Citrix XenServer Competition for VMware February 22, 2008
Posted by roxiecat in Citrix, Industry Directions, Industry Vendors/Technologies, Microsoft, VMware, Virtualisation.Tags: Citrix, Citrix Presentation Server, VMware, XenServer
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Citrix have now released XenServer part of their Citrix Delivery suite, is this product going to be a real competitor to VMware I am hoping so but time will tell. Some of the advantages I see with this path Citrix are taking is that they now have a set of products which covers a very good range of customers requirements.
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Virtualising applications with Citrix Presentation server been around forever and a day
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Virtualising desktops, Citrix got in to this market a couple of years ago initially with their Desktop Broker product which essentially just acted as a nice interface between the desktop and VMWare hosting the virtual desktops nice but not a must have. This changed to Desktop Server last year with a few enhancements and less need to rely on VMWare but still not a complete product. Now called XenDesktop and used in conjunction with XenServer no requirement for VMware (according to Citrix anyway).
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Application streaming – with the release of Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 they introduced things such as application streaming up against the likes of Softricity, it appears okay but haven’t seen many customers using this function yet
Newest introduction is XenServer direct competitor is VMWare (and possibly MS Virtual Server) looking at the initial write ups it looks pretty good its based on the Xen hypervisor model so very efficient they have different flavours which follows their existing model (platinum, enterprise, standard etc).
One of the things I quite like is that their management interface does not require a dedicated server it can just be hosted on a desktop from what I’ve seen it looks to have all the functions you’d expect of a management interface, is it useful or easy to use that I’ve yet to see it operational as I’m yet to download my free version and try it out. Its free though you don’t pay for it unlike the VMware console so thats a good thing.
While I don’t necessarily believe that one vendor fits all in this case I think Citrix have done the right thing virtualising the server platform is almost a natural evolution for them given they were trying to virtualise most other things as well. I’d just like to see some real competition in the market against VMware not because I don’t like their products they are very good and well established but just because like anything competition is good.
Price wise looks on par Enterprise edition perpetual cost is US$2600 2 sockets and $400 annual subscription so pricing wise it should compete very nicely with VM, I haven’t seen Platinum Edition pricing but the only obvious difference between it and Enterprise is the ability to Dynamically provision virtual and physical servers so cost wise shouldn’t be far off Enterprise.
The last bit which I think is just wonderful now that Citrix have their own virtualised server product they are quite happy to state that they will support and recommend virtualising Citrix Presentation Server something funnily enough you could never get out of them when it was either Microsoft Virtual Server or VMware.
Opalis Run Book Automation for VMWare (vs Opsware) January 30, 2008
Posted by Joined TCG Effort in Automation, ITIL, Opalis, Opsware, VMware, Virtualisation.Tags: ITIL, Opalis, Opsware, RBA, Run Book Automation
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Last year several of us attended presentations ran by Opalis both in Sydney and Melbourne and called “Tech Workshop: Operational Readiness for VMware and/or ITIL”. Having some time on the hands another chat compilation has been created:
Kelley Johnston: I thought this workshop was going to just be another VMWare product conference where a new version of VMWare was to be announced. It was, and somewhere around election day a nice bit of VMWare VS-O product will surface. Cool, but honestly not earth-shaking. Essentially (a) You will soon be able to boot VMWare hypervisor on a blank system from a thumb drive, and (b) Dell, IBM and HP will now let you buy servers with the VMWare Hypervisor in firmware, on the motherboard, supported by new chipsets from Intel. Worth seeing for the free orange juice, maybe.However, in my opinion VMWare was completely upstaged by a product called Opalis Integration Server that implements what Gartner calls “RBA” (Run Book Automation) with a very comprehensive end-to-end data centre workflow orchestration tool. It doesn’t just document or design work, it does work, as in actually scripts and runs the tasks for you.This is a graphic tool that allows you to develop workflows in the data centre, and it rides on top of some of our old favorites like HP Openview, BMC Patrol, Tivoli, MS SMS, Legato, Symantec, FTP etc. (many etc’s). You grab an icon, draw connectors (interface objects), assign servers (or clone a VMWare instance) and other parameters, move files or trigger other events all via a graphic icon-based UI full of nifty icons that click into object interfaces into products commonly associated with ITIL processes. You can also define your own interface to anything that supports SOAP/WSDL web services.
