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InfoQuest.Com is a certified Citrix Service Provider "CSP"
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Citrix® XenServer®
Virtualization, automation and advanced management tools for the datacenter
The legacy model of one physical server to one application has proven costly, cumbersome and inefficient – and the virtualization of IT assets is fast becoming the standard at most organizations. However, while virtualization enables you to dramatically improve operations and do more with less, the high entry price of other virtualization technologies has become prohibitive for many organizations. Citrix® XenServer® hosting from InfoQuest.Com breaks this standoff by providing customers with a production-ready virtualization platform.
Citrix XenServer
XenServer is an enterprise-class, cloud-proven server virtualization solution that radically reduces datacenter costs by transforming static and complex IT environments into more dynamic, easy-to-manage virtual datacenters. It provides advanced management capabilities to integrate and automate virtual datacenters at a fraction of the cost of other solutions.
XenServer is a complete virtual infrastructure solution that includes a 64-bit hypervisor, an intuitive virtualization management console, live migration capabilities, and the tools necessary to convert existing workloads from a physical to virtual environment. XenServer allows organizations to create and manage unlimited servers and virtual machines (VMs) that can be run safely and securely from a single management console. Customers that need additional management, availability, integration or automation capabilities can simply upgrade to a premium edition of XenServer to create an enhanced virtual datacenter. The Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum Editions of XenServer offer rich management and automation capabilities that provide full datacenter automation, advanced integration and management, and key performance optimization features.
Based on the open-source design of Xen, XenServer is a highly reliable, available and secure virtualization platform that provides near native application performance and unmatched virtual machine density. XenServer allows for easy server, storage and network setup via an intuitive, wizard- driven utility that delivers Ten Minutes to Xen.
With XenServer, customers can create a high-performance, scalable, manageable and flexible virtual server infrastructure on top of which automated, lights out and cloud ready virtual datacenter services can be delivered. Key features of the XenServer solution include:
Citrix XenCenter management console
Citrix XenCenter provides all VM monitoring, management and general administration functions in a single interface that allows the IT staff to easily manage hundreds of VMs from a centralized, highly available management console that installs on any Windows® desktop.
Distributed virtual switching
XenServer includes the tools necessary to create a multi-tenant, isolated and extremely flexible virtual network fabric. This policy-driven fabric ensures that a VMs network configuration follows the VM as it is migrated within a resource pool. Policies are defined at the virtual network level guaranteeing that network security requirements are met regardless of guest VM configurations.
Dynamic workload balancing
XenServer improves system utilization and increases application performance by automatically balancing virtual machines based on user-defined policy within a resource pool both for initial placement and ongoing operations.
High availability
XenServer automatically moves and restarts virtual machines if a failure occurs at the VM, hypervisor or server level. The auto-restart capability allows administrators to protect all virtualized applications and bring higher levels of availability to the business.
Host power management
XenServer takes advantage of embedded hardware features to dynamically reallocate VMs and powers on and off hosts as demand for resources fluctuate.
Disaster recovery
XenServer includes disaster recovery features that provide site-to-site disaster recovery planning and services for virtual environments. These features are easy to set up, fast to recover and have the ability to frequently test plans to ensure that they always remain valid.
IntelliCache
XenServer is able to utilize local storage as a repository for boot images and non-persistent or temporary data to decrease network storage volume and traffic for XenDesktop installations.
Memory optimization
XenServer reduces costs and improves application performance and protection by sharing unused server memory between VMs on the host server.
Provisioning services
Citrix Provisioning ServicesTM reduces storage requirements by creating a set of golden images that can be streamed to both physical and virtual servers for fast, consistent and reliable deployments.
Role-based administration
Role-based administration for XenServer improves security and enables delegated access, control and usage of resource pools by maintaining a tiered access structure with varying levels of permissions.
Citrix StorageLink
Citrix® StorageLinkTM provides integration with leading network storage platforms which enables storage managers to leverage existing data management tools to maintain consistent management processes for both physical and virtual environments.
VM protection and recovery
XenServer protects against data loss in case of VM failure by automatically taking regularly scheduled VM snapshots and archiving the images in a specified storage location.
Web console with delegated admin
Web self-service provides IT administrators with a simple web-based console to delegate individual VM rights to application owners as well as a way for application owners to manage day to day operations of their VMs.
Citrix XenConvert
Citrix XenConvert allows for faster setup and migration of physical and virtual servers (P2V and V2V) making the transformation to XenServer nearly instantaneous.
