by
Tim Mangan
The keynote on Wednesday morning largely revolved around three themes of virtualization. Server, Desktop, and Application. Well it was mostly server, with a good bit of desktop, and then Application received some lip service. But, that was OK by me. What I wanted to hear about today was the server virtualization. And if yesterday was about Ardence, today was about Xen.
But before I get into that, amaisingly, Citrix gave about 20 minutes of the 90 minute keynote to Microsoft. The Microsoft General Manager for virtualization was alone on stage talking about what Microsoft is doing in the areas of virtualizations. And while part of that was about cooperation between Citrix and Microsoft, I was blown away that Citrix would give up that much valuable time to Microsoft. Clearly, the state of the relationship looks improved by the XenSource purchase.
Server Virtualization
I have used the server and desktop virtualizations from both Microsoft and VMWare for some time. But never Xen. Oh, I signed up to be a XenSource partner and downloaded the software. But never got around to installing it in the lab. Why? Priorities. Xen was never "real enough" for very many customers, so it remained a low priority on my list and I never got to it. That changes today.
Citrix buying XenSource actually makes great strides in validating the Xen platform. It might not be betterthan the competition, but at least it deserves a place at the table. Citrix Xen based solutions may or may not become the leading solution in the long run. Without getting into the details, there are valid arguments to be made either way, but nobody can accurately predict how this will play out today.
The XenExpress solution, which was started by XenSource and Citrix is running with is nothing short of brilliant. New servers from multiple vendors will now ship with an entry version Xen hypervisor built in just for the asking. This version is limited to 4 VMs, and lacks the management pieces you need, but it will wake up a lot of people to using server virtualization. Ultimately, you don't want this express version, you want the full hypervisor but this will help open the door for a lot of people to enter the VM world. That these hardware manufacturers are adding virtualization to what they will directly support is a big deal.
The demo of live server migration (Xen Motion) was awesome. They had a user watching a full motion video (the movie "Top Gun") and moved his virtual machine to another hardware server while the movie ran. I'm not sure exactly when the motion happened because I didn't even notice a glitch in the movie. They claim only a 200ms "downtime" for the transfer. I'll just have to trust them that the demo was real, but presumably it was.
Desktop Virtualization
This is VDI. Quite frankly, and Citrix was open about this, the solution doesn't make complete sense for the masses YET. But they pledge to fix that in the future. The demos were good. Ardence (streaming server) was integrated into the Xen console as part of the solution as well, which was interesting to happen so quickly. There was also a promise of future trail versions to download to play with this stuff yourself.
Thoughts
The message that Citrix is delivering to the customer base at this event is clear. Citrix is about more than Presentation Server. And if you are not moving to these new virtualization technologies you will be left behind. (But note that the industry analysists say that today only 9% of NEW server shipments are using virtualization - so don't panic). Last year we were wondering if Citrix could ever get over from being the "Presentation Server" company and today proved that they can.
Left mostly unsaid, but alluded to, is that moving to this brave new world provides gains in efficiencies today at the cost of relatively poorly managed complexity. Processes, Management, and Tools around virtualization are all in their infancy compared to the non-virtual world. Deploying today in large scale production is for companies that are leading edge. The rest of us should be using virtualization strategically, such as in supporting test and development groups. There is much to learn if you are not doing so today so you need to start getting your feet wet to ensure you don't drown later on.
We need more light shed not only on the bennefits of these solutions, but of the problems. And there will be a lot of problems. Light on the problems will lead to vendors (second or third party) creating solutions to these problems. Citrix today did incicate a commitment to open APIs (as did Microsoft) for 3rd party integrations. Citrix relationship with many ISVs has been strained of late, and the noises made today sound promising. Time will tell if Citrix is ready to mend those fences and embrace what some call "co-opition". I, for one, certainly hope so.