For those who travel for business the need for offline access to your desktop has always been a requirement but with internet coverage growing .....Broadband WiFi, cellular data cards, and now even on commercial flights with Delta and other airlines offering en route satellite based internet service things are changing.   Last week flying back to Atlanta I thought I would pony up the $9.95 and see how my vista xendesktop performed at 34,000 ft and 520kts. I was excited to find great usability and performance. Here is the recorded xendesktop session I  posted below. 
http://goview.com/?id=d7f6c237-1844-45da-9f04-aba5d9add98b

This was posted some time ago, but I suspect that there are many that may have missed it since there are so many new virtual desktop projects springing up all the time. So I'm bringing it back up to the top for more exposure!

This blog has been invaluable for our field, for our technical marketing staff and for our event demo preparations. It's called "Windows XP Performance Optimizations for XenDesktop and Provisioning Server vDisks."

There's more to be discussed on how to successfully make that P2V conversion of a desktop, and we are working on additional white papers that will outline some of the real world best practices we've uncovered - so stay tuned!

Are YOU ready to learn how Citrix can lower your TCO by up to 40%?  Become PART of the BUZZ instead of just hearing it!!!  Contact us so we can set up a 60min onsite educational meeting so YOU can learn what all the BUZZ is about! 

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Hello All!  My name is Jessica Demers and I am the Citrix Field Sales Manager responsible for all NON-Federal Citrix business in Maryland & Washington, DC. 

Our PRE-SALES Team:

Jose Parada | Lead Territory Manager | 954.229.6849 | jose.parada@citrix.com

• Drives Operational Territory Management | Citrix Florida Headquarter Office
• Conduit for All Citrix Products & Services

Jessica Demers | Field Sales Manager | 410.533.2322 | jessica.demers@citrix.com

• Drives Strategic Territory Management | Local
• Conduit for All Citrix Products & Services

Andrew Kloman | Systems Engineer | 202.579.5231 | andrew.kloman@citrix.com

• Drives Technical Awareness, Helps Architect Solutions, & Runs DC|MD Citrix User Group | Local
• Conduit for ALL PRE-SALES Citrix Products & Services

Lowell Malesky | Application Networking Sales Manager | 703.338.0598 | lowell.malesky@citrix.com

• Drives Strategic Territory Management | Local
• Conduit for All Application Networking Solutions

Sri Subbian | Application Networking Systems Engineer | 301.530.8117 | sri.subbian@citrix.com

• Drives Technical Awareness & Helps Architect Solutions | Local
• Conduit for ALL PRE-SALES Application Networking Solutions

Dan Kuchem | Channel Development Manager | 703.738.8846| daniel.kuchem@citrix.com

• Drives Channel Development & Management | Local
   

Follow us on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/DC_MD_CitrixRep

Citrix XenDesktop is a finalist in the Virtualization category for the "Best of TechEd" award from Windows ITPro magazine.

If you are attending TechED 2009 in Los Angeles, please vote for XenDesktop as the "Best of TechED" at this link -

http://windowsitpro.com/awards/teched_finalists_2009.html

(you must be logged into to MSTechEd.com and attending the event to vote).

Follow the Twitter feed for "Best of TechEd 2009" here.

Follow the official TechEd 2009 Twitter feed here

Government, healthcare and financial organizations are heavily evaluating virtual desktops, and due to the nature of these industries, one of the big requirements is for secure authentication via smart cards. Frankly, when XenDesktop first came out, it didn't have the goods in the smart card + VDI department, but no one else did, either. There was no integration to speak of, from either Citrix or VMware, and this meant these industries could only deploy VDI in limited use cases.

Citrix quickly addressed this in product updates, and the newly released Feature Pack 1 for XenDesktop 3 includes even more functionality. VMware has been kinda quiet on the smart card integration front - so I was curious, how are the two products faring in head-to-head evaluations in customer accounts? So I went and polled several of our SEs, some partners and some customers and learned a few interesting tidbits in some key categories:

-          Seamless integration of authentication: With XenDesktop, you get the typical black "carbon fiber" log in screen on boot-up, then you insert the Smart Card and are prompted to enter your PIN. Just like a normal desktop. We've heard reports that for some reason View is requiring PIN entries for the broker, then the desktop - and for every desktop subsequently. Seems complicated for end users.

-          Active Directory object clean up: With XenDesktop, when virtual desktops are opened and closed, the AD objects are created and removed cleanly. We've seen customers struggle with how View creates the objects for each virtual desktop, but then fails to clean them up and leaves them orphaned. So in a typical enterprise, this can result in thousands of AD objects being created every day and clogging up the works.

-          Coffee breaks: If a user leaves for a coffee break and takes their card with them (as proper policy would mandate), the desktop should lock. When the user returns and enters the PIN, it should unlock with the and return the user to their desktop as they left it. XenDesktop handles this, but it seems that customers have reported View "loses" the Smart Card when it is withdrawn during a session. Re-inserting the card does nothing, and the desktop has to be fully shut down and the user has to start from square one to get back into the desktop.

-          Multi-card reader roaming: A lot of organizations don't have identical readers at each endpoint, but the user needs the same desktop. Feature Pack 1 adds the ability to roam between different devices even when different readers are attached.

