Drive greater IT operating efficiency through integrated end-to-end virtualization to reduce costs,
maximize system availability, and drive operational agility.

Join top virtualization executives as Citrix and Microsoft discuss:

• Virtualization industry trends and how Microsoft and Citrix are joined to provide customers with best-of-breed solutions
• Key solutions for application, server, and desktop virtualization
• Reducing IT costs by 40% with Virtualization

Date: May 15, 2008 at 4:00 PM EDT/ 1:00 PM PDT

Continue to Registration: Citrix and Microsoft and the Future of Virtualization

Becoming an Application Expert means that you can profile an application and quickly determine how it can be architected or re-constructed for higher performance. Of course, we want you to use the Citrix Application Switch as part of the architecture. In Part 1, we learned how to profile an application to learn what it looks like as the traffic flows through the Citrix Application Switch. Now we will determine what parts of an application are cacheable and what parts are non-cacheable.

By Application Profiling we can determine which parts of the application are cacheable and non-cacheable just by looking at the Request and Response headers. The application will sometimes tell you through it's "Cache-Control" header directives. Some content that we just know is static and doesn't ever change, we can consider cacheable as static content. Content that changes, such as reports, are often considered non-cacheable but with the help of Selectors and Dynamic Content Groups in the Citrix NetScaler, this content can be cached. As a proof of concept, we deployed the Citrix NetScaler Application Switch in the front of Oracle E-Business Suite v12 application and implemented caching policies for both static and dynamic content. As it turns out, alot of static content is cached by default policies and setting up dynamic policies is not that difficult. To see how, read the Caching Deployment Guide for Oracle E-Business Suite v12.

Watch this Caching Tip:

Tap into the power of AppExpert!

In order to learn more and help improve our Citrix Technology Professional award, I got together with the father of the Microsoft MVP Program, a true hero to all MVPs around the world. I'm talking about Sean O'Driscoll. Sean is the General Manager for Community Support and MVP Program at Microsoft and I asked a few questions to the guy who made Microsoft MVP so valuable.

He was kind enough to stop by and chat with us right after his keynote on the MVP Summit 2008. Luckily Rich taped it all so we could share it with you guys.

Check out Sean's website:
http://communitygrouptherapy.com/

regards,
Gus Pinto

The Citrix XenDesktop Beta gave us a sneak peek at its highly anticipated Citrix XenDesktop product. Citrix will officially begin shipping to customers worldwide at the upcoming Citrix Synergy 2008 event on May 20.

XenDesktop, which will be co-marketed with Microsoft ( Microsoft and Citrix Expand Alliance to Deliver Virtualization Solutions from Desktops to Datacenters ), is a groundbreaking new desktop delivery solution that allows companies to virtualize Windows desktops in the datacenter and deliver them on-demand to office workers in any location. Unlike first-generation virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technologies, XenDesktop is a comprehensive end-to-end desktop delivery system that offers an unparalleled end-user experience, dramatically simplifies desktop management and reduces the cost of traditional desktop computing

Continue at Source: Citrix Systems to Unveil XenDesktop at Citrix Synergy 2008

GUS PINTO: It's noticeable the steady growth of conversations around virtualization within organizations and in the Internet today, more specifically around server and desktop virtualization.

Microsoft is readying up Hyper-V, and a lot of technologies to allow these technologies to actually happen for the large enterprise. It's going into market in partnership with Citrix and its Xen Hypervisor.

I guess the question is, what is your true feeling about virtualization in the enterprise on the server and desktop base? Is this just really hype or is this something you guys truly believe is going to happen?

RAY OZZIE: No, it's absolutely fundamental. It is absolutely going to happen.

I would say you have to take desktops separately. The logic behind virtualization on the desktop is completely separate from what it would be on the server, and in some ways it's different within the on-premises world versus the cloud. So, I'll just touch upon those independently.

