The Ideal XenApp User Experience - A few years back our usability and design teams started a comprehensive research project aimed at crafting the ideal user experience for XenApp. The results were not at all encouraging for Program Neighborhood. It turns out that the best thing we could do is to become invisible. Users want to get to their Apps so they can get work done. Our mission became to focus on a completely transparent user experience. Launching a XenApp delivered application should be like, or better then, launching a locally installed application. The new XenApp Plugin coupled with the Citrix Receiver and some core changes to XenApp around the way we launch applications are all under active development and are instrumental to helping us achieve this vision. Unfortunately there is no room, or need, for Program Neighborhood is this new model.

Program Neighborhood is the first user interface from the early WinFrame days. It's basically a launch pad for XenApp delivered Apps. Users are always aware that they are launching a different type of application, one that is somehow different and delivered in a different way. The user experience term for this is "cognitive dissonance" or more commonly known as "Just plain confusing". The PN interface has years of switches,options and settings that, while important at the time they were added, no longer have any real value and only provide a source of complexity and confusion for the user.

The XenApp Plugin - is designed to seamlessly integrate XenApp into the users environment. It does this by placing XenApp delivered shortcuts directly into the users StartMenu. These shortcuts are standard windows shortcuts and can be manipulated by the users in the same way. They can be copied on to the users desktop, or into their quicklaunch bar, etc ... (See my video demo of this) The important point is that there is no special training involved, no additional program to launch and, in fact, no need for the user to know that the App is any different than other apps they use. 
Some advanced answers to anticipated questions.

1: Are there additional requirements for the XA Plugin above and beyond what I need for Program Neighborhood?
    * Yes. The XA Plugin requires the XenApp Web Interface Service to provide the web services that drive the user experience. If you already have Web Interface in your XenApp farm it's simply a matter of creating an additional XenApp Services site on your WI Server.

2: When is this happening?
    * Program Neighborhood will not be one of the Plugins offered in the componentized client that we are planning to release in late 2009.

3: I use Program Neighborhood as a diagnostic tool to connect directly to a Server. Will I still have this ability in the new Plugin?
    * Probably. We are looking at options to provide similar functionality in the new client model. It may be a separate Plugin, a feature of the XenApp Plugin or something else.

Since it's inception in 1996 with the first release of WinFrame the "ICA Client" has been on a continuous improvement cycle. As WinFrame grew and evolved into XenApp the client grew and evolved right along with it. As you can imagine the client portion of XenApp that runs on every users device has been a fertile ground for integration and feature enhancement. Over the past 13 years we have added support for all sorts of client facilities like the clipboard, local drives, serial and parallel ports, printers, multiple monitors, etc ... And we have rarely and reluctantly ever dropped or "deprecated" any features or support. E.g. We have only recently dropped support for "Windows NT 4.0 Workstation" years after Microsoft had ended their support. For the most part this strategy has been pivotal to the success of XenApp. Many of our customers have used XenApp to maximize their investment in desktop hardware by delaying the endless death march of the continuous and costly desktop refresh cycle. However, it's time for change. The latest release of the client has swelled to over 3 million lines of code (which is a lot, trust me) and the test matrix has grown to the point where we spend a great deal of effort every release just on maintenance and testing alone. This, of course, makes it very difficult to be as responsive as we would like to the needs of our customers and our business.

So what are we are doing about it?

1: We are introducing a new client strategy that revolves around what we are calling the "Citrix Receiver". The Receiver is all about simplifying and enhancing the user experience. The Receiver achieves this in many ways but most germane to this discussion is it's ability to hide complexity from the users and make the Administrators job of managing and updating the client easier.

2: We are modularizing the client. Breaking the client into smaller more manageable pieces allows us the ability to be more granular with our changes and enhancements and more flexible in our release schedules.

For example the "XenApp Plugin for Hosted Apps" will break down into three smaller Plugins:

• The Hosting Engine - Responsible for all of the heavy lifting associated with the delivery of Hosted Apps and Desktops.
• SingleSignOn - Responsible for passthrough authentication from a domain joined client.
• XenApp User Experience - Responsible for managing the integration of XenApp into the users environment.

* These Plugins will be on independent release schedules and are delivered by the Citrix Receiver as necessary.

What's the upside?

