If you're addicted to virtualization.info like me you'll have seen the announcement by Alessandro Perilli that the industry's first vendor neutral virtualization conference, Virtualization Congress 2009, will be hosted virtualization.info in Las Vegas at the same time as Citrix Synergy 2009 - May 4-8 2009.

Alessandro's goals for the Virtualization Congress are to make it the industry's premier showcase for virtualization technology, products and business strategy.   If you're under the illusion that VMware's VMworld serves that purpose today, you probably also failed to notice that at VMworld even gold sponsors (like Citrix and Microsoft) are only offered one opportunity to present at the conference, and that 99% of the sessions are dedicated to VMware's technology and products.  Indeed at VMworld in Las Vegas in 2008 I found that my session was somehow miraculously scheduled to occur in the last hour of the last day in the meeting room furthest from the elevators and escalators, and with barely enough seating.  The Microsoft folks complained of similar treatment.  (The highlight of the show for me was the huge showing of the press, who afforded Citrix generous coverage for the launch of Citrix XenServer 5).

So, will Virtualization Congress 2009 be a Citrix copy of VMworld?   Absolutely not.  Indeed Citrix has no influence or control over  the Virtualization Congress program whatsoever.   Alessandro and his independent program committee (which does not have any representation from Citrix), together with the readers of virtualization.info, will independently develop their agenda, select speakers and run the event.  Like other vendors, Citrix has submitted session proposals, but I have no idea whether or not they will be accepted. 

Why host Virtualization Congress with Citrix Synergy then?  Well, for three reasons. 

• First, tight budgets and the tough economic situation means that  travel budgets will be cut for everyone next year.  Citrix has reserved all of the facilities at Summit that will be needed to host our partners, customers and ecosystem partners  and we can leverage our purchasing clout to secure a good deal for the facilities that Virtualization Congress needs.
• Second, a large customer base (for all virtualization vendors) will be in Vegas for Citrix iForum - our customer conference, and a large subset of the virtualization channel partners  will be present for Citrix Summit - our channel conference.  
• Third, the ISV and IHV ecosystem that has developed around Citrix Delivery Center, Xen, XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware will be at Citrix Expo to showcase their wares to our channel partners.  By broadening their exposure to a larger audience in a vendor neutral context we can maximize their opportunity to secure business with both customers and resellers. 

So, by co-locating Virtualization Congress with Synergy 2009, Citrix gets all it could want: A vendor neutral, independent virtualization conference in which the content is determined by the leading independent industry analysts and strategists; and an opportunity to give our customers attending iForum, and our channel partners attending Summit an opportunity to see the other 90% of the virtualization industry in a completely neutral showcase that allows them to learn, question and demand an open agenda free of a single vendor's bias.   And save on time out of the office and travel costs while they are at it.

Indeed the value proposition is so clear that it deserves a call to action:  All major virtualization vendors should step up to co-sponsor the event to reduce the cost for the attendees and demonstrate their commitment to an open, technology and solutions focussed debate. 

Though I will probably still go to VMworld to do my pitch in the furthest room on the last hour of the last day, 2009 and the first Virtualization Congress will usher in a welcome change toward an open, virtualization vendor neutral and customer and solutions focussed debate.  As you plan your travel for 2009, I strongly recommend that you plan to be in Vegas May 4-9 for Synergy (including Summit, iForum, Expo, Geek Speak Live and more), Virtualization Congress and Network World Live - everything you'll need to know about application delivery, application networking, data center automation and management will be on show.

Best wishes for 2009

Prediction #1: The iPhone goes Enterprise

- The iPhone will gain rapid adoption in the Enterprise driven by user demands including executives, road warriors, and knowledge workers asking for access to the apps they need ( including windows apps ) from anywhere. IT will increasingly support the effort based on new improved security capabilities and productivity gains ( including for themselves ).

..	Choose
I am in IT and we will support the iPhone in 2009 ! ( I need the Citrix Receiver now... )
Blackberry reigns in the Enterprise, no change for '09 ...

Prediction #2: Corporate issued laptop model will be challenged
- Companies looking to provide access to day extenders without the full expense and maintenance of a company laptop will increasingly adopt application delivery infrastructure like XenApp that can provide safe IT hosted application access from un-trusted personal PC's. In addition, companies will begin to pilot the BYOC ( Bring Your Own Computer ) model for knowledge workers seeking personal choice while reducing IT expense and support costs.

..	Choose
We already are saving significant $$ by enabling safe access from home PC's
We are planning to allow controlled access ( via Citrix ) from home PC's in 2009
Status quo, corporate laptop access or none at all.

Prediction #3: Virtual Desktops grow beyond a niche

- Improvements in user experience capabilities of VDI solutions combined with the reduced support cost model will drive increased adoption of VDI beyond the initial niche deployments.

..	Choose
We are moving from VDI pilots and special use cases to broader deployment
VDI is not ready for the masses, we will wait and see

Prediction #4: IaaS Cloud Providers are no longer just for web startups

- The recent Windows offering by Amazon will validate the IaaS ( Infrastructure as a Service ) model as a viable platform for companies small and large looking to add test and targeted production capacity without capital and facility costs.