Citrix XenMotion
Citrix® XenMotion® eliminates the need for planned downtime by enabling active VMs to be moved to a new host with no application outages or downtime.
vApps
A vApp is a collection of one or more virtual machines representing an application. The vApp combines these virtual machines into a virtual appliance. Virtual appliances can be managed as a unit in XenCenter, and can contain critical configuration information such as VM startup sequencing.
A vApp can be assigned to a high availability configuration, and directly included in disaster recovery planning through Integrated Site Recovery.
Citrix® XenApp™
Deliver applications as a cost effective, on-demand service to any user, anywhere
Traditional distributed application deployment has become extremely complex and costly. IT struggles to keep up with the continuous updating and patching of new application releases on hundreds or thousands of devices. Thus, many user devices do not have current versions of applications. Meanwhile, applications and data stored on user devices are not secure and create conflicts which cause devices to slow or crash, increasing costly help desk calls and lowering productivity. As a result, IT expenses continue to increase while IT is continually less able to secure data, maintain a high quality user experience and meet business expectations.
Citrix XenApp
Citrix® XenAppTM is an on-demand application delivery solution that manages applications in the datacenter and delivers them instantly to users anywhere using any device. XenApp reduces the cost of application management by up to 50 percent, increases IT responsiveness when delivering an application to distributed users, and improves application and data security.
XenApp enables IT to centrally manage a single instance of each application and deliver it to users for online and offline use, providing a high definition experience. It delivers 99.999 percent application availability and is proven with 25 million applications in production and over 100 million users worldwide.
Simplify IT management
XenApp centralizes applications in the datacenter to make it easy for IT to implement and deliver applications to any user anywhere, and scales on-demand to meet ever-changing business needs. XenApp eliminates the need to perform extensive application validation and compatibility testing, and reduces post-deployment support. Proactive application performance monitoring automatically alerts IT when performance thresholds have been reached, providing IT support staff the tools and information needed to pinpoint and respond quickly to issues.
Optimize application delivery
XenApp provides a flexible on-demand application delivery system that dynamically selects the best method to deliver applications, based on the user, application and network. Applications are streamed and run locally on a Windows® PC, or hosted centrally in the datacenter, either on multi-user terminal servers or on centralized virtual machines, and delivered via high speed protocol to any device. XenApp isolates each application to reduce application conflicts and allows users to access applications even when offline. With Citrix ReceiverTM, users can subscribe to desktops, Windows, web and SaaS applications and IT services they need, while IT remains in control over user access. XenApp ensures that users have a consistent, high definition experience regardless of location or device.
Accelerate application performance and IT responsiveness
The centralized architecture of XenApp accelerates application performance over any network connection and on any device. HDXTM technologies increase application performance up to 15 times and ensure LAN-like speeds from anywhere. XenApp delivers new applications to users in seconds, and application updates are performed once and instantly rolled out to users. XenApp enables IT to assign resources to ensure the highest levels of performance for critical users and applications. It proactively monitors performance to help IT identify potential issues and preempt performance bottlenecks, ensuring 99.999 percent application availability.
Key Features
Self-service applications
XenApp automatically determines the most optimal and secure method for delivering applications to users based on device capabilities, user permissions, network performance, connection location and security profile. Applications are either streamed for offline use or run centrally in the datacenter and delivered via a high speed delivery protocol to any device when a user is online. Applications are delivered to users through a personalized and easy to use self-service storefront that is available 24x7.
Any device, anywhere
XenApp provides users instant and secure access to their corporate applications and data from whichever client operating system or device is most convenient—a desktop or laptop PC, Macintosh, thin clients and even mobile devices such as the iPhone®, Windows Mobile or Android.
High definition user experience
XenApp delivers a high-performance, high definition experience on any network. XenApp HDX technologies provide fast, advanced graphic and multimedia performance regardless of the capabilities of the endpoint device. Users are ensured a seamless experience with zero downtime and higher overall productivity.
Secure by design
XenApp is the most secure architecture for delivering applications because of centralized application delivery. It keeps data in the datacenter while transmitting only screen updates, mouse clicks and keystrokes over the network. It lets IT administrators assign application access, print and storage policies for specific applications and user groups, ensuring that valuable information remains secure.
Single instance management
XenApp eliminates the need to install or manage applications on distributed endpoint devices. The centralized architecture enables IT to store, maintain and update applications and server images once in the datacenter and deliver them on-demand to users. This simplifies management, avoids application conflicts, makes it easy to provide real-time updates and significantly reduces the requirements for patches and upgrades.
