As part of the Citrix Technical Support team, Jacob Salassi is not only a senior escalation engineer, he's also an appliance technical relationship manager (TRM). Jacob gave us a glimpse into the following sessions he'll be presenting at Citrix TechEdge during Citrix Summit and Citrix Synergy 2009: End-to-end virtualization with Citrix Delivery Center, with a focus on Citrix NetScaler, and then his in-depth session will cover Advanced troubleshooting of Citrix NetScaler.

Q. How has NetScaler improved from a support perspective over the past year?

Jacob: With the release of 8.1 and 9.0 we have seen big gains in overall feature sets, UI improvements, and stability improvements. Along with that have come enhancements and additions to logging (TCP logging for example), and the various tools we in support employ to troubleshoot issues. A hotly awaited change in 9.0 was the addition of the ability to use filters in nstrace.sh which allows us to capture much smaller sniffs and avoid post-capture filtering while still preserving the entire session and its related packets.

Q. What NetScaler and Citrix Delivery Center tips will attendees learn at your session this year? 

Jacob: My sessions will take an administrator through overall troubleshooting methods and techniques, to a simple XenApp deployment example, and then to troubleshooting that same deployment using the techniques that have been learned.

Q: What NetScaler Tech Tip can you give people now?

Jacob: Always disable unused interfaces on BOTH nodes of an HA pair. It's common for administrators to forget about the secondary node which may cause HA to behave improperly in the event of a failover.

Q. What new tools or techniques are you using to troubleshoot NetScaler?

Jacob: Having more experience and spending more time using and developing troubleshooting tools has been a huge benefit for me. We now have tools to automate many things we had to do manually in the past, and this really helps our customers provide us with the data we need to resolve their issues.

Q. What types of cases have you worked on this past year? Why?

Jacob: I don't like the restrict myself to any particular kind of case, and the issues around NetScaler can be of a huge variety. This year some of the stand out issues have been dynamic routing deployments, as well as some very large, exotic, and sensitive deployments where resolving an issue quickly is absolutely a requirement.

About Jacob Salassi

Jacob's been with Citrix Technical Support for just under two years. His first position at Citrix was as an escalation engineer. He was then promoted to lead escalation engineer, and then to senior escalation engineer where he joined the TRM team. He holds certifications in Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) for NetScaler. When Jacob is not troubleshooting a hot issue, he's listening to his motorcycle scream around the track at 15,000 RPM.

Do you have a NetScaler troubleshooting area that you would like Jacob to focus on during his presentation? Leave a comment.

Check out more posts in the Citrix TechEdge 2009 series.

 Keith McLaughlin, Escalation Engineer
 
Keith McLaughlin is a Provisioning Server expert on the Citrix Technical Support Escalation team, joining the team when Citrix acquired Ardence about two years ago. Keith filled us in on the two sessions that he'll present at Citrix TechEdge during Citrix Summit and Synergy 2009: End-to-end virtualization with Citrix Delivery Center, with a focus on Active Directory integration with Provisioning Server, and then his in-depth session will be on Planning and implementing a Provisioning Server high availability (HA) solution.

Q. How has Provisioning Server improved from a support perspective over the past year?
Keith: The biggest improvement this year is the addition of the Streaming Service Logs.  These logs, which came out as part of 5.0 SP1 are extremely helpful in narrowing down the issue.

 Q. What Provisioning Server and Citrix Delivery Center tips will attendees learn at your session this year?
Keith: This year's session is focused on High Availability. In the session we are going to go over troubleshooting procedures and explain in depth what happens when a Target Device fails over and how to track that failover through the logs files. For the Citrix Delivery Center session, I'll focus on Active Directory integration with Provisioning Server Standard Image.

Q: What Provisioning Server Tech Tip can you give people now?

Keith: When planning your Provisioning Server deployment, give the Target Devices unique names in the Provisioning Server Console. Do not use the hostname of the machine that is being imaged as the name of the Target Device. This avoids conflicts when booting the Target Device from the Vdisk.

Q. What new tools or techniques are you using to troubleshoot Provisioning Server?

Keith: A year of working with the 5.0 is probably the biggest factor.  5.0 had many improvements over the previous version and many architecture changes.  Also seeing where customers and end users were running into problems and being able to identify the symptoms because of past experiences greatly cuts down on troubleshooting time.

 Q. What types of cases have you worked on this past year? Why?

Keith: As part of the Provisioning Server Escalation group, I have covered a lot of different issues ranging from Active Directory integration to tracking down possible bottlenecks on customers networks that could be causing timeouts on the provisioning server.

 About Keith McLaughlin

Keith's been with Citrix Technical Support for two years.  He holds certifications in Citrix Certified Administrator, CCA, for Provisioning Server and XenServer. During his free time Keith loves playing the guitar, and his favorite artist is Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Do you have a Provisioning Server troubleshooting area that you would like Keith to focus on during his presentation? Leave a comment.

 Want to learn more about TechEdge 2009, www.citrix.com/techedge. Stay tuned for our weekly close-up interviews on the TechEdge presenters.

Posts in this series:

• Citrix TechEdge - Troubleshooting Tips and Tricks

• Interview 1: Close-up with Jamie Baker

• Interview 2: Close-up with Keith McLaughlin  

Jamie Baker, Sr. Escalation Engineer 

Without a doubt one of Citrix Technical Support's top engineers is Jamie Baker. Jamie works with the Strategic Managed Accounts Resolution team, SMART, which handles 24 hour coverage on critical and high priority issues, and he also is a Subject Matter Expert, SME, in various areas such as Printing, Application Streaming and currently the XenDesktop, SME, for the SMART team. Jamie took a few moments out of his busy day of solving customer issues to answer some questions on the sessions that he'll be presenting at Citrix TechEdge.

