Xen master

Simon Crosby, Citrix’s chief technology officer, offered the benefits of desktop virtualisation; among them are having centralised hard disks in a data centre, better desktop security, easier management of compliance policies and easier maintenance of backups. With desktop virtualisation, “the desktop device becomes thinner; applications are streamed from the data centre,” he added. An additional advantage he explained is that with virtualisation of the desktop, multiple operating systems do not have to be maintained.

XENAPP: Formerly Presentation Server, Citrix will release a revised version of XenApp this US summer. The company did not have a beta release ready for a hands-on review. However, they did share some of the new features. One of the major enhancements is the capability of new XenApp to work with Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008. The software went through a refactoring process to take advantage of the security and reliability of 2008. An additional new feature – streamed applications – can be accessed when a user is offline, a benefit for mobile users. There are two components to this technology: an isolated environment on the client, and an application stored inside that environment. The application can be executed whenever a user wants, and wherever that user is located. Applications do not have to be installed. Any updates to the application can be done remotely, without user intervention.

This will take application virtualisation to new heights and potentially wipe out significant overhead from an enterprise. Countless hours of configuration, PC by PC, notebook by notebook, would simply go away.

CITRIX AND HEWLETT-PACKARD INTEGRATED PRODUCTS: Citrix also has worked with HP to provide a thin client that can handle workhorse machines such as CAD stations. HP’s Blade PCs will support XenDesktop as of last month.

The Test Center also took a look at HP’s Select Server – a jointly developed server by Citrix and HP, with XenServer 4.1 integrated. This is a beefy server – with four-way, dual-core AMD Opteron 2.6-Ghz processors and 8 GB of memory.

The server comes with a graphical interface, which allows for a very easy setup of XenServer. Once configured, virtual machines are set up via the HP Proliant Virtual Console. The interface also includes a system console for Linux commands. But there may be some quirks such as the one we found in a beta unit we examined in the Test Center lab. For example, when defining an installation source to create new virtual machines, the virtual console wouldn’t recognise a USB CD-ROM mounted in Linux. While this may be just a quirk in the beta unit, it did eat up several hours of testing time in the Test Center lab and could easily stall a solution provider trying to roll it out for a customer. If that becomes a non-issue in general release, though, it could incredibly speed up the time to create and deploy a virtual environment.

The challenge

Citrix has been focusing a lot on desktop virtualisation. There is awareness within the company that channel partners tend to deploy server virtual machines rather than client VMs. Al Monserrat, vice president of worldwide channels and emerging product sales for Citrix, said there’s “a big interest in client [virtualisation]” and that the biggest hurdle is “getting people familiarised”.

Monserrat won’t get an argument from solution providers about the need for educating the channel, either.

“The ability to manage a number of desktop sessions from a modest two or three images would be huge,” said Robert Nitrio, president of Ranvest Associates, an Orangevale, California-based solution provider. But, he added, “We’re the evangelist ... but we need to know how to do things in order to be a good evangelist.

“What always works is the ability to get our hands on the product, so we can actually play with it, learn how to use it and test it,” Nitrio said. “A mere Webcast is not enough. We have to be able to get our hands on it, test it and see how it works.”

It’s unclear how much time, effort and money Citrix is willing to spend to do just that, and be able to compete with virtualisation veteran VMware and software giant Microsoft – with which Citrix has had an awkward relationship over the years (see “Share and share alike?” p. 23).

Citrix executives said they want to raise partners’ comfort levels in deploying desktop virtualisation, but also want to ensure partners are rightfully compensated. “Citrix scores every quarter between 92 to 95 percent in customer loyalty,” Monserrat pointed out, and said the vendor will make “a long-term investment” and build “a core revenue stream” for partners.

But they’ve got to get that message out during a tricky product cycle. And they have to continue to walk a fine line with Microsoft – which will launch the potentially competitive Hyper-V this summer in the US, at the very time Citrix execs say they need to keep collaborating with the Redmond, Washington-based software giant.

“No matter which route a customer takes, the core component will ensure virtualisation works in both,” said Citrix’s Crosby, who noted: “Hyper-V is an OS with a hypervisor bundled in it” while “Citrix scales better and supports large numbers of CPUs”.

Bringing this high level of groundbreaking virtualisation to the world will not be easy. VARs asking for strong support, education and training from Citrix know what they’re talking about.

But if Citrix can clear those hurdles, it stands to change IT dramatically and, in the process, reinvent itself just one more time.

“Maybe 10 percent of the market has virtualised their servers,” IPM’s Bari said. “Probably 99 percent of that is VMware. When it gets to 30 to 45 percent (virtualising their servers), the market is going to change. When it does, who are going to be the other players? Microsoft and (Citrix’s) Xen Server.”

The ramp from 10 percent on starts now, with Citrix’s big play starting within weeks. All that’s left is to convince solution providers to become one with Xen.

EDWARD F. MOLTZEN contributed to this report.