BrianMadden.com - Citrix, VMware, and application virtualization news, opinions, and analysis

Remote Desktop Client For MAC 2 Available

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:39:05 GMT

The Remote Desktop Client for Mac version 2 is finally out of beta and available for download. It took some time but it's really available now. Of course it does not have all the features that the "normal" Windows RDP client has but it still is a nice upgrade.

So what does this new version of the RDP client for Mac have? Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2 features a redesigned user interface, improved customization options, and the ability to connect to multiple Windows-based computers at the same time. The following table lists the latest improvements to Remote Desktop Connection.

Universal binary
Runs on both Intel-based and PowerPC-based Macs.

User interface and menu bar
Simplifies the connection window and expands the menu bar to include menus for common tasks (File, Edit, View, and Help). Application preferences are now located on the
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Citrix Delivery Center Visio Stencils

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:03:07 GMT

Daniel Feller from the Citrix Worldwide Consulting Solutions group has posted a nice set of Visio Stencils for the new Citrix Delivery Center components. This includes visio shapes for all the new XenApp branded components as well as XenDesktop, XenServer, Password Manager, Netscaler, WANscaler, Branch Repeater, etc. I definitely recommend picking up a copy if you frequently do Visio diagrams of Citrix infrastructure components. And thanks to Daniel for sharing this with the community.

Visio stencils for Citrix Delivery Center solutions

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:57:23 GMT

Daniel Feller created a really nice set of visio objects for the Citrix Delivery Center solution set. This is very usefull for everyone who is involved in designing Citrix solutions.The following products are included:XenApp XenDesktop XenServer NetScaler (includes rack-mountable stencils and NetScaler MPX) WANScaler (including the new Branch Repeater) Access Gateway Application Firewall Provisioning Server EdgeSight Password Manager Workflow Studio The stencil can be downloaded here:

App-V Case Studies

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:55:20 GMT

Every now and then I run into folks looking for case studies on SoftGrid/App-V so I thought I would post a link to a couple here. Some not only have docs but videos as well. ======== New Case Study: Kent School District Kent School District (KSD) is recognized throughout Washington for using technology to enhance education. With 10,000 workstations already in use and a new initiative that will provide all secondary school students with their own laptops, KSD will be adding about 2,500 more computers to its infrastructure each year for the next several years. It needed a way to support a growing, changing computer base while ensuring teachers and students could get needed applications in a more timely fashion. Using Microsoft® Application Virtualization, KSD cut district-wide application deployments from months to less than two days, simplified break/fix, improved license metering, and is easing migration to the 2007 Microsoft Office system. It provides a more...

Who's missing what? A checklist of what each vendor needs to get to VDI+ by 2010.

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:40:26 GMT

Last week I wrote about the four technical capabilities that needed to evolve in order for VDI to become mainstream. Since that article came out, I've started informally calling this "VDI+." So "VDI" is today's SBC-based VDI, and "VDI+" is tomorrow's VDI that blends SBC, local, offline, user customization, etc. I spent last week on a small speaking tour in Europe, and I was asked by 100 different people about which VDI vendor I thought would get to VDI+ first, and which vendor people should buy today? This is a complex question and the full answer requires its own article, but in order to begin to build an answer, you have to know which vendors offer which capabilities. To that end, I threw together a quick chart showing the six major players in this space and which of them offer which capabilities. At this time I think there are eight capabilities needed to offer an end-to-end VDI+ solution: (Am I missing anything?) Connection broker....

Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Virtual Fantasy or Actual Reality?!

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:37:58 GMT

Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 is the new name for Microsoft SoftGrid and is Microsoft’s application virtualization solution. In this article, Ruben Spruijt explains what the essential advantages of application virtualization are, and more specifically, what the new functionalities and application scenarios of Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.5 are. Sooner or later, later everyone will be using this form of virtualization. Ruben is enthusiastic about sharing his knowledge with you and exclaims, “Application Virtualization is the way to go!”The complete article in English can be downloaded here, a Dutch version is also available here

Cool InformationWeek article on App-V 4.5

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:25:24 GMT

I came across this article and thought you might find it interesting. The title is Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Nears Release and it discusses how the State of Indiana and the Fairfax County School District in Virginia are looking at how they can cut management headaches by expanding their use of Microsoft Application Virtualization. To read the article visit: http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/server_virtualization/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208700671&pgno=1&queryText=&isPrev It's definitely worth a quick read. J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer

BriForum 2008 "Tomorrow's news today"

