Are you planning to attend Intel Developer Forum 2009 next week? If so, you will see Citrix in every corner of the event!

Stop by the Citrix booth (#501) next week at San Francisco's Moscone Center to see demos of our Citrix Delivery Center solutions. We will also showcase demos of Citrix XenClient, our joint collaboration with Intel to develop a local desktop virtualization platform.

In addition, Citrix will be featured in the Intel Virtualization Pavilion and Intel vPro Zone Communities. Within the Communities we'll showcase XenClient and also how Citrix XenServer leverages the benefits of Intel Xeon processors for Citrix XenApp and Citrix XenDesktop workloads. And as if that weren't enough, we will also have a demo of SR-IOV with Citrix XenServer at Intel's booth.

Citrix will also be featured within several breakout sessions at the event. Stop by the session "Hosted, Streamed, and Local Bare Metal Desktop Virtualization with Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenClient" on September 22^nd from 3-3:50pm to hear Peter Blum introduce our desktop virtualization vision and discuss Citrix XenClient.

Also, Simon Crosby is participating in a cloud virtualization panel discussion alongside other industry-leading companies. This session is scheduled for September 22^nd from 5-5:50pm.

In short...or maybe not that short...if you plan on attending the event, you'll have a lot of opportunities to meet with Citrix and learn how Citrix is working with Intel.

We look forward to seeing you there and we guarantee you won't be able to miss us! Learn more about Intel Developer Forum or register to attend here.

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

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

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

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

In this webinar you will learn:

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

Check out the webinar!

The question of VDI use cases, customer awareness, and Desktop Virtualization has been a hot topic lately at Citrix. Harry Labana's blog post did a great job describing the differences in Desktop Virtualization and Server Virtualization. In addition to the positive reviews a few commenter's have also brought up some scenarios we have been considering but have not made available to date. Specifically we have been discussing ways to make HDX more pervasive and useful to IT Pro's and users. HDX has significant benefits and we want the broader industry to try it out and get a taste of XenDesktop.

Many in the community may recall a Citrix project called PortICA which led to a component of XenDesktop providing a direct ICA connection from a Client OS ( XP or Vista ) to any endpoint with the ICA client. Outside of Citrix developers & testers ( and a few others ) who find this very useful, we have not opened up this stand alone capability to the world. If we did make this available, meaning an MSI including the enhanced HDX features that could be installed inside a client OS which could connect directly ( no broker ) to any device with the Citrix Receiver and proper network configuration. The question is what would you use it for ? Would this lead to increased XenDesktop adoption? Some of the XenDesktop product and demo scenarios we have considered or heard are listed below. Please let us know your vote and help describe some new use cases as well.

( Note that this is simply a survey and does not imply what plans we may or may not have )

Also check out Brian Madden's post on the topic and additional commenters views.

http://twitter.com/chrisfleck

In case you have not been following some of the recent news on VDI and desktop virtualization, here is a recap.

Two contradictory stories

It all started about 2 weeks ago when Citrix and VMware shared the status of VDI business. There were two contradictory stories - Citrix announced some large purchases and implementations for Citrix XenDesktop and VMware announced that larger projects are being pushed out to 2010.

VDI is doomed for failure

Then came some reports on how VDI projects have recently failed. I like calling these not so successful VDI projects as 'first generation' architectures that are destined for failure. As the author notes that these projects start 'innocently' - with the goal of putting a desktop on top of the existing server virtualization platofrm. In other words 'We have done server virtualization - we can now do the same for the desktop'. Unfortunately, that is where the problem starts. Recently, Brian Madden published a story highlighting the problem. Two weeks ago, I heard customers sharing their frustrations and concerns about why desktop virtualization is different from server virtualization.

The Truth

I spoke with our CTO, Harry Labana, and Harry walked me through the top 5 reasons why in his experience VDI projects will fail if they are done with a presumption that desktop virtualization is similar to server virtualization.

The fact is that implementing Desktop virtualization or VDI is mre like implementing any other server based computing technology, such as Terminal Services. The VDI infrastructure that may be resident in the data center; however, it goes beyond the data center to the network, the end points and the user. So, unless the implementations are planned with network, device and end users in mind they are destined to fail. Good design, on the other hand, will lead to successful implementations. But that means doing the right due-diligence of products up front - including network, end points and end users. Or else you will fall into the similar trap as others are falling into.

