Perspectives from Citrix Synergy - Day 2: Connecting the Dots to Build Cloud Service
With the advent of the Cloud Era, companies everywhere are looking for effective strategies to harness the benefits of cloud computing without disrupting their current business models. At Synergy, Citrix made several announcements that provide businesses with a simple, pragmatic “Path to the Cloud,” making it easier for them to “build” new clouds, “bridge” to third-party clouds, “deliver” cloud services and “transform” existing Windows desktops and apps into true, cloud-like services.
Arguably the most significant announcement was the unveiling of Project Avalon, a powerful new solution that will bring together a wide range of Citrix technologies to help customers deliver any Windows app or desktop as a true cloud service. By leveraging the new Citrix CloudPlatform, powered by Apache CloudStack, Avalon will also make it easy for existing Citrix customers to adopt new features at whatever pace they like, allowing them to “mix-and-match” different versions of Windows Server, XenApp and XenDesktop as well as span across any mix of public and private clouds.
Once again the key point is “integration.” Citrix has been a pioneer in this space for the past decade enabling their customers to deliver Windows apps and desktops as services. Their XenDesktop and XenApp products and innovative HDX and FlexCast technologies have led the market because they enable IT organizations to deliver a great Windows app and Windows desktop experience as a service. But businesses want to go bigger and go faster.
As businesses have completed their initial deployments, they have made it clear that they would like to “go virtual” more rapidly with ALL users across their business, and doing so requires even more cost effective private cloud deployments as well as the ability to “burst” to public clouds for timing or economic reasons.
Project Avalon delivers on these needs and more. It integrates Citrix technologies across desktop and app virtualization, cloud infrastructure, cloud orchestration and cloud networking offerings to deliver the next generation of multi-site, multi-tenant Windows apps, desktops and data as a cloud service.
The coolest part about all of this is that most of the core technologies in Project Avalon already exist. Cloud–style orchestration in Project Avalon is being used in over 2,000 public clouds today delivering more than 100,000 hosted shared desktops. Citrix CloudPlatform, powered by Apache CloudStack, has more than 30,000 community members, thousands of certified apps and hundreds of production clouds collectively generating more than $1 billion in cloud revenue from some of the biggest brands in the industry.