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:27:55 GMT

Tomorrow's news today that's BriForum 2008. Together with 20 other speakers I joined the BriForum crew this year. It's really an honor to be part of this impressive list of awesome presenters and it's great to learn from these experts!This year I gave three presentations: Hyper-V unleashed, Streaming Smackdown 2008 Edition and Top10 challenges with SoftGrid (and other application virtualization solutions). These presentations can be downloaded from Virtuall, hopefully that makes sense!Presentation #1, Hyper-V unleased can be downloaded here: http://www.virtuall.nl/seminars/BriForum2008/BriForum08HyperVunLeashed.pdfPresentation overview:Microsoft Virtualization 360Virtualization within WS08Hyper-V benefits and disadvantagesManaging Hyper-V and ESX with System Center Virtual Machine Manager'War of the Virtual worlds'Presentation #2, Streaming Smackdown 2008 Edition can be downloaded here:...

As the Clouds grow

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:20:24 GMT

This industry is full of companies vying for your business, to put your apps and infrastructure into the cloud and soon there will be hundreds of cloud infrastructures. So imagine that you are in place in the cloud (virtual infrastructure of course, apps, data, etc) and you want to be able to move a virtual machine by dragging and dropping it. That's one of the great things about VMs right? But now, think about the cloud provider. They don't want you to be able to move that VM to another cloud, so they start writing proprietary APIs and other things, and before you know it your apps and data aren't portable. The vendor has you locked in and will be free to charge for every service, whoops. Sound familiar?As I see this market evolving and maturing there will be three or more things needing to happen:Standards and portability. This will mean the cloud vendors getting together and defining that standard set of APIs and coding...

Xen is Dead! Long Live Xen!

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:29:40 GMT

I was recently on a panel in Stockholm moderated by Brian Madden and Alessandro Perilli where, with Mike Neil, Avi Kivity, and Lance Berc, I enjoyed an engaging discussion on the future of virtualization. The event was a great opportunity for the audience to dig into different products and vendor strategies and Brian and Alessandro allowed none of us to wriggle away from the real issues. Definitely the best panel I've been on - and all due to the two moderators.

Brian is one of a rare breed that I am seldom lucky enough to meet. He's about 20 (probably permanently), and super sharp. He dresses cool and trendy. He is an excellent presenter and author. He also knows more about Citrix products than many people at Citrix, me included. He has found and filled a key niche in the Citrix ecosystem for no-bullshit, hands-on, been-there-and-done-it technology and product expertise that has won him the respect...

Part 2 of "Some thoughts around the latest buzz of Cloud Computing"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:32:25 GMT

First, it is really obvious that there is no clear definition of "cloud computing", but that doesn't seem to dampen the excitement and enthusiasm for this new computing model. I guess so that we can put some more structure around the discussion lets just say that "cloud computing" is a generic term for any information technology solution that does not use in-house data center or traditional managed hosting resources. Sound fair?So here are some common threads and key differentiators as I have seen them: * the concept of providing easily accessible computing and storage resources on a "pay-as-you-go", "on-demand" basis, from a virtually infinite infrastructure managed by someone else. * The capability to access your application anywhere, move it freely and easily, and inexpensively add resources for instant scalability. * In my opinion it represents a true next phase of...

New Process Monitor Version That Supports the RC Version of App-V

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:25:19 GMT

Please note that due to changes to the Release Candidate (RC) version of Microsoft Application Virtualization, Process Monitor users will need to download the latest version of ProcMon (v1.34) available at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx . Earlier versions of the tool will continue to work but will no longer capture virtualized registry access. J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer

Top 5 things to know about Hyper-V

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:31:03 GMT

My name is Ronald Beekelaar. I'm a Microsoft MVP of Virtual Machine Technology, based in Amsterdam. I have my own consultancy firm, and since 2002 I focus on virtualization. At first, this was strictly VMware-oriented, but a few years later this included Microsoft's virtualization products as well.

Since the first public beta of Hyper-V more than a year ago, I have done many presentations about Hyper-V at various events, and talked to a lot of customers about transitioning to Hyper-V. The people I talk to can be divided into two groups: they either have experience with Microsoft Virtual PC and Virtual Server, or they only know the VMware products and are just now looking into Hyper-V. However, for both groups, and despite very different opinions, there are five topics that always come up in discussions. Below is my list of the top-5 things you should know and understand about Hyper-V.

5) Understand the hypervisor model and performance...

