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The good and the bad of Citrix XenDesktop

March 13, 2013 By 3 Comments

XenDesktop

I got into a spirited debate on twitter with a buddy regarding XenDesktop vs. VMware Horizon Suite.  I’m beginning to educate myself on the entire Horizon Suite but the last time I did a trade study between the two, XenDesktop handily beat out View when it was a standalone product.  I plan on during a full comparison of View and XenDesktop.  But, before I do a comparison I thought I’d share what I like and don’t like about XenDesktop.

What I like

  • Client support – I’d be more surprised if you can find a platform XenDesktop isn’t supported on.  XenApp/XenDesktop uses the Citrix ICA protocol and therefore the Citrix Receiver.  There’s client’s for Blackberry, Windows 8, iOS, Linux and Android just to name a few.
  • Integration with XenApp – A VDI solutions is not just about virtualizing the desktop but also about providing access to applications.  XenDesktop shares a lot of common backend infrastructure and features with XenApp.  You can use the same web portal for both your applications and desktops.
  • Multi-Hypervisor support – Of course Citrix would like for you to use XenServer but you can also use vSphere and Hyper-V for you underlying VDI hypervisor.
  • Flexibility – Citrix has integrated a great provisioning server into its offering.  The solution is designed to provide desktop sessions regardless of the underlying desktop technology.  You have a need to provide pooled physical desktops to a subset of users then no problem.  Just as long as you can install the client agent on the VM or Physical PC then you can use XenDesktop.
  • Graphics Support – ICA is a very mature protocol.  Citrix has long given you the ability to run graphics intense application such as AutoCAD within a VDI session.  During HD video within a Citrix client is no big deal.
  • Printing – Printing used to be one of the things I hated most about Citrix.  You can now reliably use most off the shelf printers within you VDI environment.

What I don’t like

  • Troubleshooting – When Citrix breaks, it breaks hard.  Living without a support contract with Citrix is like walking without a net.  When I need to call them it’s usually not anything simple.
  • Complexity – With flexibility normally come complexity.  XenDesktop is no different.  You have a ton of options for provisioning desktops, broker configuration, web portal options and etc.  If you don’t have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish it’s easy to overcomplicate your design.
  • Lack of offline mode – Citrix ICA is a streaming protocol meant to be used with thin clients.  If you don’t have an Internet connection then you don’t have access to your desktops.  This should be a major part of you decision making process when considering VDI solutions in general as there’s really no ideal option for offline access.
  • Management interface – There are simply some basic things you can’t do from the management GUI.  This makes the learning curve for the application steep as not everything is well documented.
  • Talent availability – If you know Citrix you already know how high demand your skill is in the market place.  Because it’s good, because it’s complex and because there’s not a ton of 3rd party documentation it can be really difficult to find talented Citrix administrators.  This can really be an major issue based on geography.

Once you decide that VDI is the right solution for your specific business challenge, I believe the good  outweighs the bad in the XenDesktop universe.  I expect to come up to speed with View and do a comparison between the two solutions.  What’s your take on the good and bad of XenDesktop or VDI solutions in general?

Filed Under: Virtualization Tagged With: , ,

Does the Enterprise have a use for OpenStack and IaaS?

August 8, 2012 By 5 Comments

OpenStack has gotten a lot of attention the past few months.  As well as it should as it’s an ambitious project.  The question that I constantly ask, “What is the impact to the enterprise of these IaaS solutions.”  In theory when the OpenStack project is mature I should be able to move workloads from my private cloud to an OpenStack provider’s public cloud using my OpenStack console.   But the maturity of the OpenStack platform isn’t there which got me thinking of a bigger question.  Is Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) as a platform something I can move my existing enterprise services?

There’s no doubt that PaaS, and SaaS solutions have a place in the traditional enterprise. If you are looking for a new ERP, a great case can be made for either PaaS or SaaS. However, when you look at traditional enterprise workloads that you want to implement or migrate to a IaaS provider the story changes considerably.

I consider the traditional enterprise as a medium to large organization with an established IT system. When you look at this definition I’m hard pressed to find a use case for moving workloads from the enterprise data center to a IaaS cloud.  Before, I get the folks at HP Cloud, Rackspace and VMware worked up let’s take a look at the fundamentals of IaaS and what use cases they apply best.

