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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VM Hosted Apps will be introduced in Q3 2009 as part of Feature Pack 2 for XenApp. This brand new and unique application virtualization capability will extend our reach by delivering applications from a more diverse set of operating systems, further reducing application compatibility issues for our customer base and reducing time to value.

XenApp Enterprise and Platinum customers will be able to host Seamless applications from Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 in addition to Windows 2003 and Windows 2008. Applications will be able to be delivered from hosted virtual machines running desktop OS's and/or physical and blade PCs

I'm pretty excited by this new capability as our customers can now deliver a broader set of applications leveraging their existing XenApp investment. There are applications that couldn't be delivered on Terminal Services due to license restrictions. There are applications that consume too many resources on Terminal Services that make them a poor choice for a multi user operating system. There are applications that require devices like USB, biometric keyboards etc. Now there is a complimentary way to deliver these troublesome applications with XenApp.

It has been my experience, that sometimes you just want to get an application deployed quickly into the field. It could be business critical or something you just need to test briefly. Managing these one offs in distributed environment leads to inefficiencies over time even in organizations who have invested in lots of tools and processes. This is why centralized management has been an ability that has really resonated with customers and driven adoption of our application delivery model. However, application validation for a multi user environment can lead to a longer time to value, and depending on the use case this could mean going back to the distributed model when you need it quickly. So now with VM hosted apps the benefits of a centralized XenApp infrastructure can be realized much faster for a broader set of applications.

Here are some more details. Each user will have a 1-1 mapping to their VM Hosted Apps in the initial release. However in subsequent releases we will enable multiple published apps per user. The management experience will allow you to manage your traditional farms side by side. The infrastructure required to deploy this leverages our desktop virtualization technology. More details will be released as we get closer to the release date, and a number of information sessions are being planned, so stay tuned and check out Vinny Sosa's upcoming blog "TYPE TITLE HERE", pressures on Vinny to get it done.......

At Citrix we want to enable our customers to deliver all their hosted applications with us, and added this to round out the application delivery system.So what do you think? How would you like to see this evolve?

With everybody I speak to and in everything I read it is obvious to me that Windows 7 is the next major Windows desktop OS uplift that is around the corner. Good, bad or indifferent, I don't think most people will argue that many people have skipped Vista, but clearly the sentiment is different with Windows 7. For years investments in desktop uplifts have been put off, and I believe that will change sooner than we expect. I've spoken to a number of key decision makers and ground floor engineers and consistently hear that many are actively planning how to adopt Windows 7 to replace what is now an old but good XP operating system. I hear talk of PC uplifts, application virtualization, compatibility, repackaging, systems management upgrades, the list goes on. I think great! Finally we are on the verge of an uplift that will allow us to move forward. Then I think back to my previous experiences with the realities of migrations and the debate over desktop virtualization.

It's fascinating to see so much debate evolve over whether to adopt desktop virtualization or not. I wonder if the binary debate over desktop virtualization is causing artificial confusion as budgets for 2010 and early Windows 7 adoption start to be planned over the coming months. Does the broad desktop community really understand why some people are implementing desktop virtualization today? Are uninformed myths and legends being created? I believe so. Having lived through this, I thought I'd share some of my experiences.

Back in 2004 is when I began my desktop virtualization journey. I already practiced and knew that remote desktops and applications with XenApp had been around for years, but I had some new use cases to solve for. I wanted to get around many of the constraints of a multi user operating system to enable better 'session isolation'. With this capability my users would be able to connect to their remote desktop sessions from anywhere with a Desktop-like experience. I found that this 'session mobility' coupled with session isolation was well received by mobile users who wanted to travel and were frustrated with the old way due to the time it would take to log into desktops due to roaming profiles and login scripts. Session mobility enabled these users to be more agile so they could travel and make fast, light-weight connections back to their desktops. As this evolved, more light bulbs started to go off. What if large, high power desktops could be removed to enable more user density per floor and lower cooling costs? What if thinner greener buildings could be constructed? What if disaster recovery sites could become easier to maintain? Could central management of desktops enable more efficient support models? Could PC lifecycles be extended? Could this capability enable faster and cheaper expansion into new global markets? So much was possible with this new desktop capability, and really it was not that different from the traditional way of remote apps and desktops, just different in that session isolation was key to deliver a desktop like experience. In addition, the benefits far out weighed the constraints when thinking about the business opportunity, and knowing that things would continue to evolve.  