-          Endpoint device support: With Feature Pack 1, XenDesktop offers both Windows and Linux endpoint support for Smart Card readers. At this time, View's ability to support Smart Cards (with the above integration challenges) is limited to Windows endpoints.

Obviously, with these considerations taken into account, XenDesktop is winning these bake-offs. But I don't think it's just about smart card integration. It's a fundamental understanding of the virtual desktop experience that is burned into the Citrix DNA - the smart card functionality is just a manifestation of that know-how.

A couple months ago, I posted about a VMware-sponsored report that compared View 3 to an older version of XenDesktop. I've gotten a lot of good feedback on that response, and a lot of agreement that sponsored third-party analysis needs to be absorbed with a cautious eye. I don't think it at all means  that sponsored work isn't valuable or useful, but it needs to have a sound, transparent methodology and provide enough data and detailed context that it actually ends up being useful to the audience.

Regardless, any paid-for review is going to be viewed with skepticism, right? So that's why I'm so excited about this completely independent, non-sponsored pair of reviews that were conducted by Infoworld:

• "VMware View is good news, bad news: VMware's VDI solution makes virtual desktops real, but not particularly easy to manage" This is a brand new review of VMware View, with a final score of 7.5.
• "Citrix hits the VDI high notes: Citrix XenDesktop 2.0 leverages streaming applications, server virtualization, and swift tools for a scalable and manageable virtual desktop infrastructure solution" This review is a little older, from September 2008, based on our first "real" release of XenDesktop, and we scored an 8.3 way back then. Since then, we've added many new features and capabilities for both user experience and manageability.

We were really pleased with the XenDesktop review when it first came out, but we lacked the context of how it compared to an in-depth review of VMware's product. Now that the review of View is out, I personally think the score is even more impressive.

So if you're skeptical about paid reviews, have a look at the two independent reviews above! Then come back to www.citrix.com/xendesktop and learn more about the product and our latest enhancements.

VDI Expert Series: Microsoft and Citrix - Exploring VDI's Myths, Limitations and Benefits

If you're considering Desktop Virtualization or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), join Microsoft and Citrix to discover how to minimize the cost of a VDI implementation with the most comprehensive solution.

Hear about:
•Top 5 VDI Myths
•XenDesktop Technical Differentiators & Testing Metrics
•Minimizing the cost associated with a VDI implementation
•Enhanced security
•Increased business agility

Register for the Exploring VDI's Myths, Limitations and Benefits Webinar 

Webinar Speakers

Scott Woodgate
Director of Windows Business Group
Microsoft Corporation

Scott Woodgate is the Director at Microsoft® in the Windows® Business group. He owns the enterprise version of Windows Vista® and Windows 7, Software Assurance Business, and Windows virtualization strategy including new ways to deploy windows on a variety of form factors such as laptops, desktops, and thin clients. Scott created the Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) license for the virtual desktop infrastructure space. He was involved in the creation of the desktop optimization product and in particular the acquisition of Kidaro (MED-V) and SoftGrid (App-V).

Scott has eight years of experience at Microsoft across both enterprise servers and clients. Before joining Microsoft, Scott was project manager in New Zealand building projects for enterprise customers. Scott holds 5 degrees including a PHD in chemistry.

Sumit Dhawan
Vice President, Product Marketing
Citrix Systems, Inc.

Sumit Dhawan is responsible for leading the go-to-market strategy for the Citrix desktop virtualization product line including evangelizing and developing the rapidly emerging application and desktop virtualization markets.

Prior to his current role, Dhawan was director of product management for the company's flagship product, Citrix XenApp™ (the new name for Citrix Presentation Server®), and led the growth of this product line to generate $1 billion in revenue in 2007. Since joining Citrix in 1998, he has held product management, product development and product marketing leadership positions for a variety of product lines and markets.

Dhawan holds degrees in both business and science, with a master's degree in business administration from the University of Florida and a master's degree in computer science from the University of Minnesota. Dhawan graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Exploring VDI's Myths, Limitations and Benefits Webinar 

Learn more about Microsoft VDI

Learn More about Citrix XenDesktop

I've just wrapped another long day at VMworld Europe in Cannes, France. I've got lots of thoughts on many things I've seen and heard here, but I thought I'd start with a topic that Brian Madden  brought up in his blog about how VMware is misleading everyone on TCO.

Brian saw the partner-facing version of the VMware View TCO session on Monday - I saw the same basic session repeated on Tuesday for the  general customer audience. By this time, the VMware representative must have read the blog and specifically noted, "This is not intended to compare View to other alternatives, like Terminal Services." Okay, cool.

Now the part that I have contention with is a part that I actually agree with VMW 100% on - let me explain. In the session, she talked about how the cost and ROI analysis should be broken into 3 buckets - capex (infrastructure acquisition costs), opex (support, management, adds/moves/changes) and then end-user costs/benefits. Rightly so, she point out that end-user costs/benefits are hard to quantify so approach with caution, and for the most part, the case for VDI will not be made on capex savings. That leaves the bulk of the savings being generated from efficiencies in Tier 1/2/3 support, application management, etc. Oh, and by the way, she repeatedly mentioned, Gartner put out a report saying that the TCO savings in this area were up to 50%. WHOAH!!!!

The slide was comparing traditional managed PCs to VMware View, and Gartner said you could save 50%?? That would be big news, wouldn't it? Wait a darn second... I get every Gartner report on the space and I don't remember seeing anything like that....