Cloud Definition
First let’s take a look at what defines a cloud service.  For a service to be considered a cloud offering it must have the following attributes:
- Elastic
- User Self Service
- Accessible via a broadband service
- Built on shared resources
- Measured Service

When we look at IaaS, Amazon’s AWS fits nicely into this definition.  It’s definitely elastic as it’s one of their biggest selling points.  In respect to self service if you have an e-mail address and credit card you can spin up an instance without ever talking to anyone.  It’s accessible via broadband including VPN type networks.  It’s built on a shared infrastructure and most importantly it’s a measured service.

One of the major perceived advantages to cloud computing is cost.  The nature of the applications residing on IaaS are different from those of PaaS and SaaS.  SaaS especially lends itself to a “pay for what you use” model. If you have 1000 e-mail accounts today you pay for 1000 e-mail accounts.  If that changes to 900 e-mail accounts you pay for 900 e-mail accounts.   AWS has this same model for IaaS.  If you need 300 Ghz of CPU and 1TB of storage for an hour  you pay for only the 1 hour of use.  The problem is that this model is geared toward cloud aware applications and developers.

If I have an application that benefits and is designed to take advantage of multiple instances then the AWS model works well.  For example during periods of high demand, I can spin up 10 more instances of my application server.  When the demand subsides, I turn off the instances.  Thus, I don’t have to build out for my surges and therefore save costs on overall compute.  But traditional enterprise applications are not built this way.  Generally speaking, if I need to go from supporting 1,000 users to 1,500 users I upgrade my server and become stuck with this fixed asset until I replace it.   Also, to take advantage of paying only for the CPU, Memory and Storage that you are using the virtual instance must not be running.  If we take a look at a traditional enterprise service like a simple file server, how often do you turn off your file server?  What about your messaging server or utility database servers?

These two attributes of the existing enterprise systems are examples of why IaaS isn’t making headway in the Enterprise.

The Enterprise Needs a New IT Service Model 

The problem isn’t the IaaS model.  The problem is that we try and shoe horn an old service model into a new delivery mechanism.  When looking at your workload the idea isn’t “Will running my existing messaging service in IaaS be cheaper/more reliable?”  The question is how do I want to provide messaging to my end users?  When you answer that question you can then begin to look at different delivery methods that may include IaaS, PaaS or SaaS.  We have to change our way of thinking around these traditional services to reap the benefits of cloud computing.

Your thoughts?  Have you dismissed cloud computing due to it’s perceived costs vs. self-hosting?

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Virtualization Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Installing Citrix VDI-in-a-Box in VMWare Workstation 8

July 11, 2012 By 6 Comments

I posted an earlier lab on installing XenDesktop 5 within VMware Workstation 8. But the number 1 search term that comes up for this post is “How to install Citrix VDI-in-a-Box in VMware Workstation.” I kind of take it for granted that if XenDesktop will run in VMware Workstation then the lighter VDI-in-a-Box should be a shoe in. But, since the question gets raised and I’ve never deployed the lighter VDI solution this a good source for a lab and post.

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VDI in a Box is a much simpler solution than XenDesktop. In order to Run XenDesktop 5 Quick Deploy in a vSphere environment you need at least 4 Windows servers. In VDI in a Box you only need your ESXi server, the Citrix vdiManager appliance and your client image (Windows XP or 7) to have a complete solution. My laptop is pretty robust. I have 16GB of Ram and a quad core i7 processor. But my guess was that you could probably do this lab on a workstation with only 8GB. Also, the vdiManager is 32-bit so Intel-VT shouldn’t be needed. The instructions for installing VDI-in-a-Box can be found here on the Citrix website.

I went a very simple route for the design of this lab. I created an ESXi server with 4 CPU’s and 4GB of RAM. I bridged the network work adapter so I could access the VDI environment from any machine in my lab. The below snapshot are the VM settings for my ESXi server.

Figure 1 ESXi Virtual Machine Settings

After importing the vdiManager OVA my virtualized ESXi server should memory utilization at 1.2GB which is kind of high and is more than likely a result of VMware tools not being installed on the Linux appliance. I choose to use an XP image because I had one handy to import. This is where I enjoy the features of Workstation 8. I just added the virtualized ESXi to my list of managed hosts in Workstation and I was able to just upload the image directly from VMware Workstation.