Enterprise-class scalability
XenApp is proven to support more than 100,000 users, scale beyond 1,000 servers in a single implementation and ensure 99.999 percent application availability. The enterprise-class foundation coupled with centralized management, monitoring and automation tools enables rapid response to business and user needs.
Citrix® XenDesktop®
XenDesktop makes virtual desktops personal and cost-effective
Enterprises around the world are transforming their desktop environments from device-centric management to user-centric private clouds where desktops and applications are delivered as a service, on-demand. XenDesktop 5.5 accelerates desktop transformation by delivering high-performance personal desktops and apps with all the flexibility, performance and user experience of a PC, but optimized for network, server and storage resources.
Personal VDI desktops for any user
Expand the use cases for virtual desktops to demanding knowledge workers by permitting all of the customization, application flexibility and persistence they expect from their desktop while achieving the ease of management and storage optimizations you need for large-scale deployments.
- Virtual user drive technology in Desktop Studio permits administrators or even users to install applications without impacting the master image (Early access)
- New user profile manager unifies and manages user settings across Windows platforms
- Windows folder redirection keeps user data out of the virtual machine for efficiency and high availability
Support for more than one billion devices
Provide secure access to any desktop or application over any device from any location.
- New Citrix Receiver clients support over one billion devices including iOS, Android, WebOS, Chrome OS, Mac OS, Linux and Windows
- New Receiver clients deliver over three times faster Windows performance
- New Receiver client for Linux powers a new generation of low-cost thin clients
Scalable, high-perfomance multimedia
Optimize your users' experience by delivering high-quality voice, video and multimedia while reducing bandwidth and server-side rendering to drive down the cost of deployment.
- Real-time audio stream reduces the impact of network latency for voice traffic
- Webcam compression enables enterprise-scale video conferencing
- Graphics command redirection decreases bandwidth an additional 33 percent while delivering a "local" experience
- Intelligent local rendering takes the load off the server, increasing density by 10 times
Breakthrough WAN performance for remote, branch and cloud deployments
Expand virtual desktop deployments across the enterprise from remote branches to mobile users with high quality of service to meet the most demanding service level agreements.
- New multi-stream ICA splits virtual desktop traffic into five separate streams, permitting granular Quality of Service controls
- HDX WAN optimization powered by Branch Repeater 6.0 doubles the number of users that can be supported on a given network
- HDX WAN optimization improves performance for both mobile users and branch employees
Features
Designed to meet your business and user needs
Any device, anytime, anywhere
Users can access their virtual desktop and subscribe to corporate applications on-demand from any PC, Mac, thin client, tablet or smartphone. This enables virtual workstyles, device flexibility, business continuity, and user mobility.
Open, Scalable, Proven
XenDesktop provides a powerful desktop computing infrastructure and an open architecture that's easy to manage and support and works with existing hypervisor, storage, Microsoft, and system management infrastructures, with complete integration and automation via a comprehensive SDK.
HDX User Experience
Citrix HDX technology gives users an experience that rivals a local PC, even with Flash multimedia, video collaboration, USB peripherals, and 3D graphics.
Single-Instance Management
Rather than juggling thousands of static machine images, IT can maintain one master copy of desktop images while preserving the personalization that users need. This dramatically reduces maintenance efforts and cuts datacenter storage costs up to 90 percent.
Beyond VDI with FlexCast Technology
IT can deliver every type of virtual desktop—from simple and standardized, to high-performance and personalized—using a single solution specifically tailored to meet the performance, security, and flexibility requirements of each user.
Data Security and Access Control
An integrated hardened SSL VPN with advanced, policy-based access control lets you give users encrypted access to desktops, applications, and valuable intellectual property from anywhere while eliminating the risk of data theft or loss.
Any Windows, Web or SaaS Application
With XenDesktop, you can provide your workforce with any type of application they need, including Windows, web and SaaS apps. Citrix Receiver seamlessly integrates them all into a single interface, so users only need to log on once to have secure access to all their applications.
Citrix® XenClient
Virtual desktops...to go
Citrix XenClient lets mobile users run multiple virtual desktops with full security and central IT control for worry-free computing. XenClient is part of Citrix XenDesktop, which delivers on-demand virtual desktops tailored to the needs of any type of user, from laptop users to task workers, through a single solution.