The sessions he'll be covering are End-to-end virtualization with Citrix Delivery Center with a focus on XenDesktop, and then presenting an in-depth session on XenDesktop 3 architecture and design. TechEdge is the new name for the Citrix Support and Engineering Institute of Technology, CSEIT. The event is hosted by top Citrix Technical Support engineers at Citrix Summit and Synergy, and is the event for troubleshooting your Citrix Application Delivery environment

 Q. How has XenDesktop improved from a support perspective over the past year?

Jamie: The release of XenDesktop 3.0 has closed a lot of issues, added USB device support which was a big need for a lot of customers and provided pool management failover when using XenServer as the desktop hosting infrastructure. The new failover allows the administrator to configure multiple pool masters for the same XenServer pool in the XenDesktop Management Console and if the original XenServer pool master fails, the Pool Management service will fail over to the secondary pool master. This makes the product much more resilient by eliminating a single point of failure, which is always more supportable

Q. What XenDesktop and Citrix Delivery Center tips will attendees learn at your session this year?  

Jamie: We will provide tips on both how to design your XenDesktop infrastructure to take advantage of the new features in XenDesktop 3.0 and how to implement those new features, including USB device support. We will also provide tips on how to configure XenDesktop to take advantage of the robust hosting infrastructure provided by XenServer.

The Citrix Delivery Center Session will highlight how each of the components of the Citrix Deliver Center can integrate to provide secure and robust access to desktops and applications. We'll focus on each product and the features it brings specifically to complement the entire Citrix Delivery Center.

Q. What new tools or techniques are you using to troubleshoot XenDesktop?

Jamie: Besides from having a year's more experience working with customer issues and the new products, we've developed our internal tools to more quickly identify XenDesktop issues. We've updated the CDFControl utility to allow for remote CDF trace on VDA and DDC machines. This allows us to more easily set up a diagnostic trace and resolve issues more quickly.

This year we've also stood up a public symbol server. This allows us to access more diagnostic data through system dumps and memory dumps without having to bring those dump files in house. In time sensitive situations, this can save us hours of time. It also allows customers and other vendors to diagnose issues from dump files more quickly.

Q. What types of cases have you worked on this past year? Why?

Jamie: For me, being on the critical situation team, I've focused on identifying single points of failure and issues that have the potential for wide impact. The pool management service's ability to connect to a hosting infrastructure and to recover quickly in case of an issue with the infrastructure is the biggest issue we tackled this year. As mentioned above, we were able to build in failover when using XenServer infrastructure. The addition of HDX technology has improved multi-monitor display handling as well as USB device remoting and multi-media display.
 

About Jamie Baker

Jamie's been with Citrix Systems for six years, and all of those with Citrix Technical Support. He started out as a first level frontline support engineer, supporting MetaFrameXP. After two years on the phones, he moved to the Escalation team, and a year later moved to the SMART team. Jamie is currently a Sr. Escalation Engineer, and holds certifications as a CCA in XenDesktop and XenApp, as well as a Windows MCSE.

When Jamie isn't working, he loves to spend time with his wife and three year old twin daughters, exploring all the playgrounds that North Georgia has to offer. On Fall Sundays, you'll find him watching the Philadelphia Eagles and trying desperately to control his emotions so he doesn't scare the dog.

Do you have a XenDesktop troubleshooting area that you would like Jamie to focus on during his presentation? Leave a comment.

TechEdge 2009 sessions:

• End-to-end virtualization with Citrix Delivery Center
• XenDesktop 3 architecture and design
• Planning and implementing a Provisioning Server high availability (HA) solution
• Integrating and troubleshooting Citrix Access Gateway
• Enterprise Edition Advanced troubleshooting of Citrix NetScaler
• XenServer disaster recovery and automation
• Troubleshooting tools and methodology for Citrix XenApp 5 environments

Want to learn more about TechEdge 2009, www.citrix.com/techedge. Stay tuned for our weekly close-up interviews on the TechEdge presenters.

Posts in this series:

• Citrix TechEdge - Troubleshooting Tips and Tricks

• Interview 1: Close-up with Jamie Baker
  

Have you been hearing about the new Citrix HDX Technologies? Have you heard that HDX enables branch office users to get that "high definition" XenApp experience? Are you still trying to figure out what this all really means?

• What is driving branch offices to virtualize their applications
• What are branch offices doing about the WAN
• What Citrix Branch Repeater does for XenApp
• How HDX Broadcast and HDX IntelliCache deliver a high-def branch experience

The whitepaper (CTX120455) is available for download on the Branch Repeater section of the Citrix Knowledge Center.

Are your customers delivering Citrix XenApp applications to branch offices over slow WAN links? Have they run out of funding for bigger and more expensive WAN connections?

Citrix Branch Repeater adaptively orchestrates with XenApp to deliver a "high-definition" branch office experience, drastically improving the XenApp experience for branch office users. Citrix Branch Repeater appliances are deployed at branch offices and accelerate application delivery to distributed branch offices and other remote locations via HDX Broadcast and HDX IntelliCache technology for hosted virtual applications.

HDX Broadcast
Branch Repeater optimizes network utilization by adaptively tuning to real-time network and traffic conditions—delivering a high definition experience to the user regardless of network latencies, bandwidth availability and network reliability.

• Adaptive TCP Flow Control optimizes the flow of network traffic across multiple connections in a branch by sensing and responding to the network and traffic conditions across the entire branch.
• Adaptive Compression reduces bandwidth consumption and maximizes application performance by adaptively applying optimal compression techniques based on traffic characteristics, infrastructure capabilities and network conditions.
• Adaptive Protocol Acceleration provides intelligent acceleration of the ICA protocol by adaptively orchestrating with XenApp, while sensing and responding to the network and traffic conditions.
• Traffic Prioritization and QoS aligns the network utilization with the business priorities by adaptively allocating network bandwidth to and prioritizing traffic from different applications, including XenApp.