•  The Receiver is the last Citrix client you will ever need to install - The Receiver has a premise based Server component that will act as staging area and control facility for propagating Plugin updates out to the end users. The receiver will periodically check the Server for updates and, provided you allow it, will update with the newer Plugins as they become available.

•    More frequent release of enhancements - Plugins will be released independently and on their own schedules meaning we'll be able to bring enhancements to market when they are ready without having to wait for a periodic client release.

•    More granular control over what gets installed on the clients - Administrators will be able to control which users get which Plugins and when.

* Note: A standalone Plugins Pack will be made available for those who would like to continue to manage their client updates with existing methods.

What's the downside?

In order to make room for these changes we need to remove\deprecate some of our legacy features:

1: Thinwire 1 - Thinwire 1 is a low-level graphics virtual channel that was replaced by Thinwire 2 back in MetaFrame 1.8 FR1 (August 2000). Removing TW1 from the Windows client means that you won't be able to connect to a MetaFrame 1.8 Server with the newer client. See, I told you we were reluctant to remove anything.

2: Program Neighborhood --Program Neighborhood has been around since the early days of WinFrame. PN is a launch pad for XenApp Applications. When launched it connects with the XenApp Server and lists the Apps that are available for the user. PN was effectively replaced by PNAgent (Now the XenApp User Experience Plugin), which provides the same functionality with a far superior interface by integrating the XenApp delivered Apps transparently into the users Desktop. We removed PN from an active enhancement path several generations ago but we've been keeping it alive in maintenance mode to give our customers time to move on to the newer and better XenApp Plugin. There is more to the story but I think I'll post that as a separate Blog entry.

Some advanced answers to anticipated questions.

1: When is this all happening?
    * Citrix receiver will first become available in late Q109 with the componentization of the client available late in the year, probably somewhere in the middle of the second half.

2: Will there be separate Receivers for XenApp and XenDesktop?
    * No. There will be one "Citrix Receiver" that will deliver Apps and\or Desktops depending on which Plugins are installed and active.

3: Will I be able to control, which Plugins are installed?
    * Yes. The Citrix Receiver will provide Administrator control over which Plugins are installed on which machines.

4: How many Plugin Packs will there be?
    * Two. We are trying to keep this simple. There will be one pack with all of the Plugins and another one designed to be more lightweight for more streamlined deployments.

5: What if I want more granular control over the Plugins?
    * We strongly encourage customers requiring granular control to use the Receiver but the Packs will allow for context switches that will toggle the install of specific Plugins. I.e. "CitrixReceiverPluginPack.exe /No USB"

XenApp and XenDesktop provide the means for users to access their Apps and Desktops from a wide variety of platforms and devices. At Citrix our vision is to create a world where anyone can work and play from anywhere. Mobility is not new to Citrix. There are XenApp clients available today for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, but small form factor devices have had their challenges. Slow, unreliable wireless networks, small screens and awkward user input models have relegated hand held access to small and highly specialized market segments. But that's all about to change.

The latest generation of hand held devices with their large, high definition screens and the availability of high-speed wireless networks are changing the game in a big way! A hand held device such as an iphone connected to XenApp via a high-speed 3G network yields a remarkably usable experience.

While serious content creation might have to wait for an external keyboard and monitor, consuming content like reviewing a spreadsheet or a patients records and simple tasks like approving an expense report are quite frictionless. And because you're accessing your content via XenApp and XenDesktop your access is fast and reliable and you never need to worry about your valuable data being compromised if you misplace or loose your phone.

I've been fielding quite a few inquiries lately about our strategy and plans for the iPhone. I thought it was time to let everyone know where we are and where we're going. The guys on our Mac development team in Chalfont, UK have just recently finished porting the core XenApp engine over to the iPhone platform. This was a great deal of work and the guys have done a brilliant job.

As you can see, pretty cool, but we still have quite a bit of work to do. During the next stage of the project we will be crafting a user experience that provides a natural, transparent and effortless user interface in keeping with the high standards set by our friends at Apple.

It's tough to say at this stage when we would have something that we could share with you but I promise if you watch this space we will provide regular updates on our progress and schedules as they reveal themselves.

Its the continuous and enthusiastic feedback we have collected from you all that has helped get this project off the ground. If you haven't done so already please check out Chris Fleck's iPhone blog and cast your vote.

Al-

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