Citrix is pleased to announce the finalists for the Citrix Innovation Award, which recognizes exceptional customers using Citrix solutions to achieve business transformation and IT simplicity. These eleven organizations, from Brazil to Germany to Japan, are reducing costs, improving customer service, increasing productivity and positioning their organizations for growth and expansion with a Citrix solution.  

Voting for the Citrix Innovation Award is now open!  We encourage you to take a few minutes to learn more about the finalists, get inspired, and vote now for your favorite stories of innovation. The winner will be chosen through a combination of popular vote by visitors to the online voting site, and by a panel of professional members from the IT industry, and will be announced at Citrix Synergy in San Francisco, May 12-14, 2010.

Do you believe the iPad will change the way we do computing? I don't.  Don't get me wrong. The Apple iPad, the HP Slate, the Notion Ink Adam, Fusion Garage's JooJoo are awesome devices and I wouldn't mind someone buying me one, but do I think they will have a huge impact on business? Not really.

I see these computing devices as another alternative, but not the only device you will need.  Gone are the days where each device only did a single thing. You remember those people walking around with pagers, phones, walkmans all attached to their belts.  Looked like a bunch of Batman superheroes walking around (without the Batman physique).   Now we have these devices that can do all sorts of things, but I don't think they can replace your work computer.

As I see it, most business people need two types of devices:

1.       The Work Device

2.       The Anywhere Device

The work device is just that, the main device you use to perform your job.  My job requires that I write a lot of documents, draw architecture diagrams, and create presentations.  I need a full sized keyboard.  I need a sensitive mouse. I need a large monitor.  Could I use one of the new tablet style devices? Yes, but I would need add on devices, which turns this into a crazy looking laptop. 

How about healthcare workers? Brian Madden posted a blog on How Apple's iPad could fit into Desktop Virtualization. This might be a great place to start. Can doctors or nurses really use these devices? One would think it would make perfect sense to carry one around into different patient rooms and their charts would magically appear. This is the main point Brian was making.  It sounds awesome, but is it practical? Upon closer inspection I don't think it really works.

• Where is the doctor going to place the device when doing a physical workup of the patient?   Do you place it on the exam table?  I see it crashing onto the floor and breaking into a million pieces.  Do you place it on the counter next to the sink? I don't think these things are water proof.

• Do we have any concerns that these devices would transport contagions to different patient rooms?  Doctors/nurses all clean their hands when they enter, what about the tablet?   These devices will become the carriers. Talk about a new form of computer viruses. This time the viruses infect humans.

• What happens if the doctors forgets to take the device with them? I bet it would be stolen.  Pretty easy for a patent to sneak out with one.

I know there are other devices out there that you can drop on the floor, but does it matter? Right now, most patient rooms have dedicate spots for the computer/thin client.  With tablets, there is no dedicated spot. These devices don't appear to make sense as a work device replacement, but what about an anywhere device?  Most people have these devices already. They are small and do many functions. They are called a smart phones.  You use these in situations where you don't have your work computer and you just need a quick update wherever you are at (conferences, airplane, stop light, even the bathroom).  These new tablets do not fit into this category either because they are too large. They don't fit in my pocket or on my belt!!!

So is the iPad and other similar devices going to be a bust? Not in the slightest.  I think these devices bring us to a new category: The Armchair Device.

Most people will use these devices while sitting in a chair at an airport, on a plane, at home in front of the TV, but not in the office.  They will be utilized in situations where a laptop's flexibility is not required and a smart phone is too constraining.  As I see it, if you will be mostly reading materials, or watching videos, these devices make sense.  If you are creating content, you will most likely struggle.

Being able to read  books, surf the web, Twitter/Facebook/IM with friends on a larger screen device makes these devices the true Armchair Device.  If we want to extend this further to include reading work email and work-related documents securely, that is when you look at Citrix Receiver. 

If history has shown us anything, these devices will appear. They will be brought into work. They will be used to access work-related material.  They will be used to consume data but not create data.  What are you going to allow users to access? Data? Applications? Desktops?  Now is the time to think about how these devices can be integrated into your infrastructure before you are trying to play catch up.   

Now if I could just get the iPad to control my TV  

Daniel

Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
Blog for Next-Gen Desktop: Ask The Architect
Questions, then email Ask The Architect
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Citrix and Microsoft have once again expanded their already strong alliance by agreeing to collaborate on RemoteFX. See Harry Labana's Blog for more details. I know many journalists only look for the "train wreck" or misalignment in our relationship, because it makes better "news", but it is my job to keep Citrix and Microsoft aligned, from technology, business and messaging perspectives. Windows is our innovation platform and we have built a strong business partnering with Microsoft...this will not change. This is not a small news story as it provides Citrix with a new innovation platform to take HDX to a new level and continue to provide our customers the best solutions on the planet. Watch this space, as we help Microsoft develop Remote FX into a strong graphics remoting platform.

To participate simply go to Desktop Virtualization Hour today at 9a.m. PST; 12:00p.m. EST

At the beginning of the year, I blogged about how 2010 would be the defining year for the virtual desktop revolution - through huge advancements in simplicity, ROI, flexibility and manageability. Today, Microsoft and Citrix joined forces to make some groundbreaking announcements that will put virtual desktop adoption on the fast track!

The announcements cover the deepening of our unique partnership with Microsoft, our integrated desktop virtualization solutions, and very compelling joint offers for all of our customers. As IT organizations plan their desktop strategy, it gives them a lot of confidence to know that two industry leaders are partnering to deliver the best and most comprehensive solution to simplify virtual desktops.

What was announced today:
•Simple, flexible, and no-charge VECD licensing. Big change. Customers with Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) will get Windows licensing for VDI at no additional cost
•Attractive joint offers to get started with VDI now. If the cost of VDI was holding you back, here are 2 limited-time, promotions from Citrix and Microsoft to "kick-start" your VDI deployment. If you have a failed VMware VDI deployment, we have a "jump-start" solution for you!
•XenDesktop delivers even better value, simplicity and user experience. Citrix is once again raising the bar with XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 1 - delivering a broad range of new features as well as tighter integration with Microsoft virtualization products
•New integrated user experience enhancements on the horizon. A new joint collaboration agreement provides the foundation for Citrix HDX to leverage the upcoming Microsoft RemoteFX (formerly known as Calista) platform technology.

