The Magic of Citrix XenDesktop is Ardence (Provisioning Server)

July 2008
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Building on my previous post about the XenDesktop Hands On Lab training I attended last week, this post is dedicated to the real magic of Citrix XenDesktop. Ardence, a software streaming solution aquired by Citrix in December of 2006, is now Citrix Provisioning Server for Desktops with the amazing ability to deliver desktops from a single disk image. Provisioning Server, coupled with the Desktop Delivery Controller as the VDI Connection Broker, delivers complete Microsoft Windows, SUSE Linux, and Red Hat Linux operating systems images from networked storage. These OS images are quickly brokered to bare metal user’s desktops at Active Directory Domain log on. With VDI, the bare metal desktop happens to be the virtual hardware of virtual machines hosted on either XenServer, ESX Server, or Windows 2008 Server Hyper-V.

The Provisioning Server home page (linked above) explains the advantages achieved with the Ardence technology.

“By delivering server workloads on-demand rather than deploying them on individual desktops, Provisioning Server for Desktops 4.5:

Uses innovative software-streaming technology to deliver operating systems and applications on-demand to physical desktops as a service from the network.

Desktops with the same OS/application stack can be provisioned on-demand from a single, standard image.

No software is pre-installed or permanently installed on the desktop hardware.

Application processing takes place at the desktop.

Desktops can operate disklessly.

By dynamically delivering a single, standard desktop operating system and software image on-demand – rather than physically deploying them on each desktop – Citrix Provisioning Server for Desktops dramatically reduces the cost of desktop operations and management; increases data security; eliminates risks normally associated with software rollouts and patches; simplifies IT management and increases IT agility.”

To see this magic in action check out this YouTube video from May of 2007.

“This video show ardence desktop edition being used to provision over 250 dell workstations with 4 different Operating Systems being streamed and restreamed and reprovisioned in just seconds. WOW“

Bare metal physical or virtual desktops use a PXE boot to receive the streamed operating system image from Provisioning Server.

Technorati Tags: virtualization, xendesktop, vdi

Tags: citrix, vdi, video, windows, Xen, xendesktop, XenServer

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