Before I do that, though, let me just say that from a TS perspective, Terminal Server based deployment will always be more efficient than virtualization. It was a designed-in, multi-tenant model within the OS. So, if there are applications and solutions that fit the TS model, that's just a terrific model to use, and I would encourage organizations to use that model.

Within the enterprise, virtualization, the simplest and most straightforward way is to just make the best use of the datacenter resources that you can from a consolidation perspective. This is we are absolutely taking it seriously.

There are two phases of that consolidation. Phase one is bringing things together, meaning if you have a scale-up cluster or a scale-up, some expensive configuration of hardware, how can you package much usage on that piece of hardware as you can? The other one is then movement of images amongst the different machines within the back-end. You'll see investments progressively from us in both of those realms.

Taken to the extreme within the cloud, virtualization is absolutely critical. Virtualization is key to making the best use and securely isolating properties from multiple customers that might not use even a full inexpensive CPU, and moving them geographically or whatever to provide resilience and robustness. So, it is something that's extremely important.

On the client I'll only say that the uses of it, the way that the Mac uses it to run Windows and stuff, it's clever. Parallels, they're very clever technologies.

The way that you'll see us take advantage of it over time more and more on the client is our mechanisms around ensuring compatibility. App compat is a very, very challenging thing, and you want to continue to make progress with the operating system. We look to it as another tool in the toolbox to try to help in the compat world without -- enabling innovation while still enabling assurance of compatibility.

~snip~

I will be posting the Video with Q&A shortly.

Gus Pinto - Technology Evangelist
Microsoft MVP | gus.pinto@citrix.com

Microsoft and Citrix Evangelists hang out in Redmond on the Channel 9 - Code Trip bus and showing off their wicked cool gadgets!

Rock On!!!
Gus Pinto

P.S. For more stuff on our visit to Microsoft and MVP Summit 2008 check out Frameworkx.com

Application Profiling

Introduction:

I can turn you into an Application expert in 5 minutes by reading this post.  Just do what the experts do, or even the not-so-experts.  They pay meticulous attention to the requests from clients and the responses from servers, both headers and body content.  You do this the old fashioned way by taking a trace.  There are better tools out there, some free, some not-so-free.

Running a trace:

Running a trace will help you 'profile' the application. It is recommended that you do this before placing the Citrix Application Switch in-line of the Application traffic. This will gather important information about the Application that will help you understand it's basic operation at Layer 7, and help you begin to understand what it is that needs to be accelerated - cached, compressed, load balanced, ssl offloaded, etc.

Running a trace exposes the flow of transactions between all points of interest. Traces are especially helpful when digging in to find what is contained within the headers being exchanged between the client and the application.

Taking a trace with wireshark:

The free network protocol analyzer called wireshark, http://www.wireshark.org, will capture packets for you on the localhost, whether it's windows or linux. By filtering the stream of packets by IP Address, right clicking and selecting 'Follow TCP Stream' inside of wireshark, you can see the headers for both requests and responses.

Wireshark tip 1 Find the first 'SYN' in the stream, right click, 'Follow TCP Stream'.

Wireshark tip 2 Client requests are in Red, Server responses are in Blue.

Taking a trace with the Citrix Application Switch:

If the Citrix Application Switch is already in place, a trace can be run directly on the Citrix Application Switch. Running a trace will expose the flow of transactions between all points of interest, especially the client, load balancing VIPs and backend servers. Traces are especially helpful when digging in to find out if the proper headers are being exchanged between client & VIP and VIP & backend servers. A trace can be run directly on the Citrix Application Switch. Once downloaded this file can be opened and request and response headers read with Wireshark, a free network trace utility, http://www.wireshark.org. From the Citrix Application Switch GUI, navigate to NetScaler -> System -> Diagnostics -> New Trace -> Run. 