 Lowering the Barriers to Adoption

You asked for it - "Simpler VECD licensing at a lower cost". It's here now and it's not only simpler and flexible, it's free.

I believe one of the biggest changes in the world of desktop virtualization is that Windows licensing for VDI is now free for Microsoft SA customers. With Microsoft SA, you have access to virtual desktop licensing and Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, making it that much easier to implement XenDesktop on this platform. What's more, Microsoft have also provided "roaming" rights - meaning that the primary user of a virtual desktop can go to any device to access their virtual desktop. (For those of you that are new to VDI/VECD licensing, previously you had to have Microsoft SA and add a "VECD" annual subscription license for every device accessing virtual desktops, even if it was one user on multiple devices.) This is a great announcement by Microsoft, and it paves the way to accelerate mainstream adoption of desktop virtualization and Citrix XenDesktop.

In addition, Citrix and Microsoft have put together two attractive promotions that are going to make it easy and cost-effective for everyone to start their VDI deployments. (See Sumit Dhawan's blog for more details on the promotions.)

The first is called the "VDI Kick Start" promotion. The VDI Kick Start promotion gives Microsoft customers with Select or Enterprise Agreements the opportunity to save more than 50% on a VDI solution. This offer is available through June 30, 2010, so ask your Microsoft and Citrix reps for more information to get your projects rolling right away.

The second promotion is a terrific opportunity help out all those customers that have been struggling to get their VMware View implementations working. We frequently hear about failed VMware VDI deployments and I have met several customers who evaluated the product in the lab and found that its performance did not meet user expectations - stalling the roll out. For all these customers, we have the new "Rescue for VMware VDI" promotion! Customers can replace their VMware View or VDM licenses with Citrix XenDesktop VDI Edition and Microsoft VDI Suite for FREE - and "jump-start" their VDI deployment to be up and running like they had planned. (No jumper cables required.)

With a revolutionary change in VECD licensing and such attractive promotions, there is no better time to start your VDI deployment than now.

Technology Integration Today...

Citrix announced XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 1, to be released later this month. This is a significant feature update that incorporates all the power of the recently announced XenApp 6. This release delivers tight integration between Citrix virtualization products and Microsoft's virtualization and management platform to fully leverage Microsoft infrastructure. With this release, IT can publish Microsoft App-V application packages through XenApp and enable users to self-service on-demand delivery of apps via Citrix Dazzle. In addition, to simplify management and administration, AppCenter - the single management console for managing the entire XenApp application delivery infrastructure is integrated with Microsoft management tools. Finally, the release also provides several user experience enhancements, including up to 5X faster logons. (Calvin gives more in-depth information on XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 1 here)

... And Further Collaboration for the Future

Microsoft and Citrix also announced a joint collaboration agreement around Microsoft's new platform technology called RemoteFX. RemoteFX enables users with virtual or session-based desktops on a server to leverage hardware-based acceleration for delivering a rich experience for graphics, 3D apps and multi-media. It's built on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Hyper-V and Remote Desktop Services platforms - which means that it will work for multiple Citrix FlexCast delivery models, including hosted shared desktops, VDI and hosted applications.

Through the joint collaboration agreement, Microsoft and Citrix will work together on enabling Citrix HDX technology to extend the capabilities of the RemoteFX platform. We'll have access to the APIs and other resources we need to enable this integration within six months of the general availability of RemoteFX. Specifically, XenDesktop will include a new technology called "HDX Rich Graphics with RemoteFX," which will provide the ability to:
• Dynamically detect RemoteFX-capable servers and endpoints and leverage the hardware acceleration to deliver graphics-intensive, media-rich or 3D applications to XenDesktop users. This will ensure that customers are able to best leverage their infrastructure investments and deliver the most optimal experience to users.
• Enable RemoteFX to extend beyond the LAN to deliver desktops and applications to a broader range of endpoints, networks and use cases.

I would like you to learn more about these joint offers and solutions. For more information, visit http://www.citrixandmicrosoft.com/. Even better, join us at the Microsoft and Citrix 100-city global road show coming soon to a city near you. Register at http://www.citrix.com/roadshow

I started the year with "What to Expect in Desktop Virtualization in 2010?" It's only March, and things are looking pretty good for the year.

Raj Dhingra

GM, XenDesktop.

When you hear terms like "feature pack" or "service pack" or "service release," usually you expect a few bug fixes, maybe a couple cool widgets here and there - but overall relatively minor stuff...right?

In this case, XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 1 may be the understatement of the year (and it's only March!) This is a feature update that adds several new capabilities to XenDesktop 4 that deepen integration with the Microsoft platform and further enhance end user experience, improve scalability, and simplify management. Some of the highlights of this release include:

• Access to virtual desktops that's up to 5x Faster. New "streamed user profiles" in XenDesktop can shorten virtual desktop and application log-on times up to 5x, dramatically enhancing user experience. The new release also includes a variety of enhancements to the company's HDX technology, designed to ensure a high definition experience for all users, regardless of where they are or what type of device they are using.

• Unparalleled Scalability. XenDesktop 4, Feature Pack 1, has been verified through formal testing to deliver an unprecedented 100,000 shared virtual desktop sessions concurrently from a single site. The shared hosted model is one of several virtual desktop options included in XenDesktop's FlexCast™ delivery technology - and one that is widely deployed by hundreds of thousands of customers to several million users every day.

• Simplified App Management - The new XenDesktop version incorporates all the capabilities of the company's recent XenApp 6 release, including tight integration with Microsoft App-V. With more than half the ROI of desktop virtualization coming from centralized app management, these improvements offer significant new simplification and cost savings for IT!

So in a nutshell, we put all the power of a major version upgrade from XenApp 6 into this "feature pack," and added even more goodies on top of it. Let's dive into a few specifics around some of the highlights.