So heads spinning, ideas buzzing, all the what-if constraints started to be thought through. Very quickly when looking at how to solve this problem, the key issue at stake was what's the best and most mature way to deliver the user experience. To cut a long story short, At the time ICA was the clear choice. So a trip to Citrix HQ was planned, arguments were had, this secret PortICA project was brought to my attention that had no use cases around it. A few months later, after a few drinks a few of us including Citrites were walking past Trinity church on Wall Street. Citrix at the time had an umbrella project called project Constellation, and there were three primary user types being thought of for this new desktop opportunity. "Bingo! we'll call it project Trinity," as a joke and it felt like it was a project Constellation theme. This is a true story, and it was just our internal fun name for the project. I couldn't believe it when Citrix announced it at iForum. I was sitting at the back of the room with a huge grin. I remember the Customer Council sessions at that conference, and enquiries from the Marketing team that there may be religious reasons for this, if only they knew..... The rest is history, and today Trinity has evolved into XenDesktop.

So five years on, I see many customers that are thought leaders beginning to adopt this new model and many more people thinking about it or confused about the use cases. Now that Windows 7 is around the corner, I think the time is now to really sit down and understand the desktop virtualization opportunity, if you haven't already. Understand your use cases, where it makes sense for you, where it doesn't and the big picture. Keep in mind how the industry is investing to enable even more capabilities to drive new use cases and lower TCO. Windows 7 means a fresh opportunity to redefine the desktop after so long. Even in the current economic climate customers continue to invest in desktop virtualization, because they understand the strategic significance that greater flexibilty and agility brings today. Now that may not apply to every desktop environment today, but desktop investments are about to get a shot in the arm. I would hate to be in a position of having to go back asking for budget exceptions if I hadn't thought about how desktop virtualization fits into my organization and invested in the wrong areas during upcoming refreshes.

With the release of Citrix Receiver for iPhone 1.02 including AG and RSA support, the ability to securely deliver any app, anywhere, is closer than ever to reality ( we already cover WinMo, Symbian and close to BlackBerry and Android ). One question I have been pondering with Martin Duursma and few others on the team is what is next ? It's great we can get to all these other Windows and RIA apps, but the app many of us use most is email. The question is, what is missing from the native iPhone email or Outlook ? What features would be most useful for a mobile app that we would use all the time from any device?

The native iPhone email client does a good job, but not everything. Attachment viewing is limited and sometimes crashes if the file is too big. You can't write an email and attach a file from your PC or file server. Also many company IT policies do not even allow iPhone access because of security concerns and lack of data / device control. Many of these obstacles could be overcome if the app was hosted on XenApp provided there was fast access and a great user experience. There are probably many new features that could enhance the email experience but you don't even know you want it or need it. Xobni is a good example of an Outlook value-add that I find useful even though I didn't even know I needed it before I started using it every day. So there must be mobile email features that would make your life easier, more productive, or just provide a better experience. What if you had an app that was optimized for the device real estate and mobile scenario ( ie just the functionality that you are likely to need when using your mobile device vs when using a laptop/desktop). If you could have the Nirvana app that was continuously available as a hosted app. Imagine the possibilities !    

Some things that come to mind are listed below, do you agree or have more for the list ? Please add your votes and comments.

http://twitter.com/chrisfleck

Following on from our earlier annoucement this week with Microsoft, a great short video put together by Kurtis Moody to answer many of your questions.

1. Shows the Microsoft App-V plug-in delivered via the Citrix Receiver.
2. Shows a user self serving an App-V application subscription via Dazzle.
3. Demonstrates our ability to leverage Citrix Application Streaming side by side with App-V

Thanks for working on this Kurt!

http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/787

I downloaded the updated 1.0.2 Citrix Receiver for iPhone this morning which is *newly* available on the UK App Store today (Fri 17th July) and also on other App stores around the world.

