At Citrix, we have been advocating virtual computing as a simple and easy, and effective and efficient way to enable “workshifting” – moving work to the most optimal place, time and device.

There was a time when most of us were anchored to the office (place), tethered to the physical workstation or PC (device) and bound to the 9-5 office hours (time). The boundaries were clearly – but rigidly – drawn around where we work, when we work and what devices we use to perform our work. Fast forward to 2011: A recent Citrix survey underscores that working anywhere and everywhere is the new normal:

• 87% of organizations allow working outside of your office
• 79% of you work outside the office one or more days a week
• 98% are “much more” or “just as” productive working outside of the office
• 64% use three or more devices on a daily basis.

As we choose to perform our jobs at the time and location and on a device of our choice, we are becoming the “Everywhere Employee”. Working remotely is no longer something just a few of us do… it’s become part of everyday life for MOST employees. An insurance agent will work at his optimal place – closer to her customer. An executive may respond to his CEO’s request using her Android or iPhone without leaving her kids’ soccer game. A consultancy firm will setup a temporary office closer to client’s location, enabling consultants to access their apps, desktop and data at the new location faster than they put up the tents and cubes! A mining company or an offshore drilling firm will allow their employees access their apps, desktops and data in hostile, unfriendly locations… certainly not your typical IT cubicle. A multinational corporation will set up branch offices closer to where resources and skills are available, markets are growing faster and cost structures are friendlier.

With over 60% of employees working outside the traditional headquarters, these everywhere employees are no longer chained to a place, device or time.  They want to feel right at home whatever place they work from, on any network they connect to, on whatever device at a time of their choice. This certainly drives increased productivity, employee work-life balance and customer experience.

To make the everywhere employee “feel” right at home everywhere, she needs a virtual desktop that looks, feels, acts and performs like her physical PC, even over a wide-area network (WAN). Desktop, app and network performance all become critical to deliver a delightful experience for such employees.

Virtual computing makes all of this possible. It encompasses a broad gamut of computing paradigms: virtual meetings, virtual desktops and apps, virtual servers, virtual networks, virtual storage and the uber virtual infrastructure… the cloud.

Today, Citrix is taking another major step toward making these “everywhere employees” feel right at home… even when they are working miles from headquarters over a wide area network. To make this a reality, Citrix today announced an updated XenDesktop Platinum Edition that now includes HDX WAN optimization, powered by the breakthrough Citrix Branch Repeater  VPX technologies. For millions of employees who increasingly depend on the WAN to get things done, this is very good news indeed.

Sai

Related blogs:

Citrix XenDesktop Gets “WAN-tastic”

Video of Everywhere Employee – The Future is Now

In the world of desktop virtualization, user experience is everything… it is what makes or breaks a successful desktop virtualization strategy. Today, Citrix raised the bar again, announcing a new addition to its popular Citrix XenDesktop that promises to juice performance even further for employees accessing their virtual desktops, apps and data over a wide area network (WAN).

Starting today, any customer who buys the Platinum Edition of XenDesktop gets a powerful new WAN optimization virtual appliance at no additional charge that can be deployed quickly and easily in any branch office to boost XenDesktop performance for branch users. The new solution, powered by the breakthrough Citrix Branch Repeater VPX virtual appliance, is specifically architected for accelerating and optimizing the delivery of virtual desktops, apps and data for end users, while reducing bandwidth utilization for IT administrators.

The March 2010 launch of Citrix Branch Repeater VPX captured the imagination and interest of networking customers around the world by delivering the power of WAN optimization with the flexibility and agility of a software-based virtual appliance. Citrix customers were further intrigued by the fact that Branch Repeater went beyond the kind of WAN optimization offered by the likes of Riverbed to offer specific optimizations for the ICA protocol that plays such a big role in the HDX technologies that have placed XenDesktop at the head of the virtual desktop market. The fact that thousands of XenDesktop customers downloaded Branch Repeater VPX in 2010 to try it out for themselves, prompted us to make HDX WAN optimization a standard feature for our most strategic XenDesktop customers.

