Virtually Yours

SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Even though, the adoption of novelty-driven virtualization and future-proof cloud technologies, are yet to make stint, the CIOs today, are perhaps no longer zealots.

On the flip side, Citrix Systems has redefined the entire landscape with a horde of innovations. This has in turn energized the solution integrators and partners worldwide.

The virtualization major, for the first time revealed that it has been working on project Avalon for two years now. Based on this ambitious project, the company will unveil new headway in October, 2012.

Taking a leapfrog, this innovation will facilitate convergence with multisite automation and provisioning of XenApp and XenDesktop in the cloud. The Citrix path breaking initiative is technology neutral and facilitates hassle-free transition onto cloud environment.

A host of announcements, innovations and strategic ambitions revealed by virtualization giant at its annual Citrix Synergy summit in San Francisco, last week, is apparently sufficient to give sleepless nights to many of its competitors such as VMware.

Visibly buoyant and enthusiastic Citrix CEO Mark Templeton said that with project Avalon, they aim to protect customers’ investment in XenApp and XenDesktop.

Cloud heavyweight, while unveiling the roadmap to CIOL, said that it will continue to maintain leadership position with tremendous investment in infrastructure, virtual Windows and cloud services.

“We invested $3 billion in R&D over a period of last few years and have acquired seven strategic companies,” said Templeton. The organization, he said will follow same trajectory over the coming years.

The virtualization and cloud technologies giant unveiled several game changing capabilities that include: Citrix Cloud Gateway for enterprise mobility and Citrix CloudPlatform, powered by Apache CloudStack that delivers commercially supported cloud orchestration system.

The company also introduced new XenDesktop, VDI-in-a-Box and AppDNA capabilities to drive desktop virtualization adoption in addition to innovative StorageZone technology that facilitate businesses with on-premise data storage option.

Citrix SVP for Desktop and Cloud Division Gordon Payne said that small businesses adopt cloud more quickly today. CIOs, he said, were initially apprehensive about consumerization of IT, however, now 50 per cent IT policies advocate BYOD.

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In emerging markets of Asia, he said, people go mobile for computing needs today. Workstyle needs, ROI, capex and security are major concerns in India. As today everyone is adopting self-service model, therefore security, Payne said, is optimum in a centralized model.

John Fanelli, Citrix VP for product marketing at Enterprise Desktops and Applications said that APAC is the fastest growing region and said that there are work shifting patterns in China and India. For XenDesktops, there are close to 500 customers in India, he said. 

With the acquisition of Virtual Computer, Fanelli said that they would be able to enhance management capabilities and synchronization. Citrix embraced 35 highly specialized engineers from this acquisition and is expected to announce new product update by early next year, he informed.

Citrix chief security strategist Kurt Roemer said that Podio- a social network for workforce is free up to five users and is highly secure.

“It has integrated security and firewall,” he said. The company, according to Roemer is putting enormous focus on the security aspect, especially for mobility and cloud platform.

“Security awareness and training programs are currently aimed at executives across Citrix product portfolio,” he informed. SMBs, Roemer said, demonstrate tremendous amount of interest in Citrix CloudBridge and ShareFile today.

Group VP and GM for Gateways and Receiver at Citrix Sumit Dhawan believes that in tandem with data hosting concerns of nations like China, Citrix innovative StorageZone facilitate secure methodology and is a unique value preposition.

Next platform, Dhawan said will shape up Windows 8 roadmap. The company is empowering users with connectivity with multiple sources and platforms.

“Citrix will continue to focus on mobility with consistency on services and more plug-in IT services,” he informed.

The company, Dhawan informed will be releasing CloudGateway in July with a focus on granular policies. "We are giving more focus on device control that will facilitate solution providers to connect to plug-in to deliver cloud services.

10 customers have already adopted this solution while 25 are working closely with Citrix on CloudGateway. "300 customers will start evaluation in next couple of months,” he said. The company is excepting to woo more than 1,000 new customers by the end of CY 2012.

This may be an end of story, but for Citrix, it is just the beginning to an ode of next-gen virtual technologies and cloud recourse with impressive emphasis on innovation, security and cost efficiency. Stay tuned in.

(The author was hosted by Citrix Systems at San Francisco)