News and information about desktop virtualization
All twenty speaking slots for the first ever Geek Speak BarCamp are filled and the scheduled is locked in tight. (Read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here
, here and here). This event happens on the evening of May 21st at Synergy in Houston (in room 360 right after Geek Speak Live).
I have communicated to all the speakers the schedule, and this is now the final one I will post before Citrix Synergy. We have had a few changes (including one speaker dropping due to another commitment) but we have twenty full sessions.
The line up now includes FOUR Citrix Technology Specialists, four consultants, two Escalation Tech Support Engineers, four Product Managers, a HP Print Driver Developer and a Senior Architect from a large healthcare company.
If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.
There is one day left to get your vote in for the XenDesktop Video Tips Contest here. As of this posting, there have been almost 300 votes. The video tip "VDI Made as EASY as Pie" by Gareth Jameshas expanded its lead a bit over the "XenDesktop User Experience" video.
VDI Made as Easy as Pie
XenDesktop User Experience Comparison
The "XenDesktop with SC VMM and Hyper V" video is in third place.
XenDesktop with SC VMM and Hyper V
Check out these great desktop virtualization videos and cast your vote now.
The creators of the top three video tips as voted by you will receive prizes including an Apple iPod Touch 16 G, an Apple iPod Touch 8 GB, and a Apple iPod Nano.
If you have been following some of the recent blog posts about Nirvana Devices and Nirvana Phones, you can get a better idea of what we are talking about in this video clip. Conceptually the Nirvana Phone takes the Smartphone to the next level by solving the existing limitations of small screens and keyboards. There are now some new devices that are close to making this possible, especially in combination with a Virtualized Desktops and applications like XenDesktop and XenApp.
Stay tuned for more videos and demos of the state of the art in Nirvana Phones , or better yet register for Citrix Synergy and try them for yourself, you may even win one !
The Citrix Innovation Award is "designed to recognize Citrix customers that strategically leverage application delivery to gain a competitive business advantage". Last year's winner, Cox Communications, is a great example of this.
The voting is now open for this years Citrix Innovation Award -
...the three finalists for the annual 2008 Citrix Innovation Award: Bechtel Corporation, Cocamar Cooperativa Agroindustrial and Mutual of Omaha. These finalists were chosen by a panel of IT industry experts, including an industry analyst and a past Citrix Innovation Award winner. The finalists were selected in recognition of their innovative use of Citrix application delivery and virtualization solutions to address organizational or market challenges and advance their businesses. The three finalists will be recognized for their significant accomplishments at the upcoming Citrix Synergy™ 2008 conference, held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston from May 20 to May 23. The winner will be determined by votes cast both online and during the conference by registered attendees and will be announced on May 21 in the keynote session. To cast your vote now, go to http://www.citrix.com/innovationaward .
The Citrix Innovation Award is for Citrix customers who innovate in utilizing technology to make a significant impact on their business. Ultimately, information technology is about delivering applications to end users so they can perform business transactions. These three nominees have innovated in their use of Citrix technology to cut costs, reduce time to revenue for projects, and to mitigate risk.
Here is the video from Betchel Corporation -
Next up is Cocamar Cooperativa Agroindustrial-
And finally the video for Mutual of Omaha (yes, the Wild Kingdom guys for those who remember that show) -
The judges for this years Citrix Innovation Award are listed below -
•Josh Nelson - vice president of network and information technology, Cox Communications (Winner, 2007 Citrix Innovation Award)
•Steve Greenberg - founder and president of Thin Client Computing
•Michael Rose - associate research analyst, IDC
• Abolfazl Sirjani - senior director, advanced products, Citrix
•Wes Wasson - senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Citrix
How to Vote
You can vote now for the Citrix Innovation award online at http://www.citrix.com/innovationaward. The winner will be named during the keynote session at Citrix Synergy 2008 on Wednesday, May 21st. Citrix Synergy will be held on May 20th to May 23rd at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.
If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy..
You still have time to get your vote in for the XenDesktop Video Tips Contest here. As of this posting, there have been almost 200 votes. Currently "VDI Made as EASY as Pie" by Gareth James maintains a slight lead.
The creators of the top three video tips as voted by you will receive prizes including an Apple iPod Touch 16 G, an Apple iPod Touch 8 GB, and a Apple iPod Nano.
Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenApp now offer customers two different computing models for centralizing their client computing. I have had about a dozen or so customer conversations regarding where the best use of each technology is. I want to share that with everyone.
People ask me whether the IT and business problems to centralize have changed. The answer is - they have not. Costs, compliance/security and flexibility for access remain to be IT challenges that centralization can solve. If you think about the culprit that keeps the TCO of desktops high, it is application deployment and management.
The two problems that customers have been able to successfully address with XenApp are:
1. Delivering appa to users anywhere - typically customers start with virtualizing problem apps and grow their XenApp usage overtime.
2. Virtualizing the full desktop with all the apps - it has worked great for task based workers who use standardized locked down environments with few apps.
