My friends in HP Solutions Engineering tell me that historically capacity planning for server deployments was not a trivial task given the range of variables to consider, not to mention the time and therefore the expense required to do it right. And now add virtualization variables to the mix and capacity planning tasks can be even more challenging. YET, effective capacity testing can supply a big payoff by ensuring that your virtualized environment can be the best it can be, and that you gain all the cost savings and flexibility improvement benefits promised by virtualization. See here for a recent HP post on capacity planning in virtualized environments.

Of course it is not surprising that there are a number of innovative tools out there to assist in these efforts for Citrix environments, including HP LoadRunner, a popular load testing tool used for planning XenApp deployments, and the Citrix EdgeSight for Load Testing server sizing and application performance testing solution.

We have a excellent new technical resource for capacity planning with ESLT - the recently released "Using EdgeSight for Load Testing ..." white paper developed by HP and Citrix describes how to implement ESLT tools and scripts to characterize scalability for various HP ProLiant servers with XenServer and XenApp. This paper is a great addition to the ever expanding set of technical papers published on XenApp and XenServer - visit here to browse the entire library.

Don't forget to register for the Citrix Live! Virtual Event, Secrets, Lies and VDI happening Oct 20^th and visit the HP sessions and exhibits! Enjoy.     
 

I just returned home from attending this year's CUGtech Autumn 2009 event in Geilo, Norway hosted by Citrix User Group Norway. It was my first time attending this event, and even with hearing all the great things about this event, I don't think I was even remotely prepared to experience at how truly impressive of an event our friends in Norway put together.

One has to keep in mind that this is a Citrix User Group run event, but this is no ordinary users group, they are at the top their game in every respect. Yes they hold regular users group meetings in the traditional sense of what one would expect to be a users group, but they also hold bi-annual CUGtech events, which one could say are on par with or one could say even compete with some of the other corporate run industry events. I think that it is great to see a users group evolve from being a local community to become a global community that attracts people from all over the world.
To get a better understanding of why I was really impressed by this event and Citrix User Group Norway, I guess I have to start off with talking about what they put into the making of this event happen from the planning to the execution.

We all need an identity and or something to represent. Having a logo is a good start, and I've got to say that Citrix User Group Norway has got to have one the snazziest logo's yet for a users group. Being one who loves visuals I think that a visual identity is very important aspect of any group or organization.

They have also taken this identity and applied it to documentation, banners, singage, and swag for the event, like any major industry would do.

But where would we be if everything was just dressing, we need a little substance to that eye candy right. Well, it was very interesting to see how much substance there was at this event. The planners of this event like so many others these days have also had to come to terms with the fact that we can no longer have a single track event. There are just so many products and technologies to talk about, and not to mention the focus, such as being technical or operational in perspective, that it is not possible to hold an event these days without running dual tracks to cover it all. If you have ever had the pleasure of trying to organize any type of event you can certainly appreciate all the planning of that goes into making a schedule like this.

CUG Agenda

Choosing where to hold an event is always an interesting challenge. One has to try and choose a location that is something more than a place to hold and event, as we all want a venue that has a little something more to offer than just a conference hall, or is a place that is easy to travel to while keeping cost to a minimum. I think that at first glance some people, and I could be wrong about this, would view traveling into the mountains of Norway as not being the easy part to travel to. But you have to remember that this is Europe, and they have the whole train thing down very well. The event was held in Geilo, Norway which is one the major Ski resort areas in Norway, and is only about a three hour train ride from Oslo.

For me the train ride was part of the whole event, as we traveled there with many of the attendees of the event, and it gave all of us an opportunity to get know each other a little better, Oh and did I mention there was bar on this train.

Usually most events are held in places rich in night life, but don't let the location fool you, as I soon learned that this played into the events favor, as it didn't suffer from the usual disbursement of attendees being side-tracked to other attractions. If you take a look at the schedule you notice that this event goes very far into making sure it is a great time for all, the actual schedule for the first day's events go from 8:00 AM until 2:00AM, and let me tell you what a day that was, the first word that come to mind is WOW! The event planners really outdid themselves, as we went from a day of sessions to having a grand dinner together, to having a Ski party where everyone dressed up in the favorite Ski gear, to having a Geek Speak session at 1AM. They even had a kicking band playing for pretty much the entire night, to along with the pinball machines, and arcade skiing machines.

The Citrix User Group Norway would not be possible if weren't for the dedication of its members, leaders, and sponsors that over the years have grown this community to where it is today.
I would like to thank Kenneth Beck, Bjørn Uddal, and all of the many great people from Citrix User Group Norway for putting together such a great event. It was great to be a part of it all, and to meet so many people who are truly passionate about Citrix Technologies.

