Xen and the Art of Virtualization

Virtualization took the center stage at the Citrix Synergy 2009 event in Las
Vegas recently. With its Xen suite of solutions cutting across desktops,
applications and clients, Citrix has emerged as a key player in virtualization
and cloud market. This was the message that Citrix executives drove home on the
opening day of the companys annual mega eventSynergy 2009. Delivering the
opening day keynote, Citrix president and CEO, Mark Templeton said, Technology
is here to support the business and deliver significant value. Innovation and
simplicity will be the key drivers. The intersection between PCs and mainframes
was a disruptive development. Similarly, what we are seeing is a crossover of
web 2.0, consumers and the enterprises.

Over the years, Citrix, through strategic acquisitions and its own
development, has created a strong portfolio of products that revolve around
Delivery Center, Online Services and Citrix Cloud Center (C3). The company is
one among the Top 5 cloud service providers, and Xen App is one of the leading
virtualization solutions in the world with hundreds of deployments. In line with
its innovation and simplicity theme, the company launched two very innovative
solutions at the event that will have a big impact on end users. These were the
Dazzle and Citrix iPhone Receiver.

Dazzle is the first self-service storefront for enterprise applications. It
gives corporate employees 24x7 self-service access to a broad array of
applications, desktops and content, allowing them to choose exactly what they
need and when they need it. For more than 2,00,000 enterprise customers already
using Citrix Delivery Center, products like Xen App and Xen Desktop act as a
storefront to their existing delivery infrastructure. Dazzle offers a rich,
intuitive user experience that requires no training.

Templeton, while commenting on the new solution said, Every day, employees
are presented with an amazing array of exciting apps and services on the web
that spark their imagination and put them in full control of their experience.
Then they come to work, and their IT experience is mandated by a bland general
issue sameness that threatens to drive every ounce of productivity and
innovation out of them. Now, for the first time ever, we are giving IT
departments a tool that helps them truly dazzle end users with an ultra cool,
self-service storefront, empowering employees to select the apps, desktops and
services they need and whenever they need them. The hidden reality, of course,
is that by giving employees the choice they so desperately want, IT actually
saves a ton of money and gains even more control over the things that really
matter.

Meanwhile, the iPhone Citrix receiver is a mobile application. It allows iPod
and iPhone users to access their Windows apps from anywhere. Through this
receiver, users can gain access to corporate data on the go.

Shrikanth G

shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in

The author was hosted by Citrix in Las Vegas