Turns out that the Gartner report being referenced is entitled, "Total Cost of Ownership Comparison of PCs With Server-Based Computing." If you are at all familiar with Gartner taxonomy, you know that VDI equates to Hosted Virtual Desktops (HVD), and Server-based Computing (SBC) equals...... Terminal Services (TS) and XenApp. If I'm not mistaken, there's no TS or XenApp in VMware View (not seriously, anyway), so that leaves me to assume that VMware think the TCO case for VDI can be made by taking the numbers from a completely different solution architecture.

In Brian's "VDI vs. TS" session at VMworld (bravo, by the way, great session), he made a good case for VDI and TS to both be considered SBC. I buy that there are some inherent benefits that apply to any centralized, server-hosted infrastructure, so some generalization might be appropriate.  But Gartner get paid the big bucks to be VERY precise about taxonomy and TCO. They factor in things like server density, app patch management, etc. for SBC that are completely unrelated to VDI. Munging the two together is just a raw misapplication of the research and misleading to say the least!

That said, I have to mention that I think the only misleading part is associating the savings with View - the savings analysis fits perfectly for XenDesktop! With XenApp baked in as part of XenDesktop, you indeed get the benefits of SBC as part of the solution, as well as single image management from our provisioning services, user productivity from HDX technology, etc. So I think the approach for using the SBC TCO analysis in the context of VDI was spot on, it was just done for the wrong product!

Citrix is officially kicking off its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Expert Series Webinars - bringing industry experts, partners and customers together to share business benefits and best practices of desktop virtualization.  Each free, one-hour webinar will take a close look at a specific aspect of VDI and how companies can maximize the benefits they receive from their VDI implementations.  Participating with the Citrix team in the upcoming series include analyst firms:  Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) and Gartner along with industry leaders:  Microsoft, HP, Intel, NetApp, and Wyse Technology. 

The line-up includes:

1. February 18:  "Desktop Virtualization: Cost Reduction & Business Benefits" featuring Gartner and Citrix.  Register today
2. March 10:  "Microsoft & Citrix: Virtualization 360, from the Desktop to the Datacenter" featuring Microsoft and Citrix. Register today
3. March 25:  "Deploying Desktop Virtualization with Thin Clients" featuring ESG, Wyse and Citrix
4. April 9:  "Desktop Virtualization:  Best Practices"  featuring Microsoft and Citrix
5. May 14:  "Desktop TCO Revealed - Customers Speak Out" featuring customers yet to be announced
6. June 4:  "High Definition User Experience in a VDI Environment" featuring Participants yet to be announced
7. July - "Storage Best Practices with Desktop Virtualization" with NetApp and Citrix Systems
8. August - "Is Desktop Virtualization Really Ready for Primetime?"
9. September - "Leveraging Existing IT Investments with a VDI Implementation"
10. October - "Mobile Workers: Desktop Management Best Practices"
11. November - "How and When to Use Local versus Virtual Desktops"
     

Check this out, another bond in the relationship with our friends at HP:

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/090211a.html

Another proofpoint that the strategy around XenDesktop is not just about VDI, it's all about a flexible system for desktop delivery (whether they are hosted on VMs, hosted on blade PCs, or streamed to endpoints).

Recently we've seen a report circulating that our friends at VMware sent out. It's a report that they contracted the Tolly Group to write. The document attempts to provide a comparison of VMware View 3 with Citrix XenDestkop 2.1. Ironically, this document is being released just after we've launched XenDesktop 3, making the report immediately obsolete.

There's a prominent sidebar that in the report that states that Citrix declined to participate in the testing - this is true, and I was the one that actually made that call and discussed it with Tolly Group. To their credit, Tolly Group did call us prior to beginning the testing and informed us of the project and shared the statement of work prepared for VMware. We asked some questions and provided some feedback about the testing methodology. I had serious concerns that the proposed tests did not reflect true customer use cases. For example, the user experience testing was only for a few productivity applications in a LAN environment - that was all that was planned, and it didn't seem to realistic based on what we've seen in real customer environments. Tolly took note of our concerns and asked VMware as the sponsor of the paper whether they would alter their approach.  Later we learned that VMware (not surprisingly) had rejected our suggestions and was not open to changing the proposed tests. At that point, it was clear that it made no sense to participate because:

a)      The test would not be based on our current product at the time of publication

b)      The proposed testing environment did not reflect real world customer requirements 

c)       Critical elements of a virtual desktop solution were not going to be included in the test, things like application management, service level assurance, diversity in client endpoints, WANs, etc.

We've been having great success with XenDesktop, and we're winning consistently in competitive situations. And we've been winning based on precisely the types of scenarios and solution capabilities that were excluded from this testing.

Despite these fundamental issues with the report, people will still ask questions about the claims within it. So here's some brief responses to the 5 highlighted claims in the report.

Claim 1 - Complex Installation - This claim would hold some merit if the two products were comparable in terms of overall functionality. A spreadsheet is easier to install than an enterprise CRM or ERP solution - but that doesn't make it better suited for the job at hand.

Claim 2 - Simple Image Management - VMware claims that XenDesktop requires dedicated images in order to support persistent desktops, and that it needs third-party products to manage the user's personal environment. Both these points are invalid with XenDesktop 3. The report doesn't mention that VMware recommends or requires third party add-ons to achieve similar functionality that is built-in to XenDesktop.

