We recently had a very successful VDI Expert Series Webinar on July 16 with both analyst firm EMA and storage provider Netapp titled "Storage Best Practices for High Def VDI." Not only did the live event draw close to 400 attendees, over 3/4 of you stayed on through the end of the webinar.  For those of you who might have missed the webinar, do not despair.   You can watch the archived webinar On Demand Here.  As promised, we have listed the FAQs as well as the unanswered questions from the webinar below: 
 
FAQ:  We are interested in implementing VDI but are concerned about the upfront Capital Expenditure.  How can I roll this out cost effectively, given a limited budget?
Answer:  While a complete cutover from distributed desktops to hosted VDI entails significant capital expenditure, it is possible to implement VDI using a phased approach.  You can use your older legacy (> 3 years old) desktops with hosted virtual desktops, thereby extending your desktop refresh cycle.  For desktops which are already up for refresh, consider using your desktop refresh budget to replace your desktops and laptops with thin clients in a complete hosted VDI approach.  Then when your older legacy desktops must be replaced, you can subsequently replace them with thin clients and/or laptops.   
 
FAQ: Is there any kind of guideline (CPU, memory, etc.) for deciding between productivity, knowledge, and power worker/user? Miscategorizing someone could be a painful mistake.
Answer:  This is certainly a "your mileage may vary" area, but we have published some discussions about designing desktops for a variety of use cases in a design paper on our website.  Typically pilots start with similar allocations of CPU and RAM as the physical device they are currently using.  The nice thing is that in a VM you certainly have the ability to adjust the virtual resources without a screwdriver
 
FAQ:   What differentiates the Citrix + Netapp VDI solution from the one from VMware?
Answer:  As outlined in the detailed competitive comparison on our website,  the Citrix + Netapp VDI solution differs from the one from VMware in four key areas: 
1.       User Experience:  Citrix's HDX Technologies optimizes the user experience by leveraging integrated client/endpoint-, server-, or network side technologies to allow users an optimal high definition user experience to a broad range of applications - streaming media, Flash, audio, 3D graphics, etc - over both the Local Area Network and the Wide Area Network.  This is in stark contrast to VMware View, which will work for LAN use cases, but not for the WAN.
2.       Application Management:  The Citrix + Netapp VDI solution includes integrated XenApp, Citrix's proven application virtualization solution, which works with 1000's of Windows applications, in either a Hosted or Streamed mode.  VMware View integrates with VMware's ThinApp application virtualization technology.  However,  the VMware View solution requires bundling all delivered applications into the VM, which makes application delivery much more cumbersome and difficult to manage.
3.       Flexibility:  The Citrix + Netapp VDI solution offers IT organizations the flexibility to use a variety of VM Infrastructure - Microsoft's Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, or VMware ESX.  By contrast, VMware View ties an IT organization to only VMware ESX.  This gives the customers the flexibility to choose the most powerful cost-effective best-of-breed VDI solution.
4.       Policy-based access control:  The Citrix + Netapp VDI solution leverages a familiar Microsoft and/or Citrix management user interface for managing granular -  by user groups or individuals - access to data and applications. 

Question:  When backing up and restoring a user's virtual desktop, is it possible to only backup/restore a user's MyDocuments or data folders?
Answer:  Yes, it is possible to use Netapp technology to back up entire VM's or just specific sets of user data.
 
Question:  Today we obtain OEM licenses for Windows OS via the HW vendor. If we use VDI - do we have to buy expensive Microsoft OS licenses? Doesn't that increase our costs?
Answer:  While VDI requires purchasing Microsoft Virtual Enterprise Centralized Desktop OS licenses, the net costs can be approximately equivalent to what one pays today for local desktop OS licenses.  You need one Microsoft Virtual Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) license per device, which allows the licensed device to access up to four virtual desktops  concurrently. More desktop instances could be centrally stored, but not accessed at the same time by the same device, without purchasing an additional VECD license. 
 
Question:  What kind of servers (RAM, CPU) would i need to host let's say about 200 PC's, for basic Microsoft Word, Outlook and printing?
Answer:  You may find this Citrix VDI design paper useful, because it provides technical guidelines for many different scenarios.
 
Question:  What about  support for USB devices? Special keyboard (like Bloomberg), video cameras, multi-button mice, etc...
Answer:  Citrix XenDesktop supports many USB devices via its HDX Technologies.  Many USB devices such as SmartPhones, mice, keyboard, scanners, printers, smart cards, graphics tablets work right out of the gate.  There are a couple keys on the Bloomberg keyboard that require some more devleopment work to claim complete support.  Support for isochronous devices - like webcams - is under development and planned for an upcoming release.  Please see the following support article for details. 
 
