For those of you who were not able to attend Citrix Synergy this year & dont have the time to sit through the key note recordings, I decided to put together a condensed version of some of the key announcements. So here goes!
Citrix Workspace Cloud
- Citrix hosted control plane that enables customers to deliver a comprehensive mobile workspace to end users.
- Gives customers the flexibility to host workloads on premises, in public or private clouds.
- Control plane also provides end to end monitoring of user connections.
- Evergreen infrastructure since Citrix maintains all core infrastructure components.
- Workspace Cloud Connector installed on premises on a Win 2k12 server that establishes SSL communication between control plane and customer environment. Used to talk to infrastructure components like Active Directory and hypervisors hosting workload
- General Availability in Q3
I wrote a blog on CWC and the value proposition a month back that you can find here.
SYN 217 – Workspace Cloud – Technical Overview [Video]
Citrix Lifecycle Management
- Comprehensive cloud based service that can be used to design, deploy and manage both Citrix and other enterprise applications.
- Based on the ScaleXtreme technology.
- Lifecycle Management enables customers/partners to deploy infrastructure not only on premises but also public/private clouds (resource locations)
- Customers/Partners have the ability to create blueprints to automate infrastructure deployments end to end. Examples of blueprints include a XD deployment for instance where you could not only install all the XD infrastructure but also automate the installation of all supporting infrastructure like Active Directory, SQL etc.
- Vendors have the ability to create blueprints as well that can then be consumed by customers and partners alike.
- Customers/Partners also have the ability to incorporate scripts (new/existing) into the deployment.
- Once a blueprint is developed, its added to a library. Any resource within the library can then be deployed to a resource location (on premises, public/private cloud)
- Another key benefit of the Lifecycle Management technology is the ability to automate application upgrades.
- General Availability in Q3
X1 Mouse
- Citrix announced the X1 mouse at Synergy which allows users to pair a mouse with Citrix receiver on an iOS device, works with any XA/XD app/desktop.
- iPad paired with an X1 mouse and a bluetooth keyboard offers users a complete mobile workspace.
- X1 mouse available now
XenApp/XenDesktop
- Xenapp 6.5 maintenance extended till end of 2017, EOL extended till 06/2018. Details here
- New Feature Pack for XA 6.5 (enhance storage performance, Lync support enhancements, UPM enhancements, Director “Help Desk” troubleshooting”, Storefront 3.0, Receiver.next)
- XenApp/XenDesktop 7.6 FP2 (End of Q2)
- New Receiver X1
- Lync 2013 on Mac
- Touch ID Support
- HDX with Framehawk
- Native Receiver for Linux
- Linux Apps and Desktops (Redhat and SUSE support)
- Desktop Player for Mac 2.0 (June)
- Desktop Player for Windows (Tech Preview)
SYN 233 – Whats new in XenApp and XenDesktop [Video]
SYN 319 – Tech Update for XenApp and XenDesktop [Video]
Receiver X1
- Single Enteprise App Store from Windows, Mobile, Web and SaaS apps
- UX lives on a server, you decide when, and if, it changes. Citrix will still release new versions of the client (bug fixes etc), but customer is always in charge of the UI across clients on ALL platforms with a consistent look and feel.
- Customer logos and color schemes – but also deeper changes like
- Click-through dialogs or messages of the day; integration with back end approval systems or links to your service status dashboards.
- Ensure that certain applications are hidden, highlighted or float to the top of search results. All of these things are possible, and many remarkably straightforward. Changes will apply to receiver on all platforms.
- App Categories: Grouping of applications based on business units with custom skin and showcased on home screen. Applications grouped based on keywords within Studio.
Citrix Receiver and Storefront Demo from Keynote [Video]
SYN 321 – Whats new in Receiver [Video]
HDX
- Realtime collaboration with HTML 5 and Chromebook – WebRTC technology, H264 encoding (H2, 2015)
- New graphics stack for HDX, new algorithm, 20% more users/server, 30% lower bandwidth (based on tests conducted with LoginVSI medium workload)
Keynote Demo – HDX [Video]
SYN 230 – HDX Update: Whats New [Video]
SYN 324 – HDX: Refresh you basic and advanced knowledge [Video]
AppDisks
- Layered disk with apps for both XA/XD
- AppDNA is integrated for compatibility checks with different delivery groups (Server and Desktop OS)
- Integrated into Studio for easy management
- Limited Tech Preview in Q2, Beta in Q3.