..	Choose
We have started to use Cloud VM's or Storage for test and plan broader use in '09
What is IaaS ? No way are we putting anything in the cloud...
Not sure, need to try it first

Prediction #5: Netbooks drive Servers, Clouds and Linux clients

- The rapid adoption of Netbooks based on low cost and light weight convenience will increase the desire to run server hosted apps ( Web and Windows ). A significant number of the new mini laptops will be used for occasional use vs a primary PC which makes maintaining local apps and synchronizing data problematic. This in turn will help break the traditional model of running Windows apps installed on PCs and laptops.

..	Choose
We are getting more and more requests for access from Netbooks, all they need is Citrix and a browser.
Netbooks are just toys for kids ...  ( small & big )

Agree / disagree ? what are your predictions ? 

Also seen at Sys-Con Cloud Computing Computing Journal

In ancient Greece, it was common for those seeking prophetic and spiritual wisdom to seek counsel from an Oracle, while in Zen Buddhism, a Zen master is one who offers spiritual guidance and teaching to others.  Well, the Xen project can now offer both forms of wisdom - for virtualization at least:  Xen.org today announced that Oracle has joined the Xen Project Advisory Board.  Big deal? Yes.  First, the Oracle appointee to xen.org is Wim Coekaerts, Oracle's "Mr Linux" (the Oracle of Linux, perhaps?) and the person behind the Oracle Unbreakable Linux effort.   Wim is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, and a great leader of the open source cause.  It's a pleasure to welcome him to the Xen AB.  With him as an Oracle observer comes Dan Magenheimer, formerly of HP and the leader of the Itanium Xen port, and Kurt Hackel, who leads the Oracle VM dev team.  These guys have done some heavy lifting for Xen, and the project will benefit from their leadership.

Oracle has become a major mover in the open source world. It's initial partnership with Red Hat has morphed into open competition, based on Oracle's own Enterprise Linux distribution that is both compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and (according to Oracle) more rigorously tested and for mission critical (Oracle, of course) database workloads.    Like it or not, Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) plays an important role in delivering value to end users. First, it is available free, with optional support - unlike RHEL, for which source code is made available, as required by the GPL (so you can build it yourself), but not the binary product.  This keeps an affordable enterprise Linux distribution within reach of the masses, and you can always buy support if you want it. Second, OEL is heavily tested (not that RHEL isn't) and validated for a demanding application workload. Oracle's Xen effort is quite different to OEL.  Whereas Oracle Linux is a derivative of what Oracle euphemistically terms "Enterprise Linux" (in other words, RHEL) the Xen in Oracle VM comes directly from the upstream Xen.org code base, and not via an intermediate distro.  This means that Oracle VM tracks the xen.org upstream code base more closely than OEL can track kernel.org.  Oracle has already offered a valuable set of set of patches and contributions to the project, and will host the next Xen Developer Summit.

Perhaps more importantly, at a time when Red Hat's enthusiasm for bare metal virtualization is waning - and its focus on KVM accelerating - Oracle appears to be betting that the market will continue to adopt (a) a type 1 hypervisor and (b) in the form factor of a virtualization platform, as opposed to virtualization delivered in an OS.  Contrast this with Xen in Linux or Hyper-V in Windows Server (which is type 1 delivered in an OS) and KVM on Linux or MSVS on Windows (which is type 2 - hosted virtualization). 

Arguably Red Hat is being smart by  offering both Xen in RHEL 5 and KVM (likely for RHEL 6) - leaving customers free to choose.  But I think that they've missed the point:  whether the technology is KVM or Xen in RHEL 5 the product will still offer OS based virtualization (competing with Hyper-V in Windows and Xen in SLES) whereas all of the other players in the market have opted for a platform based model independent of any OS.    Finally, it is well known that Oracle only supports Oracle apps virtualized on Oracle VM, which is, as I said earlier, all but identical to mainline Xen.  Is this a reasonable position? No, it's ridiculous.   Hourly and daily regression tests on mainline Xen ensure that every guest ever built for Xen, and every application ever tested on Xen, is  known to run perfectly.  So Oracle's support position is nothing more than the Oracle brandwagon wielding its market muscle.  It's a position that we in the Xen project hope to persuade Oracle to change over time - another good reason to welcome Oracle to the Xen AB.  By contrast, SAP has an open virtualization partnering program and  a rigorous validation and support program for SAP apps on 3^rd party virtualization platforms.  SAP is building a strong ecosystem of virtualization partners around its products to ensure that they run optimally and can be supported on any virtualization platform.  Oracle would do well to learn about the business of partnering from the community and the ISV ecosystem.  Which is the final reason why it is great to welcome Oracle to the Xen Advisory Board.

Chris Hoff is generally right as rain when he rants about technology, but he's still wrong on my position about Citrix's role in the addition of security features to Xen and XenServer. 

The recently launched Xen Introspection project is a very promising addition to the open source Xen project, adding a set of APIs that can be used to inspect the contents and I/O of a running virtual machine - and similar in some respects to VMware's VMSafe API.  The potential uses of this for enhancing guest security by allowing re-tooled security toolkits to identify attacks and compromised guests are very significant.  A key requirement is that the API itself be suitably secured so that an attacker cannot utilize it as a way to launch an attack by inspecting a VM's data and I/O, but assuming that this problem can be solved (and if it can be solved, then the community will do so), the opportunity for the security boffins to add very substantial value to Xen-based virtual infrastructures is obvious. 

