On the run up to VMworld 2009, there seems to be an increasing amount of activity on the subject of user personalization in VDI. Gartner has written about dynamic workspace includng user personalization as a key element of the stack. What does it mean? What is user personalization all about? And, where does it need to be? Let's take a closer look.

Aren't all PCs supposed to be personalized? What's the big deal?

Personalization of the desktop is really all about making the working experience for the user as effective as possible. Sure this means users have photos of their family or favorite sports team as their wallpaper, but personalization is more than that! Think about all the things you have done to make your personal computer your own - from toolbar settings to your email signature, to applications you have installed since being supplied with your machine. Then think about how IT is able to manage the user-specific component of this machine - corporate policy, user access rights, PC lifecycle management, patching and security updates. It's a constant struggle between IT who needs to manage the PC and the user to wants to personalize it. The more personal the PC, the less control IT has over that machine and the more expensive it becomes to manage.

Does desktop virtualization help or hurt the cause for users?

The emergence of desktop virtualization provides a real opportunity to address this long-standing struggle. Those assets of the desktop that are common to many users, including corporate OS and apps, can now be standardized and automatically delivered 'on-demand' to users from a central source. In fact, the only way to get scalable and cost effective virtual desktops is with single instance management of the corporate OS and applications - as with Citrix XenDesktop. A 'corporate' OS can be dynamically provisioned into a virtual image, and likewise, corporate applications can be delivered on-demand onto the virtual desktop as needed. The result? A scalable, low-management, low-storage, low-cost corporate desktop for all employees. The third key component of this scalable virtual desktop is personalization - so that you can make each user's virtual desktop personal.

So, how do you pick the right solution?

Based on my interactions with customers successfully implementing virtual desktops, I have come to a conclusion that there are 5 key requirements that you need to consider for delivering personalized virtual desktops:

1. Starting with managed user profiles or equivalent - A system that can store user settings and personalization changes. A system that can provide an easy and fast way to manage the settings for users. This is included as part of XenDesktop and gets you started with your personalized virtual desktops.
2. Getting On-demand 'personality' - To increase the responsiveness of the desktop and logon, only provide parts of the user personality required by the user at the time when needed. Why load what a user is not going to use?
3. Allowing user-centric configuration - This may be a bit counter-intuitive to personalization; however, role based configuration is a critical component of making every user's desktop 'personal'. It starts with configuring which applications a user has access to. XenDesktop (with XenApp as an application management system) offers the ability to control the applications. IT may need more granular control - such as what printers users will need and what drives they can access.
4. System self-healing from user errors - To be able to automatically roll back to pre-configured user settings in case any personalized changes made by zero conflict centralized configurations.
5. Ensuring visibility - Giving IT the ability to see into the user environment and solve potential problems before the user gets involved creates a continuously improving desktop estate as well as reducing costs

How do you get it going?

We have included #1 and parts of #3 in Citrix XenDesktop. To address other requirements that cover comprehensive enterprise-level control and management of personalization, I have seen customers successfully use the combined solution of Citrix XenDesktop and AppSense Environment Management to good effect. In addition, AppSense Environment Management is also able to offer Enterprise-level scale to cover not just your virtual desktops but also your physical environments, or environments where you may be using multiple technologies such as XenApp published/hosted or streamed apps to physical PCs and XenDesktop.

So when you hear about 'user personalization' or 'user profiles', look deeper into the details of what's being discussed. Successful (low-cost, high adoption) VDI requires the ability to use a single instance of OS and apps on demand across an entire company. I have seen that customers have successfully combined Citrix XenDesktop with AppSense Environment Management to ensure user adoption across all platforms for thousands of users, and it's being considered as the most complete solution for delivering personalized virtual desktops.

What to expect in coming weeks?

I expect to see more point solutions and some technology acquisitions and OEMs. However, they have two fundamental shortcomings, in my opinion:

• They are built only with the perspective of user personalization. Any user personalization product needs a solid desktop virtualization solution.

• They solve one of the requirements I listed above and may not be enough to address all of enterprise requirements.