Enhancements for ever FlexCast Delivery Model

Since desktop virtualization means a lot more than just VDI, with XenDesktop 4 FP1, every FlexCast delivery model offers new benefits. Breaking it down:

• For all FlexCast delivery models: Feature Pack 1 provides complete integration with Microsoft App-V, enabling XenDesktop to provide on-demand, self-service app delivery integration with App-V through Citrix Dazzle and Receiver.

• For Hosted Shared Desktops: Feature Pack 1 offers support for Windows Server 2008 R2, integration with Microsoft management tools, and dramatically simplified installation and configuration. This release also improves productivity for end users with extensive new high-definition HDX technologyenhancements for Windows portable USB devices, support for Microsoft OCS, VoIP and more. These innovative HDX enhancements were delivered for Hosted VM-based Desktops and Streamed Desktops in 2009

• For Hosted Shared Desktops, Hosted VM-based Desktops, and Streamed Desktops: Feature Pack 1 includes Streamed User Profiles, a new capability that can shorten virtual desktop and hosted application logon times by up to 5X. Streaming profiles let the user complete the logon process without having to wait for the entire profile (sometimes 200-300MBs large) to load. In addition, a new "active write back" feature speeds logoff times by sending profile changes to the central store during the session as they occur, rather than waiting to do them all in one big batch at logoff.

• For high-end 3D graphics users on Hosted Blade PCs: This update includes enhancements to HDX 3D for Professional Graphics, providing support for Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit), Windows XP 64-bit, and lossless compression (ideal for users of medical imaging applications).

Feature Pack 1 will be made available later this month! All new customers and customers with active Subscription Advantage can get the new capabilities in Feature Pack 1 by downloading them from MyCitrix.

Customer interest in investigating desktop virtualization is extremely high - actually, several customers go further to tell me that virtualizing the desktops is a top priority this year with Windows 7. And the technology is now ready for customers to adopt desktop virtualization. However, the challenge customers are having is not really a technology one - it is that they are waiting - waiting for budgets, VMware vs. Citrix/Microsoft, etc. Several companies have allocated budget for Windows 7 and many of you are looking for the next generation desktop architecture. Because of this, and the true urgency of the desktop decision that you may be facing, we made some key strategic announcements in partnership with Microsoft for virtual desktops. Here is an update for what's new

One of the key announcements was a couple of limited-time product offers for virtual desktops; they are desgined so all of you can dive into desktop virtualization this year. These offers fall into two camps: 1) for those new to virtual desktops and 2) for those that have already tried virtual desktops with VMware and are struggling to make the solution work to meet your needs. Our hope is that with these two offers, we will help you become successful, quickly, with your desktop transformation so you can start using the power of virtual desktops for your environments.

For those of you new to virtual desktops and have been wondering what to do, the VDI Kick Start Program is the place for you to start. If you have been worried about long, tenuous budget approval processes for large sums of money just to enable your users to try out virtual desktops, VDI Kick Start Offer is perfect for you. With VDI Kick Start, you can start with virtual desktops now for only $28 per user for the first 250 users for one year. The VDI Kick Start Offer delivers the award winning XenDesktop VDI Edition and Microsoft VDI Suite Standard Edition. For just $7,000 you can start experiencing virtual desktops for 250 users for 1 full year. It is an excellent way to let users experience the power of virtual desktops - enabling them to use any device, anywhere, LAN or WAN while ensuring centralized management and security. XenDesktop VDI Edition and Microsoft VDI Suite Standard Edition are perfect starting points for virtual desktops - and inclue all the technologies required to make your virtual desktop implementation successful. You get the key Microsoft platform technologies - Hyper-V, App-V and System Center virtual machine manager; and the XenDesktop delivery solution that includes HDX high definition user experience and image management for optimizing storage.

Now, some of you have already attempted to implement virtual desktops with other VDI products and have not had significant success. Perhaps it is because desktop virtualization holds a different priority for someone like VMware - using a VDI product as a sweetener to sell server virtualization, rather than solving your desktop computing needs. And thus their products don't deliver what your users demand. As a result, I have run into several customers of these VDI products that are facing poor experience and are struggling with stalled implementations and failed pilots. To help all of these customers to get back on their VDI track, Citrix & Microsoft are offering Rescue for VMware VDI Offer. If you have any VMware View product licenses, including any of the previous versions, such as VDM, you can now trade in up to 500 of VMware licenses for Citrix XenDesktop and Microsoft VDI Suite FOR FREE. This means you can restart your desktop transformation using virtual desktops by giving users a high definition experience regardless of their location and device, and managing virtual desktops using the familiar System Center platform. This gives you time to evaluate your virtual desktop strategy and help you pick the solution that is right for you.

Here are some comments from Brad Anderson at Microsoft regardin the offers

Microsoft & Citrix are committed to helping our customers deliver the best desktop experience to their users and we believe that we can do this though the power of virtual desktops. While we know that VDI is not suitable for every user and thus will not solve all of your desktop challenges, we believe that it should be considered by every enterprise organization looking at the desktop of the future. Here is your opportunity to kick start or get rescued!

For more information, visit http://www.citrixandmicrosoft.com

Customer demand for virtual desktops continues to grow and the opportunity for Citrix partners is better than ever. If you're not talking to customers about virtual desktops, well then, you're just missing out in my opinion. And, unless you've been living under a rock you know that XenDesktop 4 was launched last October to rave reviews from industry press, analysts and customers. We even won an InfoWorld 2010 Technology of the Year award!

To further highlight this growing opportunity, today Citrix is making some key strategic announcements in partnership with Microsoft. These announcements reinforce how Microsoft and Citrix are working together to deliver a complete virtual desktop solution. In addition, we are making it extremely attractive for you, our partner, to help customers try the power of virtual desktops with little to no investment.

First, customers can get started for only $28 per user with our VDI Kick Start Offer. The offer includes Citrix XenDesktop VDI Edition and Microsoft VDI Suite Standard Edition. This is all the required software you need to deliver 250 virtual desktops for 1 full year. This is the perfect opportunity to build a proof-of-concept and help customers experience the benefits of a high definition user experience and a complete management stack.

