By now, you've probably been hearing or reading a lot about Citrix's relationship with Intel...or at least we're hoping that's the case!

Most of the recent news has been focused on our joint collaboration in the development of Citrix XenClient. XenClient is one of the most exciting projects in Citrix's history and we can't wait to see how the project changes the definition of desktop virtualization. With that said, there are optimization activities currently underway with our Citrix Deliver Center products, such as Citrix XenServer and Citrix XenDesktop that are worth talking about too!

Intel and Citrix have a long history of working together to deliver end-to-end solutions for the enterprise. From how Citrix XenServer works with Intel Xeon processors to how Citrix XenApp and Citrix XenDesktop work alongside Intel vPro technology to our joint development of Citrix XenClient, there is a great story in this partnership.

At Citrix Synergy 2009, Tom James, Business Development Manager, Digital Office Platform Division from Intel presented how solutions and technologies from Intel work with Citrix Delivery Center. For those of you who weren't able to attend Synergy or those who could but didn't have a chance to check out this session, it's available here for your viewing pleasure.

In this webinar you will learn:

• About recent server consolidation testing conducted in the Citrix Lab with Citrix XenApp, Citrix XenServer and Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors
• About the upcoming local desktop virtualization platform - XenClient - Citrix is developing in conjunction with Intel and how we see it changing the client landscape moving forward
• About the other collaboration areas from a technical perspective and how they add customer value
  

Check out the webinar!

You have probably seen the latest buzz on the street, an iPhone "running" Windows XP. This topic made big news this week as a story published by ZDNet Australia landed on the home of Digg.com.

The word "running" was loosely mentioned and that sparked a lot of controversy around visitors, but if we take a minute to explain the "phenomena", you will see there's nothing behind the curtains nor up the magician's sleeve. It's purely a high performance remote desktop (HPRD) being delivered via ICA, Citrix remoting technology protocol.

The demo mentioned above was delivered by our fellow Citrites in Australia, very similar to the one Mark Templeton showed us during his keynote early this year at the Citrix Summit.

So for those outraged with the Windows XP "running" on a "slow" processor like iPhone's, I say - you can all relax, the actual processing was done on a back-end virtual desktop and remotely delivered via Citrix XenDesktop.

Also the article mentioned above only posted a still image of the entire demo; so for those who are interested to see the full demo - here it is, the 5 minutes and 20 seconds-long XenDesktop demo "running" on an iPhone.

I'm not sure where or when this conversation took place, but PC World had an interview with Simon Crosby, the CTO of the Virtualization and Management Division at Citrix, about future plans to build on Hyper-V. It was an interesting read, and I think that it helps reinforce a point of view in that no one company is going to have a hold on the virtualization market, it is going to have to be about interoperability, as we have only just begun to mold whatever form this market may become.

Continue at Source: Citrix CTO Mum on Plans to Build on Microsoft's Hyper-V

In this chat with the XenDesktop program team, we chat more about VDI and what it represents as well as some of the core functionalies of XenDesktop. I didn't forget to ask some hard questions around princing and why users should choose XenDesktop over other VDI solutions.

Cheers,

Gus Pinto
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XenDesktop and the soon to be released Citrix Workflow Studio Customer Tech Preview will not have Workflow Tasks for XenDesktop included in the Customer Tech Preview.

A future release of Citrix Workflow Studio after the release of the Citrix Workflow Studio Customer Tech Preview will have support for XenDesktop.

Stay Tuned Here: Citrix Developer Network - Citrix Workflow Studio

Get Updates Here: Citrix Updated - Citrix Workflow Studio

Intel's "Cliffside" technology enables a single physical Wi-Fi adapter to function like two independent Wi-Fi adapters.

I don't know of any software out there, it may exist though, that allows a single Wi-Fi adapter to be able to connect to multiple wireless networks. The only exception to that would be is if the adapter had multiple radios in either the same or different bands.

The other really exciting thing I can see from "Cliffside" is what it can do for us with virtual machines.

Here is a real scenario that "Cliffside" could have helped solve:

A good friend of mine over at Siemens, Scott Hembroff, ran into a bit of a problem that involved the local host needing to be able to connect to the Siemens Wireless network, but yet also be able to connect a running virtual machine on to another Wireless network. This problem could have been solved with some really crafty voodoo magic, but the big hurdle had to do with the security of the other wireless network and how they locked down MAC addresses and Machine ID's. Basically to solve the problem we ended up using a USB Wireless adapter that we did not let the local host install, we only installed it on the guest. This allowed for the security measures in place on the other Wireless network to not be comprised, but yet allow us to have the physical host exist on two different Wireless networks.

If "Cliffside" had been around when we were tackling this problem, who knows, we might not have even thought twice about what to do. With that being said, it doesn't look like "Cliffside" in its current advertised feature set from Intel, could have solved the problem, as they are intending the second partition to only be used as a PAN. I get it, but why wouldn't you go all the way with the ability of true duality?

This is a good starting point, but if our computers are to be fully virtualized or are running more than one virtual machine, we are going to need to be able to connect to more than one wireless network, and the virtual machines are going to have to have be able to do that from one physical/virtual wireless adapter.