Archive
#Microsoft – On the right track! – #Windows, #BYOD, #Citrix
I don’t know if you all agree but I find that Microsoft is making some really good strategic decisions to align themselves and be ready for the “next generation” workplace and client services. Everyone has been talking about BYOx and that everyone will bring their own device and consume business services and functions on that device in parallel to doing personal stuff.
But has BYOD taken off yet?
I personally think that it hasn’t to the extent that many thought it would, there are some companies in some countries that have adopted it for some use cases and user categories, but the majority is still struggling with it though their business apps and functions aren’t really there to support this way of working yet.
Even if they have a NetScaler or similar remote access capabilities with some sort of Desktop and App virtualization (like Citrix XenDesktop) to run the apps it’s still not enough. How do you solve the offline working scenario? And isn’t hosted apps and desktops just a legacy workaround until those business processes have been SaaS’ified? And what about “dropbox” alternatives, H: drives and G: drives, Sharepoint data etc. There is still a user data mess (read my earlier post on this) that needs to be solved and especially a “mega aggregator” tool for getting data/content and synch across devices in a secure manner (data also encrypted at rest on ALL devices and not just mobiles)…
Microsoft is kind of stepping up here I must say from a strategy point of view that makes me believe in them, even though I’ve said that no one ever will take my MacBook Air from me! Have a look at the features that are coming with Windows 8.1 to support a more “semi-controlled” or “semi-trusted” device, and the new cloud services like Azure AD, Windows Intunes offerings in combination with the online messaging and collaboration Office 365 services. And they are apparently also working on a “legacy” cloud service to offer desktops as a service (DaaS) as I wrote in a previous blog post as well.
I think that Microsoft is moving in the right direction towards offering the next generation enterprise IT services and to support the new way of working, and fast!
Have a look at these posts/articles on the news in Windows 8.1:
Everything you need, right from (the) Start
Microsoft is focused on delivering one experience across all the devices in your life. The centerpiece of that strategy and experience are the Microsoft services and apps that come right from (the) Start on your new Windows device.
This is the first blog post in a series that will highlight the apps and services driving toward this “one experience” vision. This experience comes to life through more than 20 new and improved Microsoft apps and services that come as part of Windows 8.1, including a new one that we are announcing today – Skype, right from (the) Start!
It’s where you want to go today….
Hosting #Citrix Desktops from the #Amazon Cloud – #AWS, #BYOD, #DaaS, #NetScaler
A good blog post by Ken Oestreich.
That’s right. Run your XenApp on AWS and NetScaler on AWS .
Those capabilities has been around for a while, and over time Citrix has been working to make set-up and configuration even easier.
Whether you are a large enterprise, smaller business, or even a service provider, deploying on the AWS cloud could yield you many more benefits and operational advantages than you could get than deploying XenApp on your own equipment.
Is it for me?
It could be. If you answer “yes” to any of the following, you may want to look more closely:
- You’re Moving infrastructure to the cloud – if you wish to leverage the cloud to host infrastructure – either for convenience, cost, capital expense avoidance, availability, or other attributes.
- You’re Cost-conscious – Amazon’s EC2 cloud often provides customers with a significant reduction in hardware, networking and/or storage costs, particularly due to the pay-as-you-go nature of EC2 capacity. This helps avoid over-provisioning, and allows for real-time matching of capacity to demand.
- You don’t have a data center – Many customers chose to avoid building on-premesis data centers altogether while remaining staunch believers in Citrix software. These are small/medium businesses require agile – and often outsourced – infrastructure
- You have modest administration/deployment knowledge – Many customers prefer not to invest in the skills needed to maintain data center hardware, but insist on retaining application administration skills. Leveraging IaaS infrastructure in the cloud is the ideal approach whereby hardware configuration and maintenance is avoided.
- You have a dynamic business that needs to quickly react to change – Businesses with significant growth curves or seasonality often over-provision infrastructure for peak use, locking-up precious fixed capital that is frequently idle.