HDX IntelliCache

• Branch Staging for Streamed Applications - Branch Repeater stages streamed applications locally in the branch, providing all the IT consolidation and management benefits of streaming while also delivering high performance access to the streamed applications in the branch. Whenever the streamed applications are updated or patched in the data center, Branch Repeater transparently updates them locally so branch users will always and quickly get the latest version of the streamed application.
• Branch Caching for Hosted Applications - Branch Repeater optimizes XenApp delivery across multiple user sessions by locally caching and de-duplicating transmission of commonly accessed data, files and Web pages through hosted applications.

Citrix Branch Repeater with Windows Server adds even more value by providing a complete branch office solution that integrates and consolidates WAN optimization, application acceleration and critical Windows® services (DHCP, DNS, file, print and more) onto a single appliance.

To learn more about optimizing XenApp view the Branch Repeater: Optimize and Accelerate XenApp Delivery.

What's Citrix TechEdge?

TechEdge, the new name for Citrix Support and Engineering Institute of Technology (CSEIT), started nine years ago as a small in-depth troubleshooting training event hosted by Citrix Technical Support for support agreement customers.  Over the years, this event has grown from 50 customers to over 300 customers and now  provides training to our support agreement customers prior to Citrix Synergy and to our partners as a part of Citrix Summit.  This has become the event for troubleshooting the Citrix Application Delivery environment.

 Meet the support experts who can answer all of your technical questions:

Citrix Technical Support's top Escalation team engineers are hosting the TechEdge 2009 sessions. Here are some interesting facts about the team.

• On average these guys work and close 65 to 100 cases each per year.

• There are a total of 65 engineers on the team, so that's over 5,000 cases total per year.

• The average engineer has ten to fifteen years experience in the IT industry; the most common certifications are CCA and MCSE, ANG NetScaler and AGEE.
  

What they'll cover:

• End-to-end virtualization with Citrix Delivery Center
• XenDesktop 3 architecture and design
• Planning and implementing a Provisioning Server high availability (HA) solution
• Integrating and troubleshooting Citrix Access Gateway, Enterprise Edition
• Advanced troubleshooting of Citrix NetScaler
• XenServer disaster recovery and automation
• Troubleshooting tools and methodology for Citrix XenApp 5 environments  
  
  

Who can attend?
All partners who have registered for Summit, Citrix Technology Professionals (CTP) and customers with active support or maintenance agreements as of the first day of the event (May 3, 2009).
 

When and where?

The event will be at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on Monday, May 4th from 8:00am to 5:30pm. 

Here's what a few past attendees had to say:

"This was probably the most valuable day of iForum [Synergy]. It was extremely technical and really provided a lot of insight into managing a Citrix environment."

"In-depth seminars, get to meet face to face with the people that support us, a wonderful venue."

Check out past event presentations and videos:

TechEdge 2008
October 29, 2008
Orlando, FL
Presentations and Session Videos

CSEIT 2008
May 19, 2008
Houston, TX
Presentations and Session Videos

CSEIT 2007
October 21, 2007
Las Vegas, NV
Presentations and Session Videos

Click here to register for TechEdge 2009

Learn More:

Want to learn more about TechEdge 2009, www.citrix.com/techedge. Stay tuned for our weekly close-up interview blog posts of the TechEdge presenters. Please let us know your thoughts, questions and feedback.

This post is part of a series on the TechEdge event:

• Check out my interview this week with Jamie Baker to discuss his sessions on End-to-end virtualization with Citrix Delivery Center and XenDesktop 3 architecture and design.

Check out the Hands-on Labs at Citrix Summit.

There is no substitute for the real thing. These instructor-led hands-on learning labs will give you the in-depth experience required to master new Citrix technologies.

• Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V
• Virtual Desktop Delivery with Citrix XenDesktop
• HA & Security for Multi-site Citrix XenApp Farms
• Citrix XenApp 5.0 Hands-on Technical Training

Unlike typical conference hands-on training, theses sessions provide real world training utilizing our virtual lab infrastructure. Learn through step-by-step, hands-on experience with the latest Citrix solutions, including XenDesktop, XenServer, XenApp and the NetScaler. You'll be able to ask plenty of questions and get comfortable with these robust and powerful solutions.

Sales & Technical Breakout Sessions

Hands-on Labs are only a part of the picture at Citrix Summit. We have in-depth content for Business, Sales and Technical attendees that give you the inside track on selling, designing, and supporting application delivery solutions. This is a must attend event for all Citrix partners.

TechEdge

Citrix TechEdge is an exclusive series of breakouts where you will learn the latest troubleshooting techniques for supporting Citrix application delivery infrastructure. These sessions provide a unique opportunity to gain real-world experience from the experts, who can answer your technical issues and provide you with the power to understand how to do your job more effectively and efficiently. You will see application delivery in action and learn the tips and tricks to troubleshoot complex tasks and solve your customers' IT infrastructure problems.

Don't delay. Register Today!
http://www.citrixsummit.com

And, don't forget to stay in Las Vegas for Citrix Synergy. Join customers and industry professionals for 3 days of thought leadership on virtualization, networking, and application delivery. Partners can register for both events at special rates.
http://www.citrixsynergy.com

Citrix: Get Smart

Welcome to Citrix Summit 2009 - May 3rd & 4th, 2009

The premier training conference designed exclusively for Citrix partners.

Citrix Summit is the place for Citrix partners to start learning about the latest and greatest products and technologies for application delivery infrastructure. Here, during 2 days of non-stop educational and networking activities, you'll strengthen your solution selling skills so you can expand beyond point products into comprehensive application delivery solutions.

Plus, you'll find out how to increase your services business around Citrix solutions for larger revenue streams. And by learning about the Citrix Delivery Center portfolio of desktop and server virtualization solutions, applications, and many supporting products, you'll have the knowledge and confidence to better advise your customers on the best approach for solving their IT challenges.