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Well, for those of you who were able to attend Burton Catalyst 2009 in San Diego the other week, you probably noticed the number of sessions focused on VDI.  The first one I want to talk about is McHenry Savings Bank and their move to VDI.  Based on the discussion, their pre-VDI deployment consisted of the following:

• 130 Desktops purchased in 2001
• Windows 2000 SP4
• 1 Day desktop creation time
• No device consistency

 
Although this is not a large desktop environment, they do run very lean with 2 people managing the entire IT environment, which includes hardware, networking, IP phones, ATMs, desktops and software. As you can imagine, these two people have their hands full and probably had little time to focus on improving the environment because they were spending most of their time in a support fashion.
 
What I found particularly fascinating about their VDI story was not so much about the infrastructure and VDI solution they used but what they used as a success criteria: electricity.  Many of the benefits I've seen in VDI is based on simplification. Using a single desktop image for hundreds of users simplifies support.  But in their solution, they used a 1:1 relationship between user/VM (each user had their own unique VM).  Over 3 years they said they had cost savings of roughly $23,000 over 3 years just for the desktop device due to the low power consumption of the desktop appliance (I do question these numbers as they did not take into account the power consumption of their new servers that are used to virtualize the desktop).  
 
They also broke down the costs (including desktop hardware) and showed a net savings of $19,000 over 3 years, but again they failed to take into account the cost of the 8 servers that would host the virtual desktops.
 
From my perspective, one of the more interesting points were the challenges with VDI, which I believe is important for any one considering a move to VDI. Based on the solution they selected, the following were their challenges:

• Graphic intensive applications and speed issues across the WAN
• Centralization of virtual desktops not possible over limited WAN bandwidth
• No Central location of all VMs. (VM Sprawl)
• Some limitations on peripheral support
• Finding weaknesses in local LAN as it is now critical

I think when looking at a VDI solution, you need to consider the branch office. What impact will the WAN have on VDI plans? Can the transport protocol used provide enough resilience and responsiveness over WAN connections?  
 
But one thing is definite based on the story McHenry Savings Bank told, delivering a new desktop to a user is now as easy as plugging in a device.  That is truly a huge improvement. Nice work
 
Note: This blog was brought to you from a hosted XenDesktop virtual desktop with a XenApp-streamed Firefox browser.

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/djfeller
Follow me in the Blogs: http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/danielf

Do you have a desktop virtualization design or architecture question? Then Ask the Architect

What is it?

Many times when people are looking at a solution or trying to create a design, they have a question as it relates to their environment.  Although there are numerous documents and best practices on the Citrix knowledge base, many of these are based on a "recommended architecture" which typically does not look like many of your environments.  This is where Ask the Architect comes in.  If you have a question regarding your desktop virtualization project, send an email to AskTheArchitect@Citrix.com.  (HINT: Make your questions short and to the point.)  Based on your email question, we will strive to find you an answer and post a video on CitrixTV (because many other people will have similar questions).  The answers will be brief and to the point, less than 5 minutes (we don't want to bore you and we still have lots of other things to do too).

What it is not?

The desktop virtualization Ask the Architect is not a way to get a complete desktop virtualization design. For a full-scale design, I would recommend you get in touch with Citrix Consulting, who have already been instrumental in designing some of the largest desktop virtualization solutions. It is also not a troubleshooting forum, as there are already many forums for those items (plus I've never heard of any Citrix products having issues )

Who is Ask the Architect? 

This is a big question. You don't want to send in an email and have it answered by a marketing or sales person who tells you to buy another product. You want someone who has designed complex solutions.  This is why Ask the Architect is not 1 person, but many.  Based on the question submitted, the most experienced Citrix Architects from our Consulting organization will create an Ask the Architect video post and submit it to CitrixTV for all to see. 

How to Get Stared?

Start watching the Ask the Architect series on CitrixTV.

• Episode I: VDI and PVS for Multiple Remote Sites: http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/882  

Email: AskTheArchitect@Citrix.com
Note: This blog was brought to you from a hosted XenDesktop virtual desktop with a XenApp-streamed Firefox browser.  

