VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘citrix’

XenServer 5 is ready for the Enterprise. That’s been one of the flavors of the partner “kool aid” flowing here at Citrix Summit 2008 this week. Customer adoption will gauge this statement over the next year, but from a feature stand point Citrix’s latest version of XenServer now has the “bells and whistles” necessary to compete for market share in the number one strategic technology for 2009 (according to Gartner), virtualization. Citrix is not just promising future releases and roadmaps either (although there is some of that happening here too), but partners are seeing demos and participating in hands on labs for product capabilities already available.

I was told over 100 new features and enhancements have been added to XenServer 5.0. I can’t say that I have experienced all 100+ of them this week personally, but I’ve seen enough to know the changes are obvious and impressive.

Click through this SlideShare.net presentation for new feature technical details and images provided by Barry Flanagan on his Citrix Community blog. Read the rest of this entry »

Like almost all of the virtualization vendors these days, Citrix has their own set of technologies in development that will enable a highly scalable and dynamic cloud server infrastructure. I attended a Citrix Summit 2008 breakout session yesterday about one of the new Citrix products at the heart of the Citrix Cloud Center (C3) portfolio; Citrix Workflow Studio.

Citrix describes Workflow Studio as an orchestrator of products and processes that allows all the technologies in Citrix’s version of the cloud to be automated and controlled. Combined with the virtualization and consolidation made possible by Citrix XenServer, Workflow Studio will enable administrators to turn virtual infrastructure into a dynamic delivery platform by: Read the rest of this entry »

User Profile Manager (UPM) is a product currently available for download as a technology preview from Citrix. UPM is Citrix’s answer to one of the biggest challenges facing companies migrating to server based computing (SBC) solutions such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI): maintaining a unique (or persistent) desktop for each user. Virtualizing persistent desktops for all users would normally require excessive storage requirements and numerous virtualization hosts for large user bases.

Today at the Citrix Summit 2008 partner conference in Orlando, FL I listened to David Wagner, Product Manager, and Sascha Juch, Assistant Manager R&D, present how UPM simplifies the separation of unique user settings from desktop sessions. Therefore, UPM enhances XenApp’s ability to deploy multiple desktops from a single virtual machine image. When the user personality can be streamed to a desktop separately from the OS and applications, the VDI infrastructure requirement is reduced yet the multiple unique user desktop experience is still be achieved.

The administrative benefits of UPM are key as the configurations necessary to achieve this type of user mobility usually consist of a combination of managing roaming profiles, enabling folder redirection, keeping track of registry changes, and performing application customizations. Citrix UPM provides administrators the simplicity of a Windows service install and the centralization of a Group Policy ADM template. For the unique user personality, profiles and settings are stored on a network share. UPM then makes sure only the changes in data between user log ons and sign offs are transferred across the network. As a result, the technology is centrally controlled by the IT department, fast and efficient, and transparent to the desktop users.

Since UPM is still a technology preview and parts of today’s session are subject to the Citrix Partner NDA, I’m providing the following links for more information already available about Citrix User Profile Manager on the web today. Read the rest of this entry »

I am in Orlando, FL this week attending the Citrix Summit 2008 Partner Conference. Although I will not be live blogging, I will try to write summary posts of some of the sessions I get to attend. Much of the material from this conference is subject to the Citrix Partner NDA, so I will be limited to what I can report. I’m looking forward to technical sessions and labs on XenServer 5.0, XenDesktop, and learning more about how XenApp Server can be hosted as a VM on XenServer. I’m sure I’ll also get to hear a lot about how XenApp can publish applications for virtual desktop solutions as well.

I will tag all posts from this event as citrixsummit2008 for future reference.

The conference is being held at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotel. It’s a location in right in the middle of the Disney properties and parks. This morning after breakfast I was able to enjoy a great walk to the Disney Boardwalk, and then I followed a paved trail around the hotel’s central lake which took me past the neighboring Beach Club and Yacht Club Hotels as I worked my way back to the Dolphin building again.

I’m not sure of the cost of a family vacation at the Swan and Dolphin or one of the properties I walked past, but if you get the opportunity I would highly recommend staying here. I’ve seen a lot of families here so it must be reasonable. There are free water taxis to Epcot Center, and free buses to everywhere else. Click on the resort map image to the right for a larger view of the location.

As I am writing this I can hear fireworks, so I assume it must be Epcot’s nightly show. I’ll be sure to catch that tomorrow!

So everybody and their mother has a virtualization product now. Too bad all the vendors could not standardize on the same key (or key combinations) that releases the mouse from a virtual machine’s (VM) console window. Until that day happens (don’t hold your breath) this post will be my listing of known host key or key combinations by vendor and product for when your mouse is stuck in a VM.

Please leave a comment on any products I have not included and I’ll update the list.

Updated 10.03.08 – corrected key combination for Mac versions and created separate rows for VMware Fusion and Parallels Workstation

One of the posts I used as a research reference was Common Virtualization Keyboard Shortcuts from x86virtualization.com. Check out this post for a complete listing all keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft and VMware products besides the one for escaping the mouse from the VM console.

Since my company is a Citrix Partner I have the opportunity to become a Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) for XenServer Enterprise Edition 4.1 (version 5 classes are still in development). I just received the instructions for signing up for the training and redeeming the vouchers for the online partner course and labs (here is the link to non partner instructor led courses). I am also attending the Citrix Summit Partner Conference in Orlando, FL at the end of this month (Oct. 26 – 29), so look for some more XenServer and XenDesktop content here on VM / ETC in the upcoming weeks/months.

For now, here is the CCA XenServer Enterprise Edition Exam and various test and certification details for anyone that is interested (and for my future reference!). Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday September 18, 2008 I was lucky enough to be in the audience for Brian Madden’s first ever VMworld Session. As a well known Citrix administrator and a popular blogger, Brian’s opinions and recommendations regarding Citrix, Microsoft Terminal Server, and Server Based Computing (SBC) in general are followed worldwide. With the audience overflowing the Ballroom D of the Venetian Hotel / Sans Expo Conference Center, Brian provided a thought provoking, entertaining, and often times humorous presentation comparing the pros and cons of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Terminal Services (TS) today. Then Looking forward, Brian analyzed the future of SBC and rationalized the potential of VDI. I would have to rank this session as one of the best that I have personally attended at any of the three VMworlds I have been to.

To get a feel for Brian’s presentation style, watch the footage Eric Sloof shot and now provides In streaming video from his NTPRO.nl blog site. Eric has spliced together roughly 17 minutes of the 1 hour presentation, but it is still worth watching in conjunction with reading my notes that I have provided in the rest of this post.

Brian started out by likening Terminal Services to the Read the rest of this entry »