Tools, resources, economics
The Citrix community has made available Amazon CloudFormation scripts that greatly simplify configuration, set-up and operation of large-scale XenApp instances. We also have spent hours looking at the economics of running your Citrix infrastructure on AWS. These include
We also make it easy to use products/licenses on AWS…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
#Apache #CloudStack grows up – #Citrix, #IaaS – via @sjvn
On June 4th, the 4.1.0 release of the Apache CloudStack Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud orchestration platform arrived. This is the first major CloudStack release since its March 20th graduation from the Apache Incubator.
It’s also the first major release of CloudStack since Citrix submitted the project to the Apache Foundation in 2012. Apache CloudStack is an integrated software platform that enables users to build a feature-rich IaaS. Apache claims that the new version includes an “intuitive user interface and rich API [application programming interface] for managing the compute, networking, accounting, and storage resources for private, hybrid, or public clouds.”
This release includes numerous new features and bug fixes from the 4.0.x cycle. It also includes major changes in the codebase to make CloudStack easier for developers; a new structure for creating RPM/Debian packages; and completes the changeover to using Maven, the Apache software project management tool.
Apache CloudStack 4.1.0’s most important new features are:
- An API discovery service that allows an end point to list its supported APIs and their details.
- Added an Events Framework to CloudStack to provide an “event bus” with publish, subscribe, and unsubscribe semantics. Includes a RabbitMQ plug-in that can interact with AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol) servers.
- Implement L3 router functionality for the VMware Nicira network virtualization platform (NVP) plug-in
- Support for Linux’s built-in Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) virtualization with NVP L3 router
functionality. - Support for AWS (Amazon Web Service) style regions
What all this adds up to, according to CloudStack Project Management Committee (PMC) member Joe Brockmeier, is that today’s CloudStack is “a mature, stable project, [that] is also free as in beer and speech. We believe that if you’re going to be building an IaaS cloud for private or public consumption, you’ll be better served choosing an open platform that any organization can participate in and contribute to.”
Brockmeier concluded, “CloudStack is a very mature offering that’s relatively easy to deploy and manage, and it’s known to power some very large clouds–e.g., Zynga with tens of thousands of nodes–and very distributed clouds–such as DataPipe, which…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
#Microsoft finds a new way to deliver a private #cloud in a box – #Azure via @maryjofoley
Interesting!!!! 🙂
It took three years from when it was first announced, but Microsoft may have found a way to deliver a private cloud in a box.
The company’s vision and strategy for doing this has gone through many twists and turns.
Microsoft’s original plan was to provide its largest partners and even a few, select enterprise users a so-called Azure Appliance. Announced in 2010, the Azure Appliances were to be carried by Dell, Fujitsu and HP. These OEMs were to provide the servers which could be installed in partner and select enterprise customers’ datacenters. Microsoft was supposed to provide and maintain Windows Azure as a service to these servers.
The only partner that ever delivered an Azure Appliance was Fujitsu, which announced availability in August 2011. But some time in the past few months, Microsoft ended up dropping its Azure Appliance plans, without ever officially announcing it was dead.
WOW! – MS readies ‘Mohoro’ Windows desktop as a service – #BYOD, #DaaS – via @brianmadden
What can you say!?!? It wouldn’t surprise me a bit!! Of course Microsoft would come out with an Azure based cloud offerings of Desktops as a Service! I will follow this progress for sure, interesting and NOT so nice for quite a number of partners out there…
Summary: Microsoft is believed to be building a Windows Azure-hosted desktop virtualization service that could be available on a pay-per-use basis.
In yet another example of its growing emphasis on remaking itself as a devices and services company, Microsoft looks to be developing a pay-per-use “Windows desktop as a service” that will run on Windows Azure.
The desktop virtualization service, codenamed Mohoro, is in a very early development phase, from what I’ve heard from sources. I don’t know the final launch target, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t until the second half of 2014.
