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There is a new Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V, and it is FREE! Now you can quickly and easily combine the power of Hyper-V- System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Essentials for Hyper-V Express Edition.
http://citrix.com/ehvexpress
Citrix Systems, Inc. is unveiling a new free Express Edition to its Citrix Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V lineup. The new Express Edition is immediately available for download and includes the game-changing Citrix StorageLink technology. With StorageLink, Windows administrators can dramatically simplify their storage management processes with quick and easy storage configuration and provisioning for their Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and System Center virtual infrastructures. Citrix Essentials helps administrators take full advantage of powerful storage-based features like deduplication, thin provisioning, cloning, snapshots and replication - features that otherwise hide behind layers of proprietary, specialized virtualization storage file systems.
The new free Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V is designed specifically for Windows IT professional in the early phases of Hyper-V adoption. It will allow them to take advantage of the benefits of shared storage with Hyper-V and simplify storage management in virtual server environments.
The StorageLink technology featured in all editions of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V provides Windows IT Professionals with the tools necessary to easily manage Hyper-V storage in iSCSI and Fibre Channel (FC) SAN environments, enabling them to leverage advanced storage technologies from leading storage vendors that deliver powerful features for performance, storage efficiency, and business continuity. Industry estimates have shown that by applying storage-saving technologies like deduplication and thin provisioning , Hyper-V customers can often shrink their storage footprint by upwards of 50 percent depending on the nature of their workloads. In cases where virtual machines (VMs) are highly duplicated, like virtual desktop images, many have seen a nearly 90 percent reduction in storage consumption.
The Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V supports up to two Hyper-V servers and one storage array. Organizations that download the free Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V can easily upgrade to the Enterprise or Platinum Editions. Listed at $1500 and $3000 per server, respectively, the Enterprise and Platinum Editions add dynamic server provisioning, automated lab management, automated stage management, and workflow orchestration.
Of course, Express Edition provides just a small sampling of what is possible to achieve with Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V. The Enterprise Edition includes the full version of StorageLink, Dynamic Provisioning Services for Server Operating Systems, and complete WorkFlow Orchestration.
The Platinum Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V adds in Lab Manager to provide a complete cost effective virtual lab solution, and Stage Manager to automate the process of migrating newly tested and verified configurations from the virtual lab directly into production. You can download a evaluation copy of the Platinum Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V at http://www.citrix.com/ehv.
Express Edition Download
http://www.citrix.com/ehvexpress
StorageLink Deep Dive Webinar - http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/barryf/2009/04/13/StorageLink+-+Essentials+for+Hyper-V+Deep+Dive+Webinar
StorageLink Demo Videos
http://www.citrix.com/ehv
StorageLink Overview - http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/barryf/2009/02/23/StorageLink+in+Essentials+for+Hyper-V
Provisoning Services Overview - http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/barryf/2009/03/20/Provisioning+for+Hyper-V+with+Citrix+Essentials
Lab Manager Overview - http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/barryf/2009/03/19/Essentials+for+Hyper-V+with+Lab+Management
StorageLink Install Install Guide - http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120789
StorageLink User Guide - http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120791
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Comments (1)
Jul 10
Gordon Mangione says:
Great post Barry. I thought I'd add background on our rationale for t...Great post Barry. I thought I'd add background on our rationale for this exciting new edition.
The prime motivation for the introduction of Express Edition of Essentials for Hyper-V is to enable IT Pros in organizations of all sizes to gain awareness of the product features by using them. By including Hyper-V as part of Windows, Microsoft achieved this for its virtualization product line. The viral model of having customers adopt the base product for free, become totally familiar with the key features through every day use, and then enabling the customers to scale their deployments with Enterprise and Platinum editions (or other add-on products) has changed the landscape. The free version of XenServer is a great example of this approach.
It was natural to replicate this model for Hyper-V customers as well.
StorageLink is an innovative technology which allows customers to realize the benefits of their existing storage investments in a virtual world. StorageLink provides all of the performance, flexibility and rich feature set provided by storage array vendors in a simplified administration model without the overhead of another storage management layer in the hypervisor.
It's also important to note that the model for Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V, Express Edition is different from our strategy to make the XenServer virtualization platform free. The Express Edition for Hyper-V focuses specifically on our StorageLink technology and is limited to 2 physical servers per customer.
With the release of R2 later this year we believe customers will continue to expand Hyper-V usage across new areas of their infrastructure and that storage will be a key area of focus. Rather than employing the traditional 30-day evaluation model, we feel the best way for customers to experience the benefits of StorageLink is to let them run the software in production and then grow with them as their deployments increase. As customers see the benefits of running their virtual infrastructure on network storage, they are definitely going to expand their usage beyond two servers. This model has been extremely well received with free XenServer. We expect to see the same with the Express Edition of Essentials for Hyper-V.
Of course, the Express Edition provides just a small sampling of what is possible to achieve with Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V. The Enterprise Edition includes the full version of StorageLink, Dynamic Provisioning Services for Server Operating Systems, and complete WorkFlow Orchestration.
The Platinum Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V adds in Lab Manager to provide a complete cost effective virtual lab solution, and Stage Manager to automate the process of migrating newly tested and verified configurations from the virtual lab directly into production. You can download a evaluation copy of the Platinum Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V at http://www.citrix.com/ehv.
Gordon Mangione
VP, Emerging Products, VMD Division
Citrix Systems
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