ClearCube announced the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Solutions Suite, a virtual desktop hardware and software solution that manages multiple desktops from a PC blade infrastructure. The VDI Solutions Suite reduces the cost of centralized computing without sacrificing the security and management benefits of PC blades. The new solution compliments ClearCube's popular 1 to 1 (1:1) PC blade offerings by providing multiple virtual desktops using a single high-performance managed platform.

Numerous organizations in healthcare, financial services and government have deployed ClearCube's PC blade offerings to benefit from the 99.9 percent uptime, reduced management costs, and enhanced security provided by a centralized infrastructure. Many of these enterprise customers are investigating virtual desktops for certain enterprise scenarios, such as for branch banks or remote healthcare specialty facilities, where geographically dispersed users can create support costs.

Other organizations are simply looking for more cost effective solutions for a large number of administrative and support staff. With per seat pricing starting at less than $1,000 and technology based on a long track record in centralized computing, ClearCube's VDI Solutions Suite is an attractive option.

"Our existing customers are all interested in virtual desktops, since they all have task and knowledge workers that do not need the full power of a desktop PC and can be very productive using a virtual machine," said Randy Printz, president and CEO of ClearCube. "At the same time, our new offering dramatically increases our market potential by making available ClearCube's expertise to any company that previously could not justify the expense of centralized computing. With the VDI Solutions Suite, the benefits of centralized computing -- easier management, enhanced security and maximum uptime -- can be extended to any organization or industry, and to all types of users."

The VDI Solutions Suite delivers a collection of new products, both hardware and software. From the datacenter to the desktop, these products are intended for use in a virtualized environment, and have been carefully designed to work together for optimum performance and manageability in a very compact and efficient form factor, and include fully integrated support for a variety of current virtualization technologies. ClearCube has thoroughly tested and analyzed many popular virtualization technologies, and the VDI Solutions Suite represents a comprehensive solution that greatly reduces the complexity of desktop virtualization.

In the datacenter, the VDI Solutions Suite includes a new V7000 chassis housing up to 10 of the company's new V7100S PC blades. The V7100S is a dual processor platform that combines high performance memory, network, and storage systems with an equally impressive eight cores of processing ability. The V7100S also leverages industry standard server class chipsets for total compatibility with VMware Server and a variety of other virtualization technologies.

At the desktop, the VDI Solutions Suite includes two new members of ClearCube's popular I/Port family of thin clients, the I8440 and the I8442. These devices represent the latest improvements in performance and manageability in desktop portals. The streamlined I8440 provides the most cost effective solution, while the I8442 delivers additional capabilities including dual monitor support. Both client models include support for new performance extensions expected later this year, which will further increase both multimedia and peripheral capabilities.

The management features of both the datacenter PC blades and the desktop thin clients are accessed through the latest release of Sentral 6.0, ClearCube's management software. Sentral provides IT administrators easy access to and total control over their entire deployment of centralized computing resources -- from PC blades to virtual desktops, locally or remotely, and provides server-level availability (99.9 percent uptime) for end user computing.

With the VDI Solutions Suite, IT administrators can deploy and manage both virtual servers and virtual desktops. Whether the system is leveraged with VMware ESX, VMware Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer or other virtualization solutions, the ClearCube V7100S enables multiple users to simultaneously access a single blade, with each receiving their complete desktop experience through an isolated Virtual Machine (VM) environment and with their own operating system and applications.

"Organizations seeking to tame desktop chaos while offering their staff members powerful desktop solutions are often looking into virtual access of virtualized resources," said Dan Kusnetzky, principal analyst, Kusnetzky Group LLC. "ClearCube has a track record of success providing these organizations with hardware and software products that make it possible for organizations to create powerful, secure and manageable virtual desktop environments."