I would also like to thank the many sponsors that have also given their support like Atea, Commaxx, Logica, RES Software, and Steria.

Well its time to catch a plane, but I hope I have given you enough of a slice of what CUGtech is all about, and if you ever get the opportunity to attend one, I wouldn't hesitate on doing so.

There is an $8 Billion market opportunity for hosting Windows applications, but if you don't have the right marketing approach, you'll be sitting on the sidelines.  Our partners, who are both Microsoft SPLA (Service Provider License Agreement) and CSPs (Citrix Service Providers) have been screaming for more marketing insight, so here it is!
I wrote a blog back in August about Marketing IT Services and this blog speaks specifically to Step 2 - "Know Thy Customer" and Step 3 - "Know Thy Marketing Approach".  For Step 1 "Know Thy Product and Value" we are running a separate webinar that you can sign up for by hitting the links listed here...

Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009*

Time 9:00-10:00 AM EDT

Time 2:00-3:00 PM EDT

Time 9:00-10:00 PM EDT

*If you can't make any of these times, you can register afterwards for the recorded session.

Under the "Know Thy Customer" heading, you've got to pick a way to get to them after you've figured out your product offering.  One of the most cost effective approaches today in this market is through your website.  Most service providers know this but don't spend the right resource emphasis to make it a reality.  Look, 1990s marketing approaches won't work in this space and your (potential) customers are searching for ways to do business the same way they are doing all of their other research, via the web.  So if you don't have the right content, or tools to monitor your sales approach, you will be stuck going door-to-door, which is the recipe for long sales cycles in a volume subscription market... not what you want!

The first question you need to ask is, "Is my site effective?" To know this you'll have to employ some kind of web analytics to get the information required to determine the effectiveness of your online campaigns and lead generation.  If you want to do this on the cheap, Google has a free tool you can pick up that will show you things like "bounce rate" (people who leave your site from the top page).

The second question you should ask is, "How do I get visitors to immediately sign up for my service?"  One way to do this is to provide them with an interactive tool where they can see for themselves the benefits you provide over their existing model.  The CSP Marketing Team has created a great TCO/ROI tool that you can repurpose and rebrand for your site.  Another way to do this is by allowing customers to trial the service without having to pay right up front.  One way to accomplish this is to sign up with a billing clearinghouse/broker who will allow you to encourage "impulse buying" by your prospective customers.  According to one company, "customers who use the service spend 75% more per transaction than a website's typical buyer".

Now that you've got a way to get knowledgeable about your customer and a way to allow he or she to access your services more easily let's talk about the "Know Thy Marketing Approach" for a minute.

It may seem infantile in this age of high tech, highly graphical marketing, but online selling gimmicks such as Avatars are very effective.  There are companies who specialize in this marketing approach and can set you up with the tools to rapidly put these animated sales people to work for you.  Buy the way, according to some experts, among virtual sales reps, female avatars produce twice as many sales as males.

You should also offer "Amazon.com-style recommendations".  This may seem like expensive proposition again, but there are companies that specialize in setting up the tools for you and you'll know in just a couple of months whether or not this is worthwhile for you.  One company who issues this software claims you'll see an average increase in sales of 20%.

Lastly, use Email advertising.  Hear what I am saying...DON'T SPAM your customers.  Rather once you have your analytics from the tools you incorporate, ask for potential customers to "opt in" to messaging from your company.  You have to be careful with this approach and be very targeted with your email ads.  I subscribe to five different services for marketing research and I can tell you that I'm fed up with all but one of them because they send me information that has nothing to do with my work... and so they have now been either discontinued or sent to my SPAM mail box.  If you do this correctly, you could see up to 35% conversion rates on the ads you send.... if you do it incorrectly you'll not get another chance with that same customer.

Follow these steps and I can assure you that you will do better than just throwing a web site together and hoping for the best.  By the way, if one of your senior people isn't personally running your electronic marketing, then you might as well just stop doing it.  Research shows that there is a direct proportion of sales (or lack thereof) to the quality of the team supporting the content.

Note: I need to credit INC magazine for some of the content here.  They had a great article in their February 2008 edition if you're interested.

Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with our products.
One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues via our Knowledge Center.

Our Licensing team in Citrix Support receive lots of questions everyday around How to retrieve licenses for XenApp Platinum or How to license XenServer, etc...