Overtime, XenApp has addressed several key challenges in addressing those requirements including scalability (via 64-bit), app compatibility (via app isolation environments any app can be made compatible with XenApp), graphics (via SpeedScreen), performance monitoring (via EdgeSight) and offline support (via portable app virtualization/streaming). This has enabled an even broader use of XenApp for virtualizing more apps within existing XenApp customer base.
Now, XenDesktop enables our customers to expand desktop virtualization to not just task workers (served via XenApp shared desktops) but also office workers (VM/Blade based dedicated desktop). However, dedicated desktops always come at a cost. The cost is reflected in the user density per server. Where as a dual core XenApp server can serve 100 shared desktops, XenDesktop can serve about 10-12 users per dual core server. So, the cost of hardware required per user goes up from $25-$50 for XenApp to about $250-$350 per user on XenDesktop. Hence, the XenApp based shared desktops will always be the most cost effective way to deliver virtual desktops.
Both models have their merits and limitations. As stated XenApp serves desktops in the most cost effective manner and is best suitable for task based workers. The limitation for XenApp is around personalization capabilities - end users cannot fully personalize their environment, which is a need for mainstream office users. XenDesktop, on the other hand, is best suited for virtual desktop delivery for mainstream office worker. The real limitation lies in offline access requirements, or advanced peripheral support.
LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST - delivering applications using XenApp radically lowers TCO of BOTH physical and virtual desktops by enabling IT to centralize the apps and never install them with the desktop. There are different benefits for physical PCs and virtual desktops.
With physical PCs, benefits of using XenApp are:
1. Increases the life of PCs
2. Enhances application and data security
3. Enables app delivery anywhere using any device
4. Lowers the cost of application management
With XenDesktop (virtual desktops), benefits of using XenApp are:
1. Dynamic provisioning of virtual desktop implies that a user's desktop always stays pristine with no apps installed - all apps are delivered (using streaming or hosting technologies) enabling an on demand assembly of personalized desktop at the time when a user logs on.
2. Predictability and Capacity planning on VDI - Separating all LOB apps that have unpredictable (problematic) resource requirements, and running them on separate XenApp servers, prevents over-provisioning the VDI server architecture and can reduce the number of servers required for virtual desktops, improving the TCO of virtual desktops.
3. Application and license management - each app can be controlled granularly. You have complete visibility into who has access to the applications and who accessed which application when.
In summary, IT now has two excellent options (XenApp and XenDesktop) for building their virtualization infrastructure to meet the needs across all their use cases:
Task workers - use thin clients with shared desktops delivered via XenApp
Mainstream office workers - use desktop appliances with dedicated desktops delivered via XenDesktop
Mobile users - use XenApp to deliver all streamed or hosted apps for both connected and offline access
At Synergy (http://www.citrix.com/synergy), this topic will be discussed at length. Come visit us!
In my previous post on Geek Speak Bar Camp (May 21st at Citrix Synergy), we had foruteen of the twenty speaking slots filled. As of now, all twenty speaking slots for the first ever Geek Speak BarCamp are filled. (Read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here).
The line up now includes three Citrix Technology Specialists, four consultants, two Escalation Tech Support Engineers, a VDI Specialist from VMWare, four Product Managers, an HP Print Driver Developer and a Senior Architect from a large healthcare company.
I am looking forward to flying to Houston and getting this event started. I think that after seeing this line up and the list of technical sessions in the other tracks, I think you will agree with Shawn Bass when he wrote -
I'm getting the general feeling like this might just be the most technical Citrix iForum ever
I am still working on juggling the time schedule to meet everyones equipment requirements and time constraints. I expect to finalize by Monday or Tuesday.
If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.
It is time to start taking votes for the best XenDesktop Video Tip. The creators of the top three video tips will receive prizes including an Apple iPod Touch 16 G, an Apple iPod Touch 8 GB, and a Apple iPod Nano.
Here are the XenDesktop Video Tips -
XenDesktop User Experience Comparison
VDI Made as Easy as Pie
XenDesktop User Personalization with AppSense
20 Desktops Delivered in 2 Minutes
XenDesktop with SC VMM and Hyper V
XenDesktop from Germany
Vote below for the best XenDesktop Video TIp -
| Which Video Tip is the best? | Choose |
|---|---|
| XenDesktop User Experience |  |
| VDI Made as Easy as Pie | |
| XenDesktop User Personalization with AppSense | |
| 20 Desktops Delivered in 2 Minutes | |
| XenDesktop with SC VMM and Hyper V | |
| XenDesktop from Germany | |
Voting will remain open until next Friday, May 16th.
This is an in-depth look on Virtual Desktop provisioning and lifecycle management using XenDesktop technologies.
cheers,
Gus Pinto
Twitter/GusPinto
We now have fourteen of the twenty sessions at the Geek Speak BarCamp filled (read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here).
I have put together a tentative schedule of the sessions we have to date. The sessions, title, and schedule could still change, but the overall schedule is coming together.
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We are still working to fill the final six slots. Please submit your session topic now. You can use the comments in this thread, or you can email me at citrixblogger @citrix.com . You can also IM questions to citrixblogger on MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk.
If you have not yet registered for Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.
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