- Why OpenStack is much more than just hype
- A summary of key OpenStack technologies
- Why to consider converged infrastructure for building private clouds
- The right way to scale-out OpenStack deployments
Watch the webinar here!
//Richard
Archive
Posts Tagged ‘design’
#Citrix #XenMobile 10 news – #MDM, #MAM, #EMM, #Mobility, #BYOD
January 13, 2015
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Citrix have released a couple of good blog posts on the new version of XenMobile 10:
Ten Benefits XenMobile 10 Offers To Channel Partners
XenMobile 10 marks the simplification milestone in our Enterprise Mobility Management journey. Today, at Summit Las Vegas we are happy to announce the release of XenMobile 10. XenMobile brings great benefits for both end users and IT administrators.
And here are ten benefits I can think of, from the top of my head that XenMobile 10 brings to our Citrix channel partners:
- Better for Business:
With the 20+ enterprise workflow efficiencies and design improvements that enable business users’ productivity on smartphones and tablets, XenMobile is focused on empowering mobile users. With Citrix’s dedicated focus on user experience, the Worx apps and the Worx Gallery apps are designed to enable enterprise user workflows.
- Enterprise-grade Product: XenMobile architecture is built for complex and sophisticated network topologies that exist in a typical large enterprise with its offices and users across the world.
- Consolidated Architecture: XenMobile 10 integrates the mobile device and application management consoles along with some NetScaler Gateway controls, into one product. This consolidated architecture in this release makes it easy to use and deploy thereby ensuring our channel partners remain successful in their service engagements.
- Intuitive Dashboard:XenMobile 10 brings a fresh look with the redesign of the administrative dashboard. Channel partners can now manage and deploy XenMobile with a complete understanding of the deployments.
- Faster Deployment: With the consolidated architecture for mobile device and application management along with the additional controls for NetScaler Gateway, the deployment time with XenMobile 10 is reduced by 75%!
- Mobile User Workflows: True Mobility is about enabling the user not with a bunch of applications, but with the applications that let the user get their job done without exhaustingly navigating through multiple apps. XenMobile has always focused on enabling user workflows; XenMobile 10 now delivers additional enhancements to allow the end users remain productive without having to be tethered a specific device or a location.
- Automation: We recently announced the automation of APNS Certificate Signing process with which partners can now renew the APNS certificates for their customers. The concept of automation is now extended to ISV partners’ self-verification of their wrapped applications and a self-service portal for end users that allows them to location, track and wipe their lost/stolen device themselves.
- Faster Migration: With the migration tools that will be released for XenMobile 10, channel partners can easily migrate the existing XenMobile customers.
- Security and best-in-class User Experience: Traditionally, security and user experience of products never coexisted. However, XenMobile is proud to bear an exception for this norm by delivering an end user experience that is Better For Business without compromising security. XenMobile offers end-to-end FIPS compliant solution for mobility.
- Specialization Benefits:…
Categories: All, Citrix, Mobility, XenMobile
10, APNS, apps, Architecture, Citrix, Dashboard, design, EMM, enterprise, Enterprise Mobility Management, experience, Gallery, iOS, MAM, MDM, mobile device, productivity apps, ShareFile, workflows, Worx, XenMobile
Cloud Platform Integration Framework–Overview – #Microsoft, #IaaS, #PaaS, #CPIF
January 11, 2015
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Another great blog series from Thomas W Shinder – MSFT and contributors!
The Cloud Platform Integration Framework (CPIF) provides workload integration guidance for onboarding applications into a Microsoft Cloud Solution. CPIF describes how organizations, Microsoft Partners and Solution Integrators should design and deploy Cloud-targeted workloads utilizing the hybrid cloud platform and management capabilities of Azure, System Center and Windows Server
Table of Contents
1.1 Cloud Platform Integration Framework (CPIF) Overview
2 Azure Architectural Pattern Concepts
2.1 Overview of Azure Architectural Patterns
Prepared by:
Joel Yoker – Microsoft
David Ziembicki – Microsoft
Tom Shinder – Microsoft
Cloud Platform Integration Framework Overview and Patterns:
Cloud Platform Integration Framework – Overview and Architecture
Modern Datacenter Architecture Patterns-Multi-Site Data Tier
Modern Datacenter Architecture Patterns – Offsite Batch Processing Tier
Modern Datacenter Architecture Patterns-Global Load Balanced Web Tier
Introduction
1.1 Cloud Platform Integration Framework (CPIF) Overview
The Cloud Platform Integration Framework (CPIF) provides workload integration guidance for onboarding applications into a 
Microsoft Cloud Solution. CPIF describes how organizations, Microsoft Partners and Solution Integrators should design and deploy Cloud-targeted workloads utilizing the hybrid cloud platform and management capabilities of Azure, System Center and Windows Server. The CPIF domains have been decomposed into the following functions:
Figure 1: Cloud Platform Integration Framework
By integrating these functions directly into workloads….
