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There is a new Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V, and it is FREE! Now you can quickly and easily combine the power of Hyper-V- System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Essentials for Hyper-V Express Edition.
http://citrix.com/ehvexpress
Citrix Systems, Inc. is unveiling a new free Express Edition to its Citrix Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V lineup. The new Express Edition is immediately available for download and includes the game-changing Citrix StorageLink technology. With StorageLink, Windows administrators can dramatically simplify their storage management processes with quick and easy storage configuration and provisioning for their Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and System Center virtual infrastructures. Citrix Essentials helps administrators take full advantage of powerful storage-based features like deduplication, thin provisioning, cloning, snapshots and replication - features that otherwise hide behind layers of proprietary, specialized virtualization storage file systems.
The new free Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V is designed specifically for Windows IT professional in the early phases of Hyper-V adoption. It will allow them to take advantage of the benefits of shared storage with Hyper-V and simplify storage management in virtual server environments.
The StorageLink technology featured in all editions of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V provides Windows IT Professionals with the tools necessary to easily manage Hyper-V storage in iSCSI and Fibre Channel (FC) SAN environments, enabling them to leverage advanced storage technologies from leading storage vendors that deliver powerful features for performance, storage efficiency, and business continuity. Industry estimates have shown that by applying storage-saving technologies like deduplication and thin provisioning , Hyper-V customers can often shrink their storage footprint by upwards of 50 percent depending on the nature of their workloads. In cases where virtual machines (VMs) are highly duplicated, like virtual desktop images, many have seen a nearly 90 percent reduction in storage consumption.
The Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V supports up to two Hyper-V servers and one storage array. Organizations that download the free Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V can easily upgrade to the Enterprise or Platinum Editions. Listed at $1500 and $3000 per server, respectively, the Enterprise and Platinum Editions add dynamic server provisioning, automated lab management, automated stage management, and workflow orchestration.
Of course, Express Edition provides just a small sampling of what is possible to achieve with Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V. The Enterprise Edition includes the full version of StorageLink, Dynamic Provisioning Services for Server Operating Systems, and complete WorkFlow Orchestration.
The Platinum Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V adds in Lab Manager to provide a complete cost effective virtual lab solution, and Stage Manager to automate the process of migrating newly tested and verified configurations from the virtual lab directly into production. You can download a evaluation copy of the Platinum Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V at http://www.citrix.com/ehv.
Express Edition Download
http://www.citrix.com/ehvexpress
StorageLink Deep Dive Webinar - http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/barryf/2009/04/13/StorageLink+-+Essentials+for+Hyper-V+Deep+Dive+Webinar
StorageLink Demo Videos
http://www.citrix.com/ehv
StorageLink Overview - http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/barryf/2009/02/23/StorageLink+in+Essentials+for+Hyper-V
Provisoning Services Overview - http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/barryf/2009/03/20/Provisioning+for+Hyper-V+with+Citrix+Essentials
Lab Manager Overview - http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/barryf/2009/03/19/Essentials+for+Hyper-V+with+Lab+Management
StorageLink Install Install Guide - http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120789
StorageLink User Guide - http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120791
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GoToMyPC is adding support for Mac OS X!
I've been been anxiously waiting for "GoToMyMac" since I converted to Macs, and recently Citrix Online made one of my "Mac-user wishes" come true, "GoToMyMac" err GoToMyPC for Mac beta was privately rolled out to some existing customers, aka beta testers.
The official GA date is not available yet, however the development team keeps cranking out awesome features, nearly matching the ones already available on the PC today. In the meantime allow me to share a brief demo video showcasing the new Mac support feature.
best,
Gus
twitter.com/guspinto
Platform support
- Added support for iPhone OS 3.0
- Support for Access Gateway Enterprise Edition <-- Yay!