As you are doing your assessment on personalization, I encourage you to review this list of requirements that I have seen in successful implmentations of virtual desktops. Also, I'd love to hear your comments on other requirements around personalization that I haven't covered here.

Today we announced another key addition to our portfolio of HDX technologies within XenDesktop, enabling high definition virtual desktops - HDX 3D.

Before we get into too much detail, in my experience it's always sensible and logical to consider the broader context to gain perspective and not get lost in the marketing. For me this is about extending our leadership position in delivering user experience that we have built with HDX technologies over the last 20 years.

HDX offers several other capabilities such as multimedia, USB, voice collaboration, etc that users for virtual desktops can use wherever they are. Michael Harris produced a really nice short video that explains the HDX areas of competence. What's key to understand is that to deliver the best experience for many rich content types, on diverse devices that may be accessed from a myriad of locations, one must leverage the existing environment in an optimal manner. HDX with adaptive orchestration leverages the client, network and server to optimize the experience of users based on the content and infrastructure that is available.

This inherent flexibility in the architecture of HDX technology is key to delivering a more efficient and predictable user experience. For example if you send multimedia content directly to the client in it's original format for optimal playback when the bandwidth is good, and render on the server when bandwidth is poor you leverage your bandwidth efficiently allowing other applications to also consume bandwidth. Similarly if your technology can identify repetitive patterns within multiple bitmaps on a screen you can avoid retransmitting bits saving network bandwidth. Additionally if your technology can dynamically adapt to changing network conditions, you remain efficient as parameters that you can't control change. These unpredictable conditions become even more important as you traverse the internet to connect to clouds. So having an arsenal of technologies to handle so many variables that have been matured over the years is critical to delivering a user experience that will allow IT to feel confident in the service levels they are delivering for Desktop Virtualization.

Extending HDX to graphical intensive applications over any kind of network- HDX 3D

HDX 3D is a new technology that addresses the needs of professional graphics users in industries such as Engineering, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Aerospace and Automotive. Professional graphics users requiring 3D graphics apps such as AutoCAD or Catia can now use virtual desktops to do all their work.

When we collaborated with our customers on the design of this technology, they reminded us that with the forces of globalization in play, more and more designers and engineers would be working offshore all over the world. This made it abundantly clear to us that in order to meet customer needs WAN performance was going to be a critical component. If WAN optimization was not a top priority from the outset, many of the cost benefits would be negated through poor performance and increased WAN circuit costs. So the mission for our engineers was very clear.

The results

Our test engineers reported back that they could deliver a great user experience on WAN connections with latency of up to 150ms. Even 3D graphics over 1 Mbps became possible! I was pleased, but wanted to understand how this compared to hardware based solutions that have generated a lot of excitement in the industry. Our engineers decided to contrast performance against the PCoIP protocol leveraging the proprietary Teradici hardware solution. Note that VMware has publically stated that they plan to offer a software only version of the PCoIP protocol. Logically speaking, the same technology without the benefit of hardware assist, one would expect this version to be of inferior performance. To be fair, we have not tested the software only version of PCoIP yet.

The methodology on the LAN was to auto-spin in Catia and measure bandwidth usage starting at full image quality for each product and incrementing down to the lowest quality. For the WAN, a WAN emulator was used to introduce latency and repeat the test to auto-spin Catia and observe which appeared to spin more smoothly. Manual rotation was also performed to see what it felt like from a user perspective.

In summary we found that PCoIP with the benefit of proprietary hardware consumed 10X more bandwidth than HDX 3D and HDX 3D produced a smoother user experience.

Based on our tests, PCoIP didn't handle latency and WAN conditions well. So, if you are a designer and need to design a 3D model, from our tests we don't see how you would be able to have a predictable work experience that is efficient and cost effective on a real world network with a distributed workforce. Once again, this was the proprietary Teradici hardware assisted version of PCoIP. This does not bode well for the software version, especially if compromises have been made in quality and predictability to mask bandwidth requirements.

So what should one make of all this?