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/djfeller
Follow me in the Blogs: http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/danielf

I moved to California from London just over 11 months ago. Obviously there is a significant cultural and climatic shift involved and a settling in period is a necessity to find your feet. Having travelled all over the world I have embraced as many aspects of different cultures and enjoyed experimenting.

One such aspect I have noticed here in California and in fact right throughout the US is the love of cheese.  A meal  smothered in cheese is normally accompanied by a side dish of, guess what, MORE cheese. Normally I reserve this dairy delight for a cracker or with some wine but 'Here' it is on everything.

Ordering a Cheeseburger with no cheese always raises a quizzical look from the waitress and a thought process which starts with "You are weird" and progresses to "Is he a serial killer?". Even the lactose intolerant demand that their lunch, dinners and daily snacks have heavy cheese content. Asking colleagues, "why do they have so much cheese on their food?" the simple answer was, "it tastes so good with cheese".

One technically gifted colleague decided to explain this using the analogy that Citrix XenApp and Microsoft Remote Desktop Services(the technology formerly known as Terminal Services) have the same relationship as cheese and hot meals(zzzz). The hot meal is the platform, Microsoft, and the cheese is the value-add, XenApp, which brings the  meal to life. Beating this analogy to a quick death, then Citrix has a number of cheeses, Citrix XenDesktop, Essentials for Hyper-V and Branch Repeater which embrace and extend the Microsoft Platform to supply a sumptuous meal.

All of these great combos can be found here at the New Microsoft/Citrix Community Portal where we've consolidated all related news, blogs, articles, videos, etc... into the feeds section of this page. We've also created an area that highlights all related forum threads and postings. Look for answers to your burning questions, participate in an existing discussion, or you can tell us if our cheese is good or if it stinks - let me remind you that all the best cheeses stink  

PS Does eating cheese in the evening give you nightmares? 

I was in San Diego last week at the Catalyst Conference 2009 hosted by the Burton Group. Desktop virtualization was one of the main tracks and for some of the Burton Group analysts, desktop virtulization or VDI or virtual deskops were the most frequently discussed topic with their customers.

Personally, I met with over 2 dozen enterprise customers, including some that have already implemented the technology. I also co-presented with Burton Group on the topic of future of desktop virtualization. It was very encouraging to see that customers are increasingly becoming aware of desktop virtualization and are considering desktop virtualization to free themselves up from the PC refresh cycle. I think that we are nearly at the tipping point - where the success from early adopters will spread to the majority of the IT environments.

Here are my top 3 findings:

Virtualizing a desktop is not the same as virtualizing a server

There was a consensus here among all customers who have already implemented virtual desktops. IT often starts with virtualizing desktops with the assumption that it is the same as virtualizing a server. However, it turns out that there are some stark differences. We have talked about this before but Some interesting quotes:

• "2000 virtual servers is a lot of virtual servers but 2000 virtual desktops common for an enterprise"
• "Server VMs - goal is to keep them up, Desktop VMs - goal is to keep them up to date"
• "Server VMs - multiple workloads to virtualize without any personalization, Desktop VMs - Single workload to virtualize but with user personalization"
• "Server VMs - all about up-time (easy to measure - 99999999....), Desktop VMs - its all about user experience (user satisfaction, performance, easy to access)
• "Server VMs - if virtual center is down - no big deal, Desktop VMs - virtual center is down means users are unable to connect!"

Existing customers of first generation VDI are rapidly upgrading and expanding with new virtual desktop solutions

I spoke with customers that started with virtual desktops about 18 months ago and did so with 1:1 user mapping to VMs. It was interesting to learn about how customers were able to make successful business cases in virtual desktops even with those first generation or primitive architectures that involved managing multiple instances of desktops in virtual machines, high storage costs and not the best user experience. Business cases were based on simplifying distributed dekstop management while giving users the flexibility to access their desktop from anywhere.

In the past 12 months, several of the limitations of the first generation virtual deskops have been eliminated. All these early adopters are now rapidly upgrading to these new generation of virtual desktops where they can manage a pool of virtual desktops using a single OS image, and single of instance of apps. Most were planning to start with virtual applications gradually starting from the ones that are the hardest and most complex to manage and update. This will give them the ability to simplify virtual desktop management and cut down the cost of storage infrastructure.

Most of these customers said that they are rapidly expanding their virtual desktop solutions as it will help them migrate to Windows 7 much more easily.

