Red Bend’s vLogix Mobile 5.0 To Ease Enterprise-wide Mobile IT 
Enterprise mobile IT programs may get a lot easier with the next wave of mobile devices as Red Bend Software has released a major update to its mobile virtualization solution portfolio. vLogix Mobile 5.0 looks to make it easier for IT to extend on-premise apps to mobile users and support BYOD for many smartphones, tablets and other wireless devices.
Enterprise mobile IT programs may get a lot easier with the next wave of mobile devices as Red Bend Software has released a major update to its mobile virtualization solution portfolio. vLogix Mobile 5.0 looks to make it easier for IT to extend on-premise apps to mobile users and support BYOD for many smartphones, tablets and other wireless devices.
vLogix Mobile 5.0 extends legacy software to mobile devices without the need to redesign, redevelop and revalidate existing software to support new OS configurations, according to Red Bend CEO Yoram Salinger.
Further, the new release will allow the same mobile device to support separate profiles – one for “business use” and another for “personal use” which will make it much easier for IT admins to offer and support policy-compliant BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programs, he added.
Red Bend already works with every leading device manufacturer, semiconductor vendor and mobile operator, and has mobile technologies in some 1 billion mobile devices, according to the company. This footprint should set the stage for rapid implementation of the new Red bend technology among empowers mobile device manufacturers and semi-conductor vendors.
Red Bend’s vLogix Mobile 5.0 (formerly VLX) is built on the VLX Type-1 mobile hypervisor from VirtualLogix, which was acquired by Red Bend in September 2010. As a result, it combines the industry’s most widely deployed Type-1 mobile hypervisor with Red Bend’s expertise in making advanced embedded technologies work within the mobile platforms.
The result is to deliver:
Improved management functionality and an extensible architecture enable manufactures get their virtualized mobile devices to market more easily and more quickly.
Pre-standard implementation of the new virtualization management object (VirMO) standard proposed by Red Bend in the Open Mobile Alliance Device Management (OMA DM) Working Group.
Over-the-air management, where virtualized devices can now be continuously managed over the air using Red Bend’s solutions for device management, software management and analytics, and firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updating.
“For device manufacturers and service providers that want to create a new class of enterprise-ready smartphones and tablets, vLogix Mobile ships with support for a Secure Enterprise Domain,” according to the Red Bend website. This feature is included with a fully-virtualized Android OS ready for use, this enables IT admins to deploy over the air a secure environment for corporate applications and BYOD access, it added.
Other features of Red Bend’s vLogix Mobile 5.0:
- Virtualizer – This is the vLogix Mobile Type-1 hypervisor, which runs directly on the host hardware and schedules access to shared hardware services (file systems, serial lines, network interfaces, etc.) among guest operating environments. It separates virtual machines from one another and from direct access to the device's underlying hardware.
- Performance - RAM and persistent storage such as flash memory can be partitioned and allocated to meet the performance demands of each virtual machine. Hardware resources such as the CPU, clock and memory management unit are virtualized or replicated in software for each guest operating system. Access to the associated hardware is then allocated by the Virtualizer.
- “Guest” Access - To provide each “guest” access to system-wide services vLogix Mobile includes back-end drivers, which manage the physical devices. It also virtualizes each corresponding device and exports a virtual view of that device to the guest systems to provide each OS/domain with access.
- Management - The management domain is its own virtual machine, and provides performance monitoring, device management and over-the-air deployment of applications.
One analyst is bullish about Red Bend’s approach.
IDC senior analyst Stacy Cook said mobile virtualization tools like vLogix Mobile let OEMs offer more features in their products as well as good prices while enabling CIOs to handle the issue of BYOD. “By reusing existing software assets more cost effectively, supporting new applications more rapidly and securely separating work and life on one phone, the entire industry can benefit from Mobile Virtualization,” Cook added in a statement.