Claim 3 - Manual Configuration of Active Directory & DHCP - Again this is not a valid claim for XenDesktop 3. Manual configuration of Active Directory is not required.

Claim 4 - Management of ALL VDI functions through a single, Web-based GUI - Xbox 360 game controllers have a lot of buttons. The Atari 2600 controller had one button.

Claim 5 - Equivalent end-user experience on LAN as Citrix for Microsoft Office applications - How about when the users start to use other apps, move to other networks, and access desktops from other client devices? Check out www.citrix.com/xendesktop3 and  www.citrix.com/hdx for information on our approach to user experience experience - be sure to check out the videos.

We fully understand that The Tolly Group's role is to validate the results of a testing methodology designed by the sponsor. We've commissioned several similar reports ourselves, and made every effort to make them as valuable to customers as possible.

To wrap this up: We didn't participate in this study because we knew it would be outdated at the time of publication. We also felt that the testing environment did not provide an accurate representation of customer requirements. Finally we didn't participate as the scope of the project only evaluated a subset of the functionality needed for a complete solution.

For every 200 licenses of more of XenDesktop Platinum Edition you place an order for, and you are entitled to a license of GoToAssist. It is actually a benefit of your active Subscription Advantage.

 I get a lot of questions about this, mostly starting with "Huh? Only 1 out of 200 of my users can get support?"

GoToAssist isn't licensed like other 1:1 remote viewing software, like GoToMyPC. In those cases you have software for each seat, both on the host and the guest side. GoToAssist is specifically designed for the tech support department, and the license goes to the support rep - NOT the user - who can then interact with as many end users as they need to. Since it's designed for even some of the largest external support teams (like vendors who supply support to their customers), it is also designed so that you can initiate a session with pretty much anyone, anywhere on the fly.

So, we took some industry data and came up with a starting place ratio of 200:1 - estimating that 1 support rep seat can handle about 200 virtual desktop users. This will be high in some industries and low in others, but it's a starting point.

The other thing to remember is that G2A isn't just remote viewing software. It's a complete remote tech support system, that can track end user feedback, rep productivity/efficiency, etc., and can integrate with your existing incident tracking solutions as well.

Now that the covers are off on our 2nd and 3rd big announcements of 2009 so far - XenDesktop 3 and HDX technology- I've been getting lots of followup questions.

• "Is it immediately available?" Soon! We officially said February 2009, so we have a few weeks yet in the month to stay true to that
• "What does HDX stand for?" The official answer is "High Definition User Experience" but I have seen "High Definition Xen" and "High Def Extensions" which are kinda cool, too - but wrong... So be an insider and get it right!
• "Is HDX just a new name for ICA or SpeedScreen or..." NO. HDX is a much broader technology statement and vision than just a protocol or individual technology. Just like they say it takes a village to raise a child - it takes a delivery system and a community of partners to truly create the best user experience. HDX signifies a strategy to essentially do whatever it takes to create that user experience - and we're not thinking just inside the boundaries of what a protocol can do...
• "Is Desktop Streaming related to Project Independence?" No - not at this time anyway. Desktop streaming is part of the way that we extend the concept of single image management and desktop delivery to LAN-connected office workers using fairly standardized PC hardware. Independence is part of our strategy for addressing mobile worker use cases and BYOC initiatives.

That's it for now, I'll add to the list as I get more frequently asked questions.

Prediction #1: The iPhone goes Enterprise

- The iPhone will gain rapid adoption in the Enterprise driven by user demands including executives, road warriors, and knowledge workers asking for access to the apps they need ( including windows apps ) from anywhere. IT will increasingly support the effort based on new improved security capabilities and productivity gains ( including for themselves ).

..	Choose
I am in IT and we will support the iPhone in 2009 ! ( I need the Citrix Receiver now... )
Blackberry reigns in the Enterprise, no change for '09 ...

..	Choose
We already are saving significant $$ by enabling safe access from home PC's
We are planning to allow controlled access ( via Citrix ) from home PC's in 2009
Status quo, corporate laptop access or none at all.

Prediction #3: Virtual Desktops grow beyond a niche

- Improvements in user experience capabilities of VDI solutions combined with the reduced support cost model will drive increased adoption of VDI beyond the initial niche deployments.

..	Choose
We are moving from VDI pilots and special use cases to broader deployment
VDI is not ready for the masses, we will wait and see

Prediction #4: IaaS Cloud Providers are no longer just for web startups

- The recent Windows offering by Amazon will validate the IaaS ( Infrastructure as a Service ) model as a viable platform for companies small and large looking to add test and targeted production capacity without capital and facility costs.

..	Choose
We have started to use Cloud VM's or Storage for test and plan broader use in '09
What is IaaS ? No way are we putting anything in the cloud...
Not sure, need to try it first

Prediction #5: Netbooks drive Servers, Clouds and Linux clients

- The rapid adoption of Netbooks based on low cost and light weight convenience will increase the desire to run server hosted apps ( Web and Windows ). A significant number of the new mini laptops will be used for occasional use vs a primary PC which makes maintaining local apps and synchronizing data problematic. This in turn will help break the traditional model of running Windows apps installed on PCs and laptops.