I am glad to say it still works well in connecting me to our corporate apps hosted on our XenApp farms.

This version now supports Access Gateway Enterprise Edition in addition to the AG-SE.

The excellent usability of the iPhone (with v3 OS) and Receiver + Doc Finder combination is a really high benchmark for other Receivers we aim to release on Windows Mobile , Blackberry etc

[twitter.com/keithwturnbull]

Today Citrix and Microsoft announced an expanded Desktop Virtualization partnership. I'll let the announcement speak for itself and we'll start to release more specifics on the solution over time, but I did want to share my perspective. I think this is good for our customers because Citrix is enabling choice by allowing them to leverage existing or planned investments and extends the reach and usability of those investments. Let me attempt to clarify what I mean.

The reality is, that many customers use or need a combination App-V, Systems Center, Citrix Application Virtualization both online and offline. I always felt that this caused some artificial confusion about what to choose. For example if I need to stream 64 bit apps with Citrix technology, and I need to stream applications which have services via App-V technology then I can now do both side by side in an integrated fashion. Your existing investments (e.g. the sunk cost of packaging, sequencing, testing and validating the applications) are protected and you can plot your course as you see fit together with Citrix and Microsoft.

I know this question will come up so I will also answer it directly based on the data in front of me. Does this mean Citrix is stopping Application Virtualization development? Well, now that I have the advantage of having access to status reports I don't have to speculate anymore. I know for a fact that there are a number of enhancements that our development teams are working on, so these enhancements continue in preparation for the next XenApp release. Moving beyond just the next release of XenApp, we plan to continue to invest to enable delivery of Windows applications as a service.

I believe customers want uncomplicated, user-friendly products that simplify their lives. I know from experience that managing Desktop agent sprawl is a pain. Hence, later in 2009 App-V will be able to be plugged directly into the Citrix Receiver which will make things easier for our customers via the Receiver management framework. This will also enable more intelligent options, where via policy or connectivity one can determine the best place to determine application execution for a user, streamed or hosted. Certainly an area I am going to spend a lot of time thinking about. Additionally, Citrix Dazzle enables a new 'Pull' based interface that consumers are familiar with. Note, I don't just say it's a PNAgent replacement, I think it's a lot more if you grasp the real value. This enables a whole new delivery model, and innovative ways for IT to reach and empower it's customers that too often accuse IT of being slow and rigid. How much time is spent setting up user environments, getting inventory, reconciling and so on? By enabling user based self service, a whole new capability is available. Yes, Citrix will enable App-V to be delivered as a user self service via Dazzle, which I think will be cool, and combined with Merchandising Server, opens up the realm of the possible for delivering applications as a service. Extend these ideas out further into the Cloud and emerging license models, and I think enabling application delivery for the vast majority of applications that are Windows based to complement Desktop Virtualization is a huge deal.

In 2010 XenApp will have a connector to ConfigMgr. This means that you will be able to manage XenApp environments from the ConfigMgr console. We'll blog more on specifics on what features of XenApp management we will expose as we evolve the capability and how,  but for now it's reasonably safe to assume we will do things like publishing apps, advertise XenApp as collections etc.  The more important point right now is to understand that by leveraging XenApp, you will now be able to extend the reach of ConfigMgr to a more diverse set of platforms like Mac and Linux that may not be managed by ConfigMgr. Think of it as Citrix extending the depth of solutions that Microsoft is providing for our mutual customers.