Usability Improvements
- 3x improvement in time for App list retrieval
- Visual feedback for mouse clicks
- When the keyboard is visible (during the session) the session can be scrolled up so that the keyboard does not obscure the session
- When a phone call arrives, the on screen icons are rearranged to appear in the correct locations
Security Improvements
- User's password is stored in the built-in iPhone keychain
---
Download Citrix Receiver 1.0.1 : AppStore (via iTunes)
For more Technical details visit : http://community.citrix.com/iphone
best,
Gus
In between attending events on my visit to Europe for the PubForum conference in Dublin and the TechEdge conference in Munich, I was able to squeeze in a visit to the Citrix Chalfont office in the U.K. the office is located on the outskirts of London at Chalfont Park near St Peter Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire. Simon Frost was kind enough to be my host for my visit to the office, and me being the explorer figured it would be great to travel to the office using the Overground Railway as opposed to the Underground (The Tubes) which don't go there. Simon gave me great directions to get to the office from downtown London, from the Marybelone station to Gerrards Cross station it was about twenty minute ride with a good view of the outskirts London. He was also kind enough to meet me at the station. It was kind of ironic for me that on my first visit to the Citrix Dublin office, they were having a go away party for one the employees who was moving to Australia, and on my first visit to the Citrix Chalfont office, they were having a go away party for one of the interns, which always make for an interesting visit.
The Chalfont office is home to people from Citrix Research and Development, Citrix Production Services, and Citrix Sales. Simon gave me a good walk about of the campus, and while he was off tending to his daily work, I spent the time socializing and mingling with the people at the office and getting to know them better. One of the groups of people that I first met were the Citrix Production Services team, they were an energetic and cheerful bunch, and I once worked with the Citrix Production Services team back in Ft. Lauderdale, I couldn't help but notice, how few of them there were on the team. My hats off to them, as production services are the team that holds the company together so that we can all do what we do inside and outside of the company. The second team of people I met were the people right outside of Simon's office, and they were from the Solaris/Unix/Mac side of the house. This is an interesting group within Citrix, as most people think of Citrix only running Microsoft Windows, and not necessarily on other platforms, yes Citrix does work on other platforms. Another group of fellows that I met while visiting the office were from Research and Development, I think the first thing I noticed in their area was the inflatable green alien! And then there was the Dalek! So buy now you're probably already asking yourself what the... Well, the area of the office they are located in is code named "Area 51", so the Alien and the Dalek are very fitting for one of those ahha moments. I had some interesting conversations with this group, and it was very refreshing to see that others so far away from my own office have very similar thoughts or ideas of where we think this whole industry and technology we develop is headed.
I'd like to thank Simon Frost and everyone at the Citrix Chalfont office for the great visit, and if you ever have the opportunity to visit the office there, I would take the time to do so if possible.
I have posted some photos I took during my visit to the Chalfont office at the link below:
http://cid-7cee7fc8f528290a.skydrive.live.com/play.aspx/Citrix%20Chalfont%20United%20Kingdom/CAM%7C_0373.jpg?ref=2
Hey everyone.
If you know me, then you know my mother. She's the receptionist here at Citrix HQ. I told her about Twitter a few weeks ago and she started an account of her own. She gets the weirdest calls and oddest requests while at answering calls. So, I told her that might be fun to share on Twitter. She's definitely a Citrix personality. You'll want to follow her for a laugh every now and then at @citrixreception.
BTW... you might know Nina. She typically runs the Citrix Store at Synergy, iForum, you name it. Of course, only in the U.S. Drop her a line at twitter. Her latest post is about an employee calling her to ask if the zip code is the same for their building which is right next door to ours. Hilarious!
Enjoy!
Vinny Sosa
Cloud Networking is secure and robust
You can create a complete end-to-end network from one cloud network, running on XenServer, through a VPN to another network in a different cloud. All servers and hosts communicate securely over SSL VPN. Amazon Machine Images are secured by the Amazon infrastructure using security groups.
The proof of concept speaks for itself. Between the Softlayer cloud and the Amazon EC2 cloud is running a site-to-site SSL VPN using Vyatta. All of the images in this architecture are running on XenServer. This proof of concept gives rise to many networking architectures for cloud computing.
