Blog posts tagged with 'citrix'

Over at Shannon Ma Virtualized I've recently blogged about using the XenServer 5.0 SDK to take and revert snapshots. Check out the post here.

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-

One of the attractions of virtualization is the ability to deploy applications as pre-built virtual appliances. An article in CIO Magazine describes a virtual appliance as "an application is designed, certified and delivered, with its own little OS, to run as a virtual machine on your existing physical server, or to run in a VM via a "cloud computing" service like Amazon's." Virtual Appliances are expected to provide rapid deployment, simplified support, improved performance (OS and Application Tuned by ISV), and increased security. There are many advantages to virtual appliances. But is this deployment method the best solution to your deployment issues?

With all the buzz about virtualization and cloud computing, the interest level from both IT departments and vendors in virtual appliances is rising rapidly. Citrix has offered an Evaluation Virtual Appliance of XenApp for over a year. It has been downloaded over 11,000 times, according to Kurt Moody. Microsoft nows has virtual appliances for Windows Server 2008, System Center Configuration Manager, SharePoint Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and more.  Many virtualization vendors like Marathon Technologies, Platform Computing, Fortisphere, VMLogix, deliver their product as a virtual appliance.

Some application vendors have also jumped on the virtual appliance bandwagon, such as Business Objects and Satori. Several virtual appliance sites have been launched, included rPath, VirtualAppliances.net and JumpBox.com in addition the the existing VMWare Virtual Appliance Marketplace. Even Paralells has started offering virtual appliances from their website.

There are some concerns about this new model. As this article points out, there are questions about licensing of the OS and application (especially for Windows based applications) as well as export and security issues.

With all these new virtual appliances becoming available, I am curious to know if you use virtual appliances, and, if so, for what purposes? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of virtual appliances?


Please vote in the polls below. Once you have voted, please post in the comments if there is anything else you would liek to see from virtual appliances.-

Have you ever used any virtual appliance?	Choose
Yes
No

If you have used a virtual appliance, did you use it in test, production or both??	Choose
Test
Production
Both Test and Production

The NY Times published an interesting front page article (Aug 9) and online post discussing how NBC attempted to block web sites hosting video clips and live feeds of the Olympic Games opening ceremonies in the United States. According to the Times article NBC "sent frantic requests" to web sites asking them to remove videos and feeds of the Olympic ceremonies - amounting to a game of "digital whack-a-mole". Web sites including YouTube (Google) and Justin.tv pulled down clips, but could not keep up with users who traded links via Blogs and Twitter to stay ahead of NBC. NBC was attempting to protect its' TV broadcast coverage of the ceremonies which were tape delayed and presented in the USA during the evening hours on Friday August 8, a full 12 hours after the opening ceremonies actually occurred.

So why is this interesting for a Citrix marketing type like me? This interests me because NBC had an opportunity to engage its user community - and didn't. User communities are a fundamental component of today's and presumably tomorrow's web, and at Citrix we are fortunate to have a long-standing and vibrant user community that Citrix needs to engage with and make successful. Citrix has a renewed focus and commitment to make our community more successful via the newly re-designed and enhanced Citrix Communities site. We care about our users and our community and are investing to help make our community successful.

Is there more to this NBC video thing beyond the notion that traditional media outlets like NBC apparently still don't get the net, or that video has finally arrived on the net? NBC is posting thousands of hours of its Olympic Games coverage online, using Microsoft® Silverlight™ technology, so they do get the net, or do they? (this Silverlight aspect is a topic for another blog - can you say DRM!) NBC's decision not to live stream coverage of the opening ceremonies might be considered somewhat odd. NBC is obviously working to manage access to its Olympic video footage in an attempt to maximize its audience so as to charge higher advertising rates. This all makes sense - old school sense - or rather cents!