I thought it would be fun to share some experiences from week one and some of the cool innovations I saw.
So as you can imagine, one of my first instincts, having been curious for so many years as a customer about why this, why that, reading speculation, I just had to find out! It was like I had just been given my driving license and could go anywhere. I am sure many of you know Brad Pedersen our Chief Architect, Citrix Fellow and father of ICA. It was simply awesome to have him answer so many of my historic questions, 'the inside scoop,' and spend hours brain storming about where we are/could-going/go and ME being able to shape that conversation now. I also realized that we don't hear about a lot of the unsung hero's of Citrix who are the current generation of brilliant minds here. There is some really cool stuff coming with power management, so watch this space, and some future ideas that I hope we gain traction on. There are some advanced management ideas that we are thinking about and upcoming features that will help simplify your lives. HDX/ICA will continue to get better and you will see some new capabilities in very near term releases of the protocol. I'm beginning to play with some of the future prototypes of Dazzle that I think will be really easy to use from a more diverse set of devices.

I discovered the best conference room names are in our UK offices, best example was 'Vain.'  Without the internal Citrix Wiki I would be lost, everything has a code name! It's like learning a new language. I have never been so spoiled for choice on which free soda or juice to drink. Wow, I saw people wearing shorts at work a shock to the system after Wall Street. I got a chance to spend time with Mark Templeton our CEO and many of the executive team. Prior, my interactions were watching them on stage, or brief encounters at Customer Council events. I am pleased to report they are not aliens, and are listening. I asked Mark if it was ok to disagree with him, and he promised to hit me if I didn't!

I had a great conversation with Martin Duursma who runs Citrix Labs and chairs our CTO office, where we really got into interesting future areas that are currently under research, including Cloud and Client Virtualization including Mobile devices. Some of previous work from Citrix Labs has worked it's way to product, think iPhone client. This device support is now becoming even broader, check out Keith Turnbull's blog on our upcoming Blackberry client.

I also developed a new found respect for the size of our product and how much it actually does to support a vast customer base. There is so much deep embedded knowledge in so many areas that is very hard to replicate. I don't think people on the outside really appreciate what it takes to deliver this stuff. Coupled with the fact that these teams get this space, I think we are very well positioned for the future.

So all of this is just week one, where I have spent most of my time with the XenApp team talking about futures. The great thing about being a Citrix CTO is that I get involved in providing guidance for the firm's technology direction across our product suite, so I am only beginning to scratch the surface. As I work with the rest of our portfolio teams, I can already see that we have so many pieces of the puzzle that will enable us to build innovative solutions for our customers.

I'll share more real time updates via Twitter

Hello World! This must be one of the strangest feelings I have had in my career, as for the first time I am now on the other side of the fence. My name is Harry Labana, it's a beautiful Sunday morning and after a crazy first week I am getting a chance to reflect on my first week at Citrix as the new CTO of the XenApp product group. So to begin, here's a little background to my story. I grew up in the UK of Indian decent and after working for a few years in the UK after University, I spent the last 13 years traveling the canyons of Wall Street with various firms, the last 9 of which have been as a Vice President with Goldman Sachs leading and working on numerous infrastructure, software development and management initiatives.

In particular, I have focused very heavily in the Windows world, and have been through the gamut of real world challenges this brings. From software distribution/packaging, OS upgrades, provisioning, software development, server/application/client virtualization, migrations/integrations, fair share of disasters, hardware, remote access, hosted applications and of course virtual desktops- I think I got most of it - I have been beaten into understanding the realities of execution responsibility at global scale. Fortunately, over the last few years I've also had the opportunity to work with many of the leading established vendors and emerging startups in the Application and Desktop virtualization industry and this has allowed me to learn from smart people with so many perspectives. By virtue of working in financial services, I've also been able to refine these perspectives by talking with investors, analysts and bankers in this space which has equipped me to be a VERY vocal Citrix Customer Council member for a number of years. So I guess Citrix had enough and decided to allow me to help chart their future direction, which is an immensely exciting opportunity, for which I am grateful and where I hope to make a difference by bringing a seasoned customer perspective.