The reason for using Vyatta site-to-site SSL VPN between the Softlayer and Amazon EC2 clouds is there needs to be a secure network between the two for the transfer of data. The Vyatta AMI (Amazon Machine Image) can also function as a complete router, firewall and DNS cache. The Vyatta SSL VPN router provides security with scalability. Suppose I wanted to separate the Vyatta SSL VPN from a Vyatta OSPF router, I would just launch another instance of the Vyatta AMI.
As you can see from the network diagram and video, complete routing from the Softlayer cloud to the Amazon cloud network is seamless, without having to buy any proprietary hardware. In fact, it is very low cost compared to traditional network solutions. Virtualized networking is here, it is fast, secure and cheap.
A CloudBurst happens when Citrix Workflow Studio determines that one of the devices in the Softlayer Cloud has reached a high watermark. WFS then instructs the NetScaler VPX to start sending traffic to the Cloud - CloudBurst.
To get your own cloud, go here
Configurations used
Vyatta SSL VPN (V1) - Datacenter Configuration
Vyatta SSL VPN (V2) - Cloud Configuration
XenApp VPN Client - Cloud Configuration
Links for this solution
Vyatta for XenServer - go here
Amazon EC2 - go here
XenServer is Free! - go here
XenApp - go here
Workflow Studio - go here
XenApp VPN Client - go here
Dell Server - go here
IP Addresses - go here
Watch This
Its powerful AppExpert!
Cloud Networking is fast
You can create a complete end-to-end network from the datacenter to the cloud. All cloud servers communicate securely over SSL VPN.
Between the datacenter and the Amazon EC2 cloud is a site-to-site SSL VPN built with Vyatta. On the XenApp server in the cloud runs the Citrix Accelerator which connects back to the Citrix Branch Repeater/WANScaler at the datacenter, to accelerate data connections. The Citrix Accelerator makes cloud computing fast, Vyatta makes it secure.
The reason for using Vyatta site-to-site SSL VPN between the datacenter and Amazon EC2 cloud is there needs to be a secure network between the two for the transfer of data. The Vyatta AMI (Amazon Machine Image) can also function as a complete router and firewall. The Vyatta SSL VPN router provides security with scalability.
As you can see from the network diagram and video, complete routing from the datacenter to the Amazon cloud network is seamless. Data resides at the datacenter and is accessed, over the SSL VPN, by the Application running in XenApp. The remote user connects to XenApp, runs the application, and the application delivers the data to the remote user, quickly and securely.
To get your own cloud, go here.
Configurations used
Vyatta SSL VPN (V1) - Datacenter Configuration
Vyatta SSL VPN (V2) - Cloud Configuration
Windows VPN Client - Cloud Configuration
Links for this solution
Vyatta - go here
Amazon EC2 - go here
XenServer is Free! - go here
XenApp - go here
XenApp VPN Client - go here
Dell Server - go here
IP Addresses - go here
Watch This
Its powerful AppExpert!
Microsoft, Intel & Citrix: Dynamics of Enterprise Virtualization
An interactive discussion led by Doug Brown
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attend this lively discussion with virtualization experts David Greschler, Iddo Kadim & Simon Crosby on the dynamics of enterprise virtualization. Register here.
Topics include:
• Virtualization in the enterprise & upcoming technologies
• Moving beyond consolidation & getting to Dynamic Datacenters
• Cloud computing & how does virtualization fit in
• Desktop Virtualization opportunities, barriers & adoption challenges
Date: Monday, June 22, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM Eastern; 10:00 AM Pacific
Don't miss this opportunity to hear perspectives on the current & future virtualization landscape and what this means for the enterprise.
Register here now.
Follow me on Twitter.
Citrix iForum Benelux 2009 is in Antwerp on June 9th and 10th. The Citrix Benelux team put together a little promo video for the event and posted it on YouTube.
You can register here. I hope to see you and the Citrix Angels there.
Follow me on Twitter.