Viewing headers with Paros:

Paros was originially written for web security, but has value when viewing request and response headers, cookies and the like. Through Paros's proxy nature, all HTTP and HTTPS data between server and client, including cookies and form fields, can be intercepted. There is an additional option of trapping and modifying data before sending it on to the server, or client. Paros can be found at http://parosproxy.org. Free.

Viewing headers with Live HTTP Headers:

Live HTTP Headers, http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/, was developed for use with the Firefox web browser. It is a free add-on and allows you to view HTTP header information in real time. Free.

Viewing headers with IE Analyzer:

IEInspector HTTP Analyzer, http://www.ieinspector.com, is a tool that allows you to monitor, trace, debug and analyze HTTP/HTTPS traffic in real-time. It works with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Not-Free.

Viewing headers with IE Watch:

IEWatch, http://www.iewatch.com, is another plug-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer that helps you profile your web applications. You can use this tool to dig deep into the inner workings of web applications to find hidden issues. Not-Free.

Watch this Application Profiling Tip:

Tap into the power of AppExpert

So if you see down bellow Rich pointed out that we are going to be in Seattle and Redmond next week attending the Annual Microsoft MVP Summit.

As Rich pointed out the event is 100% NDA, and we won't be able to share minimum if anything from what's being talked about with the general public.

However you can still make a different, having us be your voice during the meetings by sending us your questions and comments that we can relay to the Microsoft Terminal Services Group.

So if you could ask anything to the guys who are responsible for Terminal Services at Microsoft, what questions would you ask?

cheers,
Gus

We will be flying up to Settle, WA to attend this year's MVP Global Summit 2008 at Microsoft. This is an NDA event, but we will do our best to report to you from the event on what looks like is going to be a great conference. I will do my best to keep Gus out of trouble, as we all know how he loves NDA's =)

For those who of you who are unfamiliar with the MVP Global Summit event, here is an overview of this year's event.

MVP Global Summit 2008

Over the course of four days, hosted at the Washington Trade and Convention Center in Seattle and at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, the MVP Global Summit gives you exclusive access to more than 400 sessions and panel discussions and a range of networking opportunities, as well as Microsoft top executives such as Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer, and Ray Ozzie, chief software architect.

What is the MVP Global Summit?

The MVP Global Summit is a four-day invitation-only event hosted at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center in Seattle and at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. With more than 400 sessions and a variety of networking opportunities, the MVP Global Summit enables Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and Regional Directors (RDs) to:

• Connect with other MVPs and RDs
• Engage with Microsoft product managers
• Provide valuable feedback directly to Microsoft on its products and technologies.

Highlights for 2008 include:

• Event closing technical discussion by Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect
• Keynote by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive officer
• Deep technical sessions by competency
• Cross-competency electives
• Highly dynamic and interactive sessions, where you'll be able to define topics, attend, or host
• Additional activities designed to promote networking and meet attendees' diverse informational and business needs
  
  Microsoft 2008 MVP Global Summit
  Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
  Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
  Microsoft MVP - Rich Crusco
  

I have put together a list of posts on Windows PowerShell resources that I have been collecting, that I use to help start people in the right direction when diving into Windows PowerShell. I hope you find the following list of reference material as useful as I have.

Windows PowerShell 1.0 - Installation Files
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - Documentation Pack
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - Quick Reference
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - Graphical Help File
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - How it Works
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - In Action
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - Converting VBScript Commands
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - Cmdlets and PSCmdlets
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - How to Create a Cmdlet
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - Snap-ins
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - How to Register Cmdlets, Providers, and Host Applications
Windows PowerShell 1.0 - Cmdlet Development

Here is a link to the Windows PowerShell 1.0 collection based on the Tag:

Windows PowerShell 1.0 - The Reference Collection  

The PowerShell open source reimplementation for "others" (Mac, Linux, Solaris, etc...) and Windows (including Windows Mobile and Windows CE)

With what we can do with Citrix Workflow Studio and the Citrix Delivery Center already, can you imagine the possibilities of what we can do with PASH, as Windows Poweshell has already become the language of choice for administration, intergration, and automation.