The most common questions asked are documented in the Citrix Knowledge Center.

Below you will find a list of the most common questions asked.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Citrix Education would like to invite you to participate in a workshop to scope the next generation of XenServer curriculum.  This workshop is a great opportunity for you to help shape the XenServer courses and exams for 2010 based on your own experiences and needs.

The workshop will be held October 20-21, 2009, at Citrix Silicon Valley Headquarters in Santa Clara, CA.  The workshop will have the following objectives:

• Discuss/review key new product features
• Brainstorm topics to be taught and tested
• Identify topics and scenarios for hands-on practice exercises
• Discuss and document best practices

If you are an experienced XenServer administrator and would like to participate in this workshop, then please respond to:

• Mark Carter
• Courseware Development Lead
• Citrix Education
• Email: mark.carter@citrix.com

Someone from Citrix Education team will then reach out to you to discuss next steps.

As an incentive for participating in the workshop, customers and partners will receive:

• Preview of upcoming features for Essentials for XenServer, Platinum Edition
• A voucher for a Citrix Certified Administrator exam of their choice
• A Citrix courseware manual of their choice
• A guaranteed spot in a 2010 beta class

Don't miss out on this great networking opportunity and a chance to help shape new Citrix training offerings!

Courtesy of the Citrix Project Kensho work over the past 18 months we have spent a good deal of time looking at the interoperability of virtual machines between hypervisors.

If you didn't already know: Kensho uses the still evoloving OVF Standard from the DMTF and has given rise to the Citrix OVF Tool; that can export multi-vm workloads from XenServer and/or Hyper-V, as well as import OVF content from VMware into XenServer or Hyper-V. Kensho has also added the OVF capabilities into XenConvert.

Before we outline the steps below, Hyper-V was chosen for this first example because the publically available tools are Hyper-V specific, and because Citrix is using VHD as its OVF package standard. There will be more later about taking this same VM to ESX.

The Tools:
We need to obtain (download) a few things and a couple need to be installed.

• The Citrix Merchandising Server Virtual Appliance
• The Hyper-V Linux Integration Components ISO(v1, not R2)
• Citrix Project Kensho OVF Tool
• Citrix XenConvert
• Some Linux distribution "Live CD" - Debian Lenny Live
• A Hyper-V Host

Explanation of the Tools:
The Merchandising Server is the appliance used for the example. XenConvert is to convert the XVA (XenServer export format) into an OVF based appliance. The Kensho OVF Tool is to import the OVF into Hyper-V. The Linux distribution "Live CD" is to mount the virtual disk of the appliance to modify the Grub boot loader and copy some files. And the v1 Linux Integration Components have the magic PV kernel shim that is needed.

The process:

1. Expand the Merchandising Server bz2 zip archive. (WinRAR can do this, and others as well)
2. Use Citrix XenConvert 2.x to convert from "Xen Virtual Appliance" to "Open Virtualization Format (OVF) Package"
   • Do not create an OVA, just an OVF.
3. Use Citrix Kensho OVF Tool to Import the OVF Package from step 2 to a Hyper-V host.
   • Do not boot the VM at this time.
4. Attach the Live CD ISO to the VM
5. Set the boot order to boot from DVD first
6. Remove the default Network Adapter and add a Legacy Network Adapter
7. Add a second DVD drive
8. attach the Hyper-V (v1) Linux IC ISO to the second DVD drive of the VM
9. Boot the VM into the Live CD and log in to its console
   • Debian will auto logon as 'user'.
10. switch to root: sudo -i
    • This command is specific to Debian Live
11. Discover the IDE disks:
    1. cd /dev
    2. ls hd*
12. Mount the virtual disk (the vhd)
    1. make a mount point folder: mkdir /mnt/mine
    2. mount the disk to the folder: mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/mine
13. explore the volume
    1. cd /mnt/mine
    2. ls
14. /mine looks like a common Linux /boot volume:
    
15. Mount the Linux IC DVD drive (mine is the second dvd on controller 2):
    1. mkdir /mnt/cdrom
    2. mount /dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom
16. Copy the kernel shims from the ISO to the virtual disk
    1. cd /mnt/cdrom/shim
    2. cp . /mnt/mine
17. Edit the device.map
    1. cd /mnt/mine/grub
    2. nano device.map
       
       
18. Edit the GRUB bootloader to load the shim and the kernel.
    1. nano menu.lst
19. Comment the 'hiddenmenu' option and increase the timeout so I can test.
    
20. Create a new entry specific to the shim and the distribution kernel-xen
    • Notice that the kernel is the shim file copied from the previous step and the existing kernel and initrd load as modules of the shim.
      
