Brian Madden Live

A Conversation with VMware's Ed Albanese and Jonathan Clark about Thinstall/ThinApp

Brian Madden — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:36:48 GMT

In this second of three podcasts with VMware, I speak with Ed Albanese, Senior Product Manager, and Jonathan Clark, Senior Staff Engineer, R&D (and former CTO and Co-Founder of Thinstall) about ThinApp, the new name for recently acquired Thinstall.

Jonathan, Ed, and I talk about the evolution of Thinstall from its beginnings in 1998 and how Thinstall/ThinApp works.

A Conversation with VMware CTO Steve Herrod

Brian Madden — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:02:40 GMT

This past May, Brian visited VMware's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif and spoke with several key people within the company. In this first of three podcasts, he speaks with Steve Herrod, CTO and Senior VP of Research & Development.

Steve talks about:

The value of VMware's hypervisor and how they do not consider it a commodity.
Virtualization security
ESX resource management, such as memory oversubscription and the scheduler
Paravirtualization vs. platform virtualization
Some bits about the next version of ESX / VMware Infrastructure - VI4

BriForum 2007 Amsterdam Podcast: A discussion about visionapp

Brian Madden — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:04:14 GMT

This podcast was recorded live at BriForum 2007 Amsterdam. It's a discussion about visionapp's new strategy and products.

BriForum 2007 Amsterdam Podcast: A discussion about Kemp Technologies

Brian Madden — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:53:34 GMT

In this podcast recorded live at BriForum 2007 Amsterdam, Brian Madden interviews Kevin Mahon from Kemp Technologies. Kemp makes hardware application switches and load balancing appliances.

BriForum 2007 Amsterdam Podcast: A discussion about AppSense

Brian Madden — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:30:46 GMT

In this conversation recorded live from BriForum 2007 Amsterdam, Brian Madden interviews AppSense about their new products and what they've been up to the past few years.

Conversations with Citrix EdgeSight team members Ben Younger, Joel Sheppard, and Tim Mackey from iForum Edinburgh, 2007

Gabe Knuth — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:15:36 GMT

This is the first of two podcasts from iForum Edinburgh 2007, recorded on June 5th and 6th in the tech lab on site.

In this podcast, we speak with Ben Younger, formerly of ThinGenius, about EdgeSight for Load Testing (previously ThinGenius TLoad) -- the newest member of the EdgeSight product line.

We also talk to Joel Sheppard about the just-released enhancements to EdgeSight for Presentation Server, and to Tim Mackey about the up and coming EdgeSight for NetScaler.

A discussion with Ericom, Provision Networks, and ProPalms at BriForum 2007 Chicago

Brian Madden — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:20:45 GMT

This podcast is the first of three that I recorded at BriForum 2007 Chicago in April 2007. In this show, I talk with three SBC vendors who aren’t Citrix. We talk about how their products work, how they view the industry, how they view the evolution of SBC, and what Windows Server 2008 (a.k.a. “Longhorn.”) will mean for each of them.

We begin the conversation with Ericom’s Dan Shappir. Then we talk to Peter Ghostine of Provision Networks, and we wrap up with Propalm’s Ralph McLean.

A conversation with Ardence's Pete Downing

Brian Madden — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

As part of the Citrix Ardence EMEA partner conference I'm attending in Nice, France this week, I was able to sit down with Ardence's Pete Downing. Pete is an SE with Ardence, and we had a geek-to-geek conversation about how Ardence works.

This podcast is the "raw" style that I debuted yesterday--no editing, no music, just a recorded interview.

In this interview, Pete explains how Ardence actually works--how they share disk images, how they deal with shared computer names and SIDs, and how the network connectivity takes place. This conversation is an excellent addition to the white paper I wrote last year about Ardence.

How Ardence "fakes out" the Windows computer name and SID
Why Ardence chose to use UDP instead of TCP
Where the Ardence cache file can be saved
How people start using Ardence
How the Ardence PXE boot process works
How Ardence can share vdisks across multiple hardware platforms

Overall this was a great trip. I'll write more about my thoughts tomorrow. (I definitely have a lot.) Right now it's 4:39am. I've been up all night, but my flight tomorrow leaves at 7:30, so I figured that I should probably just plan on staying up all night and sleep on the plane ride home tomorrow.