As I reflect on what's happened in our industry over the years, a key observation is how I have seen Citrix technologies evolve from the early adoption days in the 90's as a band aid solution, to many customers now using Citrix as a strategic delivery platform and even greater numbers now considering the technology for the very first time. It is these early customer thought leaders that have done some really amazing things with the technology and enabled us to become a 1.6 billion dollar company by creating so much value for their clients. It seems to me that we are now also at the early stages of the next innovation cycle and early adopters are catching on. I recall sitting at a Synergy session in Houston last year where the topic was a discussion on Desktop Virtualization. I remember what felt like a cynical question about who's actually doing this and a call for a raise of hands. There was silence in the room and I got a nudge from one of my former team mates, and I raised my hand. I won't get into details, but the point is that I think customer thought leaders have and will continue to innovate and find use cases and solutions that we have not even conceived of yet because they are looking to build competitive advantage for their firms because they are driven by an opportunistic mentality that looks beyond teething constraints. Over time this innovation diffuses to the masses, and that's ok in many cases and lost opportunity for others. Working with customers and the broader community, I am convinced that we will continue to evolve our products to enable broader adoption of our technology stack so customers can solve real world problems.   

As I alluded to, I think it's very easy to play cynic, and I could have easily written an article about stuff many vendors can't do or theorize what will happen or what will not happen. I have learned that to build real world solutions requires skill, experience, judgment and the courage to reach out to customers and users who want to be part of the solution. I hope that many of you will be comfortable reaching out to me harry.labana@citrix.com and telling me what you really think as we build upon our current success and evolve our story. I promise I will incorporate your views into my thinking even if I don't agree.

This is so cool, I just had to say something about it. Just installed a prototype of Citrix Receiver for the Blackberry on my new Curve 8900. Early code, but I successfully opened a Word doc, made an edit, and emailed it... all off an instance of Word running on our existing XenApp farm in the datacenter. I also signed off a couple of purchase orders and expenses on our SAP system which is also published on our corporate XenApp system.  I just couldn't do this before without getting out my laptop , waking it up , logging in etc etc

Of course I could have used my Citrix Receiver for iPhone - but the battery was flat ! And , much as I like my iPhone, I also still love the real QWERTY keyboard on the Blackberry Curve, so I am a happy camper with this new Receiver !

I'm sure you are all familiar with the iPhone commercials and the ubiquitous "there is an app for that" phrase that has seemingly become the catch phrase of this decade. Previous catch phrases include --but not limited to -- The 70s-"Heeeey" , The 80s-"Where's the Beef?" The 90s-"Doh!".

All kidding aside, "there's an app for it" reflects the current state of consumerization and customization that is becoming commonplace in today's on-line experience. It is no longer acceptable to have generic applications and content. We all know what we need/want for our apps and we need them now!

Citrix Community Updates

In that same spirit, today I have the pleasure of sharing some of the upgrades we have made to the Citrix community sites. Need a community for discussing Citrix and Microsoft products, "there's a community for that", need a community for the latest and greatest on Citrix and Oracle, "there's a community for that", need a community for finding cool communities "there's a community for that" , need a community where you can geek out (both online and local), "there are 2 communities for that" (gotta spice it up a bit , the first is here and the second is here)... well, I think you get the idea. You should check out the Citrix Community home page and in particular the new partner community module.

My team and I are continually looking for ways to connect with the Citrix community of customers, partners, Citrites and anyone interested in the latest in virtualization of applications, desktops and servers. We are continually soliciting feedback and update the site based on direct comments and industry trends.

Now it's your turn....

Let us know what types of communities you need and (you guessed it) "there will be a community for that", we are open to all types of ideas... here's a few to get the ball rolling (and maybe a peek at the future )... How about a Citrix and Windows 7 community? Or a Citrix and Desktop Virtualization community? Or (heaven forbid!) a Citrix and VMware community?

Also, let us know what type of content you are looking for in your communities. Check out the partner communities or even XenServerCentral for our real time multi-media feeds. Let us know how we can make them better for you...

Now I need to get back to my favorite iPhone App (an oldie but a goodie) ....

john

This is a deck I used recently to explain Cloud Computing, Citrix and to demystify the C3 offering at iForum Sydney and Melbourne (May 2009). I know that this flies somewhat in the face of those who believe that the definition of cloud is completely and globally understood, but the reality is that "Cloud" is stupidly overloaded. This is my attempt to unpack cloud computing, and to illustrate which parts are most relevant to Citrix, C3 and the enterprise IT shop. Let me know what you think.
– Cheers! Michael

Here are some other important links on Citrix C3.