Picking the best desktop for every user helps virtual desktop solutions

During my presentation on the future of desktop virtualization, there were two topics that resulted in many good questions and positive feedback.

1. Best virtual desktop solution for different user types - I have written about this before. I had several conversations with enterprises looking at hosted virtual desktops or VDI regarding how to get the best fit desktop using other technologies including blade PCs, terminal server based or even local virtual desktops. In almost all cases, mapping different options to different user types led to eliminating several barriers to hosted virtual desktop or VDI model, including TCO, user mobility & power user scenarios.
2. Local virtual desktops - Huge interest in Citrix XenClient. Security, manageablity and BYOC became the three top discussion topics with the customers. In fact, Citrix CIO Office presented Citrix's BYOC implementation at the event and it was one of the most popular sessions.

Overall, it was a good event, well attended, with lots of good, in depth discussions. It is great to see the positive momentum of customers moving from physical PCs to virtual desktops.

Get more information on Citrix's desktop virtualization

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1. Best User Experience - Wyse http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/377
User experience has always been a key concern for IT planning to rollout XenDesktop to new users. Increasingly these users are knowledge workers with higher demands and expectations. This includes things like boot-up time, peripheral support and no compromise Multimedia.

Doug Brown : I loved how Wyse was able to show off not only video running through XenDesktop but also a real time video camera! This use case has become more and more needed in today's world! Nicely done!
Sumit Dhawan : The collaboration function demonstrated was impressive. Nicely done.
Chris Fleck : I liked the Wyse demonstration of full Webcam functionality, this is a growing requirement for knowledge workers moving from PC's.

2. Best Management - IGEL http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/530
A key driver for desktop virtualization is the control it affords IT administrators and the cost savings it achieves. Thin clients form a key component of the broader value equation. Example of demonstrations to illustrate management and TCO can include Management console and functionality

Doug Brown : The video was short and sweat and in the short time IGEL was able to show how simple it is to use their management tools to make changes and rollout users. Impressive!
Sumit Dhawan : The best demonstration on management, and creatively shared.
Chris Fleck : IGEL gave a informative demonstration of their management console and capability that would be useful for Thin Client deployments with XenDesktop.

3. Best Security – HP http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/688
Security is a key driver in the adoption of desktop virtualization. In a world where security concerns gains increasing importance, please demonstrate how your company's device complements the security associated with XenDesktop. Examples can include, but are not limited to, support for Smart Cards and the ability to harden, lock down and securely manage endpoint devices.

Doug Brown : I thought HP went above and beyond in their video detailing their security enhancements to XenDesktop. By far the best video detailing security along with being very well produced.
Sumit Dhawan : Solid videos showcasing security - no one came close in demonstrating the security capabilities
Chris Fleck : HP added features such as USB port control and Smart Card support are important to many customers considering XenDesktop as a more secure and controlled environment.

4. Best Form Factor 10ZiG http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/672
Show how your company's device brings the ideals of form and function together to deliver a XenDesktop access device that is not only cool to look at gets users excited about getting their hands on, but is easy and useful, delivers a better user experience, can lower cost of ownership and is more secure.
Doug Brown : Not only are the 10ZiG clients small and pretty but I liked how 10ZiG showed how easy it is to hide them away behind a users monitor. Pretty cool stuff...
Sumit Dhawan : Small, good fit behind the monitor - and a great demo of form factor
Chris Fleck : The 10ZiG devices are small and look good.

5. Best Innovation HP http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/677
Innovation is a key way for partners to differentiate their offerings to add value above and beyond that provide by XenDesktop. This category is for partners to highlight complementary hardware or software features that have been added to achieve greatest value add to XenDesktop customers.

Doug Brown : I was very impressed with everything HP packed in to their videos. They truly showed us the amazing innovations they are making with their thin clients.
Sumit Dhawan : The video was comprehensive showcasing the end to end approach - a hallmark for innovation
Chris Fleck : HP innovations around multi-monitors, device management and quick-release mounting feature are all great examples of how to enhance Thin Client deployments.

6. Support for Locally Streamed Desktop Devon IT http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/676/
Citrix has recently highlighted the ability of XenDesktop to be used to stream the operating system to the endpoint for local execution. The submissions in this category will highlight how the partners' solutions are ideally suited to receive streamed desktops. Examples of ways to illustrate value are inclusion of the Operating System streaming client and the ability to include hardware resources (CPU, GPU) required for local execution.