Second, we want to make it easy for you to help anyone who has tried other VDI products and not found them to be as feature rich and as functional. For these customers we're introducing the Rescue for VMware VDI promotion. If you have any VMware VDI product licenses, including older versions of those products, you can trade-in up to 500 of those licenses for Citrix XenDesktop and Microsoft VDI Suite at 100% off the list price!

Please refer to the details of these promotions posted here.

So, why should you care? As a Citrix and Microsoft partner, this is a great chance to talk with customers and educate them on the benefits of virtual desktops from Citrix and Microsoft. Think about how many customers are looking at Windows 7 migrations and PC refresh? You can show them how to leverage their existing investments in infrastructure, deploy Windows 7, extend the useful life of new client devices and deliver IT as an on-demand service. You get to be the first solution provider to show them a complete solution for users of all types: Hosted, Local, Remote, Online or Offline. Anywhere on any device goes without saying, we're Citrix after all. This is your chance to lead the way and grow your business with two companies committed to partnering with you.

Your first step to getting started is to attend today's Desktop Virtualization Hour, hosted by Microsoft. To participate, simply go to Desktop Virtualization Hour at 9am PST; 12:00pm EST. In this interactive session, you'll hear more about our joint announcements, learn from a panel of customers, and have access to videos, offers, and on-demand sessions. If you miss today's session, information will be available online at the above links and in the Citrix Partner Portal, My Citrix, to help you learn more.

Finally, reach out to your Citrix and Microsoft field representatives. Any reason to call them is a good one, but this is a GREAT one!

There is a bunch of meaningful news for our industry today and some key topics that I've been itching to talk about for weeks. So let's start with everybody's favorite topic, licensing.

VECD is free if you are a Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) customer

Yes it's true, thank you Microsoft! Starting July 1 2010, Microsoft will remove a key barrier to the adoption of the VDI model of desktop virtualization. I can't begin to express my relief at this. I have been in far too many customer meetings where VECD becomes a barrier to adoption for customers who are already current on SA, and frankly complicates the conversation. I think this is significant for our industry and now makes desktop virtualization a reality for many customers who have been on the fence and simplifies the whole process.
VECD has always been a requirement for implementing the VDI model within the desktop virtualization solution portfolio. For SA customers it used to be $56/device/year, and then was slashed to $23/device/year, which was significantly cheaper than buying VECD without SA which was $110/device/year. However, it still remained a barrier to many. I know from personal experience that buying SA made a lot of sense to entitle you to a number of benefits including upgrades to Microsoft products. However, I was always looking to get more value from SA, and I think waving VECD for SA customers will make this a no brainer for the vast majority of customers who understand the strategic drivers for desktop virtualization

I think it's also important to note, that with the centralized management that desktop virtualization brings to the table it's far easier to perform software upgrades and take advantage of SA. Usually the main objection I have observed to SA, is when a customer is unable to absorb new updates fast enough in a market downturn and opts to stay on existing software. While I can certainly empathize with this, I see this as an incredibly risky strategy for many organizations. Adding desktop virtualization really helps simplify upgrades and extract value from SA while giving you all the organizational benefits of centralized management.

For those customers that will not upgrade to SA, but still want to use the VDI model of desktop virtualization, you will be required to subscribe to Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) which will replace VECD. This license will be $100 /device/year instead of $110. In addition roaming use rights have been added. This will allow users with an office device covered by VDA to use secondary, non-business devices, to access their VDI environments without additional license fees. If you want to use the hosted shared desktop model (Terminal Server hosted desktops) of desktop virtualization then this is not required.

My personal view is, it's far simpler and more strategic to have SA and have the flexibility of all the FlexCast desktop virtualization options which is not VDI alone.

RemoteFX (formerly Calista) is not going to be for just RDP

In January 2008, Microsoft acquired Calista Technologies Inc. which is now called RemoteFX. This technology virtualizes the GPU for virtual desktops. Each VM sees it's own virtual GPU to enable sharing of the power of hardware graphics acceleration to improve the performance of media-rich, 2D and 3D graphics intensive applications. In my opinion this is a smart way to leverage the ever increasing number of cores.

RemoteFX will be a key virtualization capability of the Windows Server 2008 R2 service pack 1 release, running on Hyper-V only. Citrix and Microsoft have a new collaboration agreement where Microsoft will develop an API for RemoteFX which Citrix will leverage to add RemoteFX into it's HDX technology. If you are looking to enhance the graphics experience for Windows 7 via virtual desktops and RemoteFX you will be able to do so via XenDesktop in conjunction with Microsoft Hyper-V. At a technical level, think of this as adding a RemoteFX virtual channel to HDX for VDI use cases, which means support for RemoteFX on a Window 7 host running on top of Hyper-V. You will be able to connect from any client that supports Citrix Receiver which has the RemoteFX virtual channel implemented.

I think this will be great for customers, because now they can benefit from all the additional HDX features and leverage all the Citrix know how of delivering user experience across diverse networks and devices with RemoteFX. With HDX, RemoteFX can be extended beyond the LAN to a broad set of devices, networks and use cases via the Citrix Receiver. Citrix will look to add this capability to HDX approximately six months after RemoteFX ships. Before you ask, this is not an exclusive agreement and no money is exchanging hands. Citrix and Microsoft are free to continue development of solutions with other partners. Personally, I think the terms of the agreement are very healthy for the industry and encourage future innovation from everywhere. I am delighted Citrix was able to leverage their relationship with Microsoft to make this happen.

From a Hyper-V customer point of view, this is a great addition of an integrated solution that will be fully supported. However, Citrix will continue to provide the flexibility to run XenDesktop on other virtual platforms to protect existing investments that customers have made. I believe that the world continues to move towards being more hypervisor agnostic. This has a number of implications that should not be overlooked. Firstly, management infrastructure for virtual environments needs to support more than one Hypervisor. Secondly, delivering user experience needs to retain the flexibility to allow one to take advantage of innovations on virtual infrastructure. To me, over the coming decade this trend will be magnified once emerging technologies like cloud computing take hold. Trying to lock in smart customers to proprietary stacks is going to be next to impossible to sustain. Therefore giving customers lot's of choice, whether that is FlexCast delivery options or user experience technology that supports diversity, I believe will continue to remain a key differentiator for Citrix in the eyes of real world customers and positions us well for the future.