Here are some screen shots of PASH in action:

Continue at Source: Pash - cross platform PowerShell is out in the wild! Announcement

Want to Hear directly from top virtualization executives about how the value of Citrix and Microsoft solutions can benefit you today and into the future?

Well, now here's your chance!

Virtualization of applications, desktops and servers represents an exciting new frontier for IT. Join Citrix® and Microsoft® to learn how their combined forces offer the leading virtualization solution that is highly interoperable, transforms your data center into a delivery center, and lowers costs. Citrix's new server virtualization technology and next-gen Windows® and desktop virtualization offerings and the new Microsoft Windows Server® 2008 and Hyper-V hypervisor make an unbeatable combination that many customers are choosing as their virtualization solution today.

Hear directly from top virtualization executives from both companies about how the value of Citrix and Microsoft solutions can benefit you today and into the future.

Find out what the buzz is all about!

Register now. Seating is limited.

Event Date	City	State	Registration
04/16/2008 (Wednesday) 8:30 AM - 2:45 PM CST	Irving	TX
04/17/2008 (Thursday) 8:30 AM - 2:45 PM CST	Houston	TX
04/21/2008 (Monday) 8:30 AM - 12:45 PM PST	San Francisco	CA
04/22/2008 (Tuesday) 8:30 AM - 12:45 PM PDT	Irvine	CA

* Every attendee receives a Microsoft Virtualization book signed onsite by author Robert Larson!

* Win an 80GB Zune! [1 winner per city; must complete evaluation form to enter drawing]

Microsoft and Citrix are hosting a killer virtualization seminar in The City on the 21^st of April.

I highly recommend all of you tech dudes in the bay area to get in the loop and learn more about Virtualization technologies today and the road ahead.

Here's the schedule for the day:

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that attendees could win an 80 GB Zune!

I bet you think I'm going to talk about GoToMeeting or our old friend, Conferencing Manager. I could, but I won't. I'll leave that to others more experienced in that tech talk.

No, I'm talking about good old-fashioned people. People, people who need people,... OK, I digress (probably due to my need for lunch right now.). I think sometimes in our focus on getting our projects or software out the door, we forget how beneficial our networks can be. Yes, LinkedIn and other sites are great (Hey, I'm on LinkedIn myself), but face-to-face often wins out.

For example, I attended an industry conference in Q3 2006. When I transferred to Web Services in April 2007, I reached out to other attendees I had spoken to at that conference for help with one of my projects. Although the people I contacted hadn't heard from me in almost six months and didn't have the knowledge to help me, they took the time to ask their coworkers to help. Eventually I spoke to a peer I'd never met before who had a wealth of knowledge to share. She offered to present her team's approach to the issue and so I was able to share their perspectives and processes with my team (using GoToMeeting , of course). By the way, I have to say that team was from Microsoft , - so you won't catch me badmouthing them, even without our other "strategic partnerships".

Today I got the chance to do something similar. A past Citrite contacted me about a project she is working on. Since the technical details were outside my range of experience, I asked a member of the Web Services team if he could help. Lo and behold, we met today (again with GoToMeeting) - my coworker, myself, the past Citrite, and her manager. We greeted, we chatted, we outlined, we discussed, and when we were done, they thanked us very much for our help and offered to return the favor if needed. Now, our meeting today may not lead to earthshattering changes in technologies or wow anyone (although I have great hopes for their gift that's "in the mail"), but the time saved in a one-hour meeting vs. trying to figure it out on your own over weeks (or even months) can never be denied. And yes, I feel better. And I know my ex-Citrite friend feels a whole lot better.

So, in our world of technology, blogs and wikis nonwithstanding, we need to remember that networking and collaboration sometimes mean something different. And I hope all Citrites, past, present, and future are examples of that.