Firstly, as a technologist, I think it's interesting to see VMware building (or OEM/partnering for) their own protocol; because as a former customer of VMware, I have never understood their position on recommending multiple protocols for different scenarios. They have mentioned extending Microsoft RDP, using Suns ALP for WAN, adopting the Net2Display standard and partnerships with hardware vendors such as Teradici etc. How is all the complexity of so many options and expecting customers to figure out how to integrate them as one predictable experience going to work? Now I wonder if VMware is still going to have multiple technologies to try and build a HDX like portfolio and expect customers to figure out how to interface it all? PCoIP is only a piece of a puzzle - just like a protocol is only a small part of the equation.

However as Citrix has learned over the last 20 years as one of it's core competencies working with 200,000 plus customers, it's so much more than just a protocol. Some of those key lessons are.

• HDX is an integrated set of technologies that are intended to offer the best possible user experience under any network circumstances.
• HDX does not rely on just one approach to graphics and multimedia remoting, because one size does not fit all.
• HDX has unique technologies that can leverage the client resources to offer a local like user experience at a fraction of the bandwidth and server cost.
• When HDX determines that server side rendering is the most appropriate method to deliver the content, it uses a number of technologies to optimize the bandwidth and server CPU usage.
• HDX also includes adaptive orchestration which is a system that makes smart decisions on what techniques to apply under different conditions. Adaptive orchestration sets HDX apart from the competition because it can offer the best possible user experience for the user.

Additionally, I think one of the most important points that is often overlooked is that HDX technologies are Hypervisor and hardware agnostic. Citrix does not lock you into a proprietary hardware solution or Hypervisor. We understand that customers want Hypervisor and hardware choice combined with mature and proven user experience delivery technologies that are being extended to further the reach of Desktop Virtualization. I believe that pragmatic IT decision makers and engineers understand those are critical elements to protect their existing and future investments.

Finally, we would have demonstrated HDX 3D at VMWorld, if we could - if we were allowed the space to do so...... However check out http://hdx.citrix.com

I've been talking to a number of people regarding their ideas with respect to delivering Desktop Virtualization and Application Virtualization from the cloud.

Yesterday Amazon announced Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with support for Citrix C3. Check out Craig Ellrod's blog post

It's great to see people thinking about ways to extend the reach of the Citrix Delivery Infrastructure. Our very own Scott Swanburg has blogged about this for several months. Scott has some very interesting discussions on how to make money from the cloud and our Service Provider license program. The reality is there is a chasm between existing web apps to deliver SaaS and the tens of thousands of apps that are Windows based. There is a huge opportunity especially in the Small and Medium Business segment for these types of services.

It's also worth noting that some Service Providers are already taking advantage of the opportunity, U.K. based Nasstar, U.S. based nGenX, ClubDrive and Australia based Bluefire. These companies service hundreds of SMBs with thousands of end points.

Last week I spoke to Kenji Obata CEO from Xenocode regarding delivering applications from the cloud. Kenji was kind enough to give me access to a streamed Citrix client what we call our Receiver and we helped Kenji configure it to connect to a desktop in the Amazon cloud. In this case the destkop is delivered via XenApp. If you're not familiar with streaming, think of it as downloading only the bits you need to start an application as opposed to an entire application. A little bit like playing a streaming radio station. In this case 4.2MB is streamed for startup vs. the 23.9MB package size. You'll need to install the Spoon plug-in in the top right of the box the first time for the browser integration to work . After that it should be just a click on the Green button to start your virtual desktop session in the Amazon Cloud. So far i've tested successfully from my XP and Vista machines as a non admin user and plan to try from my Windows 7 machine later today. Note that we only created one account in Amazon for this so you may be stealing sessions..... Anyway it's a fun demo so give it a try. Many of our existing customers do something similar with the XenApp Web Plugin today. Nonetheless it's alway personally interesting for me to see how other people understand the value of connecting to a secure managed hosted application infrastructure.

