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Citrix CTO Simon Crosby was our very special guest for VIRTUMANIA Episode 23! The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 23 – The Citrix Virtualization Safari. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com with guests and Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com and Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen). This week’s special guest is Citrix CTO Simon Crosby (@simoncrosby / Citrix Blogs). This episode’s conversation covers almost everything going on at Citrix for virtualization. From Citrix Receiver on the iPad, HDX with VDI, development of the Citrix XenClient, XenServer strategy, partnership with Microsoft, to Citrix in the Cloud, Crosby offers inside thoughts and experiences.  VIRTUMANIA is a Infosmack Production.

Before, between, and after the important stuff we also have some fun with Rick’s picture of the wrong end of a giraffe and Dell’s rumored acquisition of 3PAR

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

If EMC World can be called the “Super Bowl of Storage” then Episode 12 of VIRTUMANIA is the post game analysis! Guests Scott Lowe, Stephen Foskett, and Rick Vanover help Marc and me get to the bottom of the virtualization game plan from EMC’s 2010 conference. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 12 – EMC World 2010 Post Game Analysis. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley(@3parfarley Infosmack Podcast) and show regular Rick Vanover (@rickvanover rickvanover.com) host guests Scott Lowe (@scott_lowe blog.scottlowe.org) and Stephen Foskett (@sfoskett GestaltIT.com Pack Rat Blog). If Chris Berman, Linda Cohn, Hannah Storm, Erin Andrews and Bonnie Bernstein covered a virtualization conference the results would be nothing like this! You’ll probably never hear a conversation about the private cloud, VPLEX, deduplication, long distance vmotion, FAST, data tiering, vSphere, and more on ESPN that’s for sure. Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) of Chi Corporation for this Infosmack Production.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the topics discussed in episode 12 about the “Super Bowl of Storage” or EMC World 2010:

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This week at the Citrix Synergy 2010 Conference in San Francisco, CA ,Citrix announced their new client hypervisor and established itself as the first to provide what some desktop virtualization experts believe is a critical missing piece in the VDI remote worker mobility puzzle. The bare metal XenClient was previewed introduced during the conference’s opening keynote session on stage in front of thousands of attendees.

Citrix describes the XenClient hypervisor as “a high-performance, bare-metal hypervisor that enables users to run multiple instances of an operating system simultaneously, side by side, and in complete isolation.” A key feature necessary for running virtual corporate desktops provided by a centralized IT department is the Citrix Synchronizer. According to Citrix, Synchronizer will “add centralized control, deployment, and backup of local virtual machines to your XenClient environment.”

Since I was not in attendance at the Keynote, it is unclear to me whether the version of XenClient available for download today is in fact a production ready release. It is available as open source and free to download for those that want to try it out.

There is only a short list of hardware supported, however.

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The virtualization community, my employer, and every Virtualization Service Provider I know is neck deep in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Already important because of Windows 7 migrations, the announcements last week from Microsoft and Citrix seemed to have raised the intensity of an existing white hot spotlight on VDI. When Microsoft, the world’s leader in the desktop operating system market, decides to change their position to make it easier to implement and license virtual desktops then we all have to stop and understand what has happened. There has been a significant change, and there are good things in the future for those moving to virtualized Windows desktops. However, understanding exactly what these changes are and how they impact us continues to be a moving target changing rapidly each year.

This post is my summary of research about the latest Microsoft and Citrix announcements. I’m linking and quoting several bloggers and analysts to help VM /ETC readers (and myself!) digest the details of the new licensing and promotions. I also the outline the actual products that make up the Microsoft and Citrix VDI solution, and then finally point to some interesting reactions and perspectives published over the last several days. 

New Microsoft VDI Licensing

Most importantly, Microsoft declared a new licensing policy where Windows desktops will no longer need a separate license to be accessed via VDI by companies with Software Assurance. Although I could not specifically find it stated anywhere I looked, I assume this means whether accessed on any Microsoft VDI solution, VMware View, Citrix XenDesktop, or any other vendor’s VDI product. Here’s some additional information on the new licensing as intrepreted by others:

Desktop Virtualization: Microsoft, VMware in Cost Smackdown

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/031910-desktop-virtualization-microsoft-vmware-in.html?page=1

“One key part of the sweeping announcements, covered in an hour-long Webcast, is a simpler and cheaper model for licensing Windows in a virtual desktop environment. Specifically, on July 1, Software Assurance customers will no longer have to buy a separate license to access Windows via a VDI.

Moreover, for customers that use devices that don’t qualify for Software Assurance, such as thin clients and PCs used by contractors, there will be a new license called Windows VDA (virtual desktop access) available for $100 per device per year. This license will allow users to still have access to their complete virtual desktop outside the corporate network on devices such a personal laptops and airport kiosks.”