XenServer 6.5 SP1
- Pricing
- USD 625 Std/socket
- USD 1250 Enterprise/socket
- Double density – 1000 VM/host
- CoreOS and Win 10
- Docker containers support
- Best in class graphics
- GPU config via UI
- GPU pass through for Linux VMs
- In-memory read cache usage visibility within XenCenter
- Supplement pack installs from Xencenter
SYN 219 – Whats new in XenServer 6.5 [Video]
Netscaler/Cloudbridge
- Cloudbridge Virtual WAN – increase bandwidth, reduce costs, allows you to aggregate an internet broadband link and MPLS link to create a low cost active active WAN network. Failover from one link to another possible in <1msec
- Internet Broadband 5% or less cost compared to MPLS
- Netscaler Control Center – OpenStack, CloudPlatform, Vmware, ACI, OpenAPI
- Netscaler Unified Gateway (Feature of Netscaler 11)
- Single URL for all forms of access
- Each logon point can be fully customized
- SmartControl – SmartAccess controls on NS as opposed to various farms
- Consolidate Gateway SSL VPN infrastructure
- Web Apps
- SaaS
- VPN
- VDI
- Client/Server
- SmartPhones
- Netscaler 11 to be released end of Q2
SYN 212 – Software Defined Networking delivered by Citrix and Cisco [Video]
SYN 309 – Whats new with Netscaler Gateway in 11.0 [Video]
SYN 210 – Scale WAN bandwidth while increasing reliability with Cloudbridge Virtual WAN solution
XenMobile
- MDX App Updates
- Containerized SalesForce App
- WorxTasks – Outlook task synchronization
- WorxChat – Containerized Lync client, first release will have instant messaging and presence. Future releases will incorporate audio/video capabilities.
- Slidestream – Mobile presentations from iphone with controls from iwatch
- Dynamic Containerization – Containerize any application available in the App Store dynamically. No need to obtain ipa/apk and wrap via MDX wrapping tool.
Video demonstrating Dynamic Containerization
SYN 304 – Managing Corporate and Employee Devices with XenMobile [Video]
Sharefile
- Restricted Storage Zones – Customer keeps encryption keys, metadata and file encryption
- Sharefile Platinum Edition(June) – Includes RightSignature, Unlimited Data Storage
- Office 365 Integration – Open Sharefile documents right within Office apps and save to Sharefile.
- iWatch integration – Dictate speaker notes and present
- DLP Integration – Symantec DLP
SYN 201 – Data Loss Prevention and Enterprise File Sync and Sharing [Video]
Mark T announcing Sharefile Platinum Edition
GoToMeeting
- Free Edition for upto 3 users
- Instant Join via HTML 5
- Active Directory Integration & Single Sign On
Citrix Melio
- Clustered File system, Non-blocking storage, allows concurrent read/write access from two or more servers to one or more storage pools at block level
- Active/Active Storage Access
- Block level mirroring between nodes as opposed to asynchronous replication
- Continuous availability of data without replication
- Core technology behind Workspace POD
- Storage agnostic – any disk
- Workload aware QoS
- Geo clustering in a Multi Nodal architecture
- Product Editions (Available now)
- VDI edition
- Enterprise Edition – Geo distributed and HA for Citrix PVS
Citrix Concierge
- Real time communication with a person right within an app (video/audio/chat)
- CoPilot
- Enable Agents and Customer to interact in 4 diff ways
- Share real time contents of your mobile screen with agents
- Provide agent dynamic info of device (network info, battery level, OS info etc)
- Share camera
- Enable Agents and Customer to interact in 4 diff ways
- Tech Preview Available today (iOS and Android).
- Concierge integrated into upcoming GTM version (GTM with mobile screen sharing) which allows screen sharing from iOS device.
Citrix Concierge Desktop and Concierge Pilot [Video]
Citrix GoToMeeting with Mobile Screensharing [Video]
Workspace Automation
- Cloud hosted
- “Leveraging the power of IoT for a better workspace experience”
- IoT enables IoE (Integration of Everything)
- Project Octoblu can run on very small devices, completely self contained. Can also run behind a firewall or in the cloud.
- Can talk to physical devices, sensors, apps, business processes etc.
- “Flow designer” – Graphical – shows in step by step how a flow should work.
SYN 222: Meet Octoblu: A new IoT Platform from Citrix
Workspace Hub
- Single Stick with VGA and HDMI connectors, dual WiFi and low energy Bluetooth chips
- Workspace hub takes video feed from mobile device and output that to connected screen. It also connects workspace to local printers and other attached devices. When the mobile device leaves premises, the workspace is transferred back to the device away from the workspace hub.
- When user with mobile device walks into a room with a Workspace hub, the hug advertises itself and mobile device can connect to hub.
Citrix Workspace Hub [Video]
Citrix Workspace Office [Video]
Citrix Workspace Pod
There was not a whole lot of new announcements around Workspace Pod other than what was announced at Summit. However the hardware vendors that are part of this ecosystem has expanded. For those of you who are not familiar with this offering from Citrix, Dane Young wrote an excellent blog on Workspace Pod that is a must read! The video below provides a great overview of the technology as well.