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Categories: All, Azure, Cloud, Hyper-V, Infrastructure, Microsoft, Networking, Storage
Architecture, Cloud, Cloud Platform Integration, Cloud Platform Integration Framework, CPIF, design, Fabric, Fabric Management, Load balancing, Microsoft Cloud, Microsoft Partners, Networking, private, public, Server, System Center, Tier, windows
Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Foundations – #IaaS, #Cloud, #PaaS, #Microsoft, #Azure
January 11, 2015
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This series of blog posts by Thomas W Shinder – MSFT and contributors is really great and do cover the best practises and principles behind building Microsoft based private or hybrid IaaS services. Have a look at their great work!
The goal of the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Foundations series is to help enterprise IT departments and cloud service providers understand, develop, and implement IaaS infrastructures. This series provides comprehensive conceptual background that combines Microsoft software, consolidated guidance, and validated configurations with partner technologies such as compute, network, and storage architectures, in addition to value-added software features.
The IaaS Foundations Series utilizes the core capabilities of the Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system, Hyper-V, System Center 2012 R2, Windows Azure Pack and Microsoft Azure to deliver on-premises and hybrid cloud Infrastructure as a Service.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Foundations (this article)
Chapter 2: Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Compute Foundations
Chapter 3: Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Network Foundations
Chapter 4: Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Storage Foundations
Chapter 5: Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Virtualization Platform Foundations
Chapter 6: Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Design Patterns–Overview
Chapter 7: Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Foundations—Converged Architecture Pattern
Chapter 8: Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Foundations-Software Defined Architecture Pattern
Chapter 9: Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Foundations-Multi-Tenant Designs
Microsoft Infrastructure as a Service Foundations is written and presented in a way that enables architects, designers, implementers and operators to view the content that is most relevant to them. Some readers will choose the read the entire “book”, while others will focus on areas that are most interesting and relevant to them.
At this time, the Microsoft IaaS Foundations “book” is available in web format only. In the coming days, individual files (one for each chapter) and a single file that represents a compilation of all the chapters, will be made available for download. A link to these files will be included in this article, and in each of the articles included in this “book”.
The world of cloud computing moves quickly and the underlying technologies supporting the infrastructure that powers the cloud change and improve just as fast. For this reason, each of the chapters includes a published date and the versions of the software that are discussed in the text. For non-versioned software and services (such as Microsoft Azure), a note of “feature set and capabilities as of…” date is included.
Your feedback is crucial
A lot of time, energy and expense goes…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Categories: All, Azure, Hyper-V, Infrastructure, Microsoft, Networking, Storage
Azure, Cloud, compute, design, hybrid, Hyper-V, Infrastructure, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, multi, network, on-premise, private, public, SC, SCCM, storage, System Center, Tenant
OpenStack and Nutanix – perfect match! (perfect with VMware and Microsoft as well of course) – #Nutanix, #OpenStack, #IaaS
May 2, 2014
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This is a good post by Dwayne Lessner around how perfect match OpenStack and Nutanix is (not just OpenStack of course, Nutanix rocks with VMware and Microsoft as well)!
Nutanix NDFS also provides an advanced and unique feature set for OpenStack based
private clouds. Key features include:
- Simplicity – The same great platform that simplified your virtualisation deployment can simplify the compute and storage deployment for key OpenStack services (Glance, Nova, Horizon, Keystone, Neutron, Cinder, and Swift)
- Single Scalable Fabric – NDFS provides a single fabric for data storage that integrates seamlessly with OpenStack services. NDFS-based storage is easy to provision, manage, and operate at scale.
