Mark Templeton, CEO, Citrix Systems (pictured), took to the stage of Synergy 2010 in Berlin today to announce several new products and discuss the driving forces behind them.
New capabilities were announced for GoToMeeting and a new version of XenDesktop, while detail was given for partnerships with Cisco and McAfee for broader solutions and integration in technology stacks.
Another key announcement was around a set of modules for NetScaler, called Open Cloud. These modules address networking, management and orchestration of cloud resources to allow Citrix users to extend private clouds into any type of public cloud platforms.
Templeton also announced that the winner of the Citrix Innovation award for Synergy 2010 was British organisation The Co-operative Group. Chosen from 11 finalists, the Group carried out a major XenDesktop implementation enabling new work practises, as well as a 30% power and cooling bill saving through virtualisation technology.
GoToMeeting now gets HD Faces, a capability whereby up to six simultaneous high definition camera feeds can be displayed on screen.
Emphasising the importance of online meetings and video conferencing, Templeton said the best way to ‘go green’ was take people off the road. He said that the uptake of GoToMeeting was an indication that people were getting that message in using these services to avoid travel while retaining the ability to collaborate productively.
Templeton added that usage statistics showed that GoToMetting was being used heavily in various geographies and declared the company’s intention to “go global” with it. He annouced the availability of French and German versions with other languages coming online in the near future.
Key partnerships with the likes of McAfee and Cisco were also detailed. Both companies indicated that their respective customers were looking toward virtual desktops, and that Citrix was a favourite for many. In responde, both companies had begun special partnerships with Citrix to ensure that seemless integration of the elements of a virtual desktop stack.
McAfee named MoveAV as its XenDesktop certified antivirus solution to work in the virtual desktop environment. Dave Dewalt, CEO, McAfee said the integration ensures any new virtual machine (VM) will have the right policy applied for the workload.
XenDesktop 5 was also announced, with a raft of new features.
Templeton said that in the last six months or so, people were moving from the ‘wow’ of demonstrations of virtual desktop technologies to the ‘how’ of implementation. With this in mind, XenDesktop 5 focuses on faster set up, easier management and an enhanced user experience.
Desktop Director allows administrators to focus on operations, with high level views, as well as the ability to focus in on individual machines that require attention, easily and quickly. Desktop Studio allows administrators to “spin up desktops in seconds”.
For the end user, a redesigned toolbar gives users a “perspective of what they are empowered to do”.
Templeton said that there is a powerful delivery network behind this, with better audio and video CODECs, while printing is nearly 100 times faster, with adpative, intelligent quality of service (QoS).
Citrix Receiver, the application that allows a desktop to be delivered to a device, also received much attention.
Wyse has developed a thin client, the Xenith that boots in six seconds and features Citrix HDX capability.
However, star of the show was the demonstration of live switching via the new multitasking capabilities of iOS 4.2 between Microsoft Office applications and native iOS applications on an iPad.
XenClient is a bare metal hyper visor for end user machines. It allows users to build infinitely mobile, but secure virtual machines.
Templeton said that XenClient “allows you to put VMs on the road, but with centralised control”.
Dell and HP had both signed up to provide XenClient as an option on enterprise laptops, and now Lenovo has agreed to do the same on all of its Think range, laptop and desktop.
Full disk encryption if utilised, while also having access to the graphics processing unit to allow full 3D capabilities in rendering.
“The virtual machines are untethered from the machines”, said Peter Blum, product management director.
Templeton said that a recurring customer request was to make internal resources more like the cloud, but also to ensure that when users embarked on private cloud, that they could thenseemlessly extend that cloud to public platforms.
Applications, workloads and networks have to connect to some kind of external cloud irrespective of platform, said the CEO.
“You’ve got to have an any-to-any solution. That solution is Open Cloud Bridge”.
Open Cloud Bridge allows an organisation’s Internet Protocol (IP) estate to be extended securely beyond their own physical boundaries to link up another cloud platform.
Accelerated access is then provided through NetScaler capabilities. On top of this, is an orchestration layer, akin to a bus, to allow precise control. Open Cloud Access is another NetScaler module that sits above this, providing provisioning for applications.
“Today’s platforms are pretty and rigid and that is what we are fighting everyday when we are figuring out how to get from where we are at point A to our business goals at point B,” said Templeton.
Employing the conceit of the shortest route between two points not always being a straight line, Templeton said: “We need more flexible platforms from end to end to connect us with our business goals. This requires a change in thinking.
“Our commitment is to give you a platform that you can innovate on for business.”
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