Twitter is obviously growing rapidily in popularity. According to a recent TechCrunch article, "Twitter's global unique visitors in April, 2009 was a whopping 32 million, up from 19 million in March, 2009". Many different groups within Citrix have begun to embrace Twitter. I use Twitter quite a bit, and have found several different Citrix Twitter accounts that I follow. Below are several recent Twitter accounts started by different departments within Citrix -
@citrixsupport - Mike Stringer, a Senior Director in Technical Support, created this account to provide updates from Citrix Technical Support.
@citrixreadiness - David McGeough from our Dublin office has been very active recently on this account.
@xenappjunkie - Vinny Sosa just started this Twitter account about XenApp.
@xdsupport - XenDesktop support. I have not yet found out who owns this account.
@citrixpartners - This twitter account is specifically for info related to Citrix partners.
@nssupport - Julio Rodriguez recently started this NetScaler related account.
@citrixblogs - This is an automated rss feed account that posts links to every new group blog post on the Citrix Community blogs.
@citrixonline - This account is dedicated to info on GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, and GoView from Citrix Online.
@go_view - This account by Brenda Dentinger focuses on the new GoView product from Citrix Online.
@ctxs - This account is an rss feed of Citrix press releases.
@xenserverarmy - This account posts info specific to XenServer and Essentials for XenServer.
@citrix_synergy - This account posted live updates from Citrix Synergy.
There are several other new accounts that have no or few updates yet.
@xasupport
@xssupport
@citrixeducation
You can also follow me on Twitter, and other Citrix employees such as Chris Fleck, Tedd Fox, Matt Lesak, Lauren Whalen, Rich Crusco, Vishal Generiwala, Dan Feller, and Pete Downing.
If there are other Citrix accounts or Citrix employees you follow on Twitter, please post them in the comments.
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.
Calling all DC & MD (NON-FEDERAL) Organizations!!!
RIGHT NOW Citrix is hosting our Annual #CitrixSynergy event in Las Vegas where there's a LOT of very exciting news, demonstrations, and thought provoking strategies being presented to our audience!
Just because you weren't able to attend Synergy doesn't mean you should be starved of knowledge!!!
Our Team is ready to come onsite to deliver the messaging to you in a 1:1 format. Think of it as your own personal Synergy!
If you are based in DC or MD and are NOT a Federal customer please contact us so we can set up a 60-90min meeting. We can use a whiteboard, a projector, a combo of the two or no medium other than conversation to convey our messaging.
Please reach out to my Inside Sales Representative Jose Parada to coordinate a date & time!
jose.parada@citrix.com or 954.229.6849
Thank You!
JessICADemers
Field Sales Manager | DC & MD
CiTR!X Systems, Inc
_________________________
Keep IT Fresh!
Upcoming Citrix seminars & webinars in North America
Hear from Citrix experts, top IT industry partners & our customers
Updated every two weeks at www.citrix.com/NAevents
While it may seem a bit callus to underscore Citrix's products and services in a time when people are sick and in some cases dying from Swine Flu (H1N1 Virus); I would be remiss in my duty as a Citrite if I did not offer the help and resources of our local DC & MD Sales Team. We are fielding many quote and order requests from new and existing Citrix customers, looking to enable and protect their businesses via Citrix. If you have ANY questions about how to size and scope what your company will need to either implement or expand your Citrix environment please call us so we can help you sort it out!
An in-depth look at Citrix XenApp ::: How XenApp application virtualization and application delivery works
2:24 Whiteboard Video | http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=1684340
XenApp is an application delivery system that virtualizes applications in the datacenter and delivers them as an on-demand service to users anywhere. With XenApp, organizations can deliver any 32-bit or 64-bit Windows or UNIX application to any device including Windows, Mac and Linux PC's---and even Smart Phones.