Add to all of this XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 1, which includes all the recent upgrades to XenApp 6, our VDI Kick Start promotion, Rescue for VMware VDI offer, joint 100-city worldwide road show with Microsoft, a round of applause for simplifying VECD and we certainly have a milestone date in our industry.

I have been wondering about the need for fault-tolerant architectures specifically with regard to the servers hosting the virtual desktops. I definitely believe the supporting infrastructure should be fault-tolerant, but what about the myriads of servers running just a hypervisor and hosted desktops?

Here are my two premises:

1. Virtual desktop adoption right now is primarily driven by cost savings, but most architectures required to support virtual desktops are expensive.

2. Fault-tolerance increases the architectural cost so it makes sense to only design fault tolerance into an architecture when either the impact or the risk of failure are high.

In some situations, such as when the user has access to only a single dedicated or assigned desktop, it makes sense that desktop would need to be highly available. The impact of a user not having a desktop available would be high. However, let's consider the case of a desktop pool where a user could be assigned any one of a 1000 desktops. In this situation of a single desktop becomes unavailable, the user could simply reconnect and get the next available desktop. Similar to a car rental agency, as long as the extra capacity exceeds the number of unavailable resources no user goes without access.

In a physical environment, when my desktop crashes, I maybe shout some disappointing statements about losing my unsaved work and then reboot, I am usually up and running again within five minutes. In a virtual environment, the end-user experience is similar. When the virtual desktop becomes unavailable, the user makes statements about lost work, reconnects to the desktop pool and then logs back in - usually within five minutes. The impact of the lost desktop is minimal because of extra capacity available to handle the temporary loss of resources.

One obvious difference between the physical workstation crashing and the loss of a virtual desktop scenario posed above is that a failed hardware component in a virtual environment would impact all the desktops on a host, not just a single user. So, the trick is to calculate the impact of losing a host server or two and compensate by adding additional capacity. In most cases that additional capacity will be less expensive than incorporating fault-tolerant server components into every server.

Since I believe the community is always more wise than a single person, in this case me, I thought I would solicit some feedback around my thoughts. Of course, my wisdom does not extend to figuring out how to get poll to show up in my blog, so if you would like to vote or view the results of the poll question shown below, you will need to click here If you have an opinion not covered by the poll please add a comment to my blog.

As always if you found this blog useful and would like to be notified of future blogs, follow me on Twitter @pwilson98.

Citrix announced XenApp 6 this past week, and it will be publicly available in a few days. Once you've absorbed the new feature set, you may wonder, "How should I transition to this new XenApp version?"

XenApp 6 is based on Windows Server 2008 R2. As with past XenApp releases, Citrix doesn't support upgrading the OS and then upgrading XenApp. Because Windows Server 2008 R2 is based on x64, this platform change means a bit more than just 32-bit vs. 64-bit applications.

Core XenApp 6 requires migration to a new farm. To be clear, this means a new data store and a new farm installation. I can already see the yellow flags . . . but hold on. Citrix will be releasing a Migration Tool to enable administrators to export setting from the old farm and import them into the new farm. More to come on that within a few weeks.

The peripheral components and features of XenApp 6 can either be upgraded or migrated. Some have new functionality that may affect how you will transition—for example, SmartAuditor now includes an agent for XenApp 6 on Windows Server 2008 R2 and support for SQL Server 2008—and others are simple upgrades—such as the new Citrix License Server 11.6.1 Build 10007.

All of this will be discussed in an easy-to-follow format within a TechTalk that will be held on April 9th entitled Upgrading/Migrating to XenApp 6. In this TechTalk, you'll hear about your technical options for incorporating the latest XenApp release so that you can make the best decision for your environment. See you there!

Join us for Synergy San Francisco, May 12-14, the industry's only conference focused on the convergence of the hottest technologies of the day - virtualization, networking and cloud computing. Synergy promises to deliver the latest in-depth information around these hot technologies and give you the tools to create a simpler and more cost efficient computing environment.

Citrix training students or certification candidates, may be interested in the many opportunities to sharpen business and technical skills at Synergy, including:
-  Breakout sessions led by industry recognized analysts, vendors and independents, as well as Citrix experts
-  Hands-on Learning Labs for a deep dive into features and functionality of Citrix products
-  Solutions Expo including the latest products and services from leading IT vendors
-  On-site Testing Center and complimentary certification exam

Click here to learn more about the additional Citrix Education opportunities available for attendees only, including free testing, discounted training and more!

Special Rate for Citrix Certified Attendees
As an exclusive benefit for Citrix Certified professionals, we are offering a discounted rate of $1,495 for a Synergy Full Conference Pass - that's $400 off the current list price! If you are Citrix Certified, contact Synergy Headquarters at citrixsynergysanfrancisco@citrixevents.com to validate your certification and request the special promo code for discounted registration.

Plus, certified attendees will also receive special benefits during Synergy, including individual recognition and exclusive event access.

Still not enough? Want to win a trip to Synergy? Here's how!
Everyone has a story, we want to hear yours!  Tell us how Citrix Education has contributed to the advancement of your career, the expertise of your in-house staff, the optimization of your Citrix environment - or all of the above.  Share your story through a brief video submission and enter to win an all expenses paid trip to Synergy San Francisco or Berlin, including a full conference pass, airfare, hotel, cash stipend and more! Enter to Win

North America Only: Purchase 2 Citrix Training Passes and get a free pass to Synergy San Francisco
In the spirit of the Golden Gate, Citrix Education wants to help bridge the gap between you and the industry's only conference focused on the convergence of the hottest technologies of the day. The first 25 customers to purchase 2 Citrix Training Passes will receive a full conference pass to Synergy San Francisco - Learn More

Citrix Partners are also eligible to participate. The first 25 partners to purchase 2 CTPs for re-sell will get a free pass to both Summit and Synergy - find out how!