21. Modify the default selection to point to my new entry.
    • The default entry begins counting at "0"
      
22. Unmount the virtual disk and the cdrom
    1. cd /
    2. umount /dev/hda1
    3. umount /dev/hdd
23. Shutdown the virtual machine and remove the ISOs from the DVD drive (also remove the second virtual dvd drive).
24. Boot the virtual machine, note the new menu selection that was created - this is the kernel that should boot. Select it if you did not set it as the default.
    

It's been a long time coming, but the Citrix Northeast team is pleased to announce the newest Citrix User Group. The New Jersey Citrix User Group (NJCUG) will be meeting on a quarterly basis, with the first meeting scheduled for this month. Everyone is invited, from Citrix users to administrators. Our goal is to foster a local community for peers to connect, share ideas and learn more about ALL Citrix products and our 3rd party partners. You can expect a wide range of content, from presentations to technical demonstrations and everything in between.

If you've never attended a CUG before, here are some of the things you can expect:

• Food!
• Citrix give-aways
• How to get involved
• Product Updates
• Product Presentations
• Tech Preview Briefings
• Technical Demonstrations
• Customer Deployment Overviews

And remember, just as Citrix has evolved beyond a single product, our CUGs have needed to do the same thing and you can expect to learn about all Citrix products (hardware platforms included!) at the NJCUG meetings.

The agenda for the first meeting is a good one, so come and join us to get the latest updates from Citrix and learn about the first enterprise application store (think iTunes for your Business Apps).

.........................................................................................................
REGISTER NOW!

CLICK HERE http://www.registerandcompute.com/CitrixUserGroup1009NJ
.........................................................................................................

What:
New Jersey Citrix User Group (NJCUG)

When:
October 21, 2009
9am-11am ET

Where:
194 Wood Avenue South (Prudential Building)
Sixth Floor
Iselin, NJ 08830

Follow the NJ Citrix User Group on Twitter to keep abreast of the latest news and updates: @njcug.

Citrix is sponsoring SAP TechEd 09 in Phoenix! Starting on October 13th at the Phoenix Convention Center, Citrix will showcase our desktop virtualization solutions and promote our recent Citrix Delivery Center POC produced jointly with SAP and onsite at SAP Labs in Palo Alto.

Don't miss your chance to learn about our desktop virtualization vision and how our solutions work alongside SAP solutions.

If you're planning to be at SAP TechEd, stop by the Citrix booth (#211) to meet with the team and learn how we're working with SAP to improve application delivery and user experience. Learn more about SAP TechEd or register to attend here.

Visit the Citrix Community for SAP to stay up-to-date on the latest partnership information...and don't forget to follow us on Twitter!

I started a video series on CitrixTV for tips & tricks for working with Workflow Studio. The first video is an explanation of how to use the If/Else activity and conditional logic in your workflows. I'll be posting more videos to the series over time, so if there is something you would like to know how to do then leave feedback in comments or email me directly and I will try to address it.

Veteran virtualization blogger Alessandro Perilli of virtualization.info, whom I credit with unearthing most of the interesting goings on in the virtualization world, made an interesting observation that I validated the VMware platform strategy in a recent blog, observing that I had done a good job of developing a rationale for the VMware SpringSource acquisition.

It's an interesting observation to be sure, but I'm going to vehemently stick with a response of "No I really didn't". For starters I didn't even mention SpringSource in my blog. The goal of the blog was to show how the emergence of two kinds of clouds - IaaS and PaaS - give us indications as to the future evolution of the technology landscape. And also to point out that very substantial changes lie ahead for today's OSes.

• I argued that the case for IaaS clouds is basically the case for virtualization as a property of the infrastructure, and I stated that it is my belief that customers are now purchasing virtualized infrastructure independently of the OS(es) which they choose to develop/run their apps. I pointed to the emergence of virtual infrastructure platforms as entities independent of the OS, from all vendors, as evidence of the trend.
• I also argued that the future of the traditional single-server centric notion of the OS as host of the application will be challenged. Again the evidence of this is the emergence of PaaS offerings from the major cloud vendors, most notably Microsoft, whose Azure platform indicates where Microsoft thinks the OS is going. There is other evidence too, which I hope to explain below.