I'm sensing NBC has missed a glorious opportunity to engage its community who could have supplied content snips from their perspective, content that could have extended the NBC viewpoint. This user supplied content could have been a great complement to live streaming feeds of NBC's "official" Olympic games opening coverage - if NBC had in fact supplied a live internet feed. They have the infrastructure -see myNBC.com. My searches on myNBC.com turned up 2 Olympic Games clips, both of which returned "the requested video is not available" message"...

NBC blew a significant opportunity to begin re-inventing themselves to be more than just a source of content created in-house and to begin engaging and fostering a user community of associate content providers. Many news outlets, CNN, Fox News are attempting to leverage user supplied content to support their official coverage - NBC missed the opportunity to build their community and leverage the Olympics.

Hello Mac Users

First I would like to thank all of you for downloading version 1.0 of our blogs widget. We currently have 1400+ downloads, and this goes to show that the Citrix community has indeed a large number of Mac users.

I also would like to thank those users who sent us their feedback, this version of the widget is here because of you, so keep sending your feedback and comments.

 Meet the Citrix Blogs Widget

 Version 1.0:

• The latest 30 Citrix Blog posts
• Adjust view from Full to Summary
• Collaborate with your comments
• Open posts on Safari or Firefox
• Spotlight Search (Instant search)
• Push updates (no refresh required)
• Watch blogged videos
• Check for updates
• Send feedback

 Version 1.2:

• Widget Resizing
• Bug Fixes

Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.4 or greater

Download:

Citrix Blogs Widget

In the age where Agua or Aero-glass interfaces are somewhat as important as the underlining kernel, same rules have been applying to Scripts and utilities, after all not everyone wants to be using complex scripts and endless command-line combinations.

For those who are not so keen on Scripts and CLI, our French friend Pierre Marmignon created an app that doesn't solve a new problem, but tackles it more elegantly. Pierre has created an GUI app that (bulk) imports/exports all your published applications.

If you have an useful Citrix app or utility that you would like to share with the world by showcasing it here on the Citrix communities, feel free to send an email to: gus.pinto@citirx.com with the title Community App.

I an earlier post, I asked "How do you make Technology decisions?". According to a recent survey, Google is by far the most used tool by technology buyers (83% ALWAYS use Google). The poll on my post found similar results.

Again Google is the clear leader, but not nearly by the same margin as in the external survey. I am curious if the is partly because the question in the poll was phrased a bit differently.

Instead of guessing why, I decided to ask you. Please vote below on whether you always, sometimes, or never use these different resources when researching a new technology before making a decision on a solution to implement.

Do you always, sometime or never use Google when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use another search engine (Yahoo, MSN Live, Ask, etc..) when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a vendor blog when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use an independent blog when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a vendor product site when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a vendor support site when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a third party analyst site when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a user group when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use Wikipedia when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Citrix is all about virtualization. They have a suite of tools that enable IT departments to virtualize almost everything. Citrix is a Microsoft Certified Partner and, to some extent, a competitor. How does this Partner Competitor relationship work? Microsoft is very interested in virtualization technologies and with the advent of our hypervisor technology, HyperV, and application virtualization software, SoftGrid, you can bet that we'll compete hard with other virtualization vendors.

Here, we meet Simon Crosby, formerly of XenSource now working for Citrix (Citrix purchased XenSource). We discuss the relationship between Microsoft and Citrix, the complexities of building scalable, sercure, reliable and performant virtualization technologies and the future of virtualization. It's a very interesting conversation and Simon is quite the conversationalist. Enjoy.

Monitoring the Wanscaler This is the fouth video in the four part series of configuring a Wanscaler environment for FTP demonstrations. The first in this series is Configuring the W2K3 machine. The second is configuring the XPclient, third is configuring the Linktropy Wan simulator, and fourth is monitoring the Wanscaler

Configuring the Linktrophy. This is the third video in the four part series of configuring a Wanscaler environment for FTP demonstrations. The first in this series is Configuring the W2K3 machine. The second is configuring the XPclient, third is configuring the Linktropy Wan simulator, and fourth is monitoring the Wanscaler