Summit is a must-attend event for Citrix partners, especially if your customers are:

• Interested in desktop virtualization
• Looking for smarter ways to deliver applications
• Turning to you as their trusted advisor on application delivery infrastructure

Click Here for more information and to register.

There are a lot of things to do in Vegas, such as seeing a show, riding a roller coaster and of course, becoming a high roller; however, none of them come with a guarantee that you will go home with something more valuable than you arrived with. At Citrix Synergy, not only will you leave with new and/or renewed connections with other professionals in the industry and at Citrix, but you will leave with knowledge that will deliver more value to your company and to you as an individual.

Sure, there are multiple valuable conferences within a conference at Synergy (iForum, Network World Live! and Virtualization Congress) but my personal favorite is GeekSpeak Live!  If you haven't seen or attended a GeekSpeak session (examples Shawn at Synergy  and Michael with GeekSpeak Roadtrip!) , you need to check this out. These sessions are where true unfiltered technical interactive discussions occur, many sessions are led by Citrix CTPs such as Charles Aunger , Ruben Spruijt  & Jeroen van de Camp, and Brian Madden and many more, but you also have the ability to lead and/or change a discussion topic on the fly.

This year we have expanded GeekSpeak Live to not only include our traditional evening sessions, but we also have the GeekSpeak SpeakEasy sessions on the exhibit floor and we have woven GeekSpeak session through the traditional conference tracks as well.

As we get closer and closer to Citrix Synergy, I will be posting more information about our GeekSpeak sessions and presenters. Please feel free to leave a comment on this blog, check out the GeekSpeak forum or drop me an email if you are interested in a topic or being a GeekSpeak session lead.

Before I go, I wanted to share a discussion I had with a Citrix Synergy attendee. The discussion started regarding the GeekSpeak session, but quickly transitioned to "I am planning to attend, but my boss/finance team is really leery of spending on technology conferences (especially in Vegas), given the negative press that AIG and others in the industry have gotten regarding conferences. Do you have any advice for me?"

We at Citrix are completely aware budget constraints and have pulled together some information on the topic for you. The fact is that from a cost perspective, Vegas is a value compared to other cities hosting technology events Vegas is 20%-60% cheaper from an attendee perspective. With the data we provided, she was able to assure her management that Citrix Synergy was not a boondoggle!

I look forward to seeing you at Citrix Synergy and Geekspeak Live! , perhaps the one time that "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" isn't true!

Does your organization deliver virtual applications to the branch office over a sloooow WAN link?
Are you tired of trying to fix all of your WAN issues with a bigger and more expensive WAN connection?

There has to be a better solution...
Citrix Branch Repeater and XenApp work in concert to deliver a "high-definition" branch office experience, drastically improving the XenApp experience to branch office users. Using Citrix HDXTechnology, Branch Repeater and HDX IntelliCache adaptively orchestrate with XenApp to disable the native ICA compression used for optimizing single-user sessions.

Just how much better?

• Branch Repeater reduces XenApp traffic by up to 95 percent, increasing file transfer throughput by up to 20 times and increasing print traffic throughput by up to 33 times.
• Together these enhancements allow customers to serve up to 4x more XenApp users in each branch without upgrading bandwidth.

Learn more about ICA Optimization, how to deploy the components, and see the High Definition branch experience yourself in this exciting demo, which can also be found on the Branch Repeater demo page of Citrix.com.

As the Beatles so famously declared in 1967, we can all use the help of a good friend. From day one, Citrix has always had a strong partner community to ensure that we deliver as complete and robust a solution to our customers as possible. In fact, with over 2200 companies enrolled in the Citrix Technology Member Program more than 800 products from 150 companies verified as part of the Citrix Ready Program and nearly 1200 products in 8000 instances documented in the Citrix Ready Community Verified Program, I would say that we have reached a level of partnership that few companies in the industry can match.

However, that is not enough. It's easy to partner when the economy is good, but it's even more essential to pull together when times are tough. In that spirit, the Citrix Ready team held a webinar for our Citrix Ready partners yesterday (available for Citrix Ready Partners to replay here) to discuss important new changes made in the program that will elevate the value of the Citrix Ready program not only for our partners, but perhaps more importantly, for our customers and channel partners.

The Citrix Ready team is constantly in touch with our partners to ensure that we evolve the program to ensure that the program brings value to our partner community. While there are many ways to calculate the value of a program, the most basic way to quantify the program value is to assess the value of the benefits against the cost to participate in the program, more simply stated:

                        Value of Citrix Ready Program == Program Benefits / Cost of Program

Obviously the quantification of the numerator is subjective and will vary for each company participating in the program, how engaged they are in the program, how many benefits they take advantage of, etc. The denominator is clearly described in terms of the program fees. Therefore, to increase the value of the program, the job of the Citrix Ready team is pretty simple - Increase the value of the benefits without increasing the costs of the program.

That might be enough if times were good. However, they are not. As such, we challenged ourselves to see if we could really, really, find a way to pull together the partner community for the mutual benefits of our customers and channel partners. I am pleased to share with you that the team did just that and found a way to increase the benefits while decreasing the program costs by 1/3!

Yes, you read that correctly, more benefits at lower costs.

(For those of you that are following the math, we increased the numerator while decreasing the denominator thereby supercharging the value of the program!)

Specifically, we announced the following new Citrix Ready program benefits:

• Enhanced partner communication and collaboration via Citrix Ready Forums, Citrix Ready Blogs, Citrix Ready Newsletters and a Citrix Ready Steering Committee

• Increased participation in our channel program communication and events

• Deeper involvement with our products via quarterly technology roadmap seminar series and discounts on Citrix Education programs

• Extended marketing benefits that include education and inclusion in our "Key Play" go to market activities, customer newsletters and Citrix Communities such as the Community Verified site

In addition, all of these benefits are available via the web regardless of what geographic location or time zone the partner is located in, providing 24x7 access enabling our partners to take advantage of these benefits when it is convenient for them, not based on Citrix's availability.