Mohoro is a town located on the island of Grande Comore in the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. Given that members of the Microsoft India Development Center may be playing a key role in Mohoro’s development, according to my sources, the codename choice seems appropriate.
Microsoft owns the Mohoro.com and Mohoro.Net domain names.
Mohoro, like another Windows service, Windows Intune, is a product of Microsoft’s Server and Tools unit, I hear. Windows Intune is still not yet hosted on Windows Azure (as far as I know), but supposedly the plan is to move it to Azure at some point. Windows Intune already does make use of Windows Azure Active Directory as its directory and authentication service.
The same way that Windows Intune is the cloud complement to System Center, Mohoro seems to be the cloud version of Remote Desktop/Remote App.
This is like “Remote App as a hosted service,” said one of my contacts. It could be for companies who want thin clients or to run legacy apps on new PCs. Right now, companies have to have their own servers in the equation to do this, but “with Mohoro, you click a few buttons, deploy your apps, use Intune to push out configuration to all of your company’s devices, and you’re done,” my contact added.
Microsoft currently offers multiple ways for users to access their Windows desktops remotely via different virtualization technologies and products.
The aforementioned Remote App/Remote Desktop allows Windows users to connect to a remote Windows PC and access resources from it. On the Windows RT front, given that operating system’s restrictions on use of almost any existing Win32 applications, Remote Desktop provides a way for users to continue to use apps they already have on new hardware like the Microsoft Surface RT. Licensing of Remote Desktop and Remote Desktop Services is complex, however, and requires access to server infrastructure on the back-end.
Currently, it is not possible under Microsoft’s licensing terms to run Windows client in virtual machines hosted on Windows Azure. (The new Azure VMs do allow…
Continue to read this great blog post by Mary Jo Foley here!
//Richard
Get Started with #SharePoint Server 2013 Quickly on #Windows #Azure
Another good blog posts by Bill Baer (Microsoft) that shows how easy it is to try out SharePoint Server 2013 on Azure!
In order to remain competitive in today’s business climate you need to be able to respond to change and challenges quickly. Sometimes that means adjusting your SharePoint infrastructure on a moment’s notice to maintain a competitive advantage.
Infrastructure as a Service solves these challenges through a ready-to-use, pay as you go solution which means you can deploy in hours as opposed to days, whether you’re looking to deploy a simple SharePoint-based Internet site or to quickly provision a development environment.
SharePoint 2013 on Windows Azure Virtual Machines enables you to rapidly deploy and host your business websites on a secure, scalable cloud infrastructure.
What are Windows Azure Virtual Machines?
Windows Azure Virtual Machines enable organizations to deploy custom Windows Server images to Windows Azure. Virtual Machines provide developers complete control of the application environment and allow easy migration of existing applications to the cloud. To learn more about Windows Azure Virtual Machines see also http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/scenarios/virtual-machines/.
How can I benefit from Azure IaaS?
Business Mobility
Windows Azure Virtual Machines allow you to easily move your applications and infrastructure back and forth from on-premises to the cloud without requiring any changes to the existing code – if you’ve virtualized SharePoint 2013 in on-premises you can quickly and easily move your virtual hard drives between your datacenter and the cloud.
License Mobility
With License Mobility through Software Assurance, you can deploy certain server application licenses purchased under your Volume Licensing agreement in an Authorized Mobility Partner’s datacenter. To learn more about License Mobility see also http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/software-assurance/license-mobility.aspx . With License Mobility through Software Assurance, you can deploy certain server application licenses purchased under your Volume Licensing agreement in an Authorized Mobility Partner’s datacenter. Read more…
#Windows #Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Network now are generally available
As I use to write; THIS IS INTERESTING! I think that Microsoft will take some market share for sure with their cloud service offerings!
Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Network now are generally available. We have new prices for Virtual Machines, Virtual Network, and Cloud Services.