The installation of VDI-in-a-Box is much simpler than the installation of XenDesktop. Using an OVA appliance and just a configuration screen makes it a no brainer installed in comparison. The setup for configuring the image and setup are guided and worked well. I configured a pool of 10 potential desktop with 1 desktop powered on. I went low for memory requirements at 512MB per VDI session.

Here’s a sample of the guest settings for the first VDI session Citrix configured after completion of the image deployment.

Figure 2 VDI Workstation in ESXi

This lab was fast, easy and not very intensive. If you have a system with 8GB of RAM it should work well. The one problem you may run into performance wise would be running more than one VDI session. My system capped out at 9GB of used RAM during this lab but keep in mind I had all of my regular productivity applications opened and created this post as well while preforming the lab. Here’s a snapshot of my virtual ESXi server summary while running the lab with two VDI images running along with the vdiManager.

I love to answer any questions on this lab or take comments.

Update 07/14/12: I recorded a video for the lab that can be found you YouTube

Filed Under: Virtualization Tagged With: , , ,

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure missed the boat on mobile Bring Your Own Device

May 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

iPad’s Running Windows?

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a great technology.  But great technologies don’t always become great solutions.  Barb Darrow over at GigaOM post titled “Is this the year of desktop virtualization yet?”  It would seem the year of desktop virtualization has indeed been coming for the last 5 years.  VDI is a wonderful solution for the right use case.  The successful cases I’ve seen include, Remote Access and certain verticals such as health, education and manufacturing.  However, recently I’ve seen vendors such as Cisco trying to make a case for mobile Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).  I’ve posted earlier on how I believe BYOD is not a great use case for VDI.  Here’s a snapshot of my major concerns when it comes to VDI and BYOD.

Offline Access

The two major vendors in VDI, Citrix and VMWare have similar approaches to solve this problem.  They both involve running client side Hypervisors.  Citrix’ solution XenClient has a very limited range of hardware that will it supports.  VMWare leverages its leadership in client side Hypvervisors to allow offline usage with VMWare Workstation like features in VMWare View.

When designing a solution with this approach here are major issues to overcome.

  1. Clients have to be fairly robust to run a hypervisor not to mention someone has to support these machines.
  2. Bandwidth required to synchronize the datacenter based VDI and the remote client.
  3. No offline option for ARM based tablets.  This may change with Windows 8 and Intel based tablets.

User Experience

User experience is great in today’s modern VDI solutions, when using VDI for its original use case – Thin Client Computing.  However, the workforce and work environment are changing.  IT is becoming a commodity in both the workplace and in the home.  Products like Windows Home Server, Dropbox, and Google Apps have created a second market for collaboration that is out of the control of corporate IT.  End users have found ways to be collaborative in the way that they desire collaboration.

So, while VDI allows you to present Windows based enterprise applications to non-Windows smartphones and tablets it doesn’t allow for the fluid user experience that end users are now getting from readily available services.  I’ve used windows applications on my iPad and while it works the experience leaves a lot to be desired.

I think this speaks to the change in what consumers consider as personal computing solutions.  When we first started talking BYOD 5 years ago, Windows dominated not only the enterprise but the consumer markets.  This is no longer the case today.  Consumers have a large section of operating systems and form factors from which to choose.  And they conflict with the primary choice for VDI workstation environments Windows.  Microsoft has already spent at least 10 years proving that end users don’t want mobile devices running Windows. So, why are we trying to still deploy it as a solution via VDI?

I’m a fan of VDI.  Solutions like XenApp and XenDesktop enable companies to pool special use software licenses, centralize desktop support and simplify software deployment among many other attributes.  But, VDI is not the long term solution for BYOD from both a mobile and desktop experience.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on VDI as a BYOD solution.  What’s your organization’s approach to BYOD and enabling enterprise applications and collaboration?

Filed Under: Virtualization Tagged With: , , , ,

Why Citrix Dumped OpenStack Support

April 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I haven’t had time to review or weigh in on Citrix’s announcement on dropping support for OpenStack and embracing CloudStack.  I know since the announcement OpenStack has had a couple of major wins but I don’t think they come close to offsetting the loss of Citrix in the camp.