- Hypervisor Agnostic – Just like OpenStack, Nutanix NDFS was designed from the ground up to be hypervisor agnostic. Nutanix enables customers to choose between KVM, Hyper-V, and the VMware ESXi hypervisor for deployments of OpenStack.
- Enterprise Ready – Nutanix enables a full set of enterprise storage features including Elastic Deduplication, Compression, In-Memory and Flash-based Caching, VM-Data Locality, intelligent Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), Snapshots, Fast Clones, and Live Migration.
Read more here.
Here you also have the link to the webinar with topic:
Building OpenStack on a Single 2U Appliance
OpenStack promises to be the open source cloud operating system. Automated provisioning and management of network, server and storage resource via a single dashboard is great, but how can you get the same one-stop-shop simplicity for the underlying infrastructure?Attend this advanced private cloud webinar and learn:
Categories: All, Cloud, Infrastructure, Nutanix, OpenStack, Storage
Cinder, Cloud, computing, deployment, design, ESXi, Glance, Horizon, Hyper-V, hypervisor, IaaS, Information Lifecycle Management, Keystone, KVM, Life-cycle, Microsoft, NDFS, Nova, Nutanix, Nutanix NDFS, OpenStack, perfect match OpenStack, Platform, private, private clouds, Swift, Virtual, VM, VMWare
#XenDesktop 7.1 on #Hyper-V Pilot Guide! – #Citrix
February 19, 2014
1 comment
This is a great PoC guide, some thing I would have done differently in detail but overall great work!
You’ve heard of XenDesktop 7.1, experienced a demo and worked through the Reviewer’s Guide. Now where do you turn when you’re ready for a PoC, pilot and preparations for a full-scale rollout?
Here on the Citrix Readiness and Enablement Team, we’re always looking for ways to empower our customers to be successful on their projects. To this end, we’ve taken one of our most popular hands-on lab guides used to train hundreds of internal and external students and reworked it for consumption by the masses. The XenDesktop 7.1 on Hyper-V Pilot Guide can be download fromhttps://citrix.sharefile.com/d/scaa256260df4ab3b. In this guide we cover the following topics with step-by-step instructions and screenshots:
– Configuring System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Installing the Agent
– Setting Up SQL Server Mirroring for a XenDesktop site
– Setting up the XenDesktop Site
– Joining a Controller to an Existing Site
– Configuring StoreFront and Installing Certificates
– Configuring NetScaler for StoreFront Load Balancing
– Installing the VDA Software on Desktop and Server VMs
– Creating Catalogs of Machine for Desktops and Servers
– Creating Delivery Groups for Desktops and Servers
– Delivering Installed and App-V Applications
– Provisioning Services Configuration and Optimizations
– Using the XenDesktop Setup Wizard
– Setting up Remote Access with NetScaler and StoreFront
– Internal and External Connectivity Scenarios
– Load Evaluator Policies
– Monitoring with Director
– Exploring Configuration Logging
– Exploring Delegated Administration
– Working with PowerShell
And much more!
Take a look through the document and let us know your thoughts…
IMPORTANT: This guide is designed to be used as a reference for building PoC and/or pilot environments. Production environments should always be…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Categories: All, Citrix, Hyper-V, XenDesktop
administration, agent, App-V, Architecture, Citrix, controller, design, Guide, Hyper-V, Load balancing, logging, NetScaler, Poc, policies, powershell, Remote access, SCCM, site, SQL, StoreFront, System Center, VDA, Virtual Machine Manager, VMM, XenDesktop, XML
Sizing #XenDesktop 7 App Edition VMs – #Citrix
November 5, 2013
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A good update on VM sizing by Daniel Feller!
In the Mobilizing Windows applications for 500 users design guide, we made the recommendation to allocate 8vCPUs for each virtual XenDesktop 7 App Edition host (formerly known as XenApp). Spreading this out across a server with two Intel Xeon E5-2690 @2.9GHz processors and 192 GB of RAM, we were yielding about 200 users per physical server and roughly 50 users per virtual server.