As these models continue to evolve, leveraging Citrix Dazzle and Merchandsing Server we could enable SAAS in so many new ways. It's fascinating that potentially combined with some of the concepts mentioned in Chris Flecks recent blog how so many possibilities could be opened up.

So I see lot's of creative thinking going on amongst thought leaders and real execution already happening. Certainly an area that I will be watching with keen interest. As always interested to hear from our customers and partners on how they would like to see this evolve.

So my wife drug me to the movies to see "Julie & Julia" this week and for some reason I seem to be thinking about everything in terms of cooking up a master piece.  I'll have to ask you to forgive me if this blog seems a bit "Julia Child-esh" but I can't seem to help myself...

Ingredients: 

(2) NetScalers

(2) Web Interface Farms

(2) XenApp/XenDesktop Farms

(30) XenServer VMs w/Essentials

(1) Provisioning Farm

(10) Storage Arrays

(2) High Speed Access Lines 

First, mix the ingredients in a data center and test to perfection.  

Next pick (3) market verticals for the highest expected IT spend in your area (hint: in 2009 that would be Finance, Gov't, and Services).  Find the local trade associations for each vertical and sign up (hint: In the U.S. Personal Finance Sector, American Association of Debt Management Organizations (AADMO), the nation's largest trade association for the credit counseling and debt management industry).

After hobnobbing with the trade association's board of directors, offer to provide a teaching seminar on "How to save up to 40% on your IT operating costs!" for all of the members of the association.

Create a presentation that the business owners of the association can identify with (hint: specific to the Debt Management business IT - remote access, call centers, etc). After filling an auditorium with Executives show them specifically how they can remove cost by taking them through the Citrix Service Provider TCO Calculator (that you've naturally branded with your company's identity). Make sure that you finish your presentation with the pièce de résistance (Disaster Recovery included in the service).

Offer (2) months of free service (hey, you've got to hook them you know?).

Sign 30 companies with 50 subscribers in each company with a service fee of $70 per subscriber per month.

...And voilà, you have a run rate of $105,000 per month (or $1.3 Million per year).

Best Practices for Deploying and Managing Hyper-V Infrastructure

Date: Thursday, August 27, 2009
Time: 2:00 PM Eastern; 11:00 AM Pacific

Join Microsoft and Citrix as they explore best practices for deploying and managing Hyper-V. Learn how to rapidly provision Hyper-V infrastructure, reduce your Hyper-V storage footprint by over 50%, increase I/O performance by up to 30%, and much more.

Discover how Microsoft System Center together with Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V helps you effectively manage and automate the delivery of virtual and physical infrastructure for your Hyper-V deployments, including how the solutions:

• Rapidly provision virtual and physical infrastructure
• Improve storage utilization with the seamless storage integration
• Conquer VM sprawl and take back control of virtual labs
• Maximize performance and resource utilization

REGISTER NOW.

About the Presenters:

Gordon Mangione; VP, Emerging Virtualization Products; Citrix Systems, Inc.
Gordon Mangione leads the Advanced Products group at Citrix, where he is specifically focused on building products for the Microsoft platform. Previously, Mr. Mangione was responsible for product operations with a focus on engineering, support and services at XenSource before its acquisition by Citrix. Prior to that, Mr. Mangione held several VP roles at Microsoft, where he was responsible for Exchange, SQL Server and incubating the security business.

Dai Vu; Director, Virtualization Solutions Marketing; Microsoft Corporation
Dai Vu leads the team responsible for Hyper-V product marketing and marketing solutions built on Microsoft virtualization products and technologies. His team works closely with solution partners to define, develop, and market joint solutions to drive horizontal and business solution scenarios enabled by virtualization technologies. Previously, Dai was responsible for mid-market/channel strategic initiatives on the Server and Tools Strategy and Planning Team. Prior to Microsoft, Dai was Program Director at IBM and Engagement Manager at McKinsey and Company.

REGISTER NOW

Hi Everyone,

We will be soon updating the m.iphone.citrix.com site with the latest documentation, in the meantime I would like to take a moment and introduce you to the Citrix Receiver for iPhone v1.0.3 Admin guide.