..	Choose
We are getting more and more requests for access from Netbooks, all they need is Citrix and a browser.
Netbooks are just toys for kids ...  ( small & big )

Agree / disagree ? what are your predictions ? 

Also seen at Sys-Con Cloud Computing Computing Journal

Brian Madden makes some really strong points about the state of VDI today. To be honest (in my humble opinion) he is spot on when he says that VDI is a "use case" solution. He's correct that even those customers that are 100% VDI today are companies where all their users meet the right "use case".

He may even be right that come June 2010 perhaps VDI technology will advance so much that it can expand its "use cases" circle to include just about all desktops at all companies. But what if VDI doesn't do that by June 2010? In fact what if VDI doesn't do that ever? What would that mean for Citrix XenDesktop? And what would that mean for the competition's VDI solutions?

To answer that, it needs to be pointed out that Brian frequently misses the boat when he talks about XenDesktop. In fact he recently assessed that XenDesktop is just an "old school server-based computing remote desktop delivery product". To even suggest that, one has to seriously sell the XenDesktop product short of what it really is. And I find that surprising coming from Brian, as he has been one of the biggest fans of the Ardence technology, which is a significant component of XenDesktop.

I can only assume that Brian's assessment of XenDesktop is based upon the use of XenDesktop as nothing more than a VDI solution. The problem with that basis is that XenDesktop is not just a VDI solution. It does far more than just VDI.

And this is perhaps the biggest problem that XenDesktop faces today. It is just so frequently compared to other VDI solutions, so much so that it's now perceived to be "just a VDI solution". It has pretty much become a pre-conceived notion, even within the ranks of the highly respected industry bloggers such as Brian Madden.

The problem with comparing XenDesktop to other VDI solutions is that it's like comparing Guitar Hero to a Playstation 3. That's comparing apples to oranges. In fact, that's more like comparing apples to apple trees. Guitar Hero is a game. Playstation 3 is a gaming system, of which Guitar Hero is one of the games it can play. Likewise VDI is a tool, whereas XenDesktop is a Desktop Delivery system, of which VDI is one of the tools it can do.

So back to the questions in the second paragraph, what would it mean for Citrix XenDesktop if VDI use cases never expanded to include just about all desktops at all companies? And what would that mean for the competition's VDI solutions?

If VDI use cases never expanded, then the competition's VDI solutions would always remain "niche" solutions. However, because XenDesktop is far more than just a VDI tool, its technology is not contained within the VDI "niche". To use the Guitar Hero/Playstation 3 analogy, if after this Christmas people stop buying Guitar Hero, that doesn't mean people would stop buying Playstation 3. The gaming system isn't contained within the "niche" of one of the games it can play.

The problem with XenDesktop today is that even though the technology isn't contained within the VDI niche, its market perception is pigeon holed as being just another VDI product within the VDI niche. However, perception will eventually catch up with reality. Eventually the market will begin to understand everything XenDesktop can do. And if we are predicting what things will be like come June 2010, we can safely assume that the preconceived notion that XenDesktop is just another VDI solution will certainly be gone by then. If use cases of VDI haven't expanded by then, then the market is still huge for XenDesktop, a product that does far more than just VDI. If VDI use cases do expand, then XenDesktop will still be right in the mix of that niche, as it does VDI as well.

OK, so what are these "other things" that XenDesktop can do, such that it's a "Desktop Delivery" system as opposed to just another "VDI" product? Well, honestly I could refer to the many blogs Brian Madden has posted singing the praises of the Ardence technology, of which Citrix bought and renamed Provisioning Server.

In order to explain Provisioning Server technology, let me say that personally I'm not a fan of the product name "Provisioning Server". Far too many times I have heard people say they don't need it because they rarely provision operating systems. Such a task is something they do once to a new piece of hardware, and hopefully they never have to "provision" an operating system to that piece of hardware again. Well,  "one and done" is not how Provisioning Server functions, but given the name of the product I can see why people assume it does function like that.

I much prefer to call the technology "Disk Image Virtualization". Essentially what I can do with the technology is take a traditional desktop computer (or server) and virtualize the entire disk I/O that occurs on the machine. While the operating system is running, it's using all the machine's RAM, the machine's CPU(s), the machine's video card, the machine's sound card, etc, etc... The only thing the machine isn't using is the machine's local hard disk. In fact, you could remove the disk if you want to, because the entire local disk I/O is being redirected to Provisioning Server.

So why not call it "Disk I/O Redirection"? Well, that would be a good name if that's was all that it does. But Provisioning Server does one more important thing. It shares one disk image amongst many of machines. I could boot thousands of machines from one shared disk image. Calling it "Disk I/O Redirection" doesn't address that it can share one disk image to many machines. So when I'm explaining what Provisioning Server does, calling it "Disk Image Virtualization" ends up making a lot more sense to the customer than the name "Provisioning Server" does.

Now again, Brian Madden loves this technology, despite what it's called at any given time. The benefits of using it are huge. Instead of managing thousands of instances of Windows, I manage just one instance. Brian loved it when it was called Ardence. He loved it when it was renamed Provisioning Server. And I'm sure he'll still love it even if he hates the name I call it, "Disk Image Virtualization". 