Chris is right on all this stuff, but he's still confused as to Citrix's role in this.  Our job, both in the Xen community and in XenServer, our product, is to firstly make Xen bulletproof, through platform enablements that substantially enhance system security through design, and secondly provide enablements that offer security vendors an opportunity to extend Xen based products with specific value-added solutions that identify guest vulnerabilities, threats, compromised systems and the like.  We are manically focussed on securing the platform itself, but the Xen project is not a security project.  Moreover Citrix is not a vendor with a core competence in finding the bad guys that attack guests.  We want to make Xen the most secure hypervisor by (open, community based) design, while providing interfaces that securely extend the platform to offer those security vendors that are good at finding bad guys, a single way to go to market on all Xen based products. 

Unlike VMware, which with its acquisitions of Blue Lane, and Determina seems set for head to head competition with the security industry, we believe that this capability set is best added on top of the Xen hypervisor base by an ecosystem of vendors and the community, in a way that allows those vendors to add value to all Xen based products, independent of the particular Xen vendor.  If, say, a McAfee or Symantec product were released for the Xen Introspection API, then it is our specific goal that it would work for XenServer and for all other Xen based products on the market.  Leading the Xen project is a role that demands openness and integrity when working with the ecosystem of vendors.  Ian Pratt, the leader of the project, is a passionate defender of the independence of the project from any vendor bias, and in the area of security specifically, his goal is to foster an ecosystem of community and vendor based security enhancements to Xen that will enable Xen users to achieve far better security than is possible with a closed source virtualization platform such as VMware's that also competes with the security ecosystem.

Re-reading Hoff's posts, I find that I agree with him in just about every respect in his assessment of the technology and its implications, and I think we're doing exactly as he would recommend, so I'll be interested to hear if he has more to say on this. 

 Citrix now provides a single place to look for application and 3rd party product compatibility. Beyond the featured Citrix Ready products we are now leveraging the power of the community including; customers, resellers, partners, consultants and Citrite's to identify all 3rd party products known to work with all Citrix products. We have developed a community website that not only collects, consolidates and displays this essential information but it also provides "Digg" like voting functionality to quantify the number of verifications for each product. The site also includes a mash-up with support forums so relevant verification details can be provided as well as threaded discussions and problem resolution.  
We are counting on the community to use AND contribute to make this effort a success. So we made it easy to search, use and add your knowledge of 3rd party apps and products. Your MyCitrix ID will be identified as the original contributor, and if you see an app listed that you know works adding a vote is a simple click to vote. Top contributors of verifications/votes will be highlighted and forum posters can share deeper knowledge on the forums and include links to their own blog or company site. In order to maintain credibility of the program we do not allow a single user to vote more than once for the same verification and we do require that contributors are logged on with My Citrix credentials. 

Please take a look at the site, add your known apps and votes, and let us know any feedback to improve the site.

http://community.citrix.com/citrixready

As described in part 1 of this blog series, the cloud is not the answer for every enterprise or every workload. This is true based on the current economics even without considering additional factors like security, control and SLA's. On the other hand the economics do point out a major cloud advantage when it comes to short term or variable workloads. ( pointed out by Michael Keen and Billy Marshal as well ) Perhaps this is not very surprising to many, but it does help to look at the numbers to put it in perspective. The largest Intrinsic cost advantage of the Cloud is the ability to share infrastructure among multiple customers ( i.e. Multi-Tenancy and/or Multi-Instance ). This comes into play when many customers have variable workloads that are not likely to overlay at the same time. A Cloud infrastructure can load balance this workload on-demand significantly reducing the cumulative infrastructure required to support N number of customer workloads.
A Premise only solution will typically deploy the infrastructure required to accommodate the anticipated peak demand plus a factor of safety. As a result excess capacity is built into every deployment even if it is rarely ( or never ) utilized. This formula gets very expensive for many scenarios such as implementing a redundant DR solution across multiple data centers or a retailer building infrastructure to accommodate the Christmas shopping season but paying for it all year. As noted in the Cloud 101 example however, when a premise based is well utilized it can be the most cost effective solution to stay with especially if the on-site facilities can accommodate the anticipated growth.
The following Premise Plus Cloud scenario provides an optimized view of where a fully utilized premise infrastructure is used for constant predictable workloads and the Cloud is used for the variable workload. To put some simple numbers to it based on the original example, let's assume that the constant workload is roughly equal to 5 Quadcore server capacity. The variable workload on the other hand peaks at 160% of the base requirement, however it is required only about 400 hours per year, which could translate to 12 hours a day for the month of December or 33 hours per month for peak loads such as test or batch loads. The cost for a premise only solution for this situation comes to roughly 2X or $ 15,600 per year assuming existing space and a 20% factor of safety above peak load. If on the other hand you were able to utilize a Cloud for only the peak loads the incremental cost would be only $1,000. ( Based on Amazon EC2 )

