Citrix Synergy starts tomorrow in San Francisco. From wednesday 12 may till friday 14 may all updates, new features and other news is presented to the public. One thing that’s excites me most is the upcoming XenClient, a baremetal hypervisor.
Combined with a VDI solution like XenDesktop the XenClients enables the customer to take the VM outside the datacenter en get it onto his desktop / laptop using his local resources. Altough this sounds a bit like we were used to work, and in fact it is, there is a big difference.
First of all there is the ease of deployment. Because there’s another layer between the the hardware and the OS, the hypervisor, al lot of the driver issues are gone. Because most of the drivers are generic because of the “VM hardware” there’s no need to create seperate images for different hardware or platforms like desktop / laptops. Besides the deployment the compatibility between the drivers is the same for all machines, so no more searching for updated drivers for each type of machine (not that we having…).
Another big difference is the possibility of checking in and out of the VM’s. Both Citrix as VMware are working of these features as part of there VDI solution.
The big thing, in my opinion, is that you’re able to use your desktop on any machine. And with desktop I mean you’re personal desktop running in an operating system, not the metal box with the wires attached.
Imagine the possibilities you, and you’re business, have gained!
Everyone can work everywhere. It doesn’t matter on which machine you’re working, as long as the machine has a network connection and enough resources for the work you’re doing you’re fine. No longer you’re depending on a specific software installation on a machine or specific configuration or domain membership…
No think about the IT consultants and there laptops. Do they / I still need (a) laptop(s)?
Well not really I guess. All you need is a machine with a connection to the datacenter and you’re able to load you’re “desktop” onto the machine. Desktop, laptop or through a remote connection (RDP/ICA/?) in the datacenter.
(Is this the solution to the traffic problem?)
Another possibility that excites me is this. When settings up a LoadTest with, for example, the DeNamiK LoadGen you need some LoadBots. These machines are the bots which host the user sessions and are controlled by a central machine, the Director in this example. Preferably you want these machines to be clean, withough garbage and all types of system management, so you get the most performance without interruption (and mixes signals in your measurement). And of course they need to be configured properly with a ICA/RDP client, time settings, etc. etc.
If all those machines can come out of a server, whether is from the datacenter or my laptop, the deployment and configuration of those machines are done within minutes. And the best thing is that they are compatible with a lot of machines (if they match the HCL of XenClient) and they are unaffected. So when you’re done performing test, just reboot them and they are regular workstations again.
I’m excited 🙂
Ingmar Verheij
Nederlands 
English