Of course the PaaS concept, while extraordinarily powerful, is mostly about future apps. To develop future apps one needs lots of developers, and SpringSource and the Spring framework certainly have done a fabulous job of building a good developer base. But there's an awful lot of work ahead for VMware to turn Spring into a PaaS platform, and to monetize it either with enterprises or as a cloud play. And as of now at least, it is restricted to Java apps. So if one wanted to point to a powerful PaaS platform that is relevant to a massive developer base, and that had the opportunity to address both today's apps and those of tomorrow, Microsoft Azure would stand head and shoulders above the rest. My case for the future of the OS was really a case for the emergence of something like Azure - something that can run today's apps (as VMs) and tomorrow's (on the "next OS" platform).

Now, with my "everything that is relevant today is already legacy" hat on, I want to make the case for the emergence of a PaaS (or application-centric) approach as a logical evolution of the IaaS model, for which again I see strong evidence on the part of major players, including VMware. This also challenges the traditional role of the OS. Here is what is happening:

1. The major IaaS vendors are already adding PaaS-like features: One has simply to observe the rapid and continual evolution of the IaaS model and the offerings from vendors to see that the bare-bones Virtual Private Server model is rapidly being enriched with features that are very developer and app sticky. While VMware boasts about its 2M Spring developers, Amazon Web Services can boast at least half a million. And there's a very significant difference between the two: The AWS apps are built around a monetization model, from the get-go. So with Spring VMware will likely compete head to head with both IaaS and PaaS cloud providers, including Azure. If Spring and its hosted apps are run and monetized on top of IaaS clouds and offered in their own right as SaaS apps to customers, then VMware will find that it competes with another category of vendors: the software resellers - the same folk who happily sell vSphere today.
2. Emerging standards, such as DMTF OVF, will allow IaaS clouds to become more app-centric: The vendors who work on standards at the DMTF, including all of the virtualization players, have collaborated to develop a portable application packaging standard, called the Open Virtualization Format (OVF). Citrix Project Kensho offers a complete open source toolset for the OVF, including the ability to combine in a single portable package multiple VMs from VMware, Xen/XenServer, & Hyper-V, together with all of the meta data required to completely instantiate multiple VMs and all of their environmental configuration, on any virtualization platform. OVF provides a powerful framework for packaging complete multi-tier applications, combining VMs in any OSes, their storage, compute, networking and other parameters. OVFs can be secured, and readily imported into IaaS clouds where they can be instantiated and run. Here the traditional OS plays an important role - namely running specific components of a multi-tier, multi-VM application. But that's it. Adoption of OVF by IaaS clouds as their standardized import/export format will give them an ability to directly deploy and ultimately manage the life-cycle of applications for their customers - hence becoming more app-centric. In this model the VM is simply an execution container for a part of an app.

Finally for those of the "traditional OS wins" variety who took offense to my last blog: There is no doubt that virtual infrastructure is compelling from an infrastructural agility, availability and resource management perspective. But the "VM as proxy for the app" model (which is how most virtualization administrators manage their environments today) is simply a recognition that most apps run in one VM, and hence the relevance of the OS is uncontested - from the app perspective. Moreover the skill sets and processes of today's IT Pros mean that the "single app per OS / VM" will remain a key building block of enterprise IT for a very long time. Indeed one can argue that the change to an app model that inherently spans multiple virtualized execution containers is so profound that it is generational - and will occur only as fast as skill sets evolve in IT. But I've been surprised by how rapidly the cloud has seized attention in corporate IT, perhaps because it is so much easier to consume IT as a service than to stand it up oneself, and so much more productive to develop new apps using powerful new frameworks. Indeed one can postulate an outcome whereby traditional IT enterprise architectures and growth will stall, in favor of new deployments using private and public service offerings. IaaS cloud providers are moving up-stack to support abstractions for apps and the momentum around PaaS (or even enriched IaaS) is a telling indication of the trends.

更新 10/8/2009：门票仅剩25%

2009 年的开源虚拟技术大会将第一次在中国召开。 到今天为止门票仅剩50%。 机会难得，感兴趣的话，请勿错过。

活动时间
2009年11月19-20日

活动地点
上海市紫竹科学园区紫星路880号
英特尔亚太研发有限公司

参与人群
Xen.org顶级国际社区专家、国内教育界虚拟化方面的教授学者、国内Xen爱好者和公司专家

注册截止时间
2009年11月5日

讨论话题
Xen技术的方方面面

详情和注册

前几届的开源虚拟技术大会的演讲和视频

XenSummit Asia 2009 details and registration at
http://www.xen.org/community/xenevents.html

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

There are some new articles posted on the Workflow Studio section of CDN. These will probably only be of interest to the developers and advanced workflow gurus out there, but I found them interesting and wanted to share (yes, I am a geek )

• Configuring Workflow Studio to use SQL Server for Tracking and Persistence
• Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices

Keep in mind that most of the CDN sections for Workflow Studio are open to the general public to post and edit (be sure to share your workflows and activity libraries). The tips and tricks article was intentionally left open to all to edit - come on in and share. Make sure you bookmark the articles section, add it to your RSS reader, or just click on the Community tab from within Workflow Studio every time you open it.