Premise Only
$ 15,600	Annual cost ( 2 x 7,800 from Part 1 )

Premise Plus Cloud
$ 7,800	Annual cost from Part 1
$ 1,000	Cloud EC2 - ( 400 x .8 x 3 )
$ 8,800	Annual Cost Premise Plus Cloud

As noted for this example the server cost of using a Premise Plus Cloud solution could save as much as 44%. This does not factor in many costs that either the Premise only scenario or Premise Plus Cloud would face but those costs vary according to the situation. So the challenge is how to identify variable workloads that can be placed in the Cloud or split between premise and cloud. The CSP ( Cloud Service Provider ) must also provide the proper infrastructure and remote administration to enable corporate IT to control and manage applications and images in the extended cloud as a virtual private network of their own. Economics aside, the CSP also needs to address the SLA's and security concerns that corporate IT has identified as prerequisites for adoption. Given the intrinsic cost savings possible as portrayed in this example, there is little doubt that CSP's will fill the gaps and the industry will move to Premise Plus Cloud solutions.

There is an interesting debate going on over on the Google cloud computing group that also helps point out some of the appropriate use cases for cloud computing. The example used is a simple comparison of Amazon EC2 vs. purchasing a set of servers for development purposes ( I have added some additional costs and scenarios below ) This example also assumes the servers fit in existing space and either environment would be managed by existing staff.

	Purchase - on Premise
$ 15,000	Quad-Core Servers ( 5 x 3,000 each  )
$ 750	1/2 Rack + Gigabit Switch
$ 15,750	Total Hardware cost
$ 5,800	Annual amortized cost, 5% over 3 years
$ 0	Assuming no incremental real estate cost
$ 2,000	Annual power & AC cost
$ 7,800	Total annual cost on premise

	Purchase - at Colo
$  8,000	Colo fee's; 1/2 Rack + power + bandwidth
$  5,800	Annual amortized cost
$ 13,800	Total annual cost at Colo

	Cloud
$ 35,040	24x7x365x5 Amazon EC2 ( $.80 per high CPU Server instance hour )
$  8,320	40 hours x 52 weeks
$    688	40 hours x 4.3 weeks

 On the surface it's apparent that EC2 is significantly more expensive if the set up is utilized 24x7x365, even a 40 hour week yields a slightly higher cost. So where is all the savings ? What's all the hype about ? This simple example does point out that the Cloud is not always a more cost effective solution it really comes down to what is the particular use case and alternative costs. For example if there is no space available or the existing space has reached the power limits of the facility ( a more common occurrence ). That means that the likely scenario is finding a Colo facility to provide space power and bandwidth. Depending on location and bandwidth usage this could easily cost $8,000+ per year plus additional remote administration hardware and service fees, effectively increasing the annual cost of purchased equipment to near $ 14,000. Although this option is still less than Amazon if utilized 24x7x365, it now is significantly more than the cost of the 40 hour week at EC2 which may be reality for a development environment. And if you only need the setup for a month of dev or testing Amazon becomes a no brainier.. put on your credit card !
What both examples point out are the fact that there is single answer. In fact the right answer for many companies might be premise plus cloud. In order for this to work for a single workload however a seamless connection would be required, recognizing this has led to the Citrix Cloud Bridge based on our WANScaler acceleration technology. In fact, Citrix is in the unique position to be able to assemble the prerequisite technologies that make the C3 Citrix Cloud Center an optimized solution for many scenarios.

There are many other pro's, con's and hidden costs of each option, I am interested to hear what the community has considered regarding Cloud economics and/or other factors.

Check out Part 2 here

A somewhat frequent conversation I seem to have with new acquaintance's not familiar with our industry often turns to a discussion of   " what does Citrix do ? " After a brief elevator pitch on fast app delivery, centralization, security, and minimizing the need to install apps, etc, there is typically a point that they can relate to in their own situation. It may be a failed hard drive, a desire to work from different devices or locations, or the frustration of waiting for IT to come fix their PC. You can tell when the light bulb goes on and they start to envision being able to utilize the benefits of what Citrix ( and our community ) could provide for themselves or their company. 

If the discussion goes further a common question comes up that goes something like " If it's so great , why doesn't every company do this ? " sometimes followed by, why is Citrix only a $ 1.5 Billion company ? why not a lot more ?    

These are some of the objections I have heard  along the way as to why more companies don't adopt Citrix, or the concept of App Delivery on a broader more strategic scale. What is the top objection you hear about ( beyond initial cost ) ?  

Top objection or barrier to Citrix implementations	Choose
Awareness of what is possible and valuing the benefits
Problems with a past implementation
User experience concerns
Application compatibility and/or ISV support
Risk of change from the status quo

Others ?

No, I'm not talking about the band. I'm talking about August 27, "Power IT Down Day."

Citrix, HP, and Intel have banded together to ask government and industry IT users to make a little change to their work habits on that day: when you leave work for the day, turn off your PCs, monitors and printers. (And unplug the transformers from the wall, too - no sense in letting them sit there even converting a little bit of power to keep devices in standby.)

We're underscoring putting our money where our press release is by donating our savings to the American Red Cross of the National Capital area - putting our power savings to use bringing resources to those who might need them in an emergency.