Today is a major milestone for Windows Azure and all of our customers and partners. We are excited to announce that Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Windows Azure Virtual Network now are generally available. We also want to update you on new prices for Virtual Machines, Virtual Network, and Cloud Services.
Virtual Machines and Virtual Network help you meet changing business needs by providing on-demand, scalable infrastructure. These infrastructure services enable you to extend your data centers and workloads into the cloud while using your existing skills and investments. With these services, you can:
- Provision Microsoft SharePoint farms in minutes without up-front hardware investments. Integrate full-trust code to run rich apps and provide Internet-facing collaboration sites.
- Prototype your newest app or extend data marts into the cloud using Virtual Machines as a robust infrastructure for Microsoft SQL Server software. Scale on demand and connect to your on-premises infrastructure using Virtual Network.
- Embrace rapid innovation using the cloud for development and test scenarios. You can spin up any test lab or sandbox quickly, and be agile in your learning, development, and prototyping.
Let’s take a closer look at the news that we are announcing today with general availability.
New high-memory instances for Virtual Machines
When your apps need more memory, new 28-gigabyte (GB) and 56-GB instances deliver.
Updated SLA
When you deploy multiple instances of Virtual Machines, Microsoft provides a financially backed 99.95 percent monthly service level agreement (SLA).
Customer support
Our customer support team is ready and available to help you troubleshoot 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have several support plans tailored to meet your needs—from basic developer support to Premier Support. When you work with Microsoft, you have a single vendor to call for cloud and on-premises needs.
Validated workloads
The best of Microsoft server products are validated to run on Virtual Machines, including Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, BizTalk Server 2013, and more. We also offer prebuilt virtual machine images—such as BizTalk Server and SQL Server—through the Windows Azure Virtual Machines Image Gallery with hourly pricing. Prebuilt Linux images—such as CentOS, Ubuntu, and Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)—are available in the Image Gallery from commercial distributors. In addition, a wide variety of the most popular open source applications are available as prebuilt images in VM Depot, a self-service community portal. Read more…
#Citrix #NetScaler 10 on Amazon Web Services – #AWS
Yes, it’s here! 🙂
Mainstream IT is fast embracing the enterprise cloud transformation and selecting the right cloud networking technologies has thus quickly emerged to be an imperative. As mainstream IT adopts IaaS (Internet as a service) cloud services, they will require a combination of the elasticity and flexibility, expected of cloud offerings and the powerful advanced networking services used within emerging enterprise cloud datacenters.
Citrix® NetScaler® 10 delivers elasticity, simplicity and expandability of the cloud to enterprise cloud datacenters and already powers the largest and most successful public clouds in the world. With NetScaler 10, Citrix delivers a comprehensive cloud network platform that mainstream enterprises can leverage to fully embrace a cloud-first network design.
Citrix and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have come together to deliver industry-leading application delivery controller technology. NetScaler on AWS delivers the same services used to ensure the availability, scalability and security of the largest public and private clouds for AWS environments. Whether the need is to optimize, secure or control delivery of enterprise and cloud services, NetScaler for AWS can help accomplish these initiatives economically, and according to business demands.
The full suite of NetScaler capabilities such as availability, acceleration, offload and security functionality is available in AWS, enabling users to leverage tried-and-true NetScaler functionality such as rewrites and redirects, content caching, Citrix Access Gateway™ Enterprise SSL VPN, and application firewall within their AWS deployments. Additional benefits include usage of Citrix CloudBridge™ and Citrix Branch Repeater™ as a joint solution.
Citrix NetScaler transforms the cloud into an extension of the datacenter by eliminating the barriers to enterprise-class cloud deployments. Together, NetScaler and AWS delivers a broad set of capabilities for the Enterprise IT:
Hybrid Cloud Environment
Hybrid clouds that span enterprise datacenters and extend into AWS can benefit from the same cloud networking platform, significantly easing…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Top 5 #Citrix #XenServer Questions from the Citrix Master Class
Below are the top 5 XenServer questions raised from the Citrix Master Class posted by Amanda Saunders!
