Microsoft announces Application Virtualization 4.5

Today at ITForum, Microsoft announced the development and beta release of SoftGrid's replacement - Application Virtualization version 4.5. In this article, Ruben Spruijt details the changes and new features.

Article by Ruben Spruijt on November 12, 2007.

Disk image management in VDI environments: VMware, Ardence, shared disks, and the offline goal

A few weeks ago I wrote about VMware's OnDemand streaming announcement and that it might challenge Citrix's Ardence solution. One potential advantage VMware might have over Ardence is that VMware's solution will work offline. Is offline important in the VDI space? If so, what technological hurdles have yet to be solved, or is everything in place today?

Article by Brian Madden on September 24, 2007.

A sneak peak at Feature Pack 1 for Presentation Server 4.5

Tomorrow, Citrix will release Feature Pack (not Feature Release) 1 for Presentation Server 4.5 to the general public. Michel Roth of ThinComputing.net has put together a great write-up on the new features and changes.

Article by Michel Roth on September 20, 2007.

A brief look inside Citrix's Evaluation Virtual Appliances

Thanks to some clever thinking by Citrix and Microsoft, channel partners, consultants, and time-conscious systems admins all over the world (with beefy internet connections) can get a taste of the Application Delivery good life in about 10 hours and 10 minutes with Citrix's Evaluation Virtual Appliances.

Article by Gabe Knuth on September 04, 2007.

A short guide to virtualizing Presentation and Terminal servers on VMware ESX 3

Many people would love to virtualize at least part of their Citrix or Terminal Server farms, but so far the performance just hasn’t been up to par (or close enough to make it worthwhile). In this article, René gives you several tips on optimizing your Citrix or Terminal servers for use on virtualized hardware.

Article by Rene Vester on August 28, 2007.

You've heard of Hardware Virtualization and Application Virtualization. Let's look at OS Virtualization.

OS-level virtualization in products like Virtuozzo offers a different take on virtualization than VMware, Xen, Viridian, or SoftGrid. How is OS virtualization different, and is this something that we should be thinking about?

Article by Brian Madden on August 27, 2007.

BriForum 2007 Chicago Video: Login Consultants Presents the Solution4 Framework

Last week I wrote about the release of Login Consultants' massive scripting and automation framework called Solution4. Due to the high level of interest in this free framework, we're making the videos of their two sessions on this from BriForum available.

Article by Brian Madden on August 13, 2007.

A closer look at Session Broker load balancing in Windows Server 2008

Ever since Microsoft came out with Terminal Services, the demand for a real Load Balancing solution has been present. Up until now one would have to turn to third-party software to get a decent Load Balancing product. Citrix Presentation Server is the most well-known example of this. At But at BriForum 2007 In Chicago, Microsoft shocked the SBC world by announcing that Windows Server 2008 will be able to do real Load Balancing. So what about this “Session Broker Load Balancing“ in Windows Server 2008? What does it do? What can’t it do? Is it any good? Can I get rid of Citrix? Well, in this article we’re going to take a closer look at “Session Broker Load Balancing“ in Windows Server 2008 and see if we can answer these questions.

Article by Michel Roth on July 12, 2007.

How does a Citrix Presentation Server know what licenses you have when it loses connectivity to the license server?

One of the features of Citrix Presentation Server licensing is that an individual Presentation Server will continue to function for 30 days after it loses connectivity to a Citrix License Server. This article explains how that process works and how a server "knows" what licenses the license server had before it went offline.

Article by Brian Madden on June 04, 2007.

How to Automate the Backup of a SQL Server 2005 Express Data Store

Citrix Presentation Server uses Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express instead of MS Access these days for small environments. SQL Express is cool, but automating backups for it isn't necessarily intuitive. In this article, Katie Koepke shows you how to do it.

Article by Katie Koepke on May 07, 2007.