While I doubt that Vicky, Tricia, Vishal and I will ever be confused with John, Paul, George and Ringo, we certainly aspire to uphold the spirit of those Beatles from 1967.

Why is it that we become so polarized when it comes to Information Technology?  "I'm a Mac guy!-I'm a PC guy! Linux is the only way! iPhone vs. Blackberry, you must be kidding! Win Server 2003 vs. Win Server2008!  Web apps are the only way!"  I know it's good to have opposing views and diversity is the foundation of change, but polarizing to any extreme just doesn't map with reality, does it?

Ten years ago the polarization around web based applications began.  Adobe is probably the best example of how this technology has emerged.  There was a day when loading someone's client on your PC or laptop was seen as obtrusive and even a security risk.  But now we are constantly reminded to upgrade our Flash player or we won't be able to access the latest multimedia.  To be sure, web app technology including Flash have come a long way and have enhanced our ability to get the information we need more rapidly.  But when I sit down to put a spreadsheet together chances are I'm not going to launch IE or Firefox to get started.  There is a job for every tool and a tool for most every job.  That's what my grandfather used to tell me and I think it applies to the world of IT as well.  In that regard, if we postulate that Google Apps is going to take over the world of application delivery any time soon, I think time will tell a different story.  But just to round out the playing field I'd like to examine some of the misnomers around a web app only world.

First and foremost there is the issue of what works best for the job.  As I mentioned, like it or not, Microsoft Excel owns the lion's share of the spreadsheet market by leaps and bounds.  Even if there were another application with a more user friendly experience the typical consumer of this application would still adopt what he knows (learned behavior) over what is new. So if a "universal" web app emerged tomorrow it would take years to get mass market adoption.  And even if that were to happen, we would still have to the issues of file storage and file sharing to contend with.  The point is the information technology world we live and work in takes advantage of both O/S dependent applications and web/browser based applications. 

But what if overnight, we all just decided enough is enough and we want to simplify the world of IT by only using web based applications?  Are they universal enough that every application would run on every end point every time it was accessed?  Let's explore...

Leaving aside the problem of learned behavior for O/S dependant applications, web based apps have a myriad of obstacles to overcome.  First are the physical machine and the physical network limitations.  Have you ever tried to stream a high definition video on a 5 year old PC (or MAC) on a dial-up network?  Even if you increased the bandwidth to Business Class DSL/Cable Modem you'd have to shut down every other web app just to get the clip running.  So there is first the problem of embedded multi-media over low bandwidth/high latency networks.  Surely everyone has access to 100 mbps Ethernet, don't they?  No, in fact they don't.  Most of the SMB world still lives off of a connection of 3-6 mbps with no specified SLA and that bandwidth is shared for the entire office.According to Kurt Moody, Senior Technical Marketing Manager at Citrix, "The development of web-based applications has been perceived as a fundamental competitor to traditional Windows desktop applications and therefore to some extent is considered the largest competitive threat to Citrix XenApp.  The reality for many enterprises is that although the web based applications themselves present a form of Server-based computing from an application development perspective, from an application delivery perspective the critical potential point of failure is the web browser itself, which in many cases is a Windows desktop application that presents the same version and lifecycle maintenance challenges of other desktop applications.  Many businesses have determined that using Citrix XenApp to deliver the required Web Browser and application presents a much more predictable environment to the broadest set of users and use cases with a lower TCO."  Not that XenApp solves all of the problems listed above, but it still provides the best case user experience even over low bandwidth, high latency networks.

How about the browser environment itself?  According to David Wagner, Architect and Product Manager at Citrix, "While it is easy to make the argument that the complexity and headaches that exist across multiple browsers has diminished somewhat over that last few years, there are still plenty of pain points this creates for all of us.  Challenges such as a browser version or needed plug-ins still occur particularly when using shared or common devices.  Sure if it is your personal PC or your company's laptop or desktop it is often easy enough to add what you need but what if you are using a hotel device?  Or a public venue kiosk?  Or some mobile device?  Making any change or modification at all is just not going to happen.

From a developer's point of view, wouldn't it be nice to focus on one or two browsers?  And maybe just a handful of configurations?  It would be if you were sure all your users had access to that version and configuration setup.  Otherwise you will be developing, testing and validating for every combination you can expect a user to leverage which usually means picking as many as you can manage to test and validate with each release and thus we have our published 'supported list'.  E.g. if you are trying to use this app and are experiencing issues and you are not using a configuration on the supported list we can't help you."

So what exactly do the Cloud initiatives of 2009 present to mitigate these web application issues?  Nothing really.  The Cloud is a mechanism for providing utility in the mass delivery of applications, not the end-all, be-all.  Even when Cloud delivery infrastructure becomes a reality, we still have these fundamental issues to grapple with.  That's why Citrix is taking the more holistic approach to the entire eco system.  From the creation of web based apps (Citrix Online products) to the virtualization of workloads in the datacenter (XenServer) to the delivery of both web and non-web applications (XenApp/XenDesktop) we provide the architecture to economically and efficiently provide services (applications) to the end points.... And we've been doing it for years. 

Stay tuned for the next discussion on Managed Service Providers vs. Independent Software Vendors providing SaaS.

I'm kind of a stickler for simplification so I always like to set the stage by making sure terms are defined and understood before launching into a diatribe of alphabet soup over acronyms that mean ten different things to ten different people.  For instance, it seems today (much like the era of the dot-com) that if someone drops the suffix "aaS" at the end of a subject or object it immediately becomes newsworthy.  For instance a statement like MSPs who provide SaaS or DaaS must use either AIaaS or APaaS to achieve true IaaS, is in my opinion condescending.  It's kind of like using the word Grok.  If you don't know what it means, then you must not be educated enough to use it.  Do you grok SaaS?