Inside Sales Representative: Jose Parada | 954.229.6849 | jose.parada@citrix.com
Thank You,
Jessica Demers
When we talk about the Citrix Delivery Center, we are talking about an end-to-end application delivery infrastructure solution. A solution which represents a family of Citrix product lines: Citrix XenServer, Citrix XenApp, Citrix NetScaler and Citrix XenDesktop. It also represents products that add integrated security, management and networking functions, products such as: Citrix Access Gateway, Citrix Branch Repeater and Citrix Desktop Receiver. Overall, the Citrix Delivery Center gives customers the power to adopt virtualization that meets their specific requirements. Customers can choose to optimize delivery of their Web Applications, Windows Applications, Desktop Delivery, Data Center Optimization - individually or in combination. How about all of them?
Now according to a recent Forrester study "49% of enterprises surveyed that are implementing or interested in virtualization solutions indicate that improving disaster recovery/business continuity continues to be a very important motivation for adoption". So what better way to pique their virtualization/business continuity interest than by demonstrating an end-to-end Citrix and Marathon combined solution onsite at the world's largest business software company SAP.
Recently the Citrix Worldwide Consulting Solutions and Business Development teams did just that. We built and demonstrated a Proof of Concept environment that delivered a highly available and virtualized SAP infrastructure using a complete Citrix Delivery Center solution. Within a two week period, the Citrix, Marathon, and SAP teams built and demonstrated a complete Proof of Concept environment. For a quick project overview please refer the data sheet here.
So how did we do it....First we virtualized every Citrix Delivery Center component and the backend SAP NetWeaver application servers using Citrix XenServer. Then we showcased what a remote SAP NetWeaver user would experience accessing the SAP NetWeaver Portal via Citrix Delivery Center while focusing on the high availability/fault tolerant solutions Citrix and Marathon provide. Finally, we simulated a complete failure in the primary site and used the combined NetScaler Global Server Load Balancing feature in conjunction with Marathon's everRun DR product to failover SAP to a secondary data center.
Let's go through the steps that describe the demonstrated user experience:
- Remote SAP NetWeaver Portal user securely connects to the SSL VPN provided by Citrix Access Gateway Enterprise Edition.
- All connections from the remote user client are accelerated using Citrix Branch Repeater Plug-in.
- Remote user is seamlessly presented with the Citrix Web Interface website with on-demand access to virtual desktops, applications, bookmarks and other corporate resources.
- From the Citrix Web Interface page, the remote user launches a virtual Windows XP desktop hosted by Citrix XenDesktop. This desktop is a private virtual image of Windows XP running within a secure data center and maintained from a centralized Windows XP image provisioned dynamically with Citrix Provisioning Server.
- From the secure virtual Windows XP desktop, the remote user launches a published SAP NetWeaver Portal delivered by Citrix XenApp. The published NetWeaver Portal application is separated from the virtual Windows XP Operating System allowing optimal user performance.
- As the remote user navigates the application, all SAP NetWeaver Portal connections pass through a Citrix NetScaler configured to optimize SAP NetWeaver Portal application delivery.
We also demonstrated the following high availability and recoverability solutions provided by Citrix XenServer and Marathon everRun software:
- Level 1: XenServer delivers out-of-the-box high availability, including cost-effective core failover, recovery and restart capabilities for SAP applications running in the virtual environment.
- Level 2: Marathon everRun VM delivers high availability of component-level fault tolerance, eliminating downtime caused by I/O component failures and guaranteeing recovery from system failures.
- Level 3: Marathon everRun VM's Lockstep Technology delivers continuous availability from system-level fault tolerance, eliminating data loss, downtime and transaction loss.
- Disaster Recovery: Marathon everRun DR provides a robust and flexible remote disaster recovery solution providing automated and reliable long-distance protection for critical data and applications, in this case, SAP.
Each piece of the demonstration was broken down into small video segments for this blog. The first video features the Citrix Delivery Center environment for SAP from top to bottom including the remote user login, virtual desktop access, and SAP NetWeaver Portal launch. Then a complete site failure is simulated and the secondary site recovery is shown using Marathon's everRun DR solution with Citrix NetScaler's Global Server Load Balancing feature.
Stay tuned for a detailed reference architecture and video blogs on different High Availability scenarios including everRun VM also demonstrated at SAP Co-Innovation Lab.