Citrix XenServer is here to stay

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:24:55 GMT

I just want to quickly clarify the editorial I wrote yesterday. Other bloggers have written that I suggested that Citrix XenServer is going away. This is not what I believe. I firmly believe that Citrix XenServer is here to stay, and that it was a very good thing for Citrix to buy XenSource. My prediction, specifically, was that XenServer will evolve to work on Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor and that Citrix will ultimately drop support for Xen (or at least lessen the focus on Xen). But I want to be 100% clear on this: When I say that Citrix will drop Xen, I mean that Citrix will drop the open source Xen hypervisor. I do not believe that Citrix will drop their XenServer product. In other words, all the value that XenServer adds to the Xen hypervisor will still be there. XenServer will still be there. It's just that XenServer will run on Hyper-V, and the value that Citrix brings to the table will be value that's brought to Hyper-V.NOTE: Before you comment, read the main...

App-V: The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:55:19 GMT

I came across this the other day and thought that a lot of you would find it useful so here you go. If you haven't seen this before, it's part of a series of planning and design guides that clarify and streamline the planning and design process for Microsoft infrastructure technologies. There are quite a few different guides available and each guide in the series addresses a unique infrastructure technology or scenario. These guides include topics such as: Defining the technical decision flow (flow chart) through the planning process. Describing the decisions to be made and the commonly available options to consider in making the decisions. Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics. Framing the decision in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the appropriate business landscape. The guides in this series are intended to complement and augment the...

Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Deep Dive

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:21:26 GMT

Chris Lord, Sr. Program Manager at Microsoft presented a Sequencing Deep dive @ Tech-ed 2008.The presentation describes 'inside the virtual file system', the sequencing process, volume management, Dynamic Suit Composition, State Management, Sequencing process. Last year when I visited Microsoft in Boston Chris gave this great information; I really think this information is useful for every App-V die-harder. The presentation can be downloaded here: http://www.virtuall.nl/knowledge/App-V45SequencingDeepDive.pdfBelow is the complete description of App-V package generation and all the corresponding terminology.Package Generation: 30,000’ ViewThe life of a package file begins with the Sequencer. The process of producing a package consists of three stages: you install the application, you run the application, and you save a package. The files and folders that are created and modified during installation and execution become part of the package. Prepare to dive...

Getting your Application Delivery/Virtualization project off the ground

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:47:42 GMT

Recently I've been running into a lot of clients and potential clients that are having a tough time getting upgrade and expansion projects off the ground. WIth this happening in such a diverse group of industries it looks to me that this is more the norm in today's economic environment. Yes? No?IDC predicts that in 2008, worldwide IT spending will grow at a slower pace than 2007 and more recent years. An IT budget that grows more slowly means less to spend on new projects, and a clear return of the frugal CEO and management, which means you have to show the ROI of your project now more than ever. We've always had to justify the financial aspect of any projects, but this puts added pressure on us.Here is what I've seen so far in 2008 and I'm going to predict that these trends will continue into 2009: * New projects are fast becoming more difficult to get off the ground as discretionary spending is seeing the biggest cutbacks...

Prediction: Citrix will drop the open source Xen hypervisor for Hyper-V. The rest of the open source world drops Xen for KVM.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 05:51:11 GMT

Today, VMware dominates the virtualization market in the enterprise. The only other real competitor is the open source Xen, whether in the form of Citrix's XenServer commercial product, one of the open source flavors like Sun xVM, or the actual open source project. Microsoft's upcoming Hyper-V product is very similar to the open source Xen hypervisor. The two are so similar, in fact, that I'm now convinced that once Hyper-V comes out, Citrix will shift XenServer so it runs on Hyper-V instead of the open source Xen hypervisor. When that happens, Citrix will have no reason to continue to support Xen. Meanwhile, there's an upstart open source virtualization engine called KVM. ("KVM" in this context is "Kernal Virtual Machine," not "Keyboard Video Mouse.") Once Citrix (and Microsoft) shift their focus to Hyper-V, we may see the open source community rally behind KVM instead of Xen. The hardware virtualization market of 2009 / 2010 could very...

Vmware ThinApp 4.0 Pricing

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:31:56 GMT

Earlier I mentioned that VMware renamed Thinstall to VMware ThinApp. Later they released the release candidate and today it's available to customers. You can download and try it for yourself very easily (this was a disaster with Thinstall). But how is it priced?

Before we dive into the pricing, let's quickly take a look at the features of VMware ThinApp 4.0:

Application isolation. VIsolated applications run in a virtual bubble in restricted user accounts without requiring any host modification. Deploy Office 97, 2003, 2007, and .NET applications on the same OS without conflict as the applications run independent of one another.
Zero-runtime execution. With no installed agent, no footprint is left on the endpoint device. Applications run directly from the compressed state without first caching data to the hard disk, achieving better performance and security of data.
100% User Mode execution. Client runs on locked-down, unmanaged...

Michael Thomason website

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:23:45 GMT

I am looking for more information on the DPM that Mike mentioned in his presentation. www.autometrix.com is giving me a dead link did the site move?