A conversation with Ardence about life after being acquired by Citrix

Brian Madden — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:21:00 GMT

I'm currently in Nice, France, attending the Citrix Ardence European Partner Conference. The conference starts tomorrow, but I grabbed some of the Ardence folks today and we sat in the empty room and talked about what's happening at Ardence and what life is like now that they're part of Citrix.

This podcast is in a "raw" style. This raw style is an idea that popped into my head when I was in a delirious state after only having slept for two hours on the plane ride over here. The idea behind the raw style is this: I travel a lot, and I record a lot of interviews. However, in order to convert a recorded interview into a podcast, I need to spend time adding an intro, outro, theme music, etc. The result? I'm really far behind. In fact, I have probably 10 great interviews from the last several months that have never seen the light of day since I haven't had the time to edit them.

It occurred to me, "Does anyone even care about the intro and the theme music ?" If I'm busy and on the road, why not just sit down, hit the record button, have a conversation, and post it? Unfiltered. Unedited. Just a raw conversation.

So that's what I'm doing this week. In today's interview with some of the Ardence team members, we'll learn why they're excited about being part of Citrix, what has changed since then, and what's the same. We'll also talk about Ardence's two products (the desktop edition and the embedded edition), and what future they may have.

On the OS streaming topic, Ardence's product can be used in two ways--for streaming desktops to Citrix servers and for streaming desktops directly to end user devices. We'll hear Ardence explain how they're crafting their message for Citrix and the Citrix channel. We'll also look ahead at Ardence's road map for the next three to five years and learn a bit about the direction they see things evolving towards. (Taking streamed OS images offline anyone?)

This conversation assumes that you have a baseline knowledge of how Citrix Ardence works, so if this is new to you, please read the white paper that I wrote on this topic last year.

A conversation with Citrix CEO Mark Templeton

Brian Madden — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 02:30:00 GMT

This podcast is part of the series of interviews that I recorded when I visited Citrix's Ft. Lauderdale headquarters last month.

Mark at his desk. Note the three keyboards.

In this conversation, Mark discussed how Citrix as a company is coming out of adolescence and how their relationship with the industry is changing. This included information about how applications have changed over the past 17 years (since Citrix was founded), how users and applications are growing further apart, and how Citrix hopes to fill that gap.

Mark also discussed the nature of Citrix's evolving relationship with Microsoft, and how their competitive landscape is growing to include networking, systems management, and security companies.

We discussed some of Citrix's future projects, including Project Trinity, Project Kent, and the Evergreen branch office solution that Citrix is delivering with Microsoft.

I asked Mark about Mac support at Citrix, and I got a great answer.

Finally, it has been long rumored that Mark himself is a big geek. We put that notion to rest in this interview. Hint: He has more servers in his house than we have in our entire company. Hint #2: After the interview was over, we were talking about traveling around the world, and he said, "Check this out! Isn't it cool?" He then produced the following business card that was given to him in Japan:

He said that the trend there now is to include a little caricature on your card as a sort of "gift" to the person you're giving the card to. Also, their cards are seasonal, which explains the Christmas tree in the lower corner. There is a tiny date on the bottom of the card that says "Dec. 2006." I kind of want to meet him once a month now to collect all twelve.

A conversation about the future of Citrix Presentation Server

Brian Madden — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this Brian Madden Live podcast, I talked to Nabeel Youakim, Sumit Dhawan, and Orestes Melgerajo--three of the folks at Citrix responsible for Presentation Server--about the future of the product.

This conversation is part of the series of interviews I recorded when I visited Citrix's Ft. Lauderdale headquarters a few weeks ago. Together with the conversations about Project Tarpon and Project Trinity, these three podcasts paint a full picture of Citrix's vision surrounding the delivery of Windows applications to users in many different scenarios.

Specific topics of this podcast include:

Project Constellation - The original conversation and examples of where they are 14 months after the original announcement.
How EdgeSight can be used for end user experience monitoring
How some Constellation technologies are being rolled into Project Ohio
Ohio's application streaming (Project Tarpon)
How the IMA service for Presentation Server and Tarpon will work together
In Ohio, what changes and what's the same
NetScaler and WANscaler integration with Presentation Server

A conversation with Citrix's Project Tarpon application streaming product group

Brian Madden — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:30:00 GMT

Citrix's Project Tarpon will add Softricity-like application streaming capabilities to Presentation Server environments. It will also enable the streaming of applications directly to Windows workstations. It's been over a year since Citrix first announced Tarpon, and it now looks like the product will be released soon.