This document will come handy when planning for iPhone deployments in your company. Inside you can find:

• Product Requirements

• How to configure iPhone secure access via:
  • Access Gateway Strandard Edition
  • Access Gateway Advanced Edition
  • Access Gateway Enterprise Edtion
  • Citrix Secure Gateway

• How to provide access information to end users

• Basic troubleshooting steps

• Known Issues

Download the Citrix Receiver for iPhone Admin Guide

best,
Gus
twitter.com/guspinto

What's Power IT Down Day

This Thursday, August 27, 2009, is the second annual Power IT Down Day. Please do your part to conserve energy and protect our environment on this day by "powering down" your equipments – computer, monitor, printer and other peripherals – at the end of the day. You don't have to be Al Gore or a celebrity to be helpful!

How much impact your action can have

You will be surprised to know how much can be saved. Here is one estimate
"You can save about 13 kWh powering down all your work devices for fifteen hours, which represents about 6.85 kg less CO2 in the atmosphere and savings of US $1.30 in power."

And savings really add up quickly if many people join the cause.

And you can see an aggregated saving result from the web site.

Even better the sponsors (HP, Citrix, Microsoft etc.) will donate a portion of the cost savings to the Wounded Warrior Project"

How to do it

First show your intent to participate today, by taking the online pledge here. Over 3,000 people have already signed up.

Once you sign up, you will receive an email reminder and you can easily add the reminder to your calendar.

If you just want to add a reminder, click here to add a reminder to your calendar.

Beyond Power IT Down Day

Here are a few things to consider:

• Continue to power down your unused equipments.
• Spread the message.
• If you use XenApp, check out the new power and capacity management feature
• replace PC will thin clients
• Try desktop virtulization
• Try on line meetings/webnars, work from home.

Related articles:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/081809-tgech-green-challenge.html

Ray (Ruiguo) Yang
Check out my other blogs
Subscribe to my blog RSS feed
Follow me (@RayYangCitrix) on Twitter

The Support Forum for our HDX MediaStream for Flash trial release recently included a post that raises some interesting concerns about how client-side rendering fits with the server-based computing model. To paraphrase the post:

"Citrix has always been the server-based computing company that wanted everything moved into the datacenter. That includes all code execution. Now, with HDX, some of the code is executed on the endpoint, which means it's not SBC all the way anymore. Moving execution code to the endpoint means you will create application dependencies at some point. It's not only KVM that's sent to the endpoint anymore. My opinion is that SBC should always be client platform independent."

A great impetus for me to shed some light on Citrix's strategy for HDX and multimedia virtualization...

Although the term "server-based computing" is no longer in vogue, there's no denying the tremendous benefits of centralizing the complicated stuff in the data center where it's easier to manage. And strategically, we view server-side rendering of multimedia content (including Flash) as a critical, core capability. This is the foundational technology that covers all the bases. Server-side rendering works whether the content is Flash or Silverlight or Windows Media or QuickTime or whatever. Server-side rendering works regardless of whether the user device (client) has the applicable media player (e.g. Adobe Flash Player) installed on it, or the applicable codec. And it works with all operating systems for which we offer our client or Citrix Receiver online app plug-in. Therefore, we've continued to invest in improving the delivery of server-rendered multimedia content with new codec technology and other technological advances.

But client-side rendering can be used opportunistically to great advantage when it fits. In those cases, offloading media processing to the endpoint reduces the load on the server and helps improve overall server scalability (number of concurrent users), sometimes by as much as an order of magnitude. Eliminating rendering and recompression on the server also generally results in less network bandwidth consumption since the native media format is already highly compressed.

My view is that there's a fine line here. Running a browser plug-in like the Adobe Flash Player on the endpoint may be about as far as many customers would want to go with client-side media processing. Why? As you go farther, you increase the complexity of managing the user device and could lose a key benefit of the virtual desktop model (although client-side virtualization technologies can certainly mitigate that). 

