective customers and to our organizations.

Often when partnerships are announced, you are left with the feeling that maybe one of the companies in the agreement got a raw deal. Not in this case. This is a true win- win partnership. Here’s why. 

Quest gains a huge competitive advantage over the big guys

Through its vWorkspace product line, Quest has been able to deliver Windows desktops and applications to a tremendous array of computing devices in a virtual environment, but they will now be able to extend their offering to mobile / disconnected users. By adding MokaFive to the existing Quest vWorkspace product line, Quest now offers the most complete set of desktop virtualization solutions for an enterprise.

At the end of the day, more and more companies are looking to implement desktop virtualization programs that can benefit all types of workers. This might include the full spectrum of user classes from: task workers who are always connected but needs a limited number of applications to complete their work effectively, to road warriors who are frequently offline, loosely-managed and need highly mobile computing power with a centrally maintained and secured working environment on whatever device they choose. Needless to say an offline virtualization solution like MokaFive becomes very critical.

With this partnership Quest now offers a full spectrum of hosted (Terminal Services, Server based desktop) and local (Type2, BareMetal) VDI solutions to cater to every computing need within an organization.

MokaFive gets a force multiplier for its sales reach

From our vantage point, the ability for Quest to offer this solution to 100,000+ customers is both tremendous and exciting. It opens MokaFive up to entirely new distribution channels that only a partner like Quest can bring to the table. By expanding our reach through the channel we can continue to stay ahead of the innovation cycle by keeping a razor sharp focus on bringing world-class desktop virtualization solutions to the market.

In addition, this partnership provides further validation of our approach and the value of our solution. Quest was very rigorous in its selection process, and we’re proud that Quest selected MokaFive as the one solution that could meet all of their needs from a deployment, technology and ease of manageability perspective, and well beyond.

Not just fluff

Unlike many other fluffy partnership announcements that you often hear,  we have a customer win– Gateway Business Bank – right out of the gate. 

I am also excited to be working with Jon Rolls at Quest to build out a solid integration roadmap that will deliver unparalleled value to both our customers. Jon and I will be presenting more on this at Briforum Europe.

Bottom line – Quest has the industry traction and reputation to put this type of solution in front of those who can benefit from it the most, while MokaFive is bringing our deep technology acumen to the table and offering something that is completely unique and needed in the industry. It’s a win-win relationship in every sense, and we’re excited to see the dividends begin paying off for organizations worldwide.

 - Purnima Padmanabhan, VP of Products and Marketing

Earlier this year, we received an overwhelming response to our CTO John Whaley’s session on securely implementing BYOC at RSA, and this got us thinking: what else would you like to hear about from MokaFive?

 As we’re gearing up to submit a speaking proposal for VMworld 2011, we  would like to hear from YOU what sort  of topics you find interesting. Please leave a comment to let us know your ideas. Our goal is to create a submission and presentation that most applies to you and your organization by the end of the week, so chime in and let us know!

Last month came the moment that most desktop admins dread: the release of a new Windows service pack.  Service packs are multi-gigabyte behemoths that routinely fail to install, break applications, and generally tick off users everywhere.

This morning, our IT guy pushed out SP1 to our company using the standard MokaFive update process.  To pace the deployment for bandwidth reasons and to make sure everything is going smoothly, he broke the rollout into chunks of users.  He targeted the new version to an AD group that contained a bunch of users, including me:

For me, as an end user, the 1.8 GB update silently and gradually downloaded in the background.  I didn’t even know it was happening.  When it was fully downloaded, a little flag popped up in my virtual desktop informing me that I had an update:

A new world

I clicked the note and let MokaFive perform a shutdown to accept the update.  Once the virtual desktop is off, the update itself took literally 2 seconds.  Maybe less, I wasn’t really timing it.

How is this done?  MokaFive updates are delivered as a compressed disk-level differentials.  When a virtual desktop with an update is shutdown, MokaFive simply moves a pointer to the blocks of the new version, performs a quick validation, and it’s ready to go.

Sure enough, I pushed the “play” button to start my desktop, and I was up and running again.  Because my new desktop is a bit-accurate copy of the golden image that IT tested, it worked flawlessly.

Wow, this really is a new world.  A nearly 2 GB service pack update that completes super fast, and is as smooth as any other update.

And get this: you can roll it back!

If something does go wrong, our IT guy can roll back to the last good version, which of course comes down as another bit-accurate “update”.

I think we’re going to like this new world.

- Burt Toma, Director of Products

I had the chance to make the short trip up to San Francisco last week for the RSA Conference. I had some terrific meetings lined up, and also had some downtime scheduled in between a few of them. Being the “exemplary” 21st century executive that I always strive to be, I figured I could catch up on email, edit a number of documents and otherwise stay connected to help keep the fires burning back at the office during my breaks.

A funny thing happened as I was packing my work bag for the first day of the show. While I’ve been glued to my iPad as the “don’t leave home without it” device for the past year, I suddenly felt the urge to leave it behind this time around. Maybe it was having the foresight of the type of work I needed to tackle that day. After all, it certainly required some heavy lifting. Regardless, I felt myself grabbing for my shiny new MacBook Air, thinking to myself, this really is the one and only device I need to get the job done right today.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my iPad and it has certainly been a great companion device for keeping up on email, reading books and even keeping my child entertained while we’re on the road. The very notion of the iPad is certainly an intriguing one with its brilliant touch screen and countless apps, and I know many would say it works just fine as a productivity device. However, I think at this point I beg to differ and my experience at RSA helped to cement my thinking.
When it comes to getting the important tasks done, I want my keyboard, my processing power and a nice screen. I also want seamless access to my work environment whether online or offline, and the iPad has never been great from that standpoint. That said, I do still want it all on a single device that also contains my itunes and photos.

So what’s the point? The MacBook Air is about the same size as the iPad. It fit right into my work bag and provides the same functionality, plus a whole lot more (there’s something comforting about still having access to Safari and iTunes when the work is done). It’s just as cool, sleek and sophisticated – and it’s a tremendous device for leveraging all the benefits desktop virtualization has to offer. I used MokaFive to work on my corporate desktop at RSA (without worrying about getting the wireless password at each cafe), and I was about as productive at the conference as I am back at the office, barring a few waiters and old friends popping in to help to break my stride on occasion. They were all welcomed interruptions, of course.

We’ve heard so much about enabling the iPad in the workplace recently, but why struggle to support it when the notion of providing employees with a MacBook Air and virtualizing the corporate desktop on such a killer device is one that can and should easily win the day? From my vantage point, we can leave the touch screen and apps for the family outings, and instead consider making the move to what I think just might be the device of our day for creating a happier, more productive workforce.

Bottom line – if you have Apple-hungry employees, lighten the load and try putting a MacBook Air in their hands and virtualizing their corporate desktop, and I think you’ll quickly see what I mean.

Purnima Padmanabhan, VP of Products & Marketing