The lab management capabilities in Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Hyper-V make it possible for development and deployment organizations to rapidly spin up and shut down complex development, test and staging virtual machine environments (not to mention demo and training too!) – with easy cloning, network isolation, and lots more to take the brakes off your applications on the road to production. (You can even configure environments for full self-service – taking the need to wait for admin bandwidth out of the developers' critical path.)

You can learn more about automated lab management in Citrix Essentials here.

Theresa Lanowitz, an analyst with Voke, Inc., reports:

We are in the process of conducting market research around how people use virtual lab management solutions; what they like, what the think the future holds, what type of uses they have identified beyond the traditional QA team, etc. We have interviewed a variety of people in 1:1 phone interviews and are now in the phase where we would like on-line survey participation. The research is market specific and is not company / product specific. Our goal is to identify trends in the virtual lab management market.

Take the Voke survey.

This is a fully independent study - Citrix is not funding it or otherwise sponsoring it. Theresa visited us at our recent Analyst Day and asked us to reach out to our users and readers to help gather information about the market. (Though if you're a user of our lab management capabilities – please say so!)

With Workflow Studio 2.0 we officially support 8 different OS platforms (all on the latest service pack only):

• Windows XP x86
• Windows XP x64
• Windows Vista x86
• Windows Vista x64
• Windows Server 2003 R2 x86
• Windows Server 2003 R2 x64
• Windows Server 2008 x86
• Windows Server 2008 x64

We don't stop you from installing on unsupported platforms and the chances are pretty good that everything will work just fine. However, we know that everyone wants to use their product in a fully supported environment. As we plan for the next release, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be available. To make sure we make the right decisions on which platforms we officially support I would like to get your feedback.

Please take the polls below to let us know which platform(s) you want to be able to use Workflow Studio with and whether you need 32-bit support only, 64-bit support only, or both:

The Xen.org community announces that registration for Xen Summit Asia 2009 (Nov 19-20) in Shanghai, China at Intel is currently 50% sold out. With a collection of global speakers and a wide range of topics from the PVOps Dom0 kernel development to the newly announced Cloud Xen Project this event will be a must attend for those interested in Xen.org and the Xen Hypervisor.

If you are considering attending, I strongly urge you to register soon before we are filled. Chinese attendee registration is at http://xen.linuxpk.com/ and International registration is at http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=755219. There is no charge for Chinese attendees and a low $200 for International attendees to help cover transportation costs. 
For those of you wishing to speak at this event, please submit your topic at http://xensummit.org.

For more information on the event please visit http://www.xen.org/community/xenevents.html or contact Stephen Spector, Community Manager of Xen.org at stephen.spector@xen.org.

If you would like to install Workflow Studio in an unattended fashion or if you just want to learn more about the installation process, there is now an article available on the community site:

http://community.citrix.com/display/wf/Workflow+Studio+2.0+Installation+Overview

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

Alessandro over at virtualization.info commented that we need to do a better job communicating the value and capabilities of Workflow Studio:
http://www.virtualization.info/2009/09/release-citrix-workflow-studio-20.html

I have to admit, I have been focused on talking about the new version and features (I'm excited about them.) There are lots of places though where we do talk about the capabilities that Workflow Studio enables for our customers:

On the main product page for Workflow Studio we cover the 5 use cases that customers typically use Workflow Studio for:

1. Power management - Reduce power consumption in the datacenter.
2. User provisioning - Automate the process of provisioning users.
3. Dynamic resource allocation - Detect changes in user traffic patterns and automatically re-configure server resources for on-demand access.
4. Disaster recovery - Automate failover and recovery procedures.
5. Product automation - Automate repetitive tasks and ensure best practices are followed.

I am also taking each of the bullets from the original post announcing the availability of Workflow Studio 2.0 and going into more detail. I just posted Automate XenApp with Workflow Studio where I talk about some of the use cases that we based the new XenApp libraries on. I will have some sample workflows posted with video tutorials as well.

