At Citrix Synergy this year, Citrix announced what is called the Citrix Workspace Services (CWS), which is a hosted service that can be used for the creation, management and orchestration and monitoring of the end users mobile workspaces which encompasses not just their Desktops (XenDesktop), but also their apps (XenApp) and data (Sharefile). CWS can also be used to deliver mobile applications (XenMobile). CWS will be hosted on Microsoft Azure. Customers can build their mobile workspace infrastructure in their own private cloud , a public cloud (Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Cisco InterCloud, CloudPlatform, SoftLayer) or a hybrid cloud.
The Workspaces control plane will be hosted on Microsoft Azure. The ability to deploy agents on hypervisors and then dynamically build the whole Workspace infrastructure (apps, data, desktops) while handling the entire management and automation via CWS on Azure is a pretty cool idea! I believe that CWS being hosted on Azure will further bolster the Microsoft Citrix relationship and thereby increase customer confidence in a joint solution:
Most customers considering public cloud are thinking Azure or already on Azure especially with O365. So hopefully CWS being in Azure should mean tighter integration and faster adoption, not to mention better SLAs.
While some customers might want CWS on premise, majority will be fine with a cloud hosted solution. Look at Sharefile as an example and the mass adoption in spite of the control plane being hosted. The fact that the control plane is in the cloud essentially means we can take the upgrade woes away from the customer and simplify the whole experience. I think we can all agree that the future of applications is the SaaS model with a pay as you go option.
Much like every license of XenApp results in RDS license revenue for Microsoft, Citrix running CWS on Azure could lead to more customers moving to Azure which is a win win for MS and Citrix just like the old days. Microsoft today announced the Azure RemoteApp service at TechEd and Brad Anderson today stated that MS will continue to work with Citrix in relation to the Azure RemoteApp announcement. He also spoke about Citrix Workspace services and I believe Azure RemoteApp can be integrated with CWS.
MS and Citrix have been working together for a long long time, and in lieu of the recent announcements, it seems like they have a lot up their sleeves that at the end of the day will benefit the ones that matter the most – their customers!
There has been plenty of buzz in the blogosphere around the CWS announcement. Here are some articles that I recommend:
- Why Citrix Workspace Services is the future of XenApp and XenDesktop. (And why it’s awesome!) – Brian Madden
- Citrix Workspace Services Promises Next Step Toward Virtual Workspace – Simon Bramfitt
- Citrix Workspace Services – Aggregating the Best of the Cloud – Mitch Parker
- Welcome to the world of mobile workspaces – Matthew Morgan
- Citrix Workspaces – mobile workspaces on the best cloud, yours – Joe Vaccarro