So it all comes back to HDX Adaptive Orchestration, which is the key to our multimedia virtualization strategy. HDX Adaptive Orchestration includes SmartRendering, which intelligently and dynamically evaluates available resources (user device, network, server) and determines whether to stick with the foundational technology of server-side rendering or opportunistically leverage the endpoint device. Administrative policies factor in, too, especially when there are security and management considerations.

With upcoming improvements to frame rate (already 20 fps in XenDesktop 3 FP1) and audio quality (see my video on project Ulysses), server-based multimedia delivery keeps getting better. But even though it can deliver an excellent multimedia user experience, that will always come at the cost of server capacity and network bandwidth. So a multi-dimensional solution that can leverage client-side resources if they're available provides the best of both worlds. 

Derek Thorslund
HDX Product Strategist & Sr. Manager, XenDesktop Product Management

Okay, I'm the first to admit it's been quite a while since I updated my Facebook status, so I never thought I'd say this ... but I'm tweeting. And yes, I said "tweet"...it only took me about a week to stop saying "twit".

But the good news is that there's a lot to talk say about our relationship with SAP and I'm not doing this alone. Joining me will be the rest of the Citrix/SAP alliance team and together we'll be updating our fellow followers on the latest and greatest happenings within the relationship.

There's some really exciting stuff coming down the road...don't you want to be one of the first to hear (or read) about it? 

Come on! Get in with the in crowd. Follow us on Twitter! 

Also, don't forget to check out the Citrix Community page for SAP. On this page we've consolidated all related blogs, news, videos, etc... from Citrix, SAP and third-party sites in our feeds section to provide a one-stop-shop for all things on the alliance.

We want to know how you're using Oracle in your Citrix environments. Let us know in the Community Verified area within the Citrix Community page for Oracle.

It's easy to use and takes only seconds of your time. On the right side of this page you'll see the following section:

All you have to do is select the "Vote" button next to the response that most closely represents your Citrix experience. From there you'll see a listing of all of the Oracle apps other community members have posted...paving the way for you to add your input...or if you can't find the app you're looking for, take the road less travelled and submit a new product! Simply identify the Oracle application and Citrix product and you're done!

You should be finished in less than a minute and in the end you'll have shared your experiences with the rest of the Citrix Community. Your input and implementation validation may help other members take a step in the right direction by selecting Citrix solutions to work alongside Oracle apps. Not bad for a minute's work, right?

So what are you waiting for? Enquiring minds want to know. Visit the Citrix Community page for Oracle and share your compatibility knowledge.

...and one more thing, don't forget to follow us on Twitter!

SuperCache is part of the HDX IntelliCache technology stack. SuperCache role is to optimize the delivery of graphics and images when users are moving content up and down.

A typical use case for SuperCache is a user reading a Word document. When the user scrolls down the document, SuperCache is able to detect areas in the document that have just moved up. Instead of resending those graphics to the end point, the end point renders already cached graphics providing a significant bandwidth reduction between the virtual desktop or application and the end point.

SuperCache is crucial to deliver a great user experience over WAN. On LAN scenarios, SuperCache improves the server scalability and user interactivity by reducing the amount of data pushed through the network and processing required on the client.

SuperCache is available in both XenApp and XenDesktop. It is enabled by default and requires no configuration from the administrator.

The following video compares the user experience when SuperCache is on vs. off. To fully appreciate this demo, I recommend you play it in full screen mode:

Follow me on twitter to stay up to date with the latest developments in HDX technologies.

I've noticed more and more inquiries lately about delivering softphones using virtualization technology. XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2008 and XenDesktop 3 Feature Pack 1 introduced audio subsystem enhancements that now enable online softphone delivery with voice-over-ICA using the Bidirectional Audio feature of HDX RealTime. And some softphones, like Cisco IP Communicator, can be delivered to the user device with our offline plug-in. But understandably, not everyone is ready to take the plunge and throw away their telephones! So it is very interesting to hear the comments of customers who are using XenApp or XenDesktop to deliver softphones in "control mode" where the softphone application is used together with a physical telephone set. They're experiencing valuable benefits despite taking a more cautious approach to IP telephony.