• Citrix C3 Product page
• Citrix C3 Labs on Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Cloud computing related posts on the Citrix Community blog

I presented this week at the iPhone Developer Summit iPhone Developer Summit an alternative option of app development for the iPhone or any mobile device. The basic premise is to use the Tools or Development platforms you allready know to modify or build applications that can optimized for viewing on the iPhone yet actually run on XenApp servers within the datacenter.
The concept was very well received by non-developer IT Pro's and developers that are experts in other platforms, now trying to get their head around Objective C and other iPhone specific considerations. For the existing iPhone Developers the concept was foriegn and they remained skeptical. Thats OK, there is lots of room for more native iPhone apps and reason's to go mobile. As soon as users get the taste of leaving their laptop home there will allways be all those other app's or docs they will want access to. For help on getting started go to our Page on CDN

Demonstrations of Apps using these concepts available on CitrixCloud.net

There are probably many scenarios that would benefit from the ability to separate XenApp servers from the data source. Unfortunately this has not been a recommended practice due to the latency incurred when moving data from one location to another. Now with the emerging availability of Private and Public Clouds and typically constrained premise space and power this capability could become even more interesting. The time to move data across the WAN securely has been the limiting factor but how about using the Citrix Repeater to accelerate the data and Access Gateway to secure it ? Yes this is possible and we wanted to provide a Proof of Concept, demo and C3 Blueprint that may be beneficial.  

This demonstration was included in the Synergy session on Citrix C3 Cloud Architecture. The client laptop located in Florida is connecting over ICA/HDX to a XenApp server hosted in the EC2 Cloud in Virginia, which is pulling data from a file server located in Santa Clara Ca. As indicated in the demo when the Repeater acceleration is enabled the time to open a 5 Megabit file is about 7 seconds. A usable experience for the document delivery example. However with the acceleration disabled the time to open the same 5 Mb file grows to about 2 minutes and unacceptable experience. A 10X+ improvement from acceleration.

Certainly this configuration has limitations and may or may not apply to your situation but it may open the possibilities to solving many app delivery and data location challenges. This example can be recreated easily following the C3 Blueprint and the AMI ( Amazon Machine Image ) template available as part of the C3 Lab in EC2. This does presume you have an available Branch Repeater and Access Gateway on premise to complete the PoC. Try it out and / or let us know what challenges this type of solution may help solve.

Also check out Craig Ellrod's Cloud Bridge post that utilizes Vyatta for a full Premise to Cloud VPN.

http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/craigel/2009/06/08/Cloud Bridge

Follow me @ http://twitter.com/chrisfleck

A lot of Buzz is in the air about what Apple is going to release ( or not ) at WWDC next month. As usual Apple has done a great job of keeping people guessing about what will be announced and when it will be available. Since the release of the Citrix Receiver for iPhone there has also been an increased interest in the iPhone for business use and how it can be utilized to be more productive ( and have a little fun ). The interest has also increase the desire for more, lots of people want the iPhone to become the " NirvanaPhone " by adding video and Keyboard capability , but there are other requests as well. " This would be awesome if it only did X ... "

So let's make some predictions and put some numbers to the features and announcements we want at WWDC.

In the early days of virtualization most developers and IT Pro's would not trust deploying production workloads in Virtual Machines. However, as soon as it was apparent how easy it was to test apps and configurations plus prototype new environments prior to production, virtualization became a defacto standard for test and dev environments. Over time virtualization improved in performance, robustness and management to the point where IT is now comfortable deploying a significant portion of production workloads on Virtualized platforms.

Move the clock forward to today and Cloud based Infrastructure as a Service ( IaaS ). Most companies are not ready to deploy their production environments to the Cloud, however every company spends a significant amount of time and resources for testing , evaluation and PoC's prior to deployment in production on premise or at a Colo. It turns out that IaaS is a great platform for test, dev and evaluations even if it may be early for enterprise production environments. Zero capital, rapid deployment, temporary workloads and elastic capacity are all attributes of IaaS that map directly to test and dev environments.