These kinds of acronyms and esoteric terms only confuse the poor guy who is trying to make a decision about how to run his business more cost effectively.  The small business owner is still trying to figure out what an "XP Pro" is or why there is so much hype over Vista vs. OS 10 (PC Guy vs. Apple Guy).  And the more software/computer science literate business owner wants to know why he has to pay for an entire staff of guys to keep his PCs running when he could do it all himself if he only had the time.  In either case, especially in this economy, at the end of the day it's all about the bottom line in business. Techno jargon is meaningless if it has no bearing on profitability. For these business owners if it costs less to do business by outsourcing part of the business, that's exactly what they are going to do.  But the message better be simple as to how they go about it.  So whether or not the small or medium sized business (SMB) owner can decipher Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who provide Software as a Service (SaaS) or Desktops as a Service (DaaS) must use either Application Infrastructure as a Service (AIaaS) or Application Platforms as a Service (APaaS) to achieve true Integration as a Service (IaaS), doesn't mean a hill of beans if it doesn't help his bottom line.  What is really important is for the MSP to quickly articulate his value proposition to the SMB owner so that there is no question about the service provided and its relative value to the business.  To start, according to Wikipedia, Software as a Service "is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. By eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computer, SaaS alleviates the customer's burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support."  Now that's pretty understandable even for the guy who doesn't know what an XP Pro is.

Even with this distinction however there are still different types of MSPs who provide services for a variety of different use cases.  For simplicity sake, I'll describe three variants of MSPs here but by no means does this exhaust the category.  First there is the purist MSP.  That is to say the service provider who sets up one application to be shared by hundreds or thousands of businesses for a one-to-many implementation.  On the other end of the spectrum, is the service provider who transfers an entire data center from an SMB and hosts the "custom" one-to-one environment.  The later obviously has a scaling issue in that each physical server farm must stand on its own for each individual SMB.  In between these extremes is the MSP who has a "generic" server farm (which may or may not be virtual) used to deliver applications, but not necessarily built to scale.  In this case, the SMB may have a set number of applications he wishes to have hosted, but not all applications.  Sometimes these applications are problematic and may be difficult to deliver to remote sites.  Or they may be cumbersome to manage and therefore cause an inordinate amount of time and energy for the local IT personnel.  In some cases this hybrid hoster may provide an entire environment for a specific niche.

One such hybrid is a company called AcXess Inc, http://www.acxess.com/AcXess_home.htm in Boca Raton, Florida.  AcXess is the developer of V-Works™ a new Platform for managing online Virtual Server Environments. Their services include Labs On-Demand™ for integration and consulting projects, Demos On-Demand™ for automated "live" software demonstrations and Desktops On-Demand™ for Hi-Performance remote access desktops and applications.  By focusing on the ability to host lab environments and demonstrations, this MSP has built a business with unique value to a variety of customers including Microsoft, AT&T and SAP.  Tom Elowson, CEO is no neophyte when it comes to hosted services.  He was actually one of the principals in an ASP company in 2000.  Learning from the rise and fall of that era, Tom started AcXess and a couple of other companies to take advantage of the emerging hosted services market.  His business is actually seeing growth even in these tough times, which is no surprise according to a recent article written by Scott Campbell at ChannelWeb, entitled "Study: MSPs Bucking Poor Economy", http://www.crn.com/managed-services/212902884.  The article states, "Managed service providers expect their revenue to increase by 20 percent over the next 12 months, according to a new study by research firm AMI-Partners. The study found that MSPs are being spared the impact of the downturn, and in fact may owe some success to the economy, as more businesses look to streamline IT costs through managed services."

So when it's all said and done, alphabet soup isn't where the money is... it's in the services that the SMBs are looking for.... And did I mention that AcXess uses Citrix products to power their hosted infrastructure.  Yep, they do!

The web apps are coming, the web apps are coming!  This has been the mantra in the Internet space for years now.  And the truth of the matter is that yes, the web apps are coming.  In fact, there are hundreds, if not thousands already deployed.  Many of which were designed specifically for browser based technology and are used by the masses every day.  YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace are entrenched as the debutants of social networking with applications like Twitter on the quick road to mass adoption.  In the business world, Saleforce.com is the clear leader in CRM while products like Microsoft Live, Cisco TelePresence and Citrix Online top the list for web conferencing and team collaboration.

And then there are those applications that have a dedicated connection to their original designs which are not browser based.  Intuit and SAP are two companies that come to mind. Giants in their own right, they have yet to cross the chasm from Operating System dependency to fully web enabled delivery.  To be sure, both of these companies have products in the browser space, but the bulk of their revenues still come from non web enabled applications.  The challenge for these companies (and hundreds like them) as well as the opportunity is in their ability to quickly expand their license penetration and hold the cost of doing business down.  Enter Virtualization and subscription services.

Citrix is the best kept secret in the web space from a software delivery perspective.  Many ISVs don't think to offer their products through Citrix server based computing technology mainly because there is no association between what SBC is and how an ISV sells to their customer.  Or at least that has been the problem in the past.  Now, Amazon is creating the Elastic Compute Cloud (or EC2) and the ability to offer data center functionality using the utility company model.  Pay as you go and only pay for as much (data center) as you use.  So imagine taking an existing model today for data centralization in the large enterprise, transfer the architecture to an uber-data center in the Cloud and offer software applications through a (virtually) secure, (virtually) redundant network.  And voila, a new age is born in which any here-to-for O/S dependant applications can be run on any desktop in any location by simply using a virtual environment to get it there.  Sounds pretty futuristic, huh?  Well, it is and it isn't.  It's futuristic in the sense that it hasn't been proven from a mass adoption perspective.  But then again, thirty years ago no one ever imagined driving down the road with a wireless connection to a head set which allowed voice communications (aka the cell phone) to emerge as a mass market delivery network either.

