We are in the process of planning the next version of the new Mac client for XenApp. This new client will be focused on creating a transparent integrated desktop experience for the Mac platform. The concept is much the same as "Citrix Applications" (formerly PNAgent). Our goal is create an environment where users can move seamlessly between their locally installed apps and those being delivered by XenApp. Or, at least as seamless as you can get when you are running Windows apps on a Mac

 

We are running a survey for the next two weeks to gather feedback on the enhancements that will make the XenApp Mac experience world class. If you are interested in taking part in the survey just click here.

Thanks

Al Grandville

Citrix Product Management

    OK. So I'm airing some rather grungy laundry here but, for good reasons I'm sure, our internal implementation of XenApp serves up some 80 + apps to every user.  It's a pretty tough list to manage but, believe it or not, I've heard horror stories that some folks out there are dealing with hundreds and sometimes thousands (yes thousands) of published apps. You can just imagine how painful it must be for users to sort through such a cumbersome list every time they want to launch an app. XenApp provides tools to publish apps to only the subset of users who need them. This, of course, implies that the folks who set up XenApp had the time, resource and the information available to make these decisions. It's difficult to know how many user actually struggle with this problem but it still seems like an obvious place to uplift the users experience. The question is how we go about it.

Option 1 - Fine Tune Citrix Applications

    Citrix Applications allows users to move shortcuts to their desktop, quick launch bar, Vista gadget, etc ... Users can take advantage of all the methods that the OS provides to allow for quick access to his/her most commonly launched applications. There are some areas that still call for refinement like  full support for the recently used apps list in the Start Menu (right now we only show the last app launched ).

Option 2 - Favorites

    We could provide a method that allows users to create a list of favorite  apps. Once the list exists it would act as a filter and the users would only see their list of favorites. We would provide an interface to configure the list and to show the entire list again if the user needs to access an infrequently used app.

Option 3 - Most Recently Used

    A Most Recently Used or MRU list would build as users launched applications. When a user accessed the list their MRU entries would be their primary view with an easy way to expand the entire list if the user needs to access an infrequently used app. The size of the MRU list would be restricted to a small set of apps but could be made configurable by the user and/or the administrator.

    Back in the days of Windows 9.X Microsoft had "Network Neighborhood" on everyone's desktop. It made sense for us to place an icon on the desktop and call it "Program Neighborhood". From there is wasn't much of a leap to get to "Program Neighborhood Agent" when we decided to create a less conspicuous way to integrate applications into the Windows Start Menu and Desktop. Of course, Microsoft has long ago done away with the "Neighborhood" concept leaving us with a very cool program that no longer had a clear and meaningful name.

    Late last year we embarked on a project called "Pineapple". So named as it was charged with identifying the "low hanging fruit" in the users experience. It probably shouldn't be all that surprising that XenApp with its 13 year legacy doesn't have too much that's easy to  change. There's more to the story but for now let's say that Pineapple settled on crafting a consistent user experience across our products. As a result "Program Neighborhood Agent" became "Citrix Applications". We were shooting for something simple and obvious and I think we nailed it. And, yes, in case anyone was wondering we are considering making it possible to change "Citrix Applications" to something that makes even more sense depending on the implementation.

    These days there is a lot of emphasis at Citrix around End User Experience. You may have heard about "App Receiver" which has been highlighted during the keynote at "App Delivery Expo" back in October of 2007 and at our "Partner Summit" this past January.  App Receiver is our vision for a new user experience that will bring together multiple Citrix technologies in a way that is intuitive and easy to use. Imagine client software that is downloaded, installed and configured with little user interaction. An intelligent system that delivers the right components to the user without revealing any of the complexity involved. We will be talking more and more about App Receiver in the coming months so keep watching this space. I bring up App Receiver now only to point out that it is not simply "Program Neighborhood Agent" rebranded. The new "Citrix Applications" is a part of the larger vision and will play a key role in success of App Receiver but it is only a part of a much bigger plan to provide an awesome experience to the folks who use Citrix products every day to get theirs jobs done.

                So how about a few screen shots of the new "Citrix Applications" .....

Al Grandville

Citrix Product Management 

 So I was thinking a demonstration of XenApp desktop integration might be in order. "Citrix Applications" formerly known as "Program Neighborhood Agent" allows you to deliver Citrix applications seamlessly to the Windows Start Menu, Desktop, Quick Launch bar, Sidebar and the Windows Notification Area (AKA The Systray). Virtually everywhere you can place a Windows shortcut you can place a Citrix delivered app shortcut. Check it out ...

These were created on my Vista desktop but this all works equally well in Windows XP with the exception of the Sidebar which isn't available. The important take away is that users can interact with Citrix delivered apps in the same way they do with local apps.

 Our Motto - "If we do this right users wont know we've done anything at all."