The potential for power savings goes beyond the power switch, of course. I visited a major Web 2.0 cloud the other day - I'm not naming names, but if you have 16-year-olds (or are one), it's a web-place they're likely to hang out a lot. Their service is powered by XenServer - all 4,000 servers of it.

Can you think of a more critical workload than the entire user-facing end of a Web 2.0 service? (Maybe you'd have a few more favorite candidates, but your 16-year-old probably doesn't.) The levels of consolidation achieved, and the savings from dynamically deploying servers only when the load requires it, is driving power reductions that can power a small town. A real one, that is, not a virtual-reality one.

On July 15^th, we at Citrix announced our work on Project Kensho, a set of tools that makes it easier to adopt the DMTF OVF (Open Virtual Machine Format) specification for virtual machine portability between different hypervisors and virtualization platforms.  OVF will allow IT organizations and software developers to capture, deliver and import virtual machines in a common format; Kensho will make it easy to do so. 

This morning in my keynote at LinuxWorld I announcedthat the tools will not only be easy to use... but the core Kensho components will also be free, not only distributed at no cost ("free beer") but licensed under an open source license ("free speech") as well, to encourage open development and wider adoption. 

The free distribution of Kensho will include the export/import tools we've already talked about, making it easy for ISVs and IT to export any VMware, Hyper-V or XenServer virtual machines and to import them into XenServer and Hyper-V (VMware is shipping its own OVF import capability). The open availability of source code, and the right to extend it, will make it possible for other Xen implementations, other hypervisors, and even other non-hypervisor technologies to participate in, and benefit from, the OVF ecosystem.  This will enable easier distribution, opening the floodgates for a vast pool of powerful and innovative apps and tools. As proliferation of both free and proprietary software in virtual machines grows, and users will benefit from increased portability, a greater number of technology choices, and reduced operational friction in selecting their platforms. 

For maximum flexibility and portability, Kensho will support all major virtual disk file formats -- including the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) format used in the Xen-based Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In addition to OVF support, the Kensho code will include a complete DMTF SVPC (System Virtualization, Partitioning and Clustering) CIM provider for Xen.  This will extend the management options for implementations of Xen, including but not restricted to XenServer.

We are on track to make the first tech preview available in September.

Together, these capabilities released in Kensho will increase choice for users, and help remove some barriers.  The candidate pool of servers that can benefit from virtualization is barely tapped.  With the free availability of the Kensho technology, we're taking another step toward making virtualization fast, free, ubiquitous, and compatible.

 A few of us were having a brainstorm session recently regarding the ICA client, mobility and device support, inevitably the discussion led to the topic of competing priorities, limited resources, and business cases. Al Granville ( sometimes affectionately referred to as the " suit " in the blogosphere ) is the Product Manager for the ICA client and has the enviable position of driving what features and functions get included ( and which ones don't ). Nowadays you can't talk about mobility without the topic of support for the iPhone and where that fits versus all the other priorities. If you also want Citrix iPhone support please place your vote and tell us your use case here. Typically this analysis means doing a market analysis, talking to customers and developing a business case comparing all the alternatives and determining the ROI. During this discussion however, Al made the profound statement that maybe in this situation the business case simply needs to say  ...   it's the iPhone.. Stupid !  

This brings up a really interesting point that IT also seems to be dealing with lately, that is what is the value of new and "cool " and do you spend resources to enable these technologies. It could be the iPhone or it could be Web 2.0 collaboration tools or desktop video conferencing, whatever. Sometimes it's straight forward to put an ROI and business case together, however quantifying the value of "cool" is subjective at best. Apple as the best example has done a superb job proving that elegant design, user experience, and "cool " is a profitable business model. This certainly has proven to be the case in the consumer world, but it's also evident that this is impacting the business IT world as well, at least from the perspective of user expectations. I am interested to know if this phenomena is also impacting IT's decision process for implementing new projects.  

What criteria does your IT organization use for evaluating new projects ?	Choose
Business requirements, ROI, and compliance only
The above plus,  Executive mandates
The above plus,  User productivity and desires ( like iPhone support )
The above plus,  Does the new IT technology provide a competitive advantage

 How does your organization deal with all the new and cool user requests ? 
 

A few people have emailed me recently asking where to find XenServer Express Edition, our free single server virtualization platform with the XenCenter management GUI.   The downloads site recently moved behind the "my citrite" front page, which means that you have to have a login to get it.  This makes sense for resellers dealing with Citrix, but someone must have inadvertently moved Express at the same time.  While we fix this, here is a direct link you can use to download this killer free virtualization platform.  We still rely on your feedback, so feel free to post follow ups!

Download XenServer Express Here!

 
There is a lot of hype and reality in the world of Cloud computing today. On the hype side there are numerous data points; VC investments, M&A, data centers under construction,  new conferences and events. Adding fuel to the fire is extensive press, analyst and blog coverage ( like this ) plus books like Nickolas Carr's book " The Big Switch ".  It definitely feels like we are in the Hype cycle. On the other hand there are now many examples of reality as well. SaaS offerings like Salesforce.com and many HR applications plus web site Hosting have established themselves as a legitimate part of the IT portfolio of many corporations large and small. 