Citrix has now established the Citrix C3 Lab with Amazon Web Services to enable; PoC's, evaluations, demonstrations, testing, training and more. Pre-built Virtual Appliances available as AMI ( Amazon Machine Image ) templates are now available for XenApp, Citrix Secure Gateway and Access Gateway. In addition we are providing C3 ( Citrix Cloud Center ) Blueprints and a community site dedicated to provide " How to " descriptions, configuration guides, videos and forums to support the Lab. The time to build XenApp environments  can literally change from days to hours or even minutes utilizing C3 Labs. The expense of buying test servers for every new test or evaluation is changed from $ thousands up front to as low as 12.5 cents per hour. The time for racking, cabling and powering is  gone. The time to install Windows OS, then patches, then XenApp, then configure, then redo ( because you didn't read the manual ) is eliminated. You can literally be up and running in a little as 15 minutes. More complex environments can also be built with multiple AMI's networked together in almost unlimited configurations.

Going forward expect to see more C3 Blueprints, more Citrix products in AMI templates, and more suggested solutions to evaluate. We may also utilize the lab for tech previews or hosting research projects to gain customer insight and feedback. Stay tuned for more and give us some suggestions.

Saving significant time and money for test and dev just may be a leading indicator for how Clouds aew adopted into IT production environments later.

The Citrix Receiver for iPhone 1.0 is now available in the App Store ! This is the product thousands of our users have been ( impatiently ) waiting for. The 1.0 release includes support for Access Gateway and RSA 2 Factor authentication enabling secure access over WiFi or 3G networks anywhere.

To provide some history on what influenced this new Citrix Receiver look back to last year when Apple released the iPhone SDK. We had lots of discussion inside Citrix about the priority and significance of developing a client for the iPhone. Although it was possible to access Citrix servers from mobile devices in the past, the user experience was poor due to screen size, slow networks and cumbersome input. The iPhone finally provided a platform that had a relatively large screen, a 3G network and the awesome gesture feature that made panning and zooming usable.

So we knew we could do it, the question was should we do it. Beyond the typical business case with projections of users/licenses and data points of individual customer requests we did an experiment by posting the question to the entire community. As you may have noticed this single blog post now has over 200,000 views and 200+ comments.

Interestingly the comments came not only from our common base of IT pro's but a surprising amount came from end users as well. These are just a few examples of what we heard..

" Hospitalists want to use this.  We have Cerner here, and I need Citrix working to connect to it.  I would use this 50 times a day.  Right now I have to repeatedly sign in to different terminals.  The iPhone is the right form factor for this.  Laptops / tablets are too bulky for doctors to carry around -- we often do not have a surface to put them on. ..David"

"It's not just the medical community.  I'm Director of IT for a large chemical company. I have a highly mobile user base - engineers visiting the production facilities, etc.  Currently they are all armed with Blackberry devices.  That's great for email only..... but forget attachments or getting into some of the apps we currently host in a Citrix environment (such as our production scheduling tool).  An iPhone client solves these problems.  We'd be off the Blackberry platform and onto the iPhone with Citrix very quickly. By the way, we have a huge investment in the Citrix platform, and it's getting larger - more and more of our users are moving away from laptops to thin clients.  A Citrix client on the iPhone will come close to eliminating the need for any laptops at all from most users. Do it, and do it fast ! "

"It's not just the medical or chemical companies, I am the CIO for a logistics company, and we do all of our global operations using MetaFrame, and having it on my iPhone really helps."

Regarding the use cases, the blog comments describe many of them. I think it's mostly a matter of how mobile the users are as to how often this client will be used. For office based workers that have an iPhone it may be a just another cool app helps out in a pinch. But for the increasing mobile workforce that absolutely needs access to apps & data anywhere ... it's priceless... ( just like when you need to get to a server and you only have your phone with you) It seems that most everyone would like to be able to leave their laptop home, myself included.

