Provision Networks Unveils Next Generation Connection Broker

Third-Generation Virtual Access Suite Raises the Bar for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

September 10, 2007 – San Francisco, CA – VMworld booth #907 -- Provision Networks, a global provider of enterprise presentation and desktop virtualization solutions, announced today version 5.9 of the company’s market-leading Virtual Access Suite, raising the bar for what a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) should offer by delivering broader platform support, tighter integration, extensibility and ease of management.

“While many vendors are rushing to market with their first generation technologies, our third-generation Virtual Access Suite sets the standard by which VDI solutions are judged,” said Paul Ghostine, co-Founder and CEO of Provision Networks. “We are very pleased with our latest release which incorporates the feedback from many customers and partners, and accounts for hundreds of new use case scenarios we’ve encountered in production deployments.”
Partner and Customer Support

“Working to meet a legislative mandate to deliver online testing exclusively, the Weber School District in Utah which serves the needs of 29,000 students, worked with HP and chose to implement a virtual desktop infrastructure enabled by Provision Networks,” said David Brooks, Director of Technology. “We looked at a variety of connection brokers, but the Virtual Access Suite quickly emerged as our solution of choice. It is simply more scalable and easier to use. Its robust management capabilities, along with the multimedia redirection of the Wyse V10 thin clients, afford our organization the best solution to lessen the complexity and improve the manageability and availability of our desktop infrastructure.”

"The VDI platform from Virtual Iron and Provision Networks enables us to better manage the delivery of a powerful yet familiar desktop computing experience to our users in the manufacturing plant," said Mark Howard, IT Manager for Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corp., U.S.A. "We can eliminate the use of desktop PCs, take advantage of the simplicity and longevity of thin client devices from CLI and leverage the high-availability benefits of our VDI platform, to maintain the highest levels of productivity and ease of use in our plant."

“Virtual Iron and Provision Networks continue to deliver the most advanced virtualization and management capabilities to the mainstream market,” said Mike Grandinetti, chief marketing officer at Virtual Iron Software. “Our integrated VDI solution reduces both the cost and complexity of server hosted desktop virtualization and provides enterprises with significant operational benefits such as reduced resource requirements, streamlined desktop infrastructure management, reduced power and cooling costs and increased IP security.”

“We are pleased to collaborate with Provision Networks to deliver Neoware’s OS streaming software as part of this fully-integrated VDI solution,” said Bill Bredbenner, chief technology officer of Neoware, Inc.

“Virtualization is one of the must-have technologies in today’s business marketplace,” said David White, VP of Business Development, Expand Networks. “A Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for branch offices requires dynamic, virtualized bandwidth. Our joint efforts with Provision Networks, including their newly enhanced features for bandwidth virtualization, will benefit our customers and deliver superior solutions to the market no matter what their core business is.”

“Only one word is needed to describe the Virtual Access Suite: Supreme,” said Aaron Schneider, Director of Solution Engineering at The Pinnacle Group, a leading virtualization consultancy in California. “VAS simply reigns supreme. It is untouchable. It packs more features, delivers higher scalability, more fault-tolerance, better integration, and broader industry support than anything else on the market. It is years ahead of any real competition.”

“Provision Networks once again proves it has the technical leadership when it comes to virtual desktop infrastructure solutions,” said Ron Oglesby, Director of Architecture for the Virtualization Services business unit of GlassHouse Technologies, a global IT infrastructure and consulting firm headquartered in Massachusetts. “We have been so impressed with the advanced capabilities, scalability, yet simplicity of the Virtual Access Suite.”


Major VAS 5.9 Feature Highlights:

The new Virtual Access Suite 5.9 beta release offers tighter integration with VMware VI3, Virtual Iron, and Microsoft technologies, with more features, better flexibility, stronger security, higher scalability and resiliency than any other solution available.