 Will traditional corporate IT really move dramatically to the cloud as Carr predicts?  I think a lot of the answer comes down to control and customization .... or lack of it. SaaS Clould offerings can work great if the application offered aligns with the business requirement without significant customization or integration. If IT is comfortable without the hands-on control they may even manage and support the project because it's good example of doing more with less. However in most cases there are too many custom requirements and perhaps regulatory controls that make premise based solutions the norm and leave SaaS offerings relegated to specific point solutions. As business requirements continue to grow, premised based solutions grow accordingly  and sometimes disproportionately when centralizing into limited data centers.  A resulting problem that most IT shops now face is a lack of space and/or power. Once the local premise is at capacity a typical next step is to move some or even all the equipment to a dedicated Co-location facility. For many companies this is more of an incremental step because they have already centralized their Application Delivery Infrastructure and may already be using Co-Lo's for back up and Disaster Recovery operations. The definition of "premise" gets blurry, but IT remains in control. The facility is likely owned and operated by a service provider, but everything inside the " cage " is owned and operated remotely by corporate IT.       

For companies that have taken this step of moving some or all of their infrastructure to the "Cage"  the transition seems to have worked well. Co-Lo Data Centers typically have great bandwidth, power, and room to grow. Plus the high cost of specialized facilities are spread across many Co-Lo tenants often lowering the cost compared to providing company managed dedicated Data Centers. IT is remotely managing the infrastructure with perhaps some on site assistance or occasional trips to the Co-Lo. As long as the App Delivery Infrastructure is robust users don't know or care were the servers are, management is happy because it reduces Real Estate dependencies and  facility upgrades like added power, AC and generators. So, if IT is satisfied remotely managing their infrastructure ( except the trips to the cage... ) new applications get implemented, security is enforced , new users provisioned, etc, do they really care about the hardware the server images and storage is running on as long as it stays up with predictable performance ?  I suspect many IT Pros would give up the responsibility, time and burden of acquiring, deploying, cabling, and configuring servers and storage ( and trips to the Cage.. ). As long as they could still architect the solution they need, deploy server images, reboot images, network servers together and generally administer the functions they need to deliver apps and store data, there is a good chance they don't view the underlying hardware as something they really need to own and manage, just like the datacenter real estate.         
 
Perhaps the movement to the Cloud for companies that have already moved to the Cage will not be such a disruptive event. As long as there are Cloud providers that can provide the underlying infrastructure including servers, storage and networking with SLA's, Security, and the appropriate level of administrative control. And if IT can still customize and "control" at the level they need to, they will likely be compelled to make the next transition to the Cloud.  The benefits of Virtualization for rapid deployment and flexibility plus the intrinsic cost benefits of muti-tenancy will win-over converts that are faced with demanding time to deployment challenges and capital cost constraints ( isn't that most of IT ? ). These Cloud service provider offerings will need to overcome some of the SLA challenges that have faced the early adopters like Web 2.0 startups on EC2, plus address security, sustainability and redundancy fears, but these are all curable issues. This will take some time and there are likely scenario's of hybrid models of premise plus Cloud solutions, but the writing is on the wall .. the Cage is just a step to the Cloud.    

As you may have seen in previous blog discussions some of us are very keen on the idea of a device that goes beyond the existing smartphone limitations of small screens and keyboards. The ability to connect to XenApp - XenDesktop from a phone and view it ( & use it ) on a large screen is now possible. This video demos the Nirvana Phone concept with an iMate 6150 and a Redfly from Celio. We are not at Nirvana yet, but these devices make it visible we are getting closer.

Do you ever go on trips and wish you could leave your laptop home?	Choose
All the time
Occasionally
Wishfull thinking ..

Let us know of other candidates for the Nirvana Phone, and what you think is still missing.

I was recently on a panel in Stockholm moderated by Brian Madden and Alessandro Perilli where, with Mike Neil, Avi Kivity, and Lance Berc, I enjoyed an engaging discussion on the future of virtualization.  The event was a great opportunity for the audience to dig into different products and vendor strategies and Brian and Alessandro allowed none of us to wriggle away from the real issues.  Definitely the best panel I've been on - and all due to the two moderators. 

Brian is one of a rare breed that I am seldom lucky enough to meet.   He's about 20 (probably permanently), super smart, and incredibly engaging and friendly. He dresses cool and trendy.  He is an excellent presenter and author. He also knows more about Citrix products than many people at Citrix, me included.  He has found and filled a key niche in the Citrix ecosystem for no-bullshit, hands-on, been-there-and-done-it technology and product expertise that has won him the respect of Citrix and its customers. As an independent advocate to our customer base he has developed a reputation for demanding answers, and getting them. 

So Brian's latest piece predicting the end of Xen should be seen in precisely that light - he's beating the hive with a stick to see whether bees will come buzzing out.   His logic is a little blunt - hence the stick analogy - but I value tremendously his approach  because it gives me an opportunity to clearly state the Citrix virtualization strategy, so that customers understand why an investment in Xen and XenServer is sound.  I guess it also drives clicks to brianmadden.com, which can't be a bad thing, eh Brian?