Adding this capability to XenDesktop Platinum Edition seemed like the obvious answer. More than 70% of our XenDesktop customers already choose our Platinum Edition to deliver a wide mix of different virtual desktop technologies to a diverse range of employees – from task workers and office employees, to road warriors and contractors. And increasingly, these large XenDesktop customers have been turning to Branch Repeater to enhance performance over the WAN. Gartner¹, in fact, credits Branch Repeater’s top three market share position in the advanced-platform WAN Optimization controller market to the strong acceptance of XenDesktop.

We think these early adopters are on to something ─ Citrix XenDesktop, combined with the HDX WAN Optimization technology from Branch Repeater – accelerates the delivery of virtual desktops and provides a high definition experience to branch office workers (See 3rd Party Performance Report: XenDesktop vs View with and without WAN Optimization). They have led the transformation of desktop virtualization and WAN optimization markets with innovative and integrated use of these technologies.

That’s why we’re moving aggressively to accelerate this adoption even further – making it easy for ALL strategic XenDesktop customers to deliver any type of virtual desktop and app to any user with the best, high-def experience. Specifics of today’s announcement include:

• Effective February 14, 2011, XenDesktop Platinum will include the new HDX WAN optimization feature, powered by Branch Repeater VPX – at no additional charge. You can deploy the new HDX WAN Optimization virtual appliances in unlimited number of branch offices with WAN links up to 45Mbps, if you buy XenDesktop Platinum, are current on XenDesktop Platinum SA or trade up to XenDesktop Platinum. This will allow XenDesktop Platinum customers to accelerate and optimize, on WAN links of up to 45Mbps bandwidth, delivery of virtual desktops and virtual apps, as well as native apps such as Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, SharePoint, and other data or application traffic.

• The new HDX WAN Optimization feature runs as a virtual appliance on either Citrix XenServer of VMware vSphere. In related news, the standalone Citrix Branch Repeater VPX virtual appliance is also now available for both XenServer and VMware hypervisors.

While this is great news for XenDesktop customers, it doesn’t mean the rest of the world can’t enjoy the benefits of Branch Repeater to get more out of their wide-area networks. Branch Repeater hardware and software appliances will both continue to be available for standalone purchases to ANY customer who wants blazing fast WAN performance and lower bandwidth costs from the vendor who brings virtualization, networking and cloud computing together.

For more information, please read Customer FAQ: Updated XenDesktop Platinum includes HDX WAN Optimization, powered by Branch Repeater VPX. 

Try putting the pedal to the XenDesktop on wild wide-area networks… and feel the exhilarating XenDeskop ride!

Sai

¹ Market Share Analysis: Application Acceleration Equipment, Worldwide, 3Q10 ( Dec 15^th, 2010)

Related info:

Citrix Makes the “Everywhere Employee” Feel Right At Home…Even Over the WAN

3rd Party Performance Report: XenDesktop vs View with and without WAN Optimization

Can I get my apps and desktops now?

Check the new BYO or “Bring Your Own” device program templates on the Citrix Marketing Concierge Demand Gen site*. It’s time for your customers to think beyond the Desktop. You will find an email template which you’ll be able to customize with your own information and have it ready to blast in a second to your customers and prospects. Could it be easier than this? What are you waiting for?!

 *This site is only available to partners in the Americas

You may have seen the recent announcement of the availability of XenClient 1.0 SP1.  There was a line item in that post regarding the autoboot feature that deserves a bit more explanation.  The autoboot feature was developed in response to customer requests to address these key XenClient use case challenges:

• There are XenClient UI’s (XenClient splash screen and Citrix Receiver for XenClient) that are new to the lay person and might cause end user confusion or create training requirements; In response, we have provided the ability to hide those UI’s from the end user
• Eliminate the double login – i.e. eliminate the need for a user to log into XenClient and then again into the Windows VM; In response, now the user bypasses the XenClient login screen; Note: When using XenClient disk encryption, you need to authenticate into XenClient on device boot
• Eliminate the challenges associated with a XenClient device being bound to the user that first logs into a XenClient device; Normally if an admin provides the initial login, that same admin login would be required once the device is in the hands of the end user; In response, auto boot lets the user bypass the XenClient login screen
• Prevent users from making changes to VM settings for security reasons; In response, the Citrix Receiver for XenClient and its configuration settings are hidden from the end user 

Here are simple steps to enable the auto boot feature in XenClient to achieve the above benefits: 