So I have to assume that if Brian assesses XenDesktop to be just an "old school server-based computing remote desktop delivery product", he must not be aware that when a customer buys a XenDesktop license they are allowed to boot their local desktops directly from a shared disk image and avoid a remote connection to a VDI hosted desktop all together.

This flexibility of the XenDesktop license provides the XenDesktop customer tools for additional use cases, and more importantly, additional money saving implementations, which a customer of the competition's VDI solution just flat out cannot do. Essentially, buying the competitions VDI solution for nearly the same price provides the customer with far, FAR less capabilities, and could end up costing the customer far, FAR more overall to implement.

Let's take for example the case of the customer who decided to buy 150 band new laptops with OEM versions of Windows. I'm choosing the laptop scenario because I am frequently finding that due to the low cost of laptops today with OEM Windows installed, many companies are buying these laptops even for use cases where a desktop has been traditionally used. Their justification is that when they price out a desktop, or a thin client, or a laptop, the laptop is only costing a few dollars more than even some thin clients, so the cost to standardize everyone in the company on a laptop is pretty small.

If you're pushing a VDI solution on the customer, the customer's decision to buy laptops hurts your chances of selling VDI, because much of the savings in implementing a "cost saving" VDI deployment is accomplished by keeping the customer's old desktop hardware on the user desks (i.e. save money by extending the life of existing hardware).

If the customer is committed to replacing the old hardware with something new, then the person pushing a "cost saving" VDI deployment would have hoped that the customer had opted for thin clients instead of laptops, so that the power savings of the thin clients could be included as part of the ROI on the VDI proposal.

Despite the customer's excitement over deciding to buy 150 laptops, if you're pushing a "cost saving" VDI deployment, then the customer's decision is disappointing news to you. The new user hardware costs and power consumption of laptops will make your VDI proposal a tough sell (especially when the Windows license costs get added in... more on this later). You'd almost be inclined to convince the customer that buying 150 laptops wasn't a good idea. Good luck with that.

But if you're selling a Desktop Delivery system like Citrix XenDesktop, the customer's decision to buy laptops doesn't hurt your chances of selling XenDesktop at all, because XenDesktop has the tools to work with whatever the customer has on their user's desks. Old, new, and/or power hungry, it doesn't matter.

Keeping with the point of what "doesn't matter", if you're pushing VDI on this customer, it doesn't really matter to you at all how the customer intends to use those laptops, because no matter how they use them the customer is still going to need 150 virtual machines in the datacenter, and users are always going to connect via a remote protocol. But if you're selling a Desktop Delivery system to the customer, how the customer intends to use the laptops actually matters (GASP!!! Imaging that... Use case matters!).

For this scenario let's assume the customer says approximately 100 of the laptops will never leave the user's desk, but 50 of the laptops could be taken on the road or home for the employees to remotely connect in. You also find out that they expect that the maximum number of remotely connected users at any given time would be 20.

If you're pushing VDI as the solution, you would require a virtual infrastructure in the data center to host 150 virtual machines. But the person selling Desktop Delivery sees that the customer only needs the virtual infrastructure to host 20 virtual machines. This is a huge infrastructure savings, and given the customer just spent a lot of money on 150 laptops you're going to need this savings in your proposal if you want the customer to buy a new way of managing their desktops.

Windows licensing can also be a huge factor. If you're pushing VDI, the customer is going to have to take all 150 of those OEM Windows licenses and upgrade them to Vista Enterprise, add an annual SA fee, and then buy an annual VECD license. But the person selling Desktop Delivery sees that the customer only needs 50 of those OEM licenses upgraded to Vista Enterprise with SA and VECD. That's one third of the additional Microsoft costs as VDI is only used when the user meets the VDI use case. See, use case matters!!!

Managing the operating systems is also significantly different. If you're pushing VDI, you're not giving the customer any tool to manage the 150 operating system instances that are on the laptops' hard drives. All the tools of VDI only manage the operating systems on the virtual machines. Even if VDI finally develops an offline mode, the VDI tools still will only manage a virtual machine on the client, and not the operating system installed on the client's hard drive. By pushing VDI, you've essentially just doubled the number of operating systems instances that this customer now needs to manage and you've only given them tools to manage half of them. Gee, thanks!

But the person selling Desktop Delivery tells the customer to have the 100 remaining OEM licenses migrated to the customer's Microsoft Volume Agreement (which is much cheaper than upgrading to Vista Enterprise with SA and VECD), so that all 150 of the laptops meet the Microsoft licensing requirements to be booted from one shared Provisioning Server image (Vista Enterprise, SA and VECD are NOT necessary to use Provisioning Server... the operating system license just needs to be a Volume Agreement to use a shared image). Instead of having twice as many instances of operating systems to manage, the customer now has just one instance. The 150 laptops and the 20 Virtual Machines all boot from one shared disk.

And really the most significant benefit here is the user experience. When booting from Provisioning Server the user's desktop experience isn't occurring over a remote protocol. As much as I could sing the praises of ICA over RDP in a VDI solution, why even use a remote protocol when one isn't necessary at all? When you push VDI, even when the user is in the office they're using a remote protocol. Not necessary!