Of course, the design guide is the end result of a lot of testing by the Citrix Solutions Lab. During the tests, we had the Solutions Lab compare many (and I mean many) different configurations where they changed the number of vCPU, RAM size, and RAM allocation (dynamic/static) as well as a few other things. All of these tests were done with Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V. We ended up with the following:
A few interesting things:
- Dynamic vs static RAM in Hyper-V appeared to have little, if any, impact on overall scalability. The only time when the RAM allocation had a negative impact was when not enough RAM was allocated (no surprise there).
- The 8vCPU and the 4vCPU configurations resulted in very similar user concurrency levels. Get ready… The battle is about to begin as to whether we should use 8 or 4 vCPU. (Is anyone else besides me having flashbacks to 2009?)
A few years ago, we debated about using 2vCPU or 4vCPU for XenApp 5 virtual machines. A few years later, the debate is resurfacing but this time, the numbers have doubled: 4 or 8. Here is what you should be thinking about… VMs are getting bigger because the hardware is getting faster, RAM is getting cheaper and the hypervisors are getting better…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Categories: All, Citrix, XenDesktop
Citrix, Citrix Solutions Lab, CPU, cRAM, density, design, design guide, Hyper-V, Intel Xeon, performance, physical, RAM, scalability, Sizing, Solutions Lab, total, User, vCPU, virtual server, VM, Windows applications, XenApp, XenDesktop
Citrix Project Accelerator updated – #XenDesktop
October 28, 2013
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“Customize My Design”, the Design release of Project Accelerator is here! We listened to your feedback and have delivered the ability to change FlexCast, application delivery, profiles and over 30 other decisions for your XenDesktop architecture. Across these decisions you will now be able to:
- Tailor your design to fit organizational and end user needs
- Visualize how your design “tweaks” affect hardware sizing and architecture
- On-the-fly comparison of Citrix Recommendations to your design decisions
- Review “Architect Comments”, guidance from the Citrix experts for each Decision
“Customize my Design” is the next step for Project Accelerator; the application that simplifies getting your XenDesktop, XenApp, or XenClient deployment done successfully the first time. It’s the Citrix environment where customers, partners, and Citrites can design a desktop virtualization project that more closely suits their business priorities, end user needs, and organizational preferences. And it is back-stopped by the real-world experience of Citrix Consulting, so you can use the results in your project.
Check it out right now or read more about what Project Accelerator can do for you here. Then tell us what you like, and let us…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Categories: All, Citrix, XenDesktop
7, Accelerator, application delivery, Architecture, Citrix, design, Project, Project Accelerator, XenDesktop
#Ericsson to build three Global #ICT Centers
September 3, 2013
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This is really cool!
- High-tech, sustainable global ICT Centers to support R&D and Services organizations to bring innovation faster to the market
- Two centers located in Europe; one in North America
- Another step in providing industry leading cloud-enabled technology
- Also establishing a new R&D hardware design building in Stockholm
Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) is planning to invest approximately SEK 7 billion in the coming five years to build three global ICT Centers. Two will be located in Sweden, in Stockholm and Linköping, while the third one, in North America, will be located in Canada, in Montreal, Quebec.
The centers will be located close to Ericsson’s main R&D hubs and will be the new platform for more than 24,000 Ericsson R&D engineers around the world, supporting their lean and agile ways of working. Team of experts will be able to collaborate beyond borders more easily and efficiently.
Ericsson’s customers will also be able to connect remotely for interoperability testing, trials and will have early access to innovation on new business services in real-time from the comfort of their locations.
The three ICT Centers combined will be up to 120,000 square meters, approximately the size of 14 football fields. The new centers will house the company’s complete portfolio, enabling the R&D organization to develop and verify solutions, creating the foundation for the next generation technology and cloud-based services.
Hans Vestberg, President and CEO, Ericsson, says: “The new ICT Centers are examples of Ericsson’s passion for driving the development of the industry. Great ideas come from collaboration, and at these centers we will push the boundaries of possibility on next generation technology and services. Flexibility enabled by new ways of working will realize innovation faster to the market and to our customers.”
The centers will have a leading-edge design, built in a modular and scalable way, securing an efficient use of resources and space adaptable to the business needs. Ericsson estimates that the combination of architecture, design and locations will reduce energy consumption up to 40 percent. This significant reduction in carbon footprint is instrumental in Ericsson’s vision of a more sustainable future.
The two ICT Centers in Sweden will begin initial operations from end of 2013 and from end of 2014 respectively and the North American ICT Center from early 2015.