1. The Admin will bind (‘Connect to Synchronizer’ option in the Citrix Receiver for XenClient) the XenClient device to a Synchronizer* with a  password only admin knows
2. From the Synchronizer, download the required virtual machine(s) to the XenClient device
3. Set the device to autoboot** via the Citrix Receiver for XenClient interface under the “General” tab
4. Provide the device to the user
5. When the user powers on the device, it goes straight to the virtual machine and skips the XenClient splash screen and XenClient authentication screen – it feels just like bare metal:

• • The user never has to provide the XenClient credentials, only the AD credentials for Windows (if connected to AD)
  • The user never interacts with the Citrix Receiver for XenClient environment
  • The user cannot change the wireless or other settings that are in the Citrix Receiver for XenClient environment
  • Auto boot can be applied to multiple VM’s on a single XenClient device – the user will be taken to the one with HDX enabled (if one exists)
  • Policies can be pushed down as normal from the Synchronizer  
    
    

*XenClient doesn’t have to be bound to a Synchronizer; The admin can set a local password from the Citrix Receiver for XenClient; Go to System -> Login and check the box to “Require password on XenClient startup” to prevent users from accessing Citrix Receiver for XenClient.

**This behavior is new in XenClient 1.0 SP1.  Systems that are upgraded from 1.0 to 1.0 SP1 will still be prompted to authenticate if they have downloaded a VM from Synchronizer. New installs of XenClient 1.0 SP1 will boot directly to a VM if the VM is set to auto boot.

Give it a try and let us know how it works for you.

Can you believe it’s the end of January already? It feels like only yesterday that we were wishing each other “Happy New Year,” and now here we are charging full steam ahead into 2011. Here at Citrix, the last year ended with a bang … and the new year is off to a roaring good start. Earlier this week in our Q4 and year-end 2010 earnings announcement, Citrix CEO Mark Templeton said, “Our customers are telling us they want to simplify enterprise computing, they want to embrace IT consumerization, and they are ready to adopt more cloud services – all to transform IT to an on-demand service.” I love this quote because it highlights the megatrends that are driving our business today.

Industry analysts are also pointing to these trends, with some amazing predictions about the impact that personal devices and cloud services will have on the way we work. For example, Gartner says that in just two years 80 percent of businesses will support a workforce using tablets, and in three years – by  2014 – 90 percent will support corporate applications on personal devices.

The good news is that all you iPad fans can look forward to a day in the not-too-distant future when using these devices is just a normal part of your work experience. It will be expected, not an exception. That’s profound.

So, tell me…what are YOUR predictions for 2011? Will you be workshifting from a remote location (remember when this was called telecommuting?)? Will you be using a tablet issued by your IT department? Will you be downloading your own apps and desktops from your company’s app store?

Do tell! Participate in our survey and share your expectations for the workplace in the year ahead. In case you need a little incentive, each participant qualifies for a chance to win an iPad. Yes! Don’t walk, run to our survey and be sure to take part  before it closes on Feb. 2.

While you’re in the “sign-up spirit,” you should also register now for Citrix Synergy in San Francisco May 25-27. Join the experts and network with others to learn how your business can benefit from the virtual computing revolution.

Thanks in advance for teaming up with Citrix on the survey and planning to join us at Synergy. I’m excited to hear and learn from you!

Calling all Citrix users and administrators located in or around Dallas, Texas…




There’s still time to sign up for the next Dallas Citrix User Group Meeting on Wednesday, September 8th!




Date: Sept. 8, 2010 (Wed)
Time: 11:30 AM – 2:00 PM CDT




The goal of a User Group is simple: To foster dialogue and an exchange of ideas within the Citrix community, allowing users and administrators to share information and best practices, hear from the experts, and grow their body of knowledge and expertise.

Register Now

Agenda:

During this meeting, you’ll learn more about Citrix XenDesktop including:

• Adding XenDesktop to a Citrix XenApp environment
• Getting a technical overview of Flexcast
• Discussing a comparison of key features against the competition

Citrix experts will be available for questions and answers after the meeting.

All attendees will receive a TopGolf game card!

Location:

TopGolf Dallas
8787 Park Lane
Dallas TX 75231
(214) 341-9655

Register Now

If you are located in or around Dallas, TX, I hope you can attend! Stay tuned to the Citrix User Group Community site for news and information about upcoming meetings and activities.