Mobile workforce demands flexible solutions for changing work-life requirements
Knowledge workers and mobile employees often cite the ability to work from anywhere, anytime as a key productivity enabler. The need to cut
the proverbial cord to the enterprise network is a key IT priority that frees up employees to effectively juggle work duties and personal activities. IT departments are challenged to find the right balance in giving employee the right tools and flexibility, while exerting effective control and security over IT policies and practices.
Road warriors, contingent staff, work-from-home employees, and independent agents and contractors are some of the select groups of users who want a rich, powerful computing environment with a high-definition experience and the ability to work anywhere, anytime—even when offline.
Laptops offer an excellent choice for all the requirements outlined. Nonetheless, laptops do have associated risks that will need to be mitigated. Laptops can be lost or stolen, which may compromise sensitive corporate data. Data on laptops can be difficult to back up as the laptop may rarely connect directly to the corporate network. While users are on the road they may not consistently use corporate VPNs further isolating their systems from the corporate network. Users usually install non-supported software and store personal data that leads to application conflicts and inadvertent introduction of malware to the laptops —all leading to a large tech support burden with increased break and fix costs.
Secure local desktop virtualization is rapidly being adopted as the best approach to deliver virtualized Windows® desktops to mobile users and to overcome these key issues outlined above. However, most desktop virtualization products require that users be connected to the network or Internet connection to access their centralized desktop. Legacy local desktop virtualization products have inherent issues around product stability, performance impacts, and lack of hypervisor manageability.
Solution for secure anywhere, anytime access with better desktop management
In order to effectively address the requirements of highly mobile end users and IT departments, the ideal solution must adequately provide flexibility, performance, security and centralized management of laptops to help employees be productive while adequately addressing IT strategies and policies.
Desktop virtualization solutions provide an ideal approach to effectively address the unique needs of enterprise users. Desktop virtualization solutions with online and offline capabilities provide the additional benefits of enabling employees to work effectively anywhere by harnessing the full computing capabilities while being mobile with or without network connectivity.
Historically, legacy Type-2 virtual machine managers (VMMs) have attempted to address the needs of mobile users but have fallen short in various key requirements. Due to the fundamental architectural design of Type-2 VMMs, these products lack the stability, isolation, performance and security functionalities that most customers require.
Type-1 client hypervisors have clearly demonstrated superiority in the key areas that Type-2 products lack. Type-1 client hypervisors are uniquely designed to provide bare metal performance and security features that solve the issues of resource usage and instability that plague Type-2 products.
IT departments want the best of both worlds in offering their internal customers the flexibility that laptops offer and at the same time, be able to effectively enforce corporate IT policies. IT policies such as system security and data protection are often difficult to enforce for the highly mobile users in the enterprise. Type-1 client hypervisors with centralized management functionalities can help IT to apply consistent IT policies to help protect corporate data and assets that walk out with employees as they step outside corporate boundaries.
Citrix XenClient: An effective solution for secure local virtual desktops
Citrix® XenClientTM is the ideal desktop virtualization solution that can effectively provide the flexibility and performance that mobile laptop users seek and the security and control that IT administrators demand.
What is Citrix XenClient
XenClient is a true Type-1 client hypervisor that runs on bare metal and provides high performance and security. It is based on the same technology foundation as Citrix XenServer and industry-tested Xen virtualization technology used by the largest cloud computing providers in the world. XenClient lets users run multiple local virtual desktops simultaneously, side-by-side and in complete isolation. XenClient-powered laptop users can access their various virtual desktops anywhere, anytime—even while disconnected from the network. XenClient is optimized to run on Intel® vPro hardware virtualization technology to provide full 3D graphics and high-definition video.
Citrix XenClient Benefits
Citrix XenClient delivers the benefits of local desktop virtualization to mobile users, providing IT professionals the control they need while giving employees the flexibility to work from anywhere, anytime. Mobile users get the benefits of having different virtual desktops that help them to effectively isolate their work and personal spaces while using a single physical system. XenClient is the ideal client virtualization solution for any organization to align their business goals with IT priorities and desktop strategies.
Companies help mobile employees work effectively and enhance their productivity
Mobility has cut the proverbial cord that ties employees to their desks and set them free to work from any physical location. Nonetheless, remote connectivity may be inconsistent and security issues are sure to arise when employees go outside the protected, firewalled corporate environment. XenClient enables employees to be mobile and work online or offline. Employees remain productive whether they are within the corporate network, travelling without connectivity, or working remotely from a home office, customer site, hotel, or other remote sites. Organizations can also choose to provide their employees multiple virtual machines, including an environment for personal use that’s strictly isolated from one used for business purposes. Offering employees sandboxed areas for their personal use limits the exposure of corporate data from malware introduced from personal use.