What does this mean?
It means you can define repeatable ITIL processes and automate them, cut down DC operational costs and improve quality. I mean it.
In just one example, an operational event such as a Tivoli or HP Openview incident can be grabbed by Opalis which can do stuff with it — send emails, configure a new VMWare server after grabbing a configuration from a CMDB, perhaps swap VMX instances, do specific file copies via FTP, do a backup, manage and perform a recovery, add an AD user, run a cron job on some other Solaris server, keep a BMC Patrol support desk incident up to date, acknowledge an Openview event, reset a server, reset a user password, etc etc. and all within a single named RBA process. And you can have processes call other processes, like little reusable ITIL scriptlets.
It’s almost like having a graphic programming language for all those hundreds of little things you do in a data centre. You can also use it as an engine for defining a complex cross-platform workflow that describes say, 90% of a supply chain integration workflow using pre-existing components. I suspect this product will grow beyond the data centre myself — check with me in a year on this.
I’d give the product at least 4 out of 5 stars just from the demo (even allowing for demo deviltry). Very much worth a look. Here’s a nifty screen shot to help, just below. http://www.opalis.com .
Justin Hobson: Seems very interesting, but I just remembered that Opsware is supposed to be a global standard for this kind of toolset.
Either tool aside, these tools are usually great for automating processes, reducing the number of errors when it’s done manually and provided a definable and documented process.
On the flip side though, they are usually costly to implement and as such the most value comes from when they can be deployed in a traditional outsourced environment. e.g. with a structured network that hierarchically connects all out clients back to a central “Manager of Manager (MoM)” type networks, from where all our clients can be managed, with fewer engineers/servers etc.
Without such a backbone we would otherwise end up seeing many disconnected instances of these tools, that will mean increased complexity, licensing costs etc, and whilst bringing some benefits to us/our clients.
Kelley Johnston: It’s a very interesting field. Opsware is good too (incidentally it was acquired by HP in July this year). Would be interesting to see a shootout of Opsware vs Opalis. The latter product is considerably newer, looked very easy to use, very visual and coherent approach, and is apparently gaining market share as well as having being voted “Best of TechEd 2007″. So it’s gaining street cred, even if it doesn’t have the track record of Opsware.
This raises the question — do we keep with the standard or do we evaluate this upstart to see if it does a better job at managing DC operational costs? Standards are good, but you have to weigh a product on the same scales our customers would use, and a better / newer product sometimes comes along that can achieve a better ROI. We’re in this for our customers, not our selves, and they pay the bills. We have to continuously look to improve our offers or our customers will do end-arounds on us.
Technology moves awfully fast. In my experience “easier” generally equates to “cheaper”, so I wonder if the product has improvements that address some of the concerns you mention (I’m not an Opsware guru). As you say, though, either product has got to be better than chasing ops processes by hand. An alternative product might also be attractive to customers who are aligned differently from the HP camp, too. I’d say the best advice is “watch this space”, because Gartner seems to have RBA on its radar now and they’re um, reasonably influential.
PS: http://www.byteandswitch.com/document.asp?doc_id=116542
Turns out the CEO of Opalis (Todd DeLaughter) is ex HP GM of the OpenView product line.
Ex HP exec jumps ship to chair a product firm, HP buys competing product.
Citrix versus Riverbed Steelhead WDS January 18, 2008
Posted by Joined TCG Effort in Citrix, Desktop, Riverbed, Virtualisation.Tags: packeteer, Softgrid, Softricity, Steelhead, WAN Compression
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This time it all started following a meeting with Riverbed sales reps in Sydney and Steve Orkbi throwing at us a couple of links about the recent move by Mirvac. Here is the chat summary:
Steve Orkibi: You may have seen these already, but there have been a couple of interesting articles recently relating to Mirvac’s decision to move from a Citrix-based solution to a Riverbed WDS solution for their regional sites.
Here is the original article: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/AU-100K-switch-to-Riverbed-connects-Mirvac-staff/0,130061791,339284174,00.htm
An the follow-up article by Citrix: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Citrix-hits-back-at-unworkable-CAD-accusation/0,130061733,339284298,00.htm
Angela Eksteen: Riverbed would be my choice for WAN compression very good for cross Data Centre connectivity I know they have small units suitable for small offices not sure how cost effective it is though although given the price of Citrix now I’d probably even go TS over Citrix (once Longhorn is released).