Citrix is heads-down working on the launch of Project Delaware, the next version of Presentation Server. And Microsoft is finalizing launch details for its Heroes Happen Here launch events for Windows Server 2008 (along with Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008), which begins on February 27, 2008 in Los Angeles. At this event, you will see the new Terminal Services features first-hand, but don't wait until then to get a sneak-peek of some of those features.

With the upcoming release of these new products from Microsoft and Citrix, organizations are asking themselves with increasing frequency questions like:

• Will I still need Presentation Server?
• Will Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 meet my needs?
• Why should I pay more for Presentation Server as compared to Terminal Services?

These questions are nothing new to the Terminal Services teams at Microsoft and the Presentation Server teams at Citrix. In fact, in my nearly 6 years at Citrix, these same questions are asked continually, and more frequently as we near product launches.  But the truth is, new releases of Presentation Server are **always** complementary to new releases of Terminal Services.  Maybe that's why Microsoft named Citrix Global ISV of the year in 2003 and again in 2005.

If you are considering Terminal Services and Presentation Server, are all of your questions answered in these items?:

• Value-add to Terminal Services
• Citrix Value-Add to Windows Terminal Services White Paper (updated link below)
• Performance Evaluation of Presentation Server 4.5 and Windows Terminal Services White Paper  (updated link below)

Will an update to these docs answer your questions? Or would you like to see something new?  What questions do you need answered when considering these products?

 Leave a comment and let us know.

 UPDATE 22 January 2009:
Since writing this post, the name of Presentation Server was changed to XenApp, Project Delaware was released, and a couple of web links were broken. Here are the new links:

• XenApp and Terminal Services
• Citrix XenApp 5 and Windows Server 2008: A Feature Analysis

If you are familiar with Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007, you probably know OCS 2007 introduces communication and collaborative integration with Microsoft Office and Exchange.  What you may not know is that between 60 - 80% of customers surveyed said they use Presentation Server to deliver Microsoft Outlook and Office apps to their users. And with increasing number of customers putting focus on user communication and collaboration, we needed to see whether we can run OCS 2007 with PS. With help from the Microsoft Unified Communications team late last year, we were actually able to get some good results from our preliminary testing.
The Setup:
Our test bed was quite simple - 3 servers and 3 clients configured as diagramed below. Obviously, your environment probably looks different, but you get the point.

 
  
The Results:
With our setup, we were able to get the following OCS2007 features to work on PS:

• Office Communicator 2007 - the IM client running in PS 
• IM (instant message) - IM'ing with other users on your IM list
• IM Presence - see in real time whether the user is available (online, offline, etc.)
• Microsoft Office integration - IM and presence of a colleague... say, you want to see in Outlook if Jane is online before sending her the email

And while we didn't test the Remote Call Control (RCC) features in OCS 2007 (couldn't get permission to connect to the corp PBX), we believe this feature should work without issues. After all, Presentation Server is simply "rendering" the remote call control interface over ICA (just like any other app) and the calls are handled by the OCS2007, Mediation Gateway and PBX. If anyone out there can try RCC over Presentation Server, and I'd love to get your feedback on this!

More Work Underway:
Of course, it's clear there is more work to do - notice voice and video are missing  from the above list. We tried voice, but that didn't work. We need to figure that one out. Video conferencing is yet another hurdle at this point. Some customers have told me the wider adoption voice and video is still 12 - 18 months out. Do you agree?

In the coming weeks, I'll follow up with more information on the configurations and setup. Hopefully, I'll have time to do a video demo'ing the OCS 2007 features we test with Presentation Server as well. Meanwhile, I'd love to hear about your plans for bringing communication and collaboration to your organization! Submit your comments or shoot me an email!

May 14: Sporadic presence status with OCS and XenApp? Please see my blog on Microsoft's update to address this problem.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is a fully integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system. Microsoft Dynamics CRM gives you the capability to easily create and maintain a clear view of customers from first contact through purchase and post-sales. With tools to enhance your company's sales, marketing, and customer service processes, along with native Microsoft Office Outlook integration, Microsoft Dynamics CRM delivers a fast, flexible, and affordable solution.