With Provisioning Server you've virtualized the entire disk I/O to occur in the data center where it's secure, but do you really need all the CPU processing, graphics rendering, and multimedia processing occurring in the datacenter too? Those laptops have good ram, good processors, good video cards, good sound cards, etc... The user will be happier with all that processing occurring locally on their laptop. And IT will be happy that all of the user's disk I/O is occurring in the datacenter on the Provisioning Server. Use a remote protocol when the user meets the use case. Don't force it on them all the time.

So what about the 50 users who will take the laptop out of the office with them? What will they boot to? Well, first let me point out that they won't be booting to the corporate image outside of the office. This is a good thing. In fact, that's a great thing! It's much more secure. In order to boot to the corporate image, a laptop needs to boot from the corporate network. If you're pushing VDI those laptops need to have a corporate managed image on their hard drives because they connect to the corporate network every day. So when they leave the office with the employee, or they are stolen, they will boot with the corporate image anywhere that they are booted. Not good from a security standpoint.

Those 50 laptops in Desktop Delivery when not connected to the corporate network will boot with the image of Windows that the laptop shipped with. With the Citrix Access Gateway, and the XenDesktop Web Interface, the SSL encryption client and the Desktop Receiver client get installed automatically when the user remotely connects for the first time to the office. The employee can then securely use one of the 20 VDI instances within XenDesktop, which by the way boot from the exact same shared disk that their laptop boots from when they are on the corporate network. That means they get the exact same desktop outside the office that they have inside the office, but again the corporate image never physically leaves the datacenter.

In fact, if the user wants some offline applications, Citrix XenApp 5.0 is a great way to stream those offline applications over an http connection to them, and isolate those applications on an unmanaged operating system. And that's essentially what that operating system on the laptop's hard drive is. It's unmanaged. You don't need to manage it. It will never have a full connection to the corporate network. The only connection it will ever have is an encrypted ICA traffic connection.

If the user corrupts that local operating system on the laptop, just have them use the manufacturer's restore CD and then point back to the Access Gateway and Web Interface to get the clients reinstalled. And if a restore CD is too hard for them, you've got 100 spare hard drives with the laptop's original OEM Windows image on it that you pulled out of the other laptops that will never leave the user's desks (assuming you don't opt to sell them on eBay). You could have your remote users carry around a spare hard drive with them if you wanted to. In fact, you've got enough hard drives to have each remote user carry around two spare hard drives.

And ultimately, even if your company policy says you do need to manage the operating systems on those 50 laptops, that's only 50 instances, plus 1 shared image that you need to manage, as opposed to 150 instances on the laptops and another 150 in the VDI infrastructure that the person pushing VDI creates.

Now, given the scenario of the 150 laptops, does XenDesktop sound like an "old school server-based computing remote desktop delivery product"? Sorry Brian, but you've missed the boat in your assessment of XenDesktop. I expect things will be drastically different come June 2010, but not for the same reasons as Brian. I believe by then the preconceived notions that XenDesktop is just another VDI solution will finally be gone.

I have to admit that this in response to a blog posted by Brian Madden couple of days ago. In his blog Brian did three things:

1. Create some news and controversy - as always he seem to have done well
2. Compare Citrix's shipping product with VMware's 'experimental' technologies
3. State that do not invest in VDI because of the competitive alternatives that are available in the market through 2010 and we don't know the who the leader will be then.
   

I usually enjoy reading Brian's blogs because he always looks at the best interest of the customer and doesn't get influenced by announcements and technologies that are not real. However, in this case - I have to say that he missed the mark on few things. Brian is the last person I had expected to get caught up in the land of vaporware and public announcements; so I thought I'd get the record straight.

1. Citrix shipping product vs. experimental technologies - There is a lot of confusion in the desktop virtualization market already. And broad announcements regarding 'experimental' technologies has created some of the confusion. Citrix, on the other hand, has been focused in getting success with XenDesktop product in the market and we are seeing some great results; thanks to all of our loyal customers who are putting their trust in a solid product and moving forward with hundreds or thousands of hosted virtual desktops. At Citrix, we have taken a more conservative view point in going public with our 'experimental' technologies in this market. However, that doesn't mean that we are not working on the future technologies; in fact, we have a robust roadmap that we continually discuss with our customers around different use cases. Our vision is to deliver a desktop to all enterprise users including mobile and offline use case. We are working with customers to align our vision and strategy with customer requirements. As appropriate, we will make short-term and long-term announcement of our vision and product releases.
2. VDI or Desktop virtualization - be all end all - We all love technology and want to talk about how technology will get better overtime. However, when it comes to client computing, I urge each one of you (including Brian) to think about the use cases. Is XenDesktop not a good fit for anyone today? False. Like I said, we have customers who are implementing the technology for hundreds or thousands of users. It is designed and built for delivering a desktop to an office worker (corporate office, branch office or home office) who does all his/her work when connected to the network. That is about 50% of total workers worldwide. Is offline or check-in/check-out a requirement for that user? - NO. Example - I deal with two financial advisors (an inside sales person and a field sales person). The inside sales person is always working when connected and can be using XenDesktop and the field sales person needs offline access and cannot. Those of us who can figure this out will have no problem in cutting the cost of desktop computing for your office workers TODAY!
3. Offline worker - Is Citrix doing anything about offline workers? First of all, we ship the best technology for the offline workers today - XenApp. XenApp enables you to have offline virtual applications, simplifying application management (addressing the biggest offender of cost and complexity). Again, we have customers using the technology TODAY for their mission critical mobile worker use cases - packaging their applications once and then flexibly delivering them to users using any device anywhere. In addition, we are investing heavily on local desktop virtualization technologies where two desktop OS can co-exist on the same device in order to increase the overall security of the mobile workers with laptops and further improve manageability of the desktop OS. Again - we are taking the use case based approach here. We are looking at the needs of a mobile worker who has either a corporate owned laptop or a personal owned laptop (BYOC) and delivering a solution that provides three benefits:
   • Enhance data security by protecting the data with a layer of virtualization
   • Further simplify desktop lifecycle management - by having a single image across multiple types of devices and centralized image management technologies
   • End user flexibility - by enabling them to pick any end point device while delivering the desktop anywhere