Brian predicts the end of Xen based on the following claims:

1. Citrix XenServer has "literally zero percent market share"
2. VMware has dominant presence in enterprises,
3. Microsoft Hyper-V will take over SME virtualization, so Citrix will abandon XenServer
4. The open source community will abandon Xen in favor of KVM

His argument is superficially appealing, but unfortunately completely wrong.  That said, I'm grateful that he has highlighted the need for Citrix to clarify its virtualization strategy, and I hope that this long, but rather rapidly prepared response goes some way towards doing so. 

1. XenServer has zero market share:  Setting aside Brian's challenging hyperbole, the XenServer business has been approximately doubling quarter on quarter since its first release - "approximately" only because the transition from XenSource to Citrix meant a new CRM system, new support system, new channel management, wrapping our heads around Citrix licensing and a ton of other overhead that took us a while to figure out, but which will accelerate our business in the back half of 2008. We have somewhere approaching 4,000 enterprise customers, and about 3000 trained channel partners.  (Watch for the inevitable follow up from Mike D at VMware who is still out to prove that he finished high school math).  VMware claims 100,000 customers.  Citrix has about 220,000 customers and about a hundred million users.  The XenServer market share is small, and growing as rapidly as any such product can given the current VMware brand status, and the fact that we started well behind them.  We had a few key blockers for enterprise adoption, four fifths of which are addressed in our forthcoming XenServer 4.2 release.

A recent analyst report that I saw gave us about 4% market share (by customers), which would seem a tad generous, but not far off.   But XenServer is just starting to show up in the market. HP and Dell have just started shipping XenServer embedded into their server hardware.  And with HP stating that XenServer HP Select Edition is HP's preferred embedded virtualization platform there must be something in it.  Yes, this is embedded virtualization done right - In each of our announced OEM deals, our partner gets to offer their customer the tremendous value of  a powerful virtual infrastructure component "built in", while adding their own differentiated value propositions on top.  And uniquely we charge one fixed price per server, not per core or socket.  We are proud to be a completely hidden component of a ProLiant server that is managed using HP's powerful multi-hypervisor VMM 3.5 (also manages VMware and Microsoft), integrated with HP Lights Out management and Systems Insight Manager, and with a compelling graphical ProLiant Virtual Console, whose UI is like my Mac.  After all, a key HP value prop to their customers is out of the box manageability. XenServer is also available integrated into Dell PowerEdge servers and soon with Dell OpenManage, and it is embedded into the NEC Eco Center and other x86 servers, x86 servers from Lenovo, and Egenera PAN Manager for Egenera servers, which is also resold as Dell PAN Manager. Each offers a powerful value-added, XenServer-powered customer experience that is simply not available with VMware or other products. And then there's Marathon EverRunVM and EverRun for XenServer - both of which offer five nines of availability for VMs. (Can others do this? No). Stratus Avance-- a perfect mid market appliance for business continuity on a pair of industry standard servers.  XenServer inside.  Avance is also sold by Dell (gosh, that's right: XenServer is inside three key Dell enterprise virtualization offerings). (Can other vendors do this? No).  Finally, most recently and strategically profoundly importantly, Symantec's Veritas Virtual Infrastructure (VVI) - an incredibly rich software offering from a major enterprise IT vendor that combines the incredible depth of the Veritas storage management suite with the powerful, open storage repository model of  XenServer to create a high-end enterprise offering that application level availability, and performance and management integrated with the industry's leading storage management solution stack. (Can the competition do this? No). 

The army of enterprise class competitors to VMware is growing.  XenServer is inside and it is compatible with Hyper-V. And it's not going away.  It's just that we allow our partners to make money from virtualization, and we don't demand to be the sole value proposition.  What a novel idea!

2. VMware owns the Enterprise: Ignoring Brian's second hyperbole (we all know that VMware has signed up many large enterprises to their ELA), remember that only 10-15% of servers are virtualized, and there is a long way to go yet.  Evidence of imminent change in this regard came a week ago on an ACM sponsored panel with the director of IT for a major F50 who said "We have more Xen in production than VMware.  An open architecture gives us greater scalability and control, and we cannot afford to rely on a single vendor."  There you have it - VMware, for all its success, has inherent weaknesses - the largest of which is its one size fits all, single vendor sells all mentality.  Its arrogance with customers and the channel, and the paucity of rich value-added ISV offerings around it all demonstrate their vulnerability.  It is VMware that will be the Netscape of Virtualization, and not Xen or Citrix.  We have never "wanted it all" and by having an approach that is founded on the notion of a rich, competitive choice of value-added offerings, we explicitly acknowledge that we will partner in key areas, and add value in others.  Citrix is after all a partner-centric vendor.

Our largest partner is of course Microsoft.  And we share with Microsoft and Hyper-V an entirely different view of virtualized infrastructure, one which is embodied in XenServer and Hyper-V: A virtualized infrastructure founded on fast, free, compatible and ubiquitously available hypervisors and a rich ecosystem of value added partners that address all customer needs. So Brian's statement is simply a statement of current market status.  Sounds big and bold, but nothing really new.