Here's the video:
Jerome Reid manages both the Citrix Technical Support escalation team and the frontline teams for XenServer and Provisioning Server in the Dublin, Ireland office which assists customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Jerome will be presenting the following sessions at Citrix TechEdge during Citrix Summit and Citrix Synergy 2009: End-to-end virtualization with Citrix Delivery Center, with a focus on Citrix XenServer, and then his in-depth session will cover Disaster recovery and automation with XenServer.
Q. How has XenServer improved from a support perspective over the past year?
Jerome: Much work has been done over the past year to improve the support processes for XenServer. We now have a dedicated team in each GEO with responsible for managing cases that are referred to our engineering team. This support escalation team ensures that our customer issues are prioritized correctly with engineering and that our customers are aware of their case status. Escalation is also able to bring pre-release solutions in the form of private fixes to customers which allows us to be confident at the earliest opportunity that the fixes for bugs are really addressing the reported issues. We have also been working hard in support to understand the key areas in the product that can be improved from a support and supportability perspective. We have projects designed to allow us to capture this information and carry it to the engineering team. This is a key driver for product development going forward. Q. What XenServer and Citrix Delivery Center tips will attendees learn at your session this year? Jerome: The session will provide the key information you need to consider when implementing a disaster recovery plan for a XenServer deployment. We'll review how to use the different backup and restore mechanisms provided with XenServer 5.0, including VM metadata backup, XenServer host backups and database backups. In addition we'll automate the different backup mechanisms using Xenserver consoles and CLI scripting, and show how to leverage the XenServer CLI for task automation via scripting.
About Jerome Reid
Jerome has been with Citrix Technical Support just over five years. He began as an escalation engineer in the Dublin, Ireland office supporting EMEA customers. He then took on management of the XenApp escalation support. Recently he's been responsible for managing the Server Virtualization and Provisioning support team. In this role he's responsible for managing the support case lifecycle for these technologies from when a customer first logs a call with technical support until a resolution is provided. He graduated from Waterford Institute of Technology with a degree in Software engineering, and has his CCA. He enjoys spending time with his family of three children, two girls and a boy, age nine, six and two. He's also training for his private pilots license.
Do you have an XenServer troubleshooting area that you would like Jerome to focus on during his presentation? Leave a comment.
Our GoToWebinar team puts on web events with leading industry experts and invites target audiences to attend. What you might not know is that they also record these webinars and now post them to iTunes where they are available as free podcasts that anyone can listen to at any time. Some of the speakers and topics include:
- Seth Godin and the Future of marketing on the 14 trends that are changing the way we do business.
- Selling in Tough Times, an interview with Jim Dickie of CSO Insights
- The ROI of Moving Training Online
- Communicating Effectively with your Employees
- Make Training Online as Effective as in Person with Roger Courville, founder of the 1080 Group
- Presentations That Make the Sale
- Managing a Mobile and Remote Workforce
- Using Webinars to Engage Prospects with webinar expert Ken Molay
- Increase Reach with Webinars, an interview with Webinar guru David Cleary
Note that to listen to the podcasts, you have to have iTunes. While you're in iTunes, a couple of other business podcasts that I enjoy and recommend:
- Harvard Ideacast: Generally short, interesting interviews with business authors and academics.
- TEDTalks: The conferences are hard to get into and sell out way in advance, but you can watch the very diverse and often compelling presentations on innovation and ideas as podcasts for free.