But what about today?  Is it possible to host applications that are not web based and serve them up to a mass market?  Wanna know another well kept secret?  The answer is YES.  If you don't believe me just take a look at the following web site, http://www.microsoft.com/hosting/findahostingprovider.mspx. In here you will see that Microsoft has not only embraced the concept of hosting applications that were not originally designed for web delivery, but support an entire network of hosting providers who generate income from these services.  What's even more surprising is they have been doing it for over 7 years... long before the term Software as a Service was dreamed up.

And are there really hosted service providers providing Software as a Service outside of the Salesforce.com hype?  Yep!  They are right in your backyard most of the time.  In fact several of them are already a part of the Citrix Partner Program and the focus of their business is in hosting applications.  One in particular, a company called Nasstar ( http://www.nasstar.com/) is taking the concept to the next level in the way in which they offer up an application delivery model to the SMB.  Charles Black, CEO of Nasstar had a vision that the mass market SMB would not only accept this paradigm of subscription based software applications, but would generate enough revenue to substantiate an ongoing business concern.  That was five years ago.  Now Nasstar is thriving and growing the business of subscription based software delivery (or SaaS) utilizing products like XenApp in their infrastructure.  I had a call with Charles today and he underscored the SaaS model saying, "Citrix is indeed a pioneer in this space.  [Our approach is] Citrix powered desktop and application delivery for the SMB and XenApp is the delivery platform." Futuristic?  Not anymore.

Software as a Service.  Sounds like it would be a pretty easy concept to understand.  But when we look under the hood we find that there are three differing perspectives. 

At a hundred thousand feet SaaS is a buzz word for Wall Street and investors to get excited over.  It is the intersection of off premise hardware managed by others at a location (either virtual or physical) with dedicated resources which may also be a part of the larger Internet Cloud which combines Web Hosting with shared applications.  Wow!  That's a mouthful.  No wonder so many tech savvy analysts are so excited about it.  There are enough "high hit" Google terms there to start a search engine frenzy.

The investment community represents the first of three perspectives for SaaS.  Trying to predict what the future will hold and which companies have the technology to capture more customer wallet share in the ever growing information age.  The view from this perspective is about the value of software.  Specifically will software continue to hold its value and thus hold up the value of those Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who produce it?

The second perspective is that of the software industry itself.  The opportunity is with those software companies who are blessed with no legacy code and have built their product for a distribution that takes advantage of the open Internet.  From this perspective the sky is the limit and exposure or awareness of the product is the key to attracting revenues from the mass market.  On the other hand ISVs who have invested millions of dollars in their code base and it has evolved from dedicated operating systems are not so lucky.  From their perspective SaaS could be the next crushing blow that renders their code obsolete.

Lastly we have to look at the guy who pays the bill.  The end user and for the purpose of this article, I'm going to limit that to the small and medium business.  After all, if the SMB actually makes up 80% of the total number of end points in the world, one would think that this is the most important segment to address, right?  From their perspective, SaaS doesn't matter.  All they want to know is, "how am I going to get my software applications running without an IT staff or with limited IT capabilities".  In fact if Geek Squad could figure out a way to supply physical services to every small business in the universe and manage applications on-the-fly, this would be the definition an SMB would use for Software as a Service.

If we start from the guy who pays the bills, the world of SaaS looks something like this.  A simple, secure and cost effective way to access applications and data from any device in any location.  Some ISVs understand this definition and are becoming wildly successful, because they understand the first order of business is satisfying the end customer's needs.  After all, he is paying the bill.  In the world of communication and collaboration we see products such as GoToMeeting and Microsoft Live.  The hard truth is that these products sell the best by circumventing the current IT professionals.  They are completely end user focused, have a specific use and are easily accessed from any device in any location.  In the world of Customer Relationship Management, Salesforce.com is the 800 lb gorilla.  Once again, simple to use and accessible.

But what of the thousands of applications that were built specifically for the desktop or dedicated server Operating Systems?  Are these guys just out of luck?  Will the millions of users who currently use these products suddenly stop and go to their web application cousin created by these new and emerging software vendors?  Maybe.  Eventually.  But not tomorrow.  Not in a year and maybe not for the next 5-10 years.  There are a hundred reasons why this is true.  The most compelling is risk and reliability.  The mass market by definition is not a part of early adoption.  In fact, according to Geoffrey Moore, we have an entire chasm to cross before there is mass market adoption of something as disruptive as a web app only business model.  If this were not the case, Google would be the name on your phone bill today instead of AT&T, everyone would be driving a Prius and Cable TV would have been killed by IPTV.  But these things take time and what is needed is a way to bridge the gap.

Most people in the IT industry don't think of Citrix as a mass market product company.  And since SaaS is typically associated with the mass market, don't think of Citrix playing well in this space.  That's because we have spent the bulk of our sales expertise and adoption in the large enterprise market.  Why?  Because it has taken 20 years to cross the chasm of server based computing for the mass market.  But what most people don't realize is that Citrix started out by creating products designed for low bandwidth, high latency, and low power CPU environments.  These are the basic tenants of the mass market.  Our core product, XenApp has only been enhanced for these tenants over the past 20 years.  That's why we have deployments of up to 50,000 end points within our current customer base.  No one else in the world has this type of delivery system to match the needs of the end user in the mass market for the thousands of applications that are not web based.  So as ISVs continue to look at the mounting problem of servicing the end customer in the SMB segment, Citrix will provide a simple, elegant solution to the perspective of the guy who is paying the bill... A simple, secure and cost effective way to access applications and data from any device in any location.

I wouldn't be surprised if Citrix is seen in a new light over the next couple of years.  After all, we can bridge the gap that crosses the chasm.