Doug Brown : DevonIT did an amazing job showing us a streamed XenDesktop and they explained it all and showed it all in a really "cool" fashion. Good stuff!
Sumit Dhawan : DevonIT demonstrated this the best - showing the most challenging use case
Chris Fleck : DevonIT makes use of the Citrix Provisioning Server Streaming OS feature of XenDesktop yielding a great admin and user experience.

7. Best overall Video ( Expert Panel Vote ) Devon IT http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/673

Doug Brown : DevonIT went above and beyond in this video. It was funny, explained their total value add and did I mention it was just downright funny? A must watch and many kudos to them. A stellar video! (Unless you try to steal one of their thin clients and get hit in the face with it!)
Sumit Dhawan : Creative, fun, informative - and excellent use of marketing. Great way to drive traffic by making the front screen of the video appealing for the target audience to click on
Chris Fleck : DevonIT's video presentation was a creative and informative way to highlight the benefits of Thin Clients including XenDesktop and the TC5. A sign of more to come ?

8. Best overall Video ( User Community Vote ) Devon IT http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/673

The Community spoke with their views, votes and comments, the DevonIT views are at 1028 and counting, with an average of 4 stars.

Congratulations to DevonIT and all the category winners ! Well Done. Thank you for participating in the challenge and thanks to the Citrix community that voted with their views and rankings. ( and thanks Vishal Ganeriwala for putting this challenge together )

Within this one page you'll have all information on the Citrix and Intel relationship available at your fingertips...or mouse click so to speak.  

Interested in learning about Citrix's latest activities with Intel? We know your time is valuable and that's why we've consolidated all related news, blogs, articles, videos, etc... into the feeds section of this page. We've also created an area that highlights all related forum threads and postings. Look for answers to your burning questions, participate in an existing discussion, or post a new thread. Epitomizing the true nature of community... this page is here for you!  

Did you know that Citrix and Intel are working together to jointly develop a bare-metal Type-1 client hypervisor? Learn about and stay up to date on our joint collaboration of Citrix XenClient. View demos, read blogs and let us know what you think about this upcoming solution.

But it doesn't stop there! Get information and results on our joint product validation, benchmarking and scalability tests. You can even let us know how you're working with Citrix and Intel solutions together in our Community Verified area.

You're only one click away from all things Citrix and Intel. Stop by the Citrix Community page for Intel and check back often! And don't forget to follow us on Twitter!

To finish off with another Damone line, "isn't this great?"

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.   

The headline of an AP article by Martha Irvine on Yahoo! Tech News a few days ago really struck me:  Young Workers Push Employers for Wider Web Access.  The lead did too: "Ryan Tracy thought he'd entered the Dark Ages when he graduated college and arrived in the working world." 

I'm more than a few years out of college - all I will say is pre-Yahoo! - but perhaps given my location in Silicon Valley, and my career in high-tech, ranging from IBM to Documentum and now Citrix, I've always had the latest technology at my disposal, and few-to-no limits about its use. 

I certainly feel for these workers, and am happy to be at Citrix, where we continue to remove limits to the experience that employees have with technology, most recently with a "Bring your own Computer" initiative that encourages employees to use one PC for both work and home. Our CEO, Mark Templeton, is also an outspoken advocate of the need for IT leaders to open up their thinking - as well as their networks and desktop management and procurement policies - to embrace the change that this new generation of workers is demanding.

There are lots of reasons people avoid change...control, security, cost come to mind.  But isn't there a list of equally good reasons to embrace change - especially if it's coming no matter what? 

The new generation of workers like Ryan Tracy is a driving the consumerization of IT.  They grew up with the Internet.  They are used to choice - 500 channels of TV is an expectation, not a luxury.  Personality and individuality are expressed in their PCs and smart phones, in what's on them and how they are used.

Enterprise IT can be the same way.  Let users pick and manage their own PCs, perhaps with some minimum guidelines. This does mean that IT leaders will have to change their desktop management practices, perhaps moving to a model that relies on virtual desktop delivery; change that will mean saving money, and freeing up IT resources so they are working on strategic projects rather than deploying patches and upgrades to thousands of different desktops. 