 Al-

 
The XenApp User Experience breaks down into two camps:

1: The Transparent Integrated Desktop Experience -- In this model the users primary interface is either a Windows or Mac desktop. Some of their applications are locally installed and some are being delivered by XenApp. The best experience that Citrix could provide is one that completely obscures the apps mode of delivery. In short, users shouldn't be able to tell the difference between locally installed and Citrix delivered apps.

2: The Web Everywhere Experience- The Web based model is a story of consistency and ubiquity. Regardless of whether a user is connecting from their PC at work, at home or at a public kiosk the experience is always the same. Browse to a URL, enter your credentials and launch your apps.

Citrix covers these scenarios today with Program Neighborhood Agent and The XenApp Web Interface respectively. While it's difficult for us to measure the exact numbers the balance seems to lean toward the Web everywhere experience. The question is why ? There is a big focus on enhancing the transparent experience and a strong belief that If we get it right the Web UI will become virtually unnecessary.

So, Are we right ? What's stopping you from moving over to Program Neighborhood Agent and the Transparent Desktop Experience ?

Hi folks. It me again. Not only do I watch over Project Callisto and Web Interface I also responsible for the Common Management Interface (CMI) and its customer facing application the Access Management Console (AMC). have another feature question for everyone. Below you see two versions of the AMC. The one on the left is the product as it is today and the one on the right is, potentially, a new AMC. The key difference is that we have moved all of the common tasks out of the root and in to each node as appropriate. There is tremendous upside for us in our flexibility and timeliness on upgrades to the AMC and the specific product nodes. The downside is you would no longer be able to use common tools across multiple products. I.e. Search.

Obviously, removing functionality is always a concern for us so I like to hear how you feel about us making this change.

All comments are welcome even if they are ambivalent.

Thanks

Al-

Hello. I am the Product Manager for Citrix Web Interface. I writing today because I like to find out how our and partners feel about the Remote Configuration option in WI. Back in WI 4.0 we added the ability to store Web Interface configuration data in the IMA Data Store. This effectively you the ability to have multiple WI sites pull their configuration from one central location. The feature is limited in that it only centralize typically found in webinterface.conf and not other popular customizations like language files, ASP pages and packages. Katie Koepke from brianmadden.com does a nice job explaining the situation in her article How Web Interface 4.0 uses the Centralized Configuration Service.

We are hearing that the Remote Configuration Option, a particularly expensive feature for us to maintain, is rarely used. discontinuing this feature future versions of Web Interface. What do you think ?

Al-

Hello and welcome to our Identity and Access Management blog, and in particular, a very hearty welcome to what we call Callisto our quest here at Citrix to deliver the very best in Application Delivery Infrastructure solutions we obviously need to take a keen interest in authentication and single sign-on, after all these form the end user front door onto their access experience and are parts of the administrator protection from the outside world!

Project Callisto is a long-term strategic project within Citrix to consider the world of authentication and single sign-on, and to determine standards and technologies that Citrix can leverage in order to improve the security, consistency and interoperability between all of our products and with key 3^rd-party vendor systems. Indeed achieving specific improvements in these areas is the mission of Project Callisto, a mission that we on the Callisto Team are strongly committed to.

Having said that, this is an ideal moment to introduce you to the Callisto Team comprised of members from various departments within Citrix who come together to pool their respective experience and creativity. Mike McFarland and Al Grandville (me) represent Product Management and are responsible for owning the high level vision and establishing product requirements, coordinating these between teams in Citrix, and for defining any overall deliverables and milestones for the project. Chris Mayers represents the Architects group both as a project architect who is responsible for creating the concrete representation of the high level vision, and also as a security architect responsible for ensuring that stringent security guidelines are adhered to and security is built in during the development stage. Finally Nick Wise represents Engineering and is responsible for the actual technical details of delivering on Chris architectural blueprint. Of course as with any good team there is an even more important cadre of people behind the scenes supporting, assisting and advising us along the way.

Over time the Callisto Team intends to tell you all about our thinking around authentication and single sign-on, and we would also like to invite you to share with us your thinking in these areas. We hope to establish a dialogue that will allow all of us to be better informed and better prepared for the future, and to allow us to take mutual advantage of exciting new technologies such as Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) and other Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)-based services, and to make better use of the existing ones such as Kerberos. In addition some of our colleagues will be posting their views on how these technologies are affecting their specific products, for instance Andrew Innes (the Web Interface Guy) wrote a post introducing ADFS, and Jay Tomlin wrote a post on federation in the world of Web Interface.

In the near future we intend to bring you a lot more detail on our current thinking, and to talk more about our intention to address this vast space in more manageable phases. We are currently only in 1 but don let that fool you. think we have a lot to say but more importantly with your help we know there a lot we can learn.

So please, we invite you to share your thoughts and experiences relating to authentication and single sign-on with us. Feel free to ask questions and to talk about your experiences with our products to date, your current and future plans for authentication and single sign-on, specific pain points that you may be experiencing today, and especially your dreams and desires for connected business in the coming years.

Sincerely,

The Callisto Team