Now that we're done with the shameless marketing description of the Microsoft product, here's the news.

It's very common for Microsoft CRM to be deployed via Citrix infrastructure, so as part of finalizing the product for release, Microsoft and Citrix jointly tested CRM with CPS to ensure absolute compatibility and to publish guidance on optimal configuration. We've tested this application on Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems and declare that Microsoft CRM 4.0 is now officially "Citrix Ready", and as information becomes available it can be found in the online solutions catalog at www.citrix.com/cr_microsoft_dynamicsCRM.

~snip

The wall street journal has an interesting article describing how Microsoft is late getting into the virtualization game and details plans to catch up to VMWare.  The relevant portion of the article talks about Microsoft's plans include partnering up with Citrix for the hyper-visor piece of the puzzle.

"Microsoft is also announcing cooperative moves with a bigger company that offers similar technology, Citrix Systems Inc. Citrix, which recently bought the virtualization software maker XenSource, is developing technology to help customers transfer virtual machines between Citrix's XenServer product and Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V technology, Microsoft said."

There is also a similar article on wired news.

"Microsoft also said it will expand an alliance with another virtual desktop computing company, Citrix Systems Inc., that will help their respective products work well together."

This is my first foray into blogging. I've been struggling to find my voice and determine what I want to write about. What I have decided to do is just post on whatever is on my mind. I will do my best to post 2-3 times per week. Since I just changed positions from Product Marketing to Technical Marketing, I'll probably be posting most often on the things I learn as I re-enter the technical world. What I'd like to do is post on our feature set at least to make information easy to find. I find that we don't do a good job making more technical information available on the web. I hope I can change that. I also want to post best practice solutions that I hear about. They may not be fully vetted out but at least they'll be posted and searchable.

I've been with Citrix almost 10 years (I think I have the longest continuous tenure on the team). I used to be a Test Engineer and Systems Engineer for Citrix and 5+ years in Product Marketing has sort of dumbed me down. The folks on my team will make sure I get back up to speed quickly. I'm working with a lot of interesting people on this team so there really shouldn't be any shortage of content on my blog. Who am I working with you might ask?