It also means providing a selection of applications that users can get to on-demand - just as they do everything from home banking to photo sharing to social networking sites, and by making them available using virtualization, the applications and data live centrally and securely in the datacenter, not on the endpoints. 

This approach can make telecommuting and working from home more palatable to IT, since critical information is never out of their control, as well as something that employees value as they strive to balance personal and professional priorities in a world where these once-old lines are rapidly blurring.

Offering a more open approach may feel uncomfortable, but the business benefits are clear:  we've had a financial service customer actually quantify that their new and more open environment means an enormous contribution to productivity by allowing all types of work scenarios - mobile working, working from home on weekends and evenings, working extended hours at the office - to help this 48,000 person company stay competitive and succeed. The results are startling:  they've added 500 person years of productivity annually, valued at nearly $83 million USD.

Of course, opening up enterprise IT means careful cross-organizational consideration of how and where employees work. Ultimately, it's the IT leaders who are showing business the best way to deliver a secure user-centric work environment that get the added benefit of seeing their own operating expenses decrease and their staffs go home happy and worry-free.  So at the end of the day, isn't it a simple choice to make?

XenApp Expert Series - Informational, News, Interviews (2009) The show where we interview the experts to get you the latest research and technology news on XenApp application virtualization. Host Vinny Sosa (@vinnysosa) interviews Product Strategist Derek Thorslund (@derektcitrix) to help everyone understand the HDX Technology stack. This is part one of multiple videos that will dig deeper into HDX technologies. Episode 3, Season 1.

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I know this sounds like a very strange headline, but those who know me know that I have a passion for offshore fishing. Getting out early when the sun is just coming up over the horizon, I see an ocean of opportunity.

In theory, I could run around the ocean all day doing what we call blind trolling, just pulling baits behind the boat hoping that a fish takes one of them. Obviously, this is a very inefficient use of time, gas, and well, it's just plain boring.

Instead, my first job is to fish for birds. Let me explain. With migratory fish, such as Mahi Mahi and Kingfish, a large school will feed on baitfish clustered up where shallow water over the reefs meet the deep sea. When they do this, birds will circle overhead and dive down to grab the leftovers floating on the surface. When you find the birds, you find the fish.

I view the desktop virtualization marketplace as being like the ocean. There are billions of dollars worth of opportunity in the next few years, but let's face it, no one is going to cast a wide enough net to grab all of the opportunity so we have to look for the birds, in this case specific desktop virtualization methodologies, features and benefits that hold the greatest value for customers.

Virtualization is becoming a widespread buzzword for specific computing models. As Solution Advisors, your job is to break the desktop market opportunity down into consumable parts. When your customers talk about desktop virtualization, are they talking about reducing complexity, providing better support, or making sure their desktops are secure? Stopping the discussion when your customer says they have a desktop virtualization strategy may be similar to running right over the fish.

I've had many times all the conditions are right; the fish are there, our bait is good, but they just won't bite. Rather than write the whole trip off, sometimes adapting our approach makes all the difference. There have been times when kingfish that wouldn't touch a ballyhoo, go crazy for a pilchard.

And so it is with selling in the virtualization space. Are you planning your fishing trip this way? Are you willing to adapt or look for new opportunities in the same fishing area? Just as with fishing, patience and persistence pay, but we have to be flexible to change. Remember to look for the birds. They should be flying just over the desktop.

Good luck and good fishing!

Citrix provides a wealth of materials to help you market and sell desktop virtualization . For access to them, go to http://successkits.citrix.com and sign in with your My Citrix credentials.

I recently recaped the desktop virtualization news at Synergy. During Synergy, there was a lot of rich technical and product information presented on XenDesktop.

If you were unable to attend the event or missed any of these technical sessions, we have packaged up all the technical goodies into a 3 part webinar series that will be available both live with Q&A and on-demand. I highly encourage you to go through all these events; it will be time well-spent learning about desktop virtualization and XenDesktop with presenters presenting content that they have built based on hands-on knowledge.