Awhile back, I blogged about publishing the Avaya IP Softphone. Yesterday I had a chat with Tom Balthasar of Cellino and Barnes, a law firm in New York State that uses a ShoreTel IP phone system and delivers ShoreTel's Call Manager softphone to over one hundred employees using Citrix technology. Tom provides his users with complete virtual desktops that they can access whether they're in the office or remote. With Call Manager, users find it very convenient to dial from the directory rather than punch in numbers on the keypad. And they get visual access to voice mail and PBX features. When there's a weather emergency, employees can work remotely using Call Manager along with their home telephone or mobile phone. When they make outbound calls with Call Manager, the ShoreTel IP phone system calls them first, and then adds the called party. The Caller ID seen by the person they're calling shows "Cellino and Barnes", transparently maintaining the same service as if they were in the office.

The PBX operators use ShoreWare Operator Call Manager, also delivered as an online application, which gives them advanced call management features and shows them the status of all lines. If an operator is out due to illness or vacation, an operator at another location can easily fill in.

Tom loves the fact that his IT department doesn't need to maintain applications like Call Manager on each user's PC. Everything is centralized in his data center. All his users need is the Citrix online plug-in.

ShoreTel announced Citrix Ready certification of the ShoreWare Call Manager suite in 2008. 

Derek Thorslund
HDX Product Strategist & Sr. Manager, XenDesktop Product Management

We've been working hard on the next major release of Citrix Receiver for iPhone, although our team is confident we did a good job implementing the first few releases, we decided to continue innovating. With that been said, our next major release will be focused on a highly improved user experience, and many innovative features!

During an usability study we have acknowledged 20 pixels of "waisted" space within the XenApp session, and 20px in a mobile device is like gold, specially when you only have a 320 x 480 viewable area.

I'm talking about the iPhone Status bar.

This bar indicates, time, carrier, signal strength, wireless mode, battery, bluetooth, etc... The status bar is visible most of the time, except in rare occasion, like when playing full screen movies, pictures, games, etc.

Today I would like to turn to you to help me make a decision on how to regain those 20px back, after all, we are designing this product for you, and getting your input this early is very valuable to us.

The question is pretty simple, we have 3 option, Solid (as is today), Translucent (see thru), Hidden. Which one do you like the most?

Best regards,
Gus pinto
twitter.com/guspinto

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

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

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

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

In this webinar you will learn:

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

Check out the webinar!

After going through the Direct VHD Boot process for HyperV which was a feature of PVS 5.1 the next question that came up was "Does it work with Xenserver?" and the answer that came back was "It technically should work but it is not officially supported yet." So we decided to do the next logical thing and give it a try.
( "New way to upgrade with PVS 5.1 and HyperV"
http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/trevorm/2009/07/28/New+Way+to+Upgrade+with+PVS+5.1+and+HyperV )
The process works similar to HyperV but there are a few details to consider before using this feature with Xenserver.
First the XS storage repository being used needs to support VHD so that would include a NFS share or EXT2/3(Local SR, SAN, or ISCSI) SR partitions not LVM.

We will need the following items to get started:
-PVS 5.1 Server
-Xenserver 5.5 with a EXT or NFS Storage Repository
-Windows 7 RC PVS VHD image captured from a PC(in my case a wyse Rx0)
-SCP ssh client utility

1. First we will start by copying our win7 VHD file using SCP ssh utility from our PVS store to the Xenserver storage repository. In our case is a Local SR formatted with EXT3.

2. In XenCenter create a new VM from a template(vista or 2008) and make sure to choose the correct SR for the disk which is EXT or NFS. Uncheck the box to start automatically.

3. Rename the PVS VHD file we copied over with the same name as the one which was created by our VM. We can do this at the xenserver host console or in my case the SCP ssh utility console.
We should see a new VHD disk created for our new VM and the VHD we copied from the PVS server. For my SR the path is /var/run/sr-mount/"new uuid".vhd

4. Power on the virtual Machine. Windows 7 will boot up and start installing the default drivers for xenserver using plug n play. It will not find the new scsi device driver but you can ignore for now. Then when prompted to reboot choose to manually reboot later.

