Panzura SkyBridge Enables Complete VDI In The Cloud

Today Panzura announced a new solution aimed at solving the challenges of running VDI and application virtualization completely in the cloud, SkyBridge. SkyBridge co-locates a consistent, locking file system in the cloud that is identical to the file system in the corporate datacenters and then eliminates networking challenges in between. This will give enterprises the benefits of the cloud (such as scale and economics) and the cost benefit of not maintaining on-premise infrastructure.

Today Panzura announced a new solution aimed at solving the challenges of running VDI and application virtualization completely in the cloud, SkyBridge. SkyBridge co-locates a consistent, locking file system in the cloud that is identical to the file system in the corporate datacenters and then eliminates networking challenges in between. This will give enterprises the benefits of the cloud (such as scale and economics) and the cost benefit of not maintaining on-premise infrastructure.

Deploying VDI in the cloud has its fair share of challenges: from configuration and deployment, establishing a connection to the corporate datacenter, utilizing corporate authentication, to gaining access to data without negatively impacting performance. SkyBridge addresses all of these challenges by configuring and initializing a Layer 2 VPN connection between the cloud and the corporate datacenter. With a single mouse click, full Virtual Desktop or Virtual Application instance can be launched and connected with the corporate authentication. All the while utilizing a Panzura Global File system controller in the cloud. Co-location of both the file system in the cloud as well as the datacenter gives businesses the advantage of the cloud without the performance issues inherent when the file data is not located next to the VDI or application virtualization instance. 

Benefits include:

• Provision VDI or virtual apps in any geography – fast
• Expand existing VDI or virtual app deployments into the cloud
• Use only the cloud to deploy VDI or virtual apps
• Pay as they go for VDI

Though initially aimed at VDI deployment in the cloud, SkyBridge can be used to run any application in the cloud. Best of all there is no need to change the application. Applications such as HPC, antivirus, search, indexing and rendering can be ran in the cloud, with the advantages that entails, with SkyBridge. SkyBridge aims to take cloud datacenters and turn them into corporate datacenters.

SkyBridge will initially support Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop running in Amazon Web Services.  Additional cloud providers, VDI solutions, and applications will be supported in future releases.

Panzura main site

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