Maybe Microsoft is finally starting to abandon the concept of anchoring a Windows license to hardware and hopefully beginning to consider introducing virtualization editions of their operating systems? We are definitely not there yet, but at least it’s movement in the right direction.

Microsoft and Citrix VDI Promotions

Along with the new VDI licensing Microsoft and Citrix has also introduced some competitive promotions not only stimulate VDI migration but hopefully capture back some market share in the process. A new web site, citrixandmicrosoft.com, details these new offers.

First is the VDI Kick Start

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Burton Group analysts Chris Wolf and Richard Jones have recently both blogged about certification of Citrix XenServer 5.5 combined with Citrix Essentials Platinum Edition as an enterprise ready solution. Citrix XenServer 5.5 is available as a free download, but managing XenServer via Citrix Essentials requires the purchase ($5000 per host list price) of the Essentials Platinum Edition product.

It’s Official – Citrix XenServer 5.5 with Citrix Essentials 5.5 Platinum Edition is Enterprise-Production Ready is a post by Chris Wolf from his personal blog announcing the certification of Citrix XenServer 5.5 managed by Citrix Essentials Platinum Edition as “worthy of the demands of large scale enterprise environments.”

Citrix has an enterprise-grade virtualization platform says the Burton Group is a post by Richard Jones also from his personal blog that declares “This is a great milestone for the industry as it marks the first time that the x86 market has more than one vendor (VMware) offering an enterprise production worthy virtualization solution.”

Read both posts for more details.

The Burton Group report requires a subscription to access, but Wolf promises to detail the findings at the upcoming Catalyst Conference where he will speaking.

Jones’ blog provides an interesting caveat to the enterprise ready comparison of VMware vSphere and XenServer Platinum:

“However, this is not to say that Citrix XenServer 5.5 exceeds VMware vSphere 4 in features and function.  Burton Group’s production class hypervisor requirements specify technical and product features that fall into three buckets:  Required, Preferred, and Optional.  While Citrix now meets 100% of the Required features, it still falls behind the x86 virtualization leader in the Preferred and Optional criteria.”

Citrix has opened the Citrix Synergy 2009 Conference in Las Vegas, NV this week with a flurry of press releases announcing new products that provide innovative methods for delivering corporate published applications. Adopting a model similar to satellite TV providers, Citrix Receiver, Dazzle, and Merchandising Server provide end users the ability to choose their own applications, and then those applications are available not only on the desktop but from any device, anywhere.

This model offers the potential to lift a huge burden from the IT department when provisioning both physical and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). At the same time, on demand self service applications also introduce software as a service provided by a company store delivery concept. For example, the IT department can build a standard desktop image or template virtual machine (VM) that consists of just the operating system and basic enterprise applications like anti virus and asset monitoring software. Then, based on familiar and easy to use TV programing -like subscription options, the end user has the control to choose which applications are delivered to their desktop via the combination of Citrix Reciever and Dazzle. These same applications or virtual desktops are also made available from the home PC or the iPhone without compromising administrative centralized security and control. New application choices and version updates are continuously provided via the “company store.”

Apparently, all of these new Citrix products are free. Reciever and Merchandising Server are available today. According to the Citrix press releases “both Receiver and Merchandising Server require infrastructure products from the Citrix Delivery Center product family to complete their operations.”

The following is a summary of links to the official Citrix announcements with some key quotes from each.
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Hypervisor Test Explained is a Virtualization Review post by Rick Vanover written in response to the fallout over “The Benchmark”. Real quick for those few that do not know, Rick, along with Editor in Chief Keith Ward, recently published (in Rick’s words) “a comparative performance test” for VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix XenServer. The results of that test have been hotly debated since. Mostly between VMware and Citrix, but other skirmishes in the form of comments, tweets, and blog posts have also popped up scattered around the virtualization blogisphere. Until recently I’ve sat on the fence about the test results and the reactions. Partly because I found the test’s outcome startling, but also because I found myself disagreeing with the position and opinions of both sides as I watched the battle.

Now, before I continue let me establish that I immediately questioned why this was even being debated as a hypervisor “benchmark” at all. In my mind it was always what Rick describes now: a comparitive test. The goal wasn’t to say hypervisor A, B, and C can do X amount of Y and Z. Rick’s comment on Jason Boche’s early post on this topic makes it crystal clear what his objective really was:

“… everyone is assuming I’m offering this as information for the enterprise. Not so. I really am targeting this to the customer who is going to select the free hypervisors for small, unmanaged installations.”

To satisfy me for “small unmanaged installations” Read the rest of this entry »