 So let us know what you think, do you agree with the rest of the Citrix Community? Does it live up to your expectations ? Download the Citrix Receiver from the App Store and try it out. If you are not ready to put it in your production environment yet, register for the free demo at CitrixCloud.net and test the sample apps plus the great new App we built called Doc Finder. If you want to build your own environment to test your own apps try the C3 Lab in Amazon EC2.

For more information, news, questions and suggestions go to;

Community.Citrix.com/iPhone

Citrix.com/iPhone

From your iPhone, check out;

m.iphone.citrix.com

It's still not official .... but the Tech Preview of the long awaited Citrix Receiver for the iPhone is now available in the AppStore.  Anyone with a properly configured Citrix XenApp  environment can download the Citrix Receiver and access authorized company apps from their iPhone today ! Now is the time to start testing the iPhone in your environment, look for ways to increase productivity, and have some fun.

There are some restrictions in this Tech Preview so be sure to check out the iPhone Community pages we have set up for requirements, tips and forum discussions. If you want to set up a separate test environment to test your apps over 3G we have a preconfigured XenApp Virtual Appliance in Amazon EC2 that you can copy and set up in 15 minutes.

As part of Citrix Receiver we are also providing a new feature called Doc Finder that runs on XenApp but provides an iPhone experience to allow users to easily find, view, edit and send documents. Because the Documents are hosted securely in the data center nothing is downloaded and Doc Finder provides fast one click access to all of your important files.

For more information, news, questions and suggestions go to;

Community.Citrix.com/iPhone

Citrix.com/iPhone

From your iPhone, check out;

m.iphone.citrix.com

To get the real scoop on Citrix Receiver, talk to the experts, plus get some official news, I recommend you attend Citrix Synergy in May... and bring your iPhone... Learn more at www.CitrixSynergy.com

And finally, a big thanks and shout out to the Braeburn project team  .. Well Done !  ( actually .. they're not done ..  )

Does the Citrix HDX story still elude you? Here's a whiteboard approach.

Let me know if this helps.

Michael

If embedding is broken for you, please see youtube version.

Things are changing fast in the world of Cloud Computing, however one question remains the same. Will it save me money and how much? To follow up on a previous post on Cloud Economics 101 Part 1, I looked at a fairly simple example of 5 Servers for a dev/test environment and identified the incremental costs of buying 5 servers and running them on premise or a Colo and then compared that to Amazon EC2. The analysis did not include many variables such as real estate costs and labor savings which may or may not apply to the particular situation. The results indicated that a Premise based deployment could provide the lowest "incremental" cost when compared to EC2 if the servers were running continuously. On the other hand EC2 provided significant savings for short term workloads with no upfront costs.

What has changed recently at Amazon is a new pricing model that provides the option for "Reserved Instances" http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing which includes an upfront fee ( 1 year or 3 year term ) and a reduced per hour charge. The analysis below reflects the new pricing model applied to the same 5 server scenario as above. As indicated the new model results in a significant savings compared to EC2 standard pricing; 31% for the 1 year term and 48% for the 3 year term assuming the servers are running 24/7. However, when compared to the 40 hour per week scenario the cost at $16,146 ( or $10,229 3 year ) is higher than the EC2 Standard price of $8,320 or the Premise cost of $7,800.

So will the Cloud save money? the answer remains the same ... it depends. The new " Reserved Instance" pricing model provides substantial savings over standard pricing when used continuously but the standard pricing still is more effective for short time periods such as a 40 hour week load. As noted in the earlier posts there are many other variable cost savings by putting workloads in the cloud such as real estate costs, facility upgrades plus the intangible but real benefit of reduced time to develop/test/deploy.

The "Reserved Instance" pricing will also impact the variable workload analyzed in Cloud Economics Part 2 - Premise Plus Cloud scenario, this should provide more content for an upcoming post.    

Cloud Economics 101 Part 1 - Premise vs Cloud vs Colo
Cloud Economics 101 Part 2 - Premise Plus Cloud
Cloud Economics 101 Part 4 - Amazon EC2 vs Terremark vCloud