Image

Citrix really wants to compete in the datacenter with VMware.  At the same time VMware is making a compelling argument for their Cloud ecosystem.  If you are looking at rolling a private cloud and you already have a vSphere infrastructure it’s difficult to weed through all the commercial options and the basically non-existent open source options for a VMWare environment.  vCloud becomes the defacto option when you don’t have months to research alternatives.  This puts Citrix at a handicap when it comes to competing in the data center and the private cloud.

I believe the Citrix move is positioned to help those who haven’t already invested heavily into VMware and are considering both a virtualization and cloud strategy a compelling option.  I commented earlier on the progress of the OpenStack platform and how far they have to go.  Citrix can’t afford to wait on the platform to mature.

If Citrix executes well they will have a great story to tell customers about potential seamless integration with AWS.  I think Citrix looks at Amazon more of a partner than VMware does.  The ability to provide surge capability of your XenServer based private cloud to AWS is enticing.

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Virtualization Tagged With: , , ,

BYOD is all about delivery

February 26, 2012 By 1 Comment

Remember the big push for BYOD laptops?  The theory was that people would get a credit for a laptop device and bring it in to work.  Now the big push is around mobile devices.  End users have voted and Blackberry is out.  iPAD’s, iPhones and Android devices are in.  This makes for a difficult set of choices for the enterprise.

The great advantage of Blackberry has been the combination of the device and BES management server.  But the end user devices got stale.  I have a BB Torch which is not a bad device but outside of corporate e-mail I don’t use it.  I’m pretty anxious for our corporation’s BYOD strategy.  A great deal of time has been spent on getting similar management capability to the BES management platform.  The 3rd party market around Android and iOS is settling.  This solves the basic problem of e-mail.

Now organizations need to solve the problems around application access and development.  For true cost savings the need is in building applications that are portable across multiple platforms.  The question now becomes is there a ROI for this compared to status quo?

The same question is said for the workstation end point.  As I mentioned in an early post end users don’t want VDI.  The solution has to be around applications that can be hosted in the cloud (public or private) so that users can take advantage of whatever endpoint device that they choose.  I believe the key will lay in SaaS provider’s such as Salesforce.com that will offer API’s between SaaS solutions that entire organizational architectures can be built.  From back office applications such as content management to CRM and ERP.

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Virtualization Tagged With: , ,

Onlive to compete with Citrix?

February 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The streaming game company Onlive.com recently introduced a managed streaming desktop service.  Currently the only client available is for the iPAD.  I’ve used several streaming Windows desktop products for the iPad including XenDesktop, Logmein and GoToMyPC and I have to tell you this is one of the more fluid and enjoyable experiences I’ve had to date.  I’m really tempted to sign up for the paid service once they release the PC client.

The long range business plan is to offer managed desktops for the enterprise.  IBM has been offering desktops in the cloud for a while and I’ve often wondered how this desktop delivery method would actually work from a practical since when the data exists within the enterprise and the desktop outside.  I can see a market for small business but as for the enterprise I’m not so sure at this point.  As far as the technology is concerned?  I’m impressed with what I’ve seen so far.

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, PC & Server Hardware, Virtualization Tagged With: , , ,

Citrix Doesn’t Want XenDesktop Used for Disaster Recovery

February 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I read an interesting blog post on the Citrix website about how we should not use XenDesktop as a disaster recovery strategy.  My initial thought was “huh?”  Why in the world would I not want to use XenDesktop as a DR strategy? And why wouldn’t Citrix want to sell me product?

I’m not going to rehash the argument but I have to agree with Citrix on the topic of not designing for the exception.  When I think of the successful DR implementations I’ve done they’ve always leveraged or extended the primary technology.  For example, I’ve used SAN storage to provide Microsoft SQL to Microsoft SQL replication. I take the authors view that I wouldn’t design a DR solution that had a Microsoft SQL to MySQL concept of operations.

Your DR solution should be something that you can practically support in a DR situation.  The technology is only part of the equation for a successful DR implementation.  Remember you have to have a solid repeatable process that your IT staff and employees can follow.  If your employees have to use a method of access different than their normal procedures how will you even communicate this in a DR event let alone support it potentially with reduced IT support.

