Leostream connection broker technology still pushing forward

Much like the hypervisor in a server virtualization world, VDI connection brokers are beginning to become commodity for the virtual desktop. So how does a small, pioneering software firm like Leostream survive?

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Leostream is a vendor-independent connection broker software company that has been a virtualization pioneer going back to 2002. After offering virtualization management and P2V solutions for years, the company finally decided to put all of its chips in the connection broker business and the VDI market.

With giants in the industry like Citrix, Symantec, and VMware, how is it that a small player such as Leostream is able to survive?

[ See also on InfoWorld.com: Leostream received $3 million in funding, and dropped their P2V offering in favor of focusing on the connection broker | Randall Kennedy takes a different look at VDI, saying virtualization cannot solve all desktop problems ]

Part of the reason that Leostream continues to have success is because of its heterogeneous support or agnostic view of the desktop world. They are able to broker connections between different hypervisor platforms and different applications and desktop delivery systems, and provide that comprehensive and scalable information in a single consolidated interface.

In addition, the Leostream Connection Broker can also offer help to those organizations that have already settled on a single vendor delivery mechanism by providing integration with other systems that are required by a VDI environment, such as multiple authentication servers (Active Directory, eDirectory, OpenLDAP, external SSL VPNs, and multi-factor authentication).

And it may or may not surprise you to know that Leostream is partnered with and works well with Citrix and VMware. And they have joined forces with a host of technology partners to provide customers with a flexible solution that integrates with a range of technologies in order to deliver a seamless end-user experience. They are also partnered with Cisco, Dell, Devon IT, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Red Hat, Sun, and Wyse.

In September 2008, Leostream teamed with IBM and established a reseller relationship with its connection broker software and IBM's workstation blades and VCS solutions. About a month later, the company teamed up with eG Innovations to strengthen manageability in the virtual desktop market. The combined offering gives organizations deploying virtual desktop environments a comprehensive solution to establish, monitor, and report performance baselines for end-user virtual desktop access to enterprise applications. And last month, the company announced a partnership that would provide its connection broker technology on BOSaNOVA Thin Clients.