Question:  Is there a subscription model of VDI services that a SMB market segment can subscribe to?
Answer:  The SMB market segment may possibly leverage a subscription or hosted model of VDI.  Citrix partners are working on making this available.  Please visit http://www.citrix.com/xendesktop for updates.
 
Question:  What is the best way to handle Outlook OST files inside a Thin Provisioned virtual machine? We have a client that must have cached mode on in Outlook, and using Standard Image Mode, we would have to flex that giant file with the user's profile.
Answer:  Yes, a best practice for handling Outlook OST files is to store the OST files on a network-shared and accessible drive so the user Outlook data follows the users, wherever he or she may be.  It is therefore necessary to store the user OST files with the user's profile accordingly. 
 
For more detailed storage and image management best practices, please take a look at the Optimizing Storage and Image Management blog posts part 1 and part 2.  For more detailed information about Citrix XenDesktop, please visit the XenDesktop product page.   

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.

I want to make everyone aware that we will soon be releasing XenDesktop 3 Feature Pack 1 with some new feature enhancements that will make your virtual desktop evaluations go even better and smoother. Here is a quick summary of what you will find in the Feature Pack 1. For more details visit - http://www.citrix.com/xendesktop.

Flash gets HDX'ed
 
Did you know that over 99% of desktop users use the Adobe Flash player? Almost every webpage you go to has a Flash banner-ad. Most of XenDesktop banner ads are Flash-based. Flash provides a lot of mainstream content for most users, and guess what, it is one of the culprits for poor performance, high bandwidth utilization and low user density with virtual desktops. If you are evaluating virtual desktop solutions, Citrix XenDesktop 3 Feature Pack 1 will enable you to carry out your user acceptance testing and evaluations with Citrix HDX technology that accelerates the delivery of Flash content over virtual desktops. Citrix HDX MediaStream for Flash technology enables the local endpoint device to handle processing of Flash media, freeing up server resources, optimizing network bandwidth and providing the best PC-like performance for Flash content. I am a happy virtual desktop user myself with this technology implemented for my XenDesktop. This technology is a trial release that will be able to use with your virtual desktop evaluations as soon as it is available. We have kept it simple - just install the Feature Pack 1 and it will guide you through the process of installing the Trial Release of HDX MediaStream for Flash. In addition to Flash, Feature Pack 1 will include other optimizations for media-rich content that accelerates the performance of Silverlight, QuickTime video, graphics rich websites, animations and other on-screen motion. 
 

They call it "multi"-media for a reason - it's more than what you see
 
Screen-capture rate, bandwidth for screen updates, screen scraping, bitmap codec, remote display, etc. - all of these seem to be the areas of discussion and debate within virtual desktops. But that's only part of what makes up a rich multimedia desktop. How about audio and in particular, VoIP? Only XenDesktop 3 Feature Pack 1 enables users to run their VoIP soft-phones and use microphones and headsets within their virtual desktop and collaborate and communicate with other users. This new HDX RealTime technology increases user satisfaction with their virtual desktops. Feature Pack 1 is our first step towards our vision and enables the use of soft phones for LAN connected users. Citrix will continue to invest in enabling VoIP soft-phones within virtual desktops accessible from any device, anywhere.  
 
Unmatched Smart Card integration
 
If you are managing IT in industries such as healthcare, government and even large scale design and manufacturing, you understand the importance of Smart Cards and how Smart Cards have become an industry-leading standard for implementing two-factor authentication for internal users. XenDesktop 3, http://www.citrix.com/xendesktop3, is the only virtual desktop solution with seamless integration with Smart Cards for Windows-based end points. Feature Pack 1 will make the Smart Card integration complete with further enhancements including broad support for Linux-based endpoints and the ability for users to roam from one device to another - even with a different card reader - and have their virtual desktop session follow them. Some of our large customers are in the process of implementing XenDesktop 3 with Smart Card integration to implement secure virtual desktops for users that can be accessed from any device - making it a low cost 'hoteling' workplace where devices and office locations do not matter and users get to their personalized desktops from any device anywhere.  
 
Get ready for Windows 7
 
And finally, if you are planning to migrate to Windows 7 and want to get a head start on your virtual desktop implementation, Feature Pack 1 comes with an early release of our support for the Windows 7 beta as well. Citrix HDX technologies are all enabled, including the latest HDX MediaStream for Flash, HDX Plug-n-Play and HDX RealTime. We plan to have the Feature Pack generally available at Citrix Synergy (http://www.citrixsynergy.com) in about 2+ weeks.
 
We will be demonstrating the new capabilities and more at the event - go ahead and register if you would like to know more about it. Whether you are currently using XenDesktop in production or just beginning a proof-of-concept, plan to download and install the Feature Pack to get the latest advancements and best performance.

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.

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!

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.