In computing, Desktop Virtualization involves separating the physical location where the PC desktop resides from where the user is accessing the PC. A remotely accessed PC is typically either located at home, at the office, or in a data center. The user is located elsewhere, perhaps traveling, in a hotel room, at an airport, or in a different city. The desktop virtualization approach can be contrasted with a traditional local PC desktop, where the user directly accesses the desktop operating system and all of its peripherals physically (using the local keyboard, mouse and video monitor hardware directly).

When a desktop is virtualized, its keyboard, mouse and video display (among other things) are typically redirected across a network via a desktop remoting protocol (such as RDP, ICA, VNC, etc). The network connection carrying this virtualized desktop information is known as a “desktop access session.”

Virtually any kind of end-user device can be used to remotely access a virtualized PC desktop, including thin clients, notebook PCs and even a PDA. Once a desktop is virtualized, it becomes accessible over any suitable network connection, on any device with similar characteristics.

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1. All vendor solutions based on Amazon’s AWS are classified as Beta because EC2, S3, and SimpleDB are all in Beta.
2. RightScale has the potential to be a Level 3 provider due to their architecture

Green Data Center Blog: Who are the Energy Hogs in Data Centers? where the author is talking about energy hogs in the datacenter arena. It would be interesting to know.

I would think those utilizing some form of virtualization technology would hopefully not be on the list.

The Applogic Technology allows people to utilize a GUI interface (within a web browser) to create Virtual Datacenters.

Utility Computing (also known as on-demand computing) is the packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service similar to a physical public utility (such as electricity, water, natural gas, or telephone network). This system has the advantage of a low or no initial cost to acquire hardware; instead, computational resources are essentially rented. Customers with very large computations or a sudden peak in demand can also avoid the delays that would result from physically acquiring and assembling a large number of computers.

Find the rest of the definition here.

We in the IT sector have the ability to directly affect not only our end costs and bottom line, but the energy issue and crisis that our planet is facing today.

Here is an  article that talks about all aspects of cutting costs, and becoming “GREEN”.

Aliso Viejo, CA – April 20, 2009– 3Tera®, Inc., the leading innovator of cloud computing technology and utility computing services, announces that it was named to the first annual listing of the InformationWeek Startup 50, revealed today in InformationWeek Magazine and on InformationWeek.com.

InformationWeek’s Startup 50 is a list of the top 50 business technology startups selected by InformationWeek readers and editors. Companies were selected in a three-step process that involved nomination, online voting, and editorial vetting. The technologies and the companies behind them were evaluated on the following criteria:

• Innovation and their ability to inject new ways of doing things into business processes
• Value, which is reflected in lower costs, increased sales, higher productivity, or improved customer loyalty
• Enterprise-readiness, meaning that a product or service scales and can be deployed and managed as necessary by IT pros

3Tera is currently the only company offering cloud computing solutions on a global scale by partnering with datacenters on four continents. Their AppLogic Cloud Computing Platform is available both as a software license for enterprise in-house deployment of private cloud computing solutions and as a hosted cloud computing service – virtual private datacenters – within 3Tera’s network of partners. 3Tera recently announced a 99.999 percent availability Service Level Agreement (SLA) designed to give customers confidence and ensure that they can use the cloud to quickly deploy and operate even their most critical services and applications on a highly available and scalable platform.

“We are honored to be selected to InformationWeek’s Startup 50 list, as a company that any IT executives in midsize and large enterprises seeking to utilize cloud computing services should assess,” said Bert Armijo, senior vice president of sales, marketing and product management, 3Tera, Inc. “We believe our inclusion in the list is recognition of us as a leader and innovator with our AppLogic Cloud Computing Platform and further validates the importance of having a good architectural model for running and scaling online applications.”

“It was difficult to limit ourselves to 50 startups because there’s a lot of exciting companies out there,” said Andrew Conry-Murray, Business Editor, InformationWeek. “That said, we believe the InformationWeek Startup 50 have innovative solutions to critical business problems and are worthy of enterprise consideration.”

“Our finalists address a range of business technology challenges, but the biggest concentration of entrepreneurial energy falls into three areas: virtualization, cloud computing, and software as a service,” said Conry-Murray, in the Startup 50 accompanying article.”

InformationWeek editors and readers identified young companies that are ready to address the critical challenges facing the enterprise. Whether it is securing networks, cutting costs or streamlining IT operations and business processes, the InformationWeek Startup 50 provides IT professionals and executives insight on new and innovative solutions from the named companies.

The full list of the InformationWeek Startup 50: Business Technology Companies To Watch, along with analysis by InformationWeek editors, can be found online at http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/saas/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216600068.

About 3Tera, Inc.
3Tera, Inc. is the innovator of cloud computing technology and utility computing services, simplifying the deployment and scaling of Web applications. Named “Cool Vendor in IT operations, 2008″ by Gartner Group and one of the “Top 20 Companies to Watch in 2008″ by Linux Magazine, 3Tera offers the AppLogic™ the first comercially available cloud computing platform that completely removes the cost and complexity associated with infrastructure. Available both for building in-house private clouds and as a platform for cloud computing services, AppLogic allows IT professionals to develop and deploy online applications in minutes instead of weeks, using only a browser to manage and scale on demand fully distributed systems and deliver security and business continuity for all applications, while fully controlling their cloud computing environment. For more information, visit www.3tera.com.

About InformationWeek
InformationWeek (www.informationweek.com) is the anchor brand for the InformationWeek Business Technology Network – a powerful portfolio of resources that span the technology market, including security with DarkReading.com, storage with ByteandSwitch.com, application architecture with IntelligentEnterprise.com, network architecture with NetworkComputing.com, cloud computing with PlugIntoTheCloud.com, and Internet innovation with InternetEvolution.com. InformationWeek magazine reaches 440,000 business technology professionals at more than a quarter million unique locations. Its mission is to help CIOs and IT executives define and frame their business technology objectives. InformationWeek.com delivers breaking news, blogs, high-impact image galleries, and proprietary research as well as analysis on IT trends, a whitepaper library, video reports, and interactive tools, all in a 24/7 environment.