• Kurt Moody - Our happy leader affectionately referred to in the Citrix Community as Dr. Love. I am sure there is an interesting story behind that tag but I'll let him tell it (probably related to what a nice guy he is). Anyway, Kurt is an old timer just like me (I think his total years at Citrix add up to more than me though). He actually used to be a Product Manager at Citrix for VideoFrame. He did a great job with it but other forces prevented the product from having a long successful life. Anyway, he left Citrix for a short time (a couple of years I think) and until recently was working remotely from us in North Carolina. He was recently promoted to manager after Bill Carovano moved on the build out the XenServer field engineering team. Kurt is an extremely talented guy. He used to have his own data center running out of his home. We share a lot of the same beliefs but, to the core, Kurt is a much better Christian than I am. I think he is currently struggling with the rebalance of tech knowledge that occurs when you move into a management position. I think it's funny. We'll see what happens. Anyway, we're lucky and happy to have him.
• Jonathan Henderson - I think Jonathan has been with Citrix for about 3 years or so. He came to us from Lending Tree. From what he's said, it was "his turn" to find a new job after a stint of failed start-ups and bouncing around for various reasons out of his control. He had a great time at Lending Tree and was instrumental in developing their web services site. We are lucky to have him. He's technically savvy and works on product demo's and virtually anything else we throw at him. He's had UI design experience and his passion (from what I can see) is multi-media. He's got his own personal video studio and his house is super decked out with a movie/game room and AppleTV... etc. etc. etc (Can you say gadget freak! Jonathan takes the cake but at least he's practical about it... kinda). Check out Jonathan's personal blog.
• Frank Andersen - Frank is the newest Citrite in the group. He's been here almost a year and a half. There are only two things I've got to say about Frank. He is extremely intelligent (it's like having a wiki in a person... really) and probably one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. I'm a New Yorker so I can be pretty abrasive at times (that's an understatement) but Frank is very tolerant of me and I can appreciate that and am thankful for it. It's people like him that really teach me a lot about myself. Anyway, Frank is almost entirely dedicated to helping the XenDesktop/Desktop Server team with their technical marketing needs. He's our guru in that area and has played a key role in improving that product.
• Pete Schulz - OK... Can I just say... this guy is hella talented. Pete came to us (as I understand it) from the Innovex acquisition in Feb 2000 (So I think he's been here about 7 or 8 years). He's been a consultant, developer and test engineer for us as well. He lives in Colorado feeding his brain a steady stream of both useful and useless information. Hes a gadget freak and a huge Microsoft guy. He stays abreast of Microsoft developments on our team including Terminal Services, Windows Server, Vista, Management tools, Softgrid and even licensing. He's got his family addicted to watching recorded Windows Media Center shows on their numerous XBox 360's. Anyway, Pete's one of my idols. Doesn't make you feel stupid even when you know you are.
• Donnie Page - Donnie is another old timer. He's been with Citrix since 1999. He's been through Technical Support, Technical Marketing, Program Management (working with Product Management) and has done way too much event support (Seriously). Anyway, he left Tech Marketing for a short time but is back where he belongs. He's currently rebuilding our lab after the acquisition attack we've had over the past couple of years. We just can't seem to keep our lab populated and organized with so much research going on. Anyway, Donnie is happy to be back and we're lucky to have him.

So, that's my team. A hell of a group. I really am in good company. I've been with Citrix for 10 years, half of which have been spent in non-technical positions. I have a long road back to my roots but this team has been really amazing. I hope you enjoy my blog. Again, I am guessing that it will most likely be a collection of best practices that I am just super excited about but which many of you will probably tag as "rookie" issues. I'm sure they'll be of use to someone. Well, Happy New Year folks.

Vinny Sosa

Simon Crosby, the Chief Technology Officer of the Virtualization and Management Division of Citrix, recently did a podcast with Virtual Strategy Magazine called "10 Minutes to Xen". Here is a list of the topics discussed -

For those of you running Citrix Presentation Server, Simon mentions in this podcast that the plan for the next release of Citrix XenServer is to included some CPS specific optimizations. I am gathering more background info on this topic, and will post on more on these CPS optimizations later. 

http://www.virtual-strategy.com/article/articleview/2439/1/73/

This week, Simon also did an interview with Information Week entitled "Virtualization's Crusader". Here are a few excerpts -

Read more here

Simon also did a recent interview with DataMation

Here are a few excepts -

For further background on the Xen open source hypervisor and the industry wide participation in that project, see my earlier posts here and here .

I have received a lot of questions about the relationship between Microsoft, XenSource, and Viridian. The two companies announced several agreement well before the Citrix acquisition of XenSource. Here are some excepts from the Microsoft press release from July of 2006-

Here is a bit from the original XenSource published FAQ on the Microsoft agreement from July 2006 -

The Xen open source hypervisor project is a vibrant growing community with a new Advisory Board with wide industry participation. Citrix XenServer benefits from the creativity and innovation of this effort.

The Microsoft Hyper-V release is built on a structure very similar to that of the Xen hypervisor. This architecture gives Microsoft a strong architectural standing for the future, and gives Citrix the opportunity to take all the lessons we have learned from supporting that architecture and apply those lessons to building valuable management products on top of Hyper-V. This is very similar to the current relation Citrix has with Microsoft in respect to Terminal Services and Citrix Presentation Server. Citrix can draw upon our many years of experience of building value on top of a Microsoft platform and working closely with Microsoft to do it.

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