This conversation (recorded on Dec. 14, 2006) is part of the series of interviews I did when I visited Citrix's Ft. Lauderdale headquarters a few weeks ago. In it, I talk to Citrix's Aaron Cockerill, Manu Chauhan, and Tim Graf about what Tarpon will be, how it will work, and how it will integrate into Citrix's other application delivery products.

From Left: Tim Graf, Manu Chauhan, Aaron Cockerill

This podcast goes more in-depth than previous articles have, both from a product functionality standpoint and strategy standpoint.

Note: In this podcast, Aaron mentioned that he had a video he would provide me that demonstrates Tarpon's application profiling capability. Aaron is on vacation this week, but I'll get the video from him the first week of January and post the link here.

A conversation with Citrix's Brian Nason and Sumit Dhawan about VDI and Project Trinity

Brian Madden — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 11:00:00 GMT

Project Trinity represents Citrix's entry into the virtual desktop infrastructure, or VDI space. Citrix has a unique opportunity here since they've been delivering applications to users for years, and VDI is really nothing more than delivering the desktop as an application. In this conversation, we'll talk about Citrix's approach to VDI, the high-level architecture of Trinity, and how it fits into Citrix's larger application delivery strategy.

This conversation was with Sumit Dhawan (left), and Brian Nason (right).

This show will answer questions such as:

What is trinity specifically?
How does Citrix's DDI (dynamic desktop initiative) differ from the more standard term VDI?
What are the VDI/DDI benefits and how does Trinity deliver these?
What technologies make trinity happen?
How will trinity fit it to other solutions from other vendors?
What is Citrix's overall application strategy, and how does trinity fit in?
How Citrix will handle standard problems like printing, monitoring, management, etc.
What is the trinity architecture? How does it tie in the other backend Citrix architectures?
How will Citrix connect to an XP Workstation via ICA?

A conversation with Brad Pedersen, Citrix's Chief Architect, about the technical history of Presentation Server, 1989-Present

Brian Madden — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:00:00 GMT

Last week I wrote that I would be visiting Citrix's headquarters in Ft. Lauderdale to record podcasts with several folks. I recorded nine separate interviews that I'll be releasing as Brian Madden Live! podcasts over the next few weeks.

The first interview from that trip is with Brad Pedersen, one of the earliest Citrix employees from 1989 and Citrix's Chief Architect. In this podcast, Brad talks about how Presentation Server came to be. He starts with the early days of Ed Iacobucci in Texas and walks through Citrix MultiUser, WinView, WinFrame, and then into MetaFrame and Presentation Server.

This conversation is technical, and Brad talks about what worked and what didn't work, and why Citrix did what they did. He talks about things like adding TCP/IP support, the evolution and creation of the ICA protocol. the creation of the Program Neighborhood service and the evolution to IMA in MetaFrame XP. Brad also talks about why the IMA datastore uses this strange binary blob format, and how they hope to eventually migrate that to a standard relational database.

A conversation with Altiris's Scott Jones and Appstream's Brian Duckering

Brian Madden — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Most people know that Softricity has offered application virtualization and streaming capabilities for Citrix and Terminal Servers for years. More recently they've extended their solution to desktops. And then of course Citrix's upcoming Project Tarpon will also enable application streaming to both servers and desktops.

Desktop streaming and application virtualization is evolving the conversation about how applications are delivered in general. And when we start thinking about that, we have to look at another major player in the application virtualization field--Altiris--with their Software Virtualization Solution. Altiris is partnering with Appstream to offer a full solution that rival's Microsoft Softricity or Citrix Tarpon.

In this podcast, we'll discuss this solution and how it differs from some of the other things on the market.

Guests

Scott Jones, Product Manager for Software Virtualization Solution, Altiris

Brian Duckering, Director of Product Management, Appstream

Links mentioned in this show

Scense - Vendor with GP templates to allow SVS to work on Terminal Servers
juice.altiris.com/svs - Altiris SVS community
http://www.appstream.com/products-resource-library-demo.html - Live demo of Appstream