Let’s face it, XenServer has been around for quite a while. Citrix purchased the hypervisor back in 2007 and released it entirely free to the market in 2009. Since then, we’ve seen over 1 million downloads of the product and mass adoption in all sorts of businesses from SMBs to the largest service providers. Despite all this, we had almost 700 first time attendees on our XenServer Master Class last week taking a look at what this product has to offer. The newbies were joined by 300 additional Master Class veterans who continue to return to see what we’ll be showing off this time on our British radio show inspired, tech webinar. All of the attendees joined in to keep us busy, asking hundreds of questions for our XenServer experts to answer live on the webinar. If you missed it, watch the recording and read a summary of the top questions asked by the audience.
Why are cloud providers choosing XenServer to power their clouds?
This question could have an entire blog post dedicated to it, but I will try to address it as simply as possible. Currently 80% of Citrix CloudPlatform and Apache CloudStack environments are built on top of Xen or XenServer. Why? The high level reasons are scalability and cost*.
Scalability comes from XenServer’s fully replicated architecture across all hosts in an environment. This means there is no management server required to manage a given number of hosts. Should the master host in a pool go down, any other host can be promoted to replace it with no loss of functionality or configuration. In practice, this means cloud providers can freely choose to cluster hosts as required without incurring any additional configuration or management complexity based on cluster size.
While cost is an important factor for every company to consider, it is particularly important when you’re looking at licensing hundreds or even thousands of hosts. Both the open source version of XenServer and the premium version of XenServer that is included as part of your CloudPlatform entitlement, mean cloud providers can get the virtualization layer of their cloud at no cost. These savings can then be turned into additional differentiated service offerings or added savings to their end user.
*other reasons include open source base, flexibility, VM density and tenant isolation.
XenMotion, what is it and is it free?
We have a competitor in the space who likes to use “v” in a lot of their feature names. A good rule of thumb to find the corresponding feature in XenServer is to replace “v” with “Xen”. XenMotion is our live migration feature that allows you to move VMs from one host in a pool to another provided that the pool has shared storage attached. This has been available in our free version since 2009.
Storage XenMotion is a brand new feature that we released with XenServer 6.1. This feature enables you to move VMs between hosts without the requirement of shared storage which lessens the hardware requirement/expense for both cloud providers using commodity hardware and SMBs with smaller environments. Storage XenMotion is available in our advanced version of XenServer.
Is there an easy way to get support for my environment, even if I’m running on free?
For those of you running a premium edition of XenServer (Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum) we recently changed our support model to offer unlimited, 24×7 support for paid editions of XenServer at about 7% of license cost. What does this mean to the free users out there? Well, it means you can no longer purchase support from Citrix for your XenServer environment. That being said, in addition to the incredible support you can get on the forums, we’ve also introduced a new Citrix Auto Support tool that can do a sanity check of your environment. Simply upload a log file and we’ll check for any issues that we recognize including missing patches, known bugs or configuration errors. This tool can be used for both free or paid editions, so try it out for yourself at http://taas.citrix.com.
What is MonitorIT?
A big thank you to our friends at Goliath Technologies who demoed their brand new version of MonitorIT on our XenServer Master Class. This solution delivers proactive monitoring of your entire environment right out of XenCenter or directly from a browser. What do we mean by “entire environment”? Virtual servers, physical servers, VDI, applications, databases, log management, network, storage, data center components, workstations – EVERYTHING! Do you have multiple hypervisors in your environment? Monitor your vSphere clusters straight from your XenCenter console using this product. You can go one step further and have MonitorIT proactively make changes to alleviate bottlenecks in your environment so the business can keep doing business without interruption. Don’t take my word for it, check out their free trial for yourself. They’ve even opened up their early access program so you can access all the great new features that…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
The IT Melting Pot! 