The Citrix post is a reminder to never let the technology get in the way of your business processes.

Filed Under: Virtualization Tagged With: , ,

Is the iPad a Better Thin Client than a Workstation?

May 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

With the release of the Citrix client for the iPad I have to ask the question.  Is the iPad a better Windows 7 Tablet than any native device that PC Manufactures can create?  I want to look at the iPad as a serious Thin Client device.

I recently purchased an iPad to play around with at home.  I’ve always wanted a similar device that I can use in my day to day work as an Infrastructure support person.  I’ve often wished I had a light tablet form factor device that gave me access to Outlook, Sharepoint, Shared Data and Office while I’m in the Data Center(DC).

Other than configuring a router via a serial cable, I don’t have much use for a laptop in the DC.  What I do need is the ability to access mail, shared documents, administration tools and remote desktop applications on a screen larger than a mobile phone’s screen.  There have been many a time where I’d spend a couple of hours documenting something in my DC just to come back a couple of weeks later because I can’t read my own handwriting.  Windows based tablets and phones never did the trick.  They were either too heavy or to small to be useful.

I’ve had several Windows based convertible laptops.  I like the theory behind them.  A lot of people argue that Windows on a touch based device is a flawed concept.  I disagree.  The problem isn’t(just) Windows.  The problem is the lack of applications that are designed for a touch interface.  Windows does have problems scaling down power consumption and system requirements for a device this size but that’s another discussion.

I downloaded the free Remote Lite application from the iTunes store tonight to play around with connectivity to my desktop.

I was pretty impressed with this basic application.  After doing some research I discovered that a few more of the paid applications add some pretty interesting gesture based options to the interface.  I was able to move around in Windows pretty well.  Playing video wasn’t very effective but I believe this could be optimized.  It has the potential to solve a good number of complaints I have about the iPad – no Flash, Multitasking, Limited Storage, Printing and etc.

This got me to thinking.  I could see a larger developer like VMware or Citrix really enhancing this experience.  If they created a client and coupled it with one of their VDI solutions you’d have a really special combination of hardware and software.  Not just a great thin client but game changing remote computing platform when coupled with 3G.

Am I chasing a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist?  What other applications could this be useful to make the investment worth it?

Keith Townsend

Filed Under: PC & Server Hardware, Virtualization Tagged With: , , , ,

Cloud vs. Virtualization

May 3, 2010 By 6 Comments

I had a pretty interesting conversation on Linkedin about Cloud Computing.  A member of one of the groups I’m in poised the question – What’s the difference between App Virtualization ala Citrix and Cloud Computing.  I stated that Citrix can be used to provide Cloud platform or services.  Two other members suggested that it was more of a fringe type of cloud computing.

One member suggested that one of the requirements of cloud computing is that it’s more scalable and resilient than a Citrix type of solution or something that can be done in the traditional enterprise.  This got me to thinking of some of the offerings that are labeled Cloud.  Some of the services that came to mind are the big players in the group.  They include Amazon’s S3, Google Apps, Salesforce.com.

But then I thought of some of the other services that are marketed as “Cloud” offerings.  I see Hosted Exchange offered all over the place.  I’m certain that plenty of these providers don’t have multiple datacenters and the resiliency of gMail.  I also brought ADP into the discussion as they offer a “Cloud” product based on Citrix.  So, it got me to asking the question what is the definition of “Cloud”?

I found this InfoWorld article that explores the question very well.  The author establishes two basic categories of Cloud Services.  There’s the Computing on Demand model such as Amazons S3 and then there’s everything else.  They then go on to break it down into 7 different types of cloud offerings.

I tend to define Cloud Computing as anything that provides services to the Enterprise via the Internet or Private connection and is supported and maintained by a 3rd party.  This could be a SaaS offering like Salesforce.com or virtual servers provided by Rackspace.  The basic need is met which is to extend/expand enterprise services without expanding the infrastructure.  This is one of the many advantages of Cloud Services.

So, I l believe that a Citrix based offering can be defined as a Cloud Service.

I’d love to hear feedback.

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Virtualization Tagged With:
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