Laura Whalen
Citrix Systems, Inc.
Follow me on Twitter

Summer is almost over and that means Synergy Berlin is nearly here!  We’re busy making final arrangements for our first pan-European show to be held from October 6-8.  In advance of the program,  I want to draw your attention to my favourite part of the program – the Citrix Innovation Award. 

Every day, companies experience the tangible business benefits of virtualisation, networking and cloud computing. Benefits include savings in operating expenses, enhancing productivity and flexibility, cutting power consumption and reducing carbon emissions, to name a few. But there are also a number of organizations that have embraced the power of virtual computing to think about, and to do, business differently.  These include companies like Cocamar in Brazil that have used virtualisation technology to expand their market reach;  government agencies like Fairfax County, Virginia, that have used the technology to offer cloud-based computing services to cities and townships within the county; and ND SatCom that expanded its offerings to include a satellite-based solution for business continuity and connectivity. These are but a few examples of business innovation, and I know that there are thousands of stories about organisations around the world that have embraced virtual computing to spearhead change.

The Citrix Innovation Award highlights the stories of enterprises that are using virtualisation, networking and cloud technologies in exciting ways to drive innovation in their businesses. As we did for Synergy San Francisco, we’ve thrown open the doors for Synergy Berlin and invited everyone in the industry – partners, customers and employees – to nominate companies that are using virtualisation, networking and cloud technologies in innovative ways  to create a dynamic, agile business environment.

Once again, I’m amazed at the diverse range of businesses that implement these technologies, and use them in new and innovative ways.  Dozens of nominations were received from all over the globe; from those nominations twelve companies that best embody the spirit of the Innovation Award were shortlisted.

The winner is chosen by popular vote of peer organisations (that means all of you!) and members of the IT industry and will be announced at Synergy Berlin.

The full list of Innovation Award finalists is:

• Chemtura Corporation
• Codan Trygg-Hansa
• CZ Healthcare Insurance
• Derby Public Schools
• LG CNS
• MATERNA
• Medical University of South Carolina
• O’Neill Europe
• Perfetti Van Melle India
• Telecom Italia
• TeleComputing
• The Co-operative Group

Check out their stories of innovation and vote for your three favourites today.

And don’t forget…you can still register for Synergy Berlin!  For more info go to www.citrixsynergy.com.

Yesterday at VMworld I endured sitting through a mind numbing session hosted by VMware End User Computing (formerly desktop) CTO, Scott Davis. This was a session where Scott made bold erroneous claims and assertions which I tweeted about. Then I saw this tweet from @claytonprice

claytonprice: Where do I find the desktop panel discussion featuring Scott Davis and @harrylabana? I can’t find it in the schedule! #vmworld

I responded “he’s scared” in jest. However as I think about this, I wonder if this is true. Earlier this year Brian Madden asked me if I would be willing to have an open debate at BriForum about the desktop on a panel that would include Scott Davis and myself. I agreed to it, but Scott apparently declined and instead opted to present a riveting session on his future vision which was met with thunderous ZZZZZZZZZZZ.

In today’s 90 minute VMworld keynote, a generous 10 minutes was granted to talk about the desktop. We learned VMware CTO Steven Herrod likes to play a lot of Minesweeper. He also asserted that Windows was not very relevant and that the desktop of the future is all SaaS based. Hmm feels a lot like the Citrix Dazzle strategy extended to SaaS, but with the delusion that Windows is not relevant. Nonetheless a good discussion to have.

So since this is VMworld, and the desktop is important to VMware, let’s arrange to have a public discussion on the topic, no need for canned PR scripts. Let’s talk about the desktop today and the desktop of tomorrow. Perhaps if they are willing we can have Brian Madden or Chris Wolf moderate at a neutral location? We’re all here in San Francisco so we can even arrange some logistics now.

The question is, Scott are you up to discussing the desktop or do we continue to listen to fantasy’s of desktops morphing into SaaS based applications everywhere and Windows going away?

Security has been blamed as the biggest barrier to cloud adoption. Organizational leaders are walking into IT departments with their brand new iPads and demanding access to the network from these convenient devices. And, the beast known as compliance continues to breathe down our necks.