I wrote The Three Audiences of Workflow Studio back in February, but it is still just as relevant with the current version of Workflow Studio. 'Scripting guys' and developers will find a lot to like in Workflow Studio, but you don't need to be one to benefit from Workflow Studio. The drag-and-drop interface and standard way of accessing all the Citrix product APIs (as well as PowerShell, Windows, WMI, etc.) opens up access to a much broader range of people.

The Workflow Studio 2.0 Video Tutorial Series provides an introduction, an architectural overview, and an installation/configuration guide for getting started and should help save you time as you consider how to deploy Workflow Studio.

Also, I want to clarify the availability of Workflow Studio as an anonymous comment left there indicates there may be some confusion. Workflow Studio is included as part of ALL editions of the Citrix Delivery Center products - not just Platinum. Workflow Studio comes with all of the below:

• XenApp Advanced, Enterprise, or Platinum edition
• XenDesktop Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, or Platinum edition
• NetScaler Standard, Enterprise, or Platinum edition
• Essentials for XenServer Enterprise and Platinum editions
• Essentials for Hyper-V Enterprise and Platinum editions

As always leave me your feedback in the comments or email me directly...

In a previous post announcing the availability of Workflow Studio 2.0 I listed the new features that are available. Here is a closer look at the first feature mentioned:

Native XenApp activity libraries

With the 2.0 release of Workflow Studio, we now include 18 activities for managing application virtualization scenarios with XenApp. These activities provide access to your XenApp farm, servers, applications, and even sessions.

These 18 activities were designed around two key use cases:

1. Backup/Restore of applications - By providing access to retrieve current published applications as well as publishing new applications, these activities provide the ability to do automated configuration backups, QA to Production migrations, and help automate version upgrades. View sample workflows that address this use case for backup and restore.
2. Manage logons - Many customers expressed the need to be able to automatically manage access to their XenApp servers. We also received feedback that the way customers most often manage logons is through the use of customized load evaluator rules. We included activities that help manage logons for automated maintenance of XenApp servers.

These activities are installed by the activity library installer and leverage the new Commands for PowerShell to interface with XenApp. Everything you need to build a XenApp workflow is included in the installer, but to run the workflow you will need to meet two requirements:

1. You must install either Workflow Studio or a Runtime on a XenApp server in your farm as these commands do not support remote connections. The XenApp server you install it on just needs to be a member of the farm and does not need to be serving applications.
2. These activities only support XenApp 4.5 HRP3 and later. If you need access to prior versions of XenApp, you will need to use MFCOM. More information on how to use Workflow Studio with MFCOM is available in this Workflow Studio SDK MFCOM example.

Keep in mind that we also support native activities that run VBScript and PowerShell scripts. If there is something missing from our activity libraries that you want to automate you may be able to do so through a script and not actually need a native activity for a given task.

The Workflow Studio 2.0 Video Tutorial Series provides an introduction, an architectural overview, and an installation/configuration guide for getting started and should help save you time as you consider how to deploy Workflow Studio.

I'm sure our customers and partners will find other unique use cases. Feel free to leave feedback in comments or email me directly to let me know what you are doing with the product (or what you would like to be able to do.)

Workflow Studio is included with XenApp Feature Pack 2

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

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While some enterprises are still debating about the overall benefits of virtualization, Cloud Providers use virtual workloads as the de facto standard for all of their business.  The question for Cloud Providers is not when to Virtualize but rather what is the best way.  Can you say "Best enterprise class virtualization platform in the world for FREE!"  Well that is exactly what XenServer is.  And with our recent upgrades to the product there is no reason why every Cloud based service provider on the planet shouldn't be using it.

I had a conversation with an ISV who is also a Hosting Service Provider a couple of months ago (at the Microsoft Hosting Summit) who was using ESX at the time.  Amazingly, he didn't know anything about Citrix.  I proceeded to let him in on the technology we provide and he kept asking me over and over again, "Is this really free?"  I saw him later in the day at one of the break-out sessions and he told me he had contacted his VMware rep.  He said to the rep, "I've just been informed about an offering from Citrix that blows you guys away.  If you can't come up with something comparable... you're out!"  A great testimony to our technology and go-to-market strategy I would say.

So now that we're beyond the basics of server virtualization, it's time to talk about taking the next step and having access to the best enterprise level management tools for virtual data centers.  That's right, I'm talking about Essentials for XenServer and Hyper-V.  If you're a service provider looking to move up to Xen, then we've got some terrific news about some training you won't want to miss... led by our very own XenServer Architect in Readiness, Oliver Withoff.  If you're interested (and by the way the training is FREE) you'll want to sign up at one of the sessions listed below...