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I recently talked about HIPAA and HITECH compliance and how application and desktop virtualization can be an effective means for protecting against security breaches.

Today, I came across a whitepaper by another vendor that speaks about some of the same challenges and it struck me that there is still confusion between Security Breaches and Privacy Breaches.

The author opens by citing privacy breaches in the healthcare industry (improper access to "Octomom's" medical records, and doctors improperly accessing celebrity patient records at UCLA), but then proceeds to describing solutions that prevent only security breaches, but not privacy breaches.

Privacy breaches occur when properly authenticated and authorized users look at a patient record that they have no business looking at... at least not at the time when they are looking at it. For example, a doctor pulls up a record (celebrity, athlete, their neighbor's kid etc.) to review information although they are not treating the patient at the time. This is a privacy breach that may have to be disclosed under HITECH. The same user may have a perfectly legitimate reason to pull up the same record and review the same information a week later when the patient is coming in for a visit, in which case the access would not constitute a privacy breach.

Preventing security breaches can be accomplished through two-factor authentication at the workstation, locking terminals to prevent improper viewing of data, and other authentication and authorization approaches for clinical users and database administrators, who have sometimes direct access to the raw data. The latter would be important to prevent privacy breaches, but it is more difficult to accomplish. Even the implementation of access logging mechanisms alone cannot stop all technical personnel with the right kind of low level access to circumvent the logging layer and go straight to the data.

So, the vendor of the whitepaper I mention earlier states the HITECH problem correctly, but positions the authentication and authorization solutions that only protect against security breaches, which is necessary but not sufficient. 

Now, here's a thought:
One healthcare organization spoke at HIMSS 2010 about leveraging sophisticated data mining techniques to flag improper access by otherwise authorized clinical staff.

If the Electronic Medical Record application is delivered via Citrix XenApp, organizations can use the Smart Auditor feature to review recorded user sessions to verify user behavior. This could even be employed to watch the technical IT staff by presenting the terminal emulator windows to go to the heart of the data exclusively over XenApp. Given that one would not be able to review the sessions of thousands of users, this would need to be implemented in conjunction with data mining of the logs to flag suspicious data access. Yes, it sounds like "big brother is watching you", but there mere knowledge that any system interactions are recorded at the user session level will provide an additional deterrent to privacy breaches through employees.
This is another way that virtualization techniques support data security and patient privacy.

Please share your thoughts and comments.

Florian Becker

Follow me on twitter @florianbecker

One office with one type of desktop... Easy.  Hundreds of offices with any type and age of desktops... Difficult but not impossible.
 
Most organizations find themselves in the difficult camp. A user's desktop can be completely different (in terms of hardware, resources, applications and configuration) than the person sitting next to them doing a similar job. As the environment includes users from different departments, in different offices, with different requirements it becomes clear that the understanding of the user topology for an organization is critical before one can create a desktop virtualization solution.
 
In previous blogs, I've discussed how understanding the underlying standards, applications and storms plays an important role in creating a successful virtual desktop design.  The fourth requirement is to understand the organization's user topology. More specifically, one must get a grasp of the endpoints and user locations.
 
First, the endpoints. Most organizations follow a 3-5 year desktop refresh cycle.  At a minimum, there will be 5 different hardware configurations for each of the 5 years (in actuality, there will likely be many, many, many more configurations). Also, the desktops that are less than 2-3 years old have hardware configurations that  can easily support Windows 7 and the latest applications.  These newer desktops have more virtual desktop options than an endpoint that is 5+ years old.  Newer desktops have the processing power to support the Local Streamed Desktop FlexCast model instead of the hosted VM-Based VDI desktop model.
 
With Local Streamed Desktop, the desktop is still virtualized and centrally managed, the desktop still receives the virtualized applications, and the users still have their personalized settings applied. The difference is that instead of using resources on a physical server in the data center, the local desktop resources are used. Because local desktop resources are consumed, fewer data center servers are required to support the same number of users
 
This is but one example of how understanding the endpoints helps determine the type of virtual desktop a user requires.  However, just knowing the endpoints is only one aspect of the user topology.  The second aspect, user's location, also plays an important role in selecting the most appropriate virtual desktop. 
 
Certain desktops require a high-speed connection to the infrastructure while other options can allow slower networks with higher latency. By assessing the user locations and the connections to the data center, the proper solution can be put into place to support the virtual desktop FlexCast model.

• Hosted shared desktop: Can be used on networks with low speeds and high latency
• Hosted VM-based VDI desktop: Can be used on networks with low speeds and high latency
• Hosted blade PCs: Can be used on networks with low speeds and high latency
• Streamed local desktop: Requires a fast, low latency network to the physical desktop for optimal performance
• Virtual Apps to Installed Desktops: Can be used on networks with low speed and high latency. If application streaming is used (as compared to hosted applications), slower networks will delay application startup time, but users have the ability to work disconnected.
• Local VM-based desktop (not yet available): Can be used on networks with low speed and high latency, although the slower the network the longer it will take to sync the image to the endpoint. Images can be tens of GBs in size. But once delivered to the end point, all communication remains local to the desktop.

 
When deciding on the appropriate virtual desktop type, the endpoint and the user's location matter.  Without taking both into account, a user might end up with a fast virtual desktop that takes 5 minutes to start Microsoft Word. Gather all the information before deciding on your virtual desktop type.

Daniel

Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
Blog for Next-Gen Desktop: Ask The Architect
Questions, then email Ask The Architect
Facebook Fan Page: Ask The Architect

No, they're not the latest competitors on Dancing with the Stars or Celebrity Apprentice!  And no, they didn't go on Ancestry.com and discover that they're fifth cousins.

Each one does have a similar story to tell.  A story about an idea that started small, grew and developed,  and has ultimately changed the way we view and use technology.

Each one has a strong and unwavering belief in his idea and that conviction has brought them great success and brought us a better computing experience and as a result, a better quality of life.

Michael Dell had a big idea - to build relationships directly with customers, selling them personal computers directly in order to provide customization. A PC tailored just for you. From working out of his dorm room to building Dell, a technology company that is one of the world's leading brands, Michael Dell changed the PC landscape.