Whether you’re primarily concerned about the cloud, endpoint protection or data security, one thing is for sure – security is broken. Organizations routinely spend way too much on security measures that mostly serve to frustrate users, while contributing little to the overall security of truly sensitive data. And, legacy security practices such as end-to-end ownership, malware signatures and full physical isolation continue to be challenged by end-user demands, highly evolved attacks and new usage patterns.

All is not doom and gloom though – virtualization presents some innovative ways to respond to these business challenges and transcend security challenges that have plagued computing for decades.

In the CTO Crystal Ball session at Synergy Berlin, I’ll be demonstrating the following security trends and more:

• Situational Security – protective measures that are fine-tuned to specific data needs and context
• BAOC (Bring Any Old Computer) – providing realtime device control to take endpoint security concerns out of the equation
• Flying through the Clouds – architecting true multitenant and mixed-mode data cloud security

Please join me along with Harry Labana, Martin Duursma, and Simon Crosby from the Citrix CTO office as we look into the future at Synergy Berlin!

More info on this demo-filled session and the CTO team’s prognostication can be found at:
http://citrix.g2planet.com/synergyberlin2010/public_session_view.php?agenda_session_id=305

In my first post I introduced all the great new features and enhancements to the XenClient software that runs on the laptops and desktops. Now I wanted to turn the attention to the Synchronizer for XenClient. This is the centralized delivery system that can deploy, update, backup, and secure virtual machines running on XenClient.  We will also have a few more surprises before GA that I’ll share in late September.
 

Dynamic Image Mode (Experimental)

This is one of the most exciting capabilities that we added in RC2 and it really spans both the backend and the client. This capability allows layering of VM images. By separating the image into different layers (Base OS, Apps, User profile) administrators can maintain a single copy of the base image in the datacenter. As the base image is updated the Synchronizer will automatically generate a delta to upgrade the image deployed on existing XenClient systems or send the latest version to new XenClients. This not only allows for upgrades to your deployed virtual desktop images but allows roll-to any version of an image. So you can rollback or roll forward to any version of the VM image with a few mouse clicks. So if you deploy an update and it has some unintended interaction, no problem just flip a switch and roll everyone back. The user profile data is stored in a separate layer that allows it to remain untouched as the rest of the system is updated or rolled back. Additionally by separating the user data into a separate layer backup sizes are dramatically reduced. This is being delivered as an experimental feature in this release as it’s a new model for image deployment and we want to get feedback on how it works for you in your environment.

Simplified disk space expansion for image and backup storage

Administrators will now be able to easily increase the amount of storage available for storing VM images and user backups. Now you can simply shutdown the Synchronizer appliance, increase the data disk drive in XenCenter and boot up the appliance. The Synchronizer will automatically find and use the newly added space it’s as simple as that.

Simplified and Expanded Synchronizer Setup

We have revamped the Synchronizer setup process to be cleaner and easier to use. This includes streamlined HTTPS support and support for static networking configurations.

In place upgrade for Synchronizer

Just as you can move XenClient from RC1 to RC2 we also added the ability to upgrade Synchronizer to RC2 while keeping existing settings, images, and backups intact.

Scalability enhancements

Our Synchronizer wizards have been doing a bunch of scalability testing and optimization to increase the data transfer throughput and increase the number of XenClients per Synchronizer server. We will share some more detailed results including rules of thumb by the time we GA. We have also optimized the storage of compressed VM image and user backup data to reduce the amount of storage space required on the backend.

Usability Enhancements

We spent a lot of time on incorporating usability feedback into this release. We have a crack team of UX experts at Citrix that watched ITPros first use of the system and we learned some great information about how to make the product even simpler to use. While we made a host of enhancements and these are some of the ones that stand out:

Revamped web console

We have done a big revamp of the web admin interface touching almost every square inch of the UI. We got a chance to incorporate a lot of valuable feedback from the UX testing and feedback from users in our beta programs. And we are not done yet, look for additional enhancements in the GA release as well. Some highlights are below:

New user and group details pages with ability to easily view and modify user and group assignments

New multi-step assignment wizard

Version and author information display enhancements

Device filtering support

So you can see our engineering team has been hard at work adding some great new capabilities to both XenClient and the Synchronizer for XenClient. If you are using RC1 today upgrade and check out the new features if you have not tried it yet now is the time.

You can download XenClient and the Synchronizer for XenClient RC2 here.