• Virtual Iron Integration: Full integration with VI’s Virtualization Manager, including virtual machine power management and hands-free Sysprep-based OS customization.
• Microsoft SharePoint Integration: A SharePoint web part edition of the Provision Networks Web-IT interface enables joint customers to benefit from rapid integration and a delivery infrastructure that is highly manageable, scalable and extensible.
• Tighter Integration with Microsoft Active Directory: Provides for the auto-creation and auto-removal of AD computer objects upon creation or deletion of virtual machines.
• Support for Multiple Resource Pools and Data Stores: Allows for the mass creation of virtual machines across multiple resource pools and data stores.
• Semi-Permanent VM Assignment: Provides for the automated assignment of a new temporary but dedicated virtual machine, until the original permanent VM becomes accessible.
• Power State Transition Management: A new VM power state called “Changing” marks the occurrence of an OS reboot or shutdown, thus resulting in a VM power-state transition.
• Scheduled VM Power Operations: Enables VMs to be automatically powered on and suspended at the start and conclusion of a business day, respectively. This ensures VMs are always powered on during work hours, and powered off shortly after employees conclude their work day.
• “Disabled” Flag: Individual desktops and desktop groups can be flagged as “disabled,” allowing scheduled maintenance tasks to be performed without the possibility of inadvertent user access.
• Bandwidth Virtualization: Integrated support for Expand Networks WAN optimization and application acceleration.
• Enhanced Sysprep-Based Customization Framework: Complete support for Sysprep customization features (Windows XP and Server 2003), and the ability to manually edit Sysprep.inf using the new built-in Sysprep editor.
• Virtual Channel Policies: Enables policy-based access to local devices over RDP, including drives, printers, smart cards, clipboard, audio, and serial ports.
• Enhanced Printing Support: New font management capabilities deliver superior print quality and reliability, as well as drastic print job size reductions compared to other universal print drivers.
• New AppPortal Look and Feel: A modern Web 2.0 new design enhances the look and usability of the most popular Windows client interface for Terminal Server and hosted desktops.
• New Java Client: A zero-footprint Java client supports the Provision Networks Web-IT web interface and Secure-IT SSL gateway, and enables session-sharing and access to both published applications and desktops.
• New Unix/Linux Client: Delivers support for Sun Solaris and the major Linux distributions, and enables session-sharing and access to both published applications and desktops. A new client interface enables Linux users to manage multiple application and desktop connections, and also serves as a reference model (with complete source code) for Linux-based thin client vendors to easily build support for Provision Networks VAS into their thin client platforms.
• Support for New HP Linux Thin Client: Integrated support for HP’s newest t5135 device powered by HP ThinConnect, enabling the automated download of configuration settings upon connecting to the network.
• Support for Neoware VDI-edition thin clients and Neoware Image Manager: Streams desktop OS images into virtual machines and centralizes image management.
• Wyse ThinOS Integration: Joint development with Wyse enables thin clients such as the S10 and V10 to fully integrate into a VAS infrastructure, start desktop connections, and receive VM power status notifications from the Provision Networks broker.

About Provision Networks

Provision Networks is a global provider of presentation and desktop virtualization solutions. Provision Networks solutions embrace and extend the Microsoft Terminal Services (NASDAQ: MSFT) platform and Virtualization Infrastructure platforms from VMware, Virtual Iron, XenSource, SWSoft, and Microsoft, delivering resilient, scalable and dynamic on-demand desktop deployment and application delivery for enterprises worldwide.

Provision Networks produces and markets three product suites through a global network of value-added resellers:

• Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite – Enterprise Edition
• Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite – Desktop Services Edition
• Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite – Standard Edition

With a world-class client list, comprised of some of the world’s largest commercial enterprises, and government organizations, Provision Networks is the most trusted name in presentation and desktop infrastructure virtualization. To learn more about Provision Networks and our enterprise access solutions, please visit us at www.ProvisionNetworks.com.

## Provision Networks, the Provision Networks product names, and the Provision Management Framework are registered trademarks or trademarks of Provision Networks in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. ##