Mark Templeton also had a big idea - to make information and applications available to anyone, anywhere, on any device over any network connection. Simple, easy, ubiquitous. From a small organization of developers starting out in Florida, he built a leading software company, Citrix, that continues to break new ground with virtual computing solutions that help companies deliver IT as an on-demand service.

And Sinbad had a big idea, too. This self-professed "secret nerd" saw the power of technical education and training, and has established scholarships and served as a spokesperson to encourage minorities to study engineering, science and math. His stage persona as the Master of Technology stems from a true belief in the importance of IT for everyone.

One other thing these three have in common...they're all appearing on stage at Synergy San Francisco, May 12-14.  

Don't miss these three unique and magnetic personalities who started small, took chances, seized opportunities and created something truly inspiring.  Register now!

Some time back, I wrote a post on file system filter drivers and load altitude which included discussion of  kernel mode filtering and how "filter altitude" affects interaction of App Streaming file system filtering and anti-virus.  Today's post discusses application level hooking of registry operations and how this can cause collisions between application level entities, specifically, Citrix App Streaming with AppSense Environment Manager (EM). 

Application Streaming implements the layers of glass for registry operations at "application layer".  AppSense EM implements its registry filtering also at "application layer".  With the release of Citrix Application Streaming 5.2 in XenApp 5.0 Feature Pack 2, we cratered them; returning the isolated view of the registry to the application even if AppSense EM were trying to provide a view from their cached database backend.

Since then, AppSense have released version 8.x of EM which works with Citrix App Streaming "offline plugin" version 5.2.  The supporting version of EM is available now as a download from MyAppsense.com.  With the EM 8.x release, things are again working and more than working, it's worth noting that AppSense have done extra work to ensure that EM works effectively with Citrix App Streaming based applications just as it does with locally installed applications. This works XenApp server side, end user client side as well as on XenDesktop hosted desktops.

Environment Manager introduction

AppSense Environment Manager is an application set which ensures that users receive a consistent view of their desktop and application settings regardless to the computer that they use to logon or how the desktop applications are delivered.  Similar to Microsoft Roaming Profiles and Citrix Profile Manager, EM gathers configuration information from applications and retains that information across logons, sessions and across machines where it can later be provided back to the application as if it came from the same machine where it was stored.  From a technology view, EM uses a database back-end and local machine cache to store information and uses application level "hooking" to provide configuration information to the applications on-demand at runtime.  For example, if an application stores a setting at a specific place in the registry, that operation is backed up by the database rather than the local registry and the EM hook code answers the question bypassing the registry.

The interesting part is that since the database is used for central storage, this can occur with or without actually roaming the user's profile from session to session.  The backing store for the information is the database and this remains true no matter what happens on HKCU registry or file system.

In the collision case, App Streaming returned the isolated registry view of the setting, which could and often would be different than the "correct" setting from the AppSense EM central store.

How hooking works
Back in the beginning, there was DOS...

DOS was ("is"?) a single user, single tasking operating system.  In theory there could be only one application running at a time.  Clever programmers quickly figured out that they could simulate a multi-processing machine by hooking the execution of the single application.  Borland's SideKick was the first commercial success here.  It ran at at machine startup (autoexec.bat), then went away and hung out in the background until the user typed a special key, which was pressing ctrl-alt at the same time.  On seeing the hot-key, the program would come to foreground and take over the machine screen and keyboard.  When done, execution would return to the application that was interrupted as if nothing had happened.

Two things to observe

1. The single tasking OS was now running more than one app at the same time
2. Citrix XenCenter has a hot-key collision with a 27 year old application.

How did SideKick accomplish this?  Answer, Terminate and Stay Resident API into DOS to leave a portion of application in memory after the application had officially terminated.  The resident portion was "HOOKED" into the BIOS IRQ-9 keyboard hardware interrupt processing so that when both Control and Alt were pressed, the program would save away the screen, bring itself to foreground, do it's work and eventually put things back.  Impressive stuff for the day and the TSR was here to stay.

The concepts of hooking application activity have not changed significantly since the TSR days of DOS.  The Windows operating system and Windows based applications have a set of dispatch points and these dispatch points implement program or Win32 SDK functions.  To "hook" a function, the function dispatch points get "messed with" so that the hook get called instead of what the system/application really wants to call and then the hook has a chance to do things early and make intelligent decisions on whether or not to call the "real" software.  The concept is "unchanged" in 27 years and if someone is older than me, this probably goes back even further.

In the days of DOS, everyone soon wanted to climb onto interrupt 9 to watch the keyboard button press and release messages and pretty soon, dependencies arose on the "order" of placement onto the TSR stack.  Hook collisions were born!

Everyone wants to be on top

View the hook code as a stack of hook modules.  The application calls what it believes to be the registry API, but which in reality is the hook code of the first hooker.  That hooker does it's work and calls what it believes to be the real system API, but which is in reality the next hooker in the chain.  Add more hook modules and the stack gets higher, more layers between the application and the real implementation of the registry API in the Win32 system.

The "top" hook module is the first one to see the API call.  In the DOS days, the "last" TSR to get installed was generally the first code to get called in the hook.   Today, that's unchanged, the last hook module to hook is usually the FIRST entry called when the hooked API is called from the application.

If you'll recall from my post on FSFD and altitude, "everyone overrates their own importance".   Everyone is worried about their own hooking and everyone wants it to be successful in their own testing, but when you step back and look at a full system and then ask, "who should be at the top of the hooking stack", the answer is that it usually shouldn't be you.  The challenge is that when placing yourself onto the API hook stack, you can't really see the hookers below, they are indistinguishable from the real API.  You have little choice but to place yourself at the top of the stack and this means that you will get called before the people lower on the stack.

Application Streaming absolutely MUST be able to hook the registry to accomplish Application Virualization and AppSense Environment Manager absolutely MUST hook the registry to accomplish it's mission of replacing the "registry" with a local cache and database back end.  Who should be "higher".  Answer: AppSense.  Whether the application is run isolated or locally installed, the application settings must come from EM and getting the hookers out of order can prevent this from occurring.