Companies lock down and secure corporate laptops to protect business data
With XenClient, businesses can deliver an encrypted, locked down corporate desktop that provides users with the rich environment that they need to do their work. This approach protects valuable corporate data and intellectual property from theft and minimizes risks and instabilities caused by user changes such as installation of non-supported applications or inadvertent introduction of malware by employees. Granular policy controls can be enforced to disable USB devices, optical drives, and even networks to control data movement and further protect valuable corporate data and intellectual property. Consistent backup of corporate data to the datacenter driven by internal policies enforced on XenClient can also help organizations protect business- critical data. The self-service recovery capabilities in XenClient further ensure employee productivity while cost-effectively reducing helpdesk calls by allowing users to recover their full computing environments to any XenClient system without IT’s involvement.
IT takes effective control of corporate assets. Give flexibility to mobile users.
XenClient empowers IT with the ability to offer multiple virtual desktops with standard corporate images that will fit the needs of mobile employees with different roles. Consider a sales engineer who demonstrates software products in a virtual desktop and uses another virtual desktop for corporate communications—completely separated and protected. In addition to the flexibility offered, IT can rest assured that it is able to deliver a well-managed desktop that is securely locked down and isolated. In addition, corporate
data is protected with consistent data protection policies that are automated without user intervention. Whatever the use, XenClient gives laptop users the ultimate in mobility and choice. It is a win-win for both IT and mobile users—IT gets full control while giving employee the flexibility they need to get their job done.
Simplify desktop management and disaster recovery for IT Pros
XenClient enables IT professionals to easily create, deploy, move, secure, and protect standardized desktop images across any supported laptop device. IT can quickly deploy standard VMs to new employees or contractors with a centralized delivery platform for virtual desktops. Corporate data can be protected effectively by enforcing automatic and full-time backup of virtual desktops. Granular policy controls can be locally enforced on the virtual desktops to ensure effective management of corporate assets, including the ability to send “kill pills” to lost and stolen remote XenClient-enabled laptops.
Employees Work Any Way They Want.....And Have Some Fun Too
End users can quickly discover the unlimited possibilities of using multiple virtual desktops on a single laptop. The ability to run multiple virtual desktops on a single laptop offers extreme portability and unprecedented user flexibility —so that employees have the freedom to work from anywhere, anytime—even when disconnected. Instead of carrying multiple devices each with a specific environment fulfilling a specific role, XenClient users can carry a single device with instant, simultaneous access to a variety of environments, such as a locked down business desktop, a personal desktop that the user can personalize, a test and development environment, a multi-machine sales demo, or a temporary computing environment for contractors/interns/partners. XenClient offers a high-quality video and graphics experience in a 3D-enabled virtual desktop, including full Windows Aero, OpenGL and DirectX support. Work and fun, no compromises!
Enable self-service disaster recovery for laptop users
Whenever employees connect to the Internet, XenClient creates a secure connection to the datacenter to silently back up the system. In the event that a laptop is lost, stolen or fails, users can take advantage of the self-service restore capabilities of XenClient to restore the entire virtual desktop to another XenClient-enabled computer. The ability to pick a point in time backup also enables users to roll back changes and even restore test environments to their perfect state without the need to involve the helpdesk or IT team, which improves the time to recovery, decreases the load on IT, and gets end users back to work fast.
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SAP
“We expect that total costs for server infrastructure will be reduced by more than 35 percent because of XenServer. In the future, we will need some 70 percent fewer physical servers. In addition, we will save on administration and energy costs."
Michael Markl,
Global Service Owner,
SAP IT Infrastructure Communication Services,
SAP AG
WEC Health Unit
“We tried VMware first... but when we benchmarked VMware vs. Citrix, the XenServer actually performed significantly better than the VMware solution, and we ended up, from that, going the direction of choosing Citrix as our virtualization platform for our servers..."
Fernando Bayuga Jr.,
IT Manager, WEC Health Unit
Linux Magazine
“Does XenServer pass the ‘first impression’ test? Yes. It offers speed, flexibility, scalability, ease of use, and a price that ” will make your accountant grin."
Ken Hess, Linux Magazine
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