The new hardware design building in Stockholm, Sweden, will provide similar benefits as the global ICT Centers in use of equipment and energy savings. It will enable R&D hardware design activities in Stockholm to consolidate into one modern creative environment…..
Continue reading here!
Categories: All, Cloud
canada, customer, data center, datacenter, design, development, engineer, Ericsson, generation technology, hardware, ICT, montreal quebec, new business services, R&D, software, Solutions, Sweden, Technology
NEW #Citrix Apps and Desktops certifications – #CCIA, #CCE, #CCA, #XenDesktop
August 8, 2013
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Ok, Citrix has now released the new certifications! Have a look, plan, study and take them! 😉
Now in Beta and launching live in early Q4 – a new solutions-focused certification program designed to validate IT professional skills for strategic app and desktop solutions in support of Citrix XenDesktop 7.
- Citrix Certified Associate – Apps and Desktops (CCA-AD) validates the skills IT operators and administrators need to manage, maintain, monitor and troubleshoot XenDesktop 7 solutions.
- Prepare with the Managing Citrix XenDesktop 7 Solutions training course.
- Pass the Managing Citrix XenDesktop 7 Solutions exam.
- Citrix Certified Professional – Apps and Desktops (CCP-AD) validates the skills experienced IT solution builders, such as engineers and consultants, need to install, configure and roll out common XenDesktop 7 solutions.
- Obtain the CCA-AD certification.
- Prepare with the Deploying Citrix XenDesktop 7 Solutions training course.
- Pass the Deploying Citrix XenDesktop 7 Solutions exam.
- Citrix Certified Expert – Apps and Desktops (CCE-AD) validates the skills experienced IT solution designers, such as architects, engineers and consultants need to assess and design comprehensive XenDesktop 7 solutions.
- Obtain the CCP-AD certification.
- Prepare with the Designing Citrix XenDesktop 7 Solutions training course .
- Pass the Designing Citrix XenDesktop 7 Solutions exam.
Update Paths
We have a simple transition path for you.
CCIAs and CCEEs may update to the new equivalent level by passing only one exam. Eligibility to update will require an unexpired credential. The update path for existing CCIAs and CCEEs will be available until this first version of the CCE-AD or CCP-AD exams are retired. We will provide 3 months notice of any changes to the update requirements or update path availability.
Existing Citrix Certified Administrators (CCAs) and Citrix…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Categories: All, Citrix, XenApp, XenDesktop, XenServer
Administation, administration, apps, building, CCE, CCEA, CCEE, CCIA, CCP, certification, Citrix, deploying, design, desktop, exam, expert, managing, new certifications, professional, professional apps, software, solution, Technology, transition path, Upgrade, XenApp, XenDesktop
#Citrix #XenDesktop 7 released – #RTW, #BYOD, #HSD, #VDI
June 26, 2013
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Ok, it’s here! The official release is now available for everyone!
There are tons of blog posts and materials already out there and some great features as well that comes with this new release from Citrix. If you haven’t already played with the Excalibur release and know about them I suggest that you start evaluating and testing now!
Here are some good links to have a look at:
- XenDesktop 7 Overview
- XenDesktop 7 Feature matrix
- Excalibur is XenDesktop 7: what does this mean for XenApp and XenDesktop customers?
- XenDesktop 7: Upgrade & migration paths for XenDesktop and XenApp customers
- XenDesktop 7: AppDNA and Platinum Activation
- Reference Architecture: Director and EdgeSight
- XenDesktop 7 edocs – Documentation
- XenDesktop 7 Admin Guide
- XenDesktop 7 Upgrade Guide
- XenDesktop 7 Install Guide
Enjoy! 🙂
//Richard
Categories: All, AppDNA, BYOD, Citrix, CloudGateway, Provisioning Services, Receiver, StoreFront, XenApp, XenDesktop, XenServer
7, admin, AppDNA, Architecture, Citrix, design, Director, EdgeSight, feature, feature matrix, FMA, Guide, IMA, install, Machine Creation Services, matrix, MCS, migration paths, Provisioning Services, PVS, released, software, StoreFront, Technology, Upgrade, XenApp, XenDesktop, XenDesktop 7
The IT Melting Pot! 