Kirk Downey: Perhaps for DC to DC, but Packeteer also does Wan Compression. For branch offices, though, Packeteer’s black box runs W2003 native, so you can not only push file storage back to the DC, you can also replace local Domain controllers, exchange nodes, file and print, etc with the same black box. For branch office apps, you can get the same product as software (opposed to black box) meaning you can do all of the above on a single site server, but also run virtual sessions on the same box to run business apps. Net result is a consolidation to a single component for branch and/or remote offices. Couple this with some decent bare metal deployment technology such as altiris or SMS and you can deploy and/or recover remotely. This is the interesting thing I was referring to. I used packeteer in the UK for large regional offices and call centres <…>
Angela Eksteen: They all have their uses I expect. Riverbed offer similar sort of functionality as packeteer and they have small units designed for branch and home offices. <…> I suppose it comes down to what best fits what the customer wish to do.
Kelley Johnston: Citrix used to be sold as a way to preserve investment in desktop infrastructure. Considering the drop in desktop PC prices over the last few years and their much larger capacity since Citrix hit its peak and the rise in browser-based applications, is Citrix going to have to re-invent itself in order to survive? I can’t see that original argument holding a lot of weight any more. Unless that question is answered I wouldn’t be comfortable making any long term investments in the Citrix camp. Not because their product wouldn’t fit the bill, but because the above issue might compromise their stability as a company.
Jonathan Hambrook: I would agree 100% with Kelley, Citrix is holding onto market share, the new version have little new technology and from person experience the only cost benefits I have seen are:
1. When your users have 1 or 2 applications they use to perform their job. If this is the case the amount saved on software and hardware would be a benefit. However if they require specific applications and one off’s then this is where the expense can be an equivalent to that of a desktop/laptop with out their benefits.
2. When you need to deliver a standard set of applications over a small pipe. Great for branch offices etc.
Having said that their product is good, the last environment I was exposed to it had 1500 desktop users running a Citrix desktop off WISE terminals. However this was in insurance and all those customers only used Email, Word (Letters/Faxes) Web Browser and Insurance Policy Application. Simple and cheap for the masses, they never worked from home or needed to store data locally.
John Rose: Besides potentially reducing hardware costs or minimising desktop refresh the biggest selling point for Citrix is reduction in operational costs specifically in the area of SOE management. Instead of deploying and managing multiple end points and dealing with subsequent sociability issues a central philosophy was supposed to reduce effort but in my experience this wasn’t always the case. Administrators seemed to have lots of problems coming to terms with the rigours involved with managing a multi-user environment. Overtime the number of users per server would reduce and cost savings and stability evaporate. Many IT decision makers were burned when business case and justifications fizzled!
Things have improved markedly with introduction of isolation tools and experience however this has also led to the biggest shift from traditional Citrix. Application sociability absorbs much of the effort that goes into the development and change management of a desktop or Citrix SOE. Many third-parties came into this space attempting to fulfil a need. Initially isolation tools allowed previously unsociable applications to cohabitate reducing total number of servers required in a farm.
Softricity went further and actually managed to virtualise applications so they could run in their own separate space. With the likelihood for application conflicts removed a major reduction in the sociability testing effort associated with application packaging/deployment resulted. Better yet this type of application virtualisation allows a client to continue running an application even if the publishing server is not available. This was another problem for traditional Citrix, all eggs in one basket. Cheap hardware coupled with excellent SOE development methodologies such as Business Desktop Deployment and the desktop SOE became attractive when compared to traditional Citrix.
Of course Microsoft purchased Softricity and will rebrand Softgrid Microsoft Application Virtualisation. Incidentally Citrix also has an application virtualisation solution bundled into its suite and considering it already has an established base of users I’d have expected to have heard more about this offering. I suspect that the Citrix brand is too entrenched into the traditional application publishing architecture and the market is being attracted to big blue and especially the pioneer application virtualisation product. MAV is only available to Microsoft EA customers that purchase Desktop Optimisation Pack licenses which off hand are around $15 per seat, not cheap but inexpensive when compared to sociability testing.
Bottom line for me is Citrix is being hurt by market perception and a major reduction in the costs associated with managing desktops and provisioning decent WAN links. I have no idea how I have ended up with this conclusion based on Steve’s original thread, but there you go!