5. Before rebooting go to the command prompt and run bcdedit /set loadoptions "PV|=2000" to modify boot.ini and then reboot.

6. Uninstall PVS client from add remove programs then reboot.

7. Install the Xenserver 5.5. Tools and then reboot. It will finish adding the drivers at next boot up so I rebooted a second time. (may not be necessary)

8. Install the PVS 5.1 client but before rebooting (very important) You will be prompted to choose which NICs you want PVS to bind to. Choose all inactive and active nics. If you using a XP or 2003 image you might need to manually start "c:\program files\citrix\provisioning services\bindcfg.exe"

9. Next go to the command prompt and run bcdedit /deletevalue loadoptions then Shutdown.

10. Now we copy our updated VHD back to PVS.

11. Rename our VHD file to the appropriate name and then add back into the PVS console.

12. You now have a updated PVS VHD file which can be streamed to a physical server/PC, Xenserver host VM,
or directly booted in Xenserver.

**Eventhough this process seemed to work fine it is not yet officially supported and testing has been limited.
**To save time in updating pvs client or NIC software you could use NFS which will provide you the ability to present the NFS SR to the PVS server and Xenserver. Doing this would allow you to skip the steps of copying the VHD to and from the Xenserver SR.
**The use of Xenconvert as a method to move the VHD to and from the Xenserver in this process could be a great option but we are still testing that out for this process.

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

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

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

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

http://twitter.com/chrisfleck

Q&T is a key component in the HDX Broadcast technology stack for optimizing the delivering application and desktop virtualization over a wide area network. It intelligently analyzes the queue of drawing commands and omits those that are not needed to provide an accurate, responsive display to the user. By optimizing what commands need to be sent, this saves bandwidth on the network, as well as processing time on the client.

Imagine this sequence of events. The application is rendering 4 frames per second. Each frame has a size of 100Kb.

Based on the frame rate, it will take 400Kb/s of bandwidth to deliver a local-like user experience. But if you only have 200Kb/s of bandwidth, this is what you would get:

The frame rate dropped to 2 frames per second since that's all you can send with the available bandwidth. But the worst part is that your session lost its interactivity. Because the system is still sending all the frames the application is rendering.

With queuing and tossing, the system drops frames in between to maintain the interactivity the user expects. With 200Kb/s of bandwidth, this is what you get with queuing and tossing enabled:

You are still getting 2 frames per second but the timing of the frames is aligned with what the application is intending to do. Therefore it offers a much better user experience.

To better illustrate this feature, the following video shows the interactivity benefits of queuing and tossing when editing a PowerPoint slide on a limited bandwidth connection.

Join me and my friends on twitter - Juan Rivera, Derek Thorslund, XenApp Team, XenDesktop Team

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

Two contradictory stories

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

VDI is doomed for failure

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

The Truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The long waited XenApp Plugin and Dazzle for Mac OS X has been released to the general public!

Mac users can access their hosted applications from their desktop or a web interface with the new XenApp Plugin for Mac.

You will find new in this release, Citrix Dazzle - an easy way to choose exactly which applications you need, when you need it - apps, your desktop, or any IT delivered service. Simply browse or search for the app or IT service you need. Users decide the folders that appear in their Applications folder. Simply click to create, then drag and drop any app or IT service.

Here's a list of new features:

• Dazzle - is provided to enable users to browse, select and launch applications from a native Mac UI.
• Improved Multi-monitor support.
• Browser plug-in - enables Web Interface to determine the plug-in installed in the system and offer to upgrade if appropriate. Also, no more .ica files in the downloads folder!
• System preferences - plug-in preferences are now set via a system preferences pane.
• Cleartype remoting.

Install instructions:

If you are currently running version 10 of the Mac ICA Client, you can upgrade to the latest build by just running the new installer.

Downloads:

XenApp Plugin 11.0

Admin Guide