Let's look at the mobile user use case - these users will be using their laptop device and the latest version of OS, apps and user settings must be available to them anytime anywhere, including when they are offline. The only time they will be accessing a desktop in the data center is when they don't have access to their laptop device (traveling, emergencies, etc.). So, the whole concept of check-in and check-out is an incorrect model. In fact, I'd argue that the check-in/check-out model is antiquated. We are no longer used to going to libraries and checking-in and checking-out books. Instead, we use iTunes to automatically synchronize what we need on our iPods for offline use and most of us use automatic synchronization. That's what the right solution will need to be - dynamic synchronization, rather than static check-in and check-out, and that's what Citrix is designing and building. 

In summary, I urge each of you (including Brian) to start thinking about the use cases rather than technologies. There are some great technologies out in the market that help you address your challenges for your use cases TODAY - leverage them. Don't wait until 2010 - there will be some other vaporware then!  Consider three different use cases (task workers, office workers, mobile workers) and map out your technology requirements based on the following high level goals that you should accomplish: 

• Lowest cost of ownership
• Maximum flexibility and agility
• Data security 
  
  

There are a couple of myths that have propogated in the industry - VDI - one size fits all (NOT TRUE) and desktop is just another workload on the hypervisor (again NOT TRUE - think users and use cases instead).  

Of course, I am going to close by saying Citrix can help!

I often talk with Citrix customers who are interested in virtualizing XenApp ( Presentation Server  ) based on the potential to consolidate servers, increase flexibility or enable new HA/DR capabilities. However, a frequent comment I hear is that we tried this before with ESX but the overhead penatly was to high so we are still running XenApp fully installed. This may have been the case before but things have changed, now it is possble to get the benefits of Virtualization by runing XenApp on XenServer 5 without the downside you may be concerned about.

If you would like learn more and engage with the experts without traveling to an event, make sure you register for the Citrix Delivery Center Live event on Devember 4th. You can register here and check out the other topics that may be of interest as well.

Part I of the Deep Dive into XenDesktop series reviewed the architecture. Part II covered the install and management tools. Part III reviewed an example XenDesktop Pilot Architecture. Part IV reviewed the Virtual Desktop Delivery of Dan Feller's "XenDesktop Pilot Implementation Guide". Part V reviewed the integration with XenApp for application delivery to the virtual desktops. Part VI covers User Personalization with Citrix User Profile Manager. This is the third section from Dan's Pilot Implementation Guide.

This embedded presentation covers the "Personalization" section of the Pilot Implementation Guide.

Click here to view the presentation in full screen at Slide Share.

This presentation does have several slide notes that provide additional detail. You can view the slide notes here.



Frank Anderson on the XenDesktop team has created a few screencasts covering the features of XenDesktop. You can watch his short screencast covering the provisioning and lifecycle management features of XenDesktop here. Frank's screencast on user experience is available here.

Download the free XenDesktop Express Edition here

Part I of the Deep Dive into XenDesktop series reviewed the architecture. Part II covered the install and management tools. Part III reviewed an example XenDesktop Pilot Architecture. Part IV reviewed the Virtual Desktop Delivery of Dan Feller's "XenDesktop Pilot Implementation Guide". Now in Part V we review the integration with XenApp for application delivery to the virtual desktops. This is the second section from Dan's Pilot Implementation Guide.

This embedded presentation covers the "Application Delivery" section of the Pilot Implementation Guide.

Click here to view the presentation in full screen at Slide Share.

This presentation does have several slide notes that provide additional detail. You can view the slide notes here.



Frank Anderson on the XenDesktop team has created a few screencasts covering the features of XenDesktop. You can watch his short screencast covering the provisioning and lifecycle management features of XenDesktop here. Frank's screencast on user experience is available here.

Download the free XenDesktop Express Edition here

Part I of the Deep Dive into XenDesktop series reviewed the architecture. Part II covered the install and management tools. Part III reviewed an example XenDesktop Pilot Architecture. Part IV reviews the first section of Dan Feller's "XenDesktop Pilot Implementation Guide". Dan goes through each step of configuring a pilot from start to finish.

This first embedded presentation covers the "Virtual Desktop Delivery" section of the Pilot Implementation Guide.

Click here to view the presentation in full screen at Slide Share.

This presentation does have several slide notes that provide additional detail. You can view the slide notes here.



Frank Anderson on the XenDesktop team has created a few screencasts covering the features of XenDesktop. You can watch his short screencast covering the provisioning and lifecycle management features of XenDesktop here. Frank's screencast on user experience is available here.

Download the free XenDesktop Express Edition here