Here are the three topics:

Effectively planning a technical migration from physical PCs to Citrix XenDesktop   This technical session will provide a clear, detailed process for helping your customers upgrade from existing physical PCs to centrally managed virtual desktops using XenDesktop.  Early customer implementations and best practices will be offered as guidance for handling both small-scale and large-scale migrations. When: Monday, May 18th; 1 PM ET / 10 AM PST* *
Register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/157171272

Citrix XenDesktop 3 Architecture and HDX User Experience: A Comparison Versus VMware View The new Citrix XenDesktop 3 provides high definition user experience and higher scalability, making it the leading virtual desktop solution. This technical session will cover the architecture and design of XenDesktop 3, including Citrix's HDX technology. Attendees will learn about the key technical advantages of XenDesktop over other virtual desktop products including VMware View. When: Tuesday, May 19th; 1 PM ET / 10 AM PST* *
Register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/665923001

Citrix and Intel:  Manage Once and Stream to Many Local DesktopsThis technical session will focus on the unique, single image management capability of XenDesktop and the best practices for streaming the entire desktop environment to local PCs across large-scale virtual desktop deployments. When: Wednesday, May 20th; 1 PM ET / 10 AM PST 
Register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/211934248

Please share your feedback with comments on the blog, so that we can continue to enhance our technical content for you.

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.

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!

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.

So,  I've managed to hold of this long before adding myself to the Citrix Community blog site.  Shame on me, I should have done it ages ago, but I've been a tad busy recently.  As the product manager responsible for releasing XenDesktop, I've have the 2.0 and 2.1 releases on my plate, with more coming.

 So how to open my blog....

Well, how about how I work in a predominantly PC world as a predominantly PC user, with my shiny new MacBook ?

 I've been a PC user since I've used computers and in fact I've been dead against Macs ever since I had to develop on them when I was 17 at college (bad bad bad experience using filemaker on mac classics).

Anyway, I recently got a new shiny unibody MacBook in order to "understand" the platform and seeing as its increasing in use both in corporate and BYOPC modes into the workplace (yes its still FAR below PC use, but its enough to be interesting to me as Product Manager for XenDesktop).  Lest we forget, a lot of our execs here at Citrix use macs and the user experience on the mac for most basic tasks is far better than PC tasks (yes, even I will admit that) so we need to understand how our products can pull the best usability and features from this very user friendly platform.

So, I came into the mac world with perhaps another different perspective,  I didn't plan to try and integrate my macbook into the corporate PC world at Citrix, I came into it with the BYOPC model in mind.  Yes its a corporate MacBook, but I want to think of it as my digital life, which can handle my personal and professional worlds (just like most mac owners do).  This is where the similarity stops, I use XenDesktop and the future of desktop delivery to separate and yet integrate my corporate and personal worlds on my MacBook.  I connect to my Vista XenDesktop either remotely from home or over the LAN in the office, in exactly the same way (via a URL to a Web Interface site which is bookmarked), I have configured the MacBooks "spaces" to use space 4 for ICA so my corporate desktop ALWAYS appears fullscreen in space 4 when I login.  I can use Outlook, Powerpoint etc 2007 for PC delivered via XenApp in my corporate PC world and can be as productive (if not more) whether I'm at home, work, in a hotel, cafe, etc.  I always get MY corporate desktop with MY apps and MY docs.  My MacBook does what it does best, it runs my digital life using mail.app for home email talking to my exchange server over IMAP.  I sync my ipod, use mac messenger, adium, GoToMeeting all natively on Mac for audio/video call purposes.  Its freaking awesome and its the future.

Why spend time trying to force two distinctly different operating systems, ways of life, even religions (PC vs MAC is essentially a religious argument) when we should all just accept that its not going to work.  Microsoft and Apple have no desire to help people use both, they want you to pick a side and become so indoctrinated in it you can't move and purchase more software/hardware and become loyal to that platform (pretty much the same thing as games consoles, you get so invested in hardware accessories, games etc for the XboX360 that you can't justify getting it all again for the PS3 (unless you are a nut )).

I don't have to fight either operating system to get it to work as its not designed.  I don't have to fight entourage, I don't have to argue with trying to get PST files back and forth....  Yes I have to be "online" but thats really not much of a hardship these days, especially for Citrites

So, my point here is take control, use the right platform and right applications for the right job, stay productive, change the rules on Microsoft AND Apple, ignore the fact they are trying to pigeon-hole you into a religious battle of OS's.  Do what is right for your corporate and personal life, stay productive, keep your hair on your head and use XenDesktop, I do.

Simon Plant
Senior Product Manager, XenDesktop
Desktop Delivery Group, Citrix

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!