DID YOU KNOW that today is the Citrix 20th Anniversary? Happy anniversary, Citrix, and congratulations to every Citrite and member of the Citrix community whose contributions over the years have brought Citrix to where it is today! Here are some thoughtful wishes, interesting observations, and great memories from some of our Citrix Technology Professionals:
From Steve Greenberg:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CADD2KihcEQ
Blog: http://thinclient.net/blog/
From Jason Conger:
Blog: http://www.jasonconger.com/Citrix-turns-20.aspx
From Michael Keen:
Blog: http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=10574
From Alexander Ervik Johnsen:
Blog:
http://www.ervik.as/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1602:happy-20th-anniversary-to-citrix&catid=1:latest&Itemid=139
From Ulrich Stamm:
Blog: http://www.circleofexpertise.com/coeblog.html
From Joe Shonk:
Blog: http://www.theshonkproject.com/index.php?option=com_content
From Jim Kenzig:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABn6t5Ly1T0
Blog: http://kenzig.blogspot.com/2009/04/congratulations-to-citrix-20th.html
From Xavier Sánchez:
Blog and video: http://www.ctxdom.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=208:feliz-20-aniversario-citrix&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=61
Your Video Anniversary Message to Citrix:
Citrix has achieved many milestones in our twenty-year history. To celebrate the occasion, we're creating a video montage of our customers, partners, Citrix Technology Professionals, and the wider Citrix community that we will share with the global team of Citrix employees in late April. We'd like to invite you to share your thoughts, observations, and wishes, by uploading a 20-second video message, including fond memories or anecdotes about your relationship with Citrix. The deadline for video submissions is Thursday, April 23th.
To upload your 20-second QuickTime or WMV video, please visit: http://web.citrix.com/go/videopostcard/
Laura Whalen
Citrix Systems, Inc.
HP just announced their next generation G6 ProLiant and BladeSystem servers powered by Intel Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) processors. My engineering friends suggested that the new Hyper Threading Technology in the 5500 processors is worth reading up on ... see the link in Pat Gelsinger's blog post for more on this front. Previously we talked about HP testing, and new performance characterization work just completed by HP indicates that a 2P HP BL460c G6 server equipped with the Intel Xeon X5570 can provide optimal support for up to 402 users when running HP's most aggressive test workload in a 64-bit HP Server Based Computing environment. The HP test results demonstrated that Hyper-Threading Technology was able to enhance performance by 41%, and that Nehalem provides a 2x performance improvement over the previous platform. Get all the details for yourself in the HP paper here. This BL460c G6 paper is the latest in HP's extensive library of performance characterization papers covering XenApp and XenServer with HP servers.
The HP G6 product release includes six new HP ProLiant servers certified with the new free Citrix XenServer. XenServer is certified on the: HP ProLiant BL490c G6, BL460c G6, DL380 G6, DL360 G6, ML370 G6, and the ML350 G6 models. This takes the total number of XenServer certified ProLiant models to 27!
Yup - HP now offers no less than 27 server platforms certified with XenServer!
Does the Citrix HDX story still elude you? Here's a whiteboard approach.
Let me know if this helps.
Michael
If embedding is broken for you, please see youtube version.
Network Virtualization is secure and routable
You can create a complete end-to-end network from your corporate datacenter, running on XenServer, through the VPN to the network in the cloud. All servers and hosts communicate securely over SSL VPN.
The best part about this solution is that when one vendor said that virtualization breaks the network, it really doesn't.
I just did the proof of concept between a Citrix datacenter and Amazon cloud services. Between the Citrix datacenter and the Amazon cloud, I am running a site-to-site SSL VPN. The SSL VPN running at the Citrix datacenter is running inside of XenServer on a Dell 2950 III server, optimized for virtualization.
The SSL VPN Gateway running in the Cloud is also running on Xen as a virtual appliance, or virtual gateway if you will. The Windows Server(s) in the cloud are connected to the SSL VPN using OpenVPN.
The reason for using OpenVPN on the Windows Server(s) to connect to the SSL VPN Gateway in the Cloud is twofold:
- Amazon doesn't allow the reconfiguration of default gateways on their Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). By configuring the OpenVPN client connection, you can send all traffic from the Windows Server (S3) through the SSL VPN gateway (V2), through the VPN (vtun0) Tunnel, through the SSL VPN gateway (V1) to the private network in the Citrix datacenter AND vice versa.
- Provides an extra layer of security for traffic traversing the intra-cloud network.
Its powerful AppExpert!