3. Microsoft will take the rest of the market:    It is important to state yet again that we are not in a competition for server sockets with Microsoft.   If that were the case, why would we have helped Microsoft to make Hyper-V a better hypervisor, by developing the shims and drivers that will allow Linux to run with optimal performance on Hyper-V?   The founding thesis of XenSource, and the continued strategy at Citrix, is to promote fast, free, compatible and ubiquitous hypervisor based virtualization.  If the hypervisor is free, why worry about who delivers it?  Let the customer pick the implementation method that they want - the real money is in the up-sell with products that make virtualization valuable for customers. 

I personally view Hyper-V as one of the most compatible implementations of the Xen architecture out there, and we guarantee that XenServer and Hyper-V are 100% compatible at the VM level.  So why not drop Xen and go with Hyper-V?  Xen is ahead of Hyper-V in scalability, cross platform support and crucially, support from a rich ecosystem of vendors all of whom stand to benefit from commoditizing the hypervisor, and continuing to make Xen great.   Xen and XenServer offer the industry a ring through the nose of a bull - called Microsoft.  We have a rope through that ring and we tug it from time to time to ensure that the bull goes the right way.  But when the bull charges (as it will now with the RTM of Hyper-V) we will step nimbly aside and watch the effect on our friends at VMware.

Who will use Hyper-V?  Over time, a lot of customers, starting in SME.  Will Hyper-V eclipse XenServer's footprint? Again, yes, over time and often for different use cases.  Microsoft still needs to extend the architecture to deal with live relo, offer better resource pooling than simply re-using Microsoft Cluster Server, and figure out how to deal with storage, but they will do a good job over the next few years. Do I feel threatened by that?  No.  Every implementation of the fast, free, compatible, ubiquitous hypervisor architecture offers us an opportunity to up-sell the customer with rich value-added features. Remember - we're the guys who made the hypervisor free!  Not for nothing have we been beating Microsoft about the ears to get the darn thing to market - it will offer us a terrific opportunity for up-sell.  With what? 

• XenServer Platinum today is already hypervisor agnostic. It can instantly boot and run a VM on Xen, Hyper-V, VMware and even bare metal, with a streamed VHD that offers better performance than local disk.  It even allows us to boot a thousand VMs from a single VHD, which is key to scalability for XenDesktop. 
• Oh, and then there's XenDesktop, our powerful VDI offering that presumes the availability of fast, free, compatible, ubiquitous hypervisors...  I see I'm starting to repeat myself.  XenDesktop is a key area of focus for Citrix, and the inclusion of XenServer as a technology feature is the right way to go about delivering desktops as a service.  No need to be a virtualization administrator - delivering desktops is hard enough already.   Doing it VMware style you have fights between the Desktop guy and the Virtual Center administrator about why a user's desktop disappeared, and no way to figure out why it all went wrong.
• XenApp (Presentation Server) on XenServer already offers a factor of five better performance than on "a leading virtualization vendor's product" (they'd sue me if I used their name, and it doesn't begin with M).
• And yes, there's more coming we haven't spoken about yet.

Bottom line on this point: XenServer today and in the future offers a powerful, Hyper-V compatible enterprise virtual infrastructure that is simply a component of many of the industry's most powerful virtualization offerings, including our own XenDesktop and soon XenApp.  XenServer at the platinum level today extends Hyper-V with powerful value-added features to address some of its key enterprise scalability needs, particularly in dynamic management of storage.  And it will soon be able to be managed by System Center VMM (or any other DMTF equipped management tool).

4. The open source community will abandon Xen for KVM:  Brian, please don't take offence, but I suspect that for many Microsoft MVPs, the workings of the open source community may be a little bit of a mystery. First, there is no such thing as "the (singular) open source community".  [The Xen community] is independent of any vendor, large, growing and vibrant. It is quite different from the [Linux kernel community], though we share a few developers.   Xen is a cross platform, type 1 hypervisor, OS neutral, that runs on ARM based PDAs, x86, PPC and SGI Itanium super computers.  Xen is in BIOS offerings from major vendors, available at point of sale on just about every x86 server, and embedded in network and storage chipsets and appliances. It has tremendous performance and leads in IOV hardware support and performance.  Xen is available from the major Linux Distros, but also in Sun xVM and Oracle VM in their virtualization offerings, and they are very committed to their products.  Xen is or soon will be available embedded in every x86 server.  Xen is used as a standard test on every AMD and Intel CPU, and is the foundation of the planet's largest deployment of virtualization, at Amazon.  Xen is present in or runs every major cloud, including Google (who recently began to host the open source project to develop a Xen equivalent of VM Safe).  And Xen is quietly emerging as an embedded hypervisor on laptops and PCs. At the Xen Summit last week, we had representatives from 12 countries, 14 universities, and 47 vendors - totaling about 175 core developers.  The research and work in progress indicated that the Xen project is stronger than ever, and far deeper and more powerful than "virtualization in Linux" - a role that I'm sure KVM will evolve to fill very well.   The Xen ecosystem is participating in the benefits of secure class 1 hypervisor based virtualization, while still being able to take advantage of the incredible innovation in Linux (which some vendors use as a parent partition / driver domain).  And of course in spite of their marketing fluff, the Red Hat engineering team continue