Twitter

First the thanks!

As we roll into the Thanksgiving week in the US, I thought I would give a quick shout out of thanks to all of you that have participated in the Citrix Ready Community Verified site. Verifications are coming in faster than we can keep up with them (which was, after all, the whole idea in the first place). As of this morning, we have well over 1,000 applications and products verified by customers and partners as "Citrix Ready", backed by more than 7,000 verifications... more than 500 were added this week alone, and it's only Wednesday!

I'm assuming that you have all seen the Citrix Ready Community Verified site and you know it rocks... not because of anything we've done, but because it's created, owned and maintained by YOU; if not don't just take my word on it, check out Chris' blog, or Rene Vester's two blogs, here and here, or even Brian Madden's review, ...or of course, the site itself!

By many standards, the site has proven to be an overwhelming success. We launched it at Citrix Summit on October 25 this year with 600 Applications and 500 Community Verifications. In the month since launch, these numbers have gone through the roof with no end in sight. In fact, I am already hearing of cases where the Citrix Ready Community Verified site has encouraged customers to virtualize more apps, helped channel partners answer customer & prospect questions more quickly and technology partners who have submitted apps (theirs as well as from other vendors).

Citrix IT has even taken up the challenge by starting to validate all the products and applications we use internally in our IT environment. I challenge all of you reading this to verify via the "voting" function all apps and other products you are using via XenApp, XenDesktop, XenServer and NetScaler!

May I have another? Or more appropriately, may we give you another?

The Citrix Ready Community Verified site is a great example of how a community can share small bits of information that doesn't impose a tax on the submitter (the apps are already deployed, submitters are just telling us they have already completed the work)... taking full advantage of the network effect to drive overall benefit.

So the question that I have for all of you, is what can we do next? The Citrix Ready Community Verified site is addressing a common question around product verification with Citrix products that has been around literally since the first release of WinFrame. Are there other longstanding questions, issues, etc that seem difficult to solve as an individual customer, SE, channel partner, technology partner or Citrix employee, that we as a community can attack?

My team and I are very interested in your feedback and would welcome the opportunity to help.

Please feel free to comment on this blog, or send an email to me at john.fanelli@citrix.com

Special Certification Offer for Partners - Implementing Citrix XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2008 exam at NO COST, select other exams 50% OFF

Citrix Education offers partners the opportunity to get Citrix certified during Summit!  Partners can take the latest certification exams at our on-site testing center at a 50% discount and take the newest CCA for XenApp 5 exam at NO COST!

Partners, reserve your spot today and take advantage of this SUMMIT ONLY offer. Seating is limited and will be assigned on a first come first serve basis to those partners registered to attend Summit. For more information on this special offer and to pre-register for an exam, click here.

Yesterday, we released the Application Streaming Profiler SDK version 1.2, and it is now available as a free download.

This SDK allows creating applications or scripts that automate the management of streaming profiles. The API allows creating, updating, reseting and deleting profiles, and can be combined with automatic starts of unattended installers. Without this SDK, these tasks could only be done through the Streaming Profiler user interface and would require the physical presence and monitoring of an administrator.

Here follow a list of improvements in this second release of the SDK:

• New APIs for Inter-Isolation Communication profiles: The New IRADEPackage2 classes include support for defining links between profiles.
• Includes the TLB file that allows the easy creation of COM client applications with C++.
• Includes and explains multiple working samples in both C# and C++.
• The files included in this SDK are better organized for easy navigation.

For more information about Application Streaming see the product documentation or search for "Application Streaming" on the Citrix Blogs, and for detailed questions about the SDK, visit the dedicated Community Forum. Also, keep monitoring the Citrix Blogs because Joe Nord, our Product Architect for Application Streaming, will soon post entries to further explain the Streaming Profiler, the SDK, and this release.

Very important: we want to know about your experience with this SDK:

• Have you been able to use the SDK effectively?
• What else would you like to see in the SDK?

Lastly, XenApp 5.0 was announced earlier this week. If you want to learn more about it, you should not miss Citrix Delivery Center Live. This live virtual event will take place on September 9^th. Make sure to register now!

We have just released the XenApp Management SDK (MFCOM) for XenApp 5.0, and it is now available as a free download.

This SDK allows creating programs or scripts that automate the management of XenApp. Examples of use for this SDK range from simple scripts to the implementation of full-fledge custom consoles for fully managing a XenApp deployment.

This release of the SDK adds support for Health Monitoring and Recovery, for reboot schedules, and for session policies. For additional details see the SDK and the XenApp documentation. You can also visit the very active Community Forum for this SDK.

XenApp 5.0 was announced earlier this week. If you want to learn more about it, you should not miss Citrix Delivery Center Live. This live virtual event will take place on September 9^th. Make sure to register now!

Citrix Summit, October 26 - 29 at the Walt Disney World Dolphin and Swan Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Citrix Summit is being held in the fall of 2008 to give partners plenty of lead time in preparing for the new year. You'll hear all about the newest products and programs long before January arrives so you can kick off 2009 fully prepared for new opportunities.

Top three reasons to attend
Summit is a must-attend event for Citrix partners, especially if your customers are:

• Interested in desktop virtualization
• Looking for smarter ways to deliver applications
• Turning to you as their trusted advisor on application delivery infrastructure

During two and one-half days of non-stop educational and networking activities with Citrix executives and the Sales team, you'll strengthen your solution selling skills so you can expand beyond point products into comprehensive application delivery solutions. You'll also find out how to increase your services business around Citrix solutions for larger revenue streams.

Are you a Citrix Partner?
If so, visit the Citrix Summit 2008 website, get all the details and register now. Citrix Summit is an invitation-only NDA event designed exclusively to help you gain a competitive advantage in your market.
Learn More & Registration 

[Learn More & Summit Registration]