With Application level hooking, altitude discussions are harder than with kernel mode, because there is no easy way for a programmer to control altitude for application level hooks. In the kernel, you tell the filter manager, "put me here".  At application level, chaos is supreme.

Where it broke

When an isolated application calls RegQueryValueEx, the registry API is hooked by both Citrix App Streaming and AppSense Environment Manager.  Being on the top, the Citrix code gets first look.  For a registry key that is isolated, the registry query is converted from it's before isolation location to its sandboxed location according to the layers of glass.  With the location converted, the operation is sent "down the stack" to have the Windows registry system fetch the value from the isolated registry.  To shorten the story, in the both case of App Streaming + Environment Manager, for isolated spaces, Citrix 5.2 streaming client would BYPASS the AppSense hook, preventing it from doing it's job of looking up the value in the central database.

BUSTED - And no easy fix.

With Environment Manager 8.x,  AppSense have changed their hooking code to get themselves in "higher" in the registry stack than is Citrix App Streaming.  The end result is that EM starts working again, even for streamed applications.  To get here, AppSense had to be aware of Citrix App Streaming in their code and had to take programmatic action to work past some roadblocks that we put in their way. 

What it comes down to is that AppSense have hooked the Citrix Hook code code.  Isolating the isolation system if you will, which is a pretty neat idea.

The present is a happy place

AppSense has Environment Manager working with Citrix App Streaming version 5.2.  

The future is daunting

Soon, a new release of Citrix App Streaming will ship with XenApp 6.0.  Working with AppSense, we are 100% positive that changes in App Streaming hooking implemented for 6.0 will interfere with Environment Manager and will require an update to EM to address.   I'll go on record that the fault for the break here is the Citrix end.  We changed the method of hooking and this has no choice but to break the EM hooking of the Citrix Hooks.

What did we change?  Well, AppInit_Dlls is no longer vogue, so it's time to move off.  Also, implementing isolation of NT services requires some creative programming for filtering the Windows Service Control Manager.  Add it all up and we changed the hooking from AppInit_Dlls style application hooking to kernel implemented hooking of application APIs. The result is that "everything is different" and AppSense gets broken again.

I suppose this is the nature of the business.  Citrix climbs in deep into the operating system to do neat things and becomes dependent on the OS innards for function.  Microsoft changes the innards, and AppInit_Dlls, and we have to change our software to work with it.  The same analogy applies in the Citrix - AppSense case.  They are doing neat things - but these things require climbing in deep, and when we change the deep things, they get impacted.  The good news is that early tech reviews allow them to know of the problem sooner rather than later and we have already had conversations to discuss how to best resolve.  This is a partner relationship and we're all motivated to make both successful.

So to my friends at AppSense.  Congratulations on your success with App Streaming 5.2 and ... my apologies in advance for breaking you on 6.0.

Joe Nord

Citrix Systems

Product Architect for Application Streaming and User Profile Manager

Вот уже прошёл год с тех пор как Citrix Systems объявил о бесплатности своего продукта Citrix XenServer. За это время вышло две версии - 5.0 и 5.5, но тем не менее всё равно находились люди, которые говорили - "Не верим! Это не к добру! Это не надолго. Вот наступит момент, когда Citrix скажет - Всё! Хватит! Теперь опять всё платное!"

Общаться с такими людьми очень сложно, хотя и понятно, учитывая исторический опыт россиян в плане не выполненных обещаний в том числе и лечь на рельсы.

Со своей стороны мы неоднократно поднимали вопрос перед своим руководством, о том, что необходимо иметь официальный документ, в котором Citrix Systems "торжественно обещала и клялась" в вечной ... нет, не любви, а бесплатности Citrix XenServer.

И вот наконец такой документ мы получили и теперь Вы можете также ознакомиться с ним и скачать в коллекцию своих документов IT отдела.

	Name	Size	Creator (Last Modifier)	Creation Date	Last Mod Date	Comment
	XenServer Letter.pdf	69 kB	Sergey Khalyapin	Mar 16, 2010	Mar 16, 2010	Документ о бесплатности XenServer

Тем кто спрашивал - "Ну когда же Citrix Systems выпустит следующую версию Citrix XenServer?"

Отвечаю - скоро!

Сейчас Вы можете скачать Бета версию Citrix XenServer 5.6 и ознакомиться с тем новым функционалом, который появится в финальном релизе в ближайшие месяцы.

Что для этого нужно?

Учётная запись на mycitrix.com и немного времени, необходимого для скачивания дистрибутива.

Итак -Бета версия Citrix XenServer 5.6 качайте, устанавливайте, пробуйте.

It's clear that it's cloudy - and that's good!

As I prepare to go over to the Cloud Connect conference, I ask myself "what are the trends - as they relate to all of us".

More to the point, what are the applications, their access scenarios, and their hosting scenarios? Will the critical mass of cloud computing be the resilient capacity-on-demand datacenter? Or will there be hosting services for desktops? The latter, to me is most intriguing, as it has the potential of impacting more of us, individually.

Going down that path, questions arise. What will be the drivers bringing users to hosted desktops? Where will the applications reside - in the cloud, in the user's enterprise datacenter, or installed right on the provisioned desktop? And where will the data be kept? What impact does this have on traditional networks and access controls?

Many of these bring to light additional issues, since we may be shifting current traditional constraints. I can see questions arising pertaining to securing/authorizing access and its management. We may also see reliability, availability, and response time expectations and guarantees (Oh no! Not SLA's ).

Hey, all this has been talked about - I am heading over to that event to listen to more talk - what do you think we should cover or talk about here...?"

Stefan
Twitter: @StefanDrege

Join Microsoft, industry experts and IT leaders at 9am PST on March 18th as they explore desktop virtualization options that help reduce costs,improve flexibility and improve manageability.

In this immersive and interactive session, you'll hear about new joint announcements from Microsoft and Citrix, learn from a panel of customers, and have access to videos, offers, and on-demand sessions. To participate simply go to Desktop Virtualization Hour on Thursday, March 18th at 9a.m. PST; 12:00p.m. EST