Monday, October 5, 2009
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM EDT: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/228005408

2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/975636224

9:00 PM - 10:30 PM EDT: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/126336201

Sometimes we are so focused on what the (technical) media tells us that we can lose perspective on reality and market dynamics that can (and often do) affect our businesses.  Analysts are great and perform a valuable role, but they are not entrepreneurs, inventors or architects.  This being the case, if we put too much stock in what they say or where the market will go, we can mislead ourselves. This could result in a false sense of direction leading us to the wrong conclusions about our roadmaps.  Such is the case with Cloud Computing and mass delivery of Internet Protocol applications and services.

To set the stage let me start with the misconception that Cloud Computing has somehow been isolated to large ISPs such as Google and Amazon.  We could include Microsoft in the mix but they are currently not offering a consumable solution yet.  Why would we believe that these companies are the only focus of the market?  What about the Fortune 100 communications companies that have already been in business for many years providing IP communications and services in mass?  Isn't it possible that these are the "real" contenders in the Cloud Computing space and we keep listening to analysts tell us 'they don't belong' or large service providers are in a different segment and therefore aren't on their radar.

I have to admit I've found this to be the case.  Within the large analyst firms there are specializations of expertise; IT, Virtualization, Infrastructure, Networks, and Communications to name a few.  These analysts often don't communicate or collaborate with each other and as a result we get a very monolithic view of an industry.  Since IT has evolved to be in every sector from Energy to Entertainment, gaining a holistic view of future offerings (Cloud Computing included) is difficult to say the least when confronting "experts" in individual sectors.  All the while huge communications and entertainment companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, and Comcast are building out massive IP networks and services that would dwarf any Enterprise, ISP or Software company.

Note that the convergence of IT services for a "utility" offering is the core definition of Cloud Computing and yet Utility type companies are not usually included as contenders in the space.  I would venture to guess that companies such as AT&T for instance should be considered players in the Cloud Computing business. Wouldn't you? To prove the point, one only has to look at the offerings available in the market today and see that there is a huge potential to fulfill the promise (and demand) of Cloud Computing. 

The diagram below is a depiction of the current AT&T U-verse network.  Note that it is a pure Internet Protocol (IP) network and provides utility based data and communications to a mass population with Service Level Agreements (SLAs) capable of providing High Definition Video Entertainment services, IP Voice services, and Internet Applications services.  AT&T has two major data centers which aggregate traffic from Video Head Ends as well as their own ISP connections and contracts to Internet asset providers such as Yahoo!. The IP traffic flows from the data center via fiber optic cable to Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAM) within a neighborhood or office complex.  These DSLAMs then provide network access to the individual home or office via Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Lines (VHDSL) capable of carrying high bandwidth IP applications such as HDTV or heavily intensive graphics applications.  VHDSL is an asynchronous network technology meaning there is a disparity between upstream and downstream bandwidth.  However, the upstream path is still very capable of providing certain types of real-time communication and high bandwidth IP data/applications paths. 

Further, if we take a look at the AT&T U-verse home/office extension we'll note that Cisco has partnered with AT&T to provide a low cost, high speed (100 GB) combination wireline/wireless router. They have also created an extended end point Set Top Box (STB) which is really a Central Processing Unit (CPU) with both volatile and non volatile memory.  Further, Microsoft is included in this partnership and has written a light version of their Operating System (O/S) called Mediaroom in order to provide a platform for services from the data center.  These include custom applications that can be accessed from any PC/Mac in the world and used to control both Entertainment and Communications applications rendered either on the IPTV or on the local PC.  Mediaroom resides on the STB and communicates to the data center through the Cisco router using IP.  Microsoft has installations of Mediaroom in (25) major service providers around the world in every geography (including China).

Applications can be on-boarded through this network into the home/office by merely sending the code over the IP network to each individual STB in the home/office.  One has to wonder will it be long before AT&T, partnering with Microsoft and Cisco begins to offer applications for home/office use over this network as well.  All of the elements are already in place, being used and a billing model producing revenues.  This is not the case with Google, Amazon or any other emerging Cloud provider.

Similar types of services are available from other large communications companies around the world but they do not seem to be captured as companies worthy of being on the Cloud Computing radar.  Cloud Computing will evolve that is for sure and many companies will either opt out or be pushed to the side by the real contenders.  However, the convergence of IP technologies and the emergence of utility based computing is much broader than just a few ISPs and the sooner all the players are brought into the mix, the better for those of us who are attempting to set future roadmaps to enable the Cloud to be real.