Citrix Raises the Bar on Integrated Server Virtualization with HP By VSM News Staff published: Thursday, March 20 2008
Jointly Developed Solution Offers
Unparalleled User Experience and Out-of-the-Box Integration with HP Insight Control
Management Software
SANTA CLARA, CA - March 20, 2008 -
Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS), the global leader in application delivery
infrastructure, today announced a strategic development and distribution agreement
with HP that will integrate an enhanced version of Citrix XenServerTM into
64-bit HP ProLiant servers. Under the terms of the agreement, Citrix and HP have
jointly developed an integrated server virtualization solution called Citrix
XenServer HP Select Edition, which will be marketed to HP and Citrix customers.
The new product features an
easy-to-use graphical management console and is seamlessly integrated with the
same HP Insight Control management software that customers already use to
physically administer their HP ProLiant servers. With this new
solution, new and existing HP and Citrix customers will be able to deploy and
manage a virtualized environment faster and easier than ever before.
As enterprises continue to search for new and better
solutions for rising power costs and complex data center footprints, many are
turning to server virtualization as a solution. Citrix XenServer as an
integrated feature on HP ProLiant servers provides customers with an improved user
experience, simplifying the adoption of virtualization and significantly
reducing the time it takes to achieve return on investment (ROI). The Citrix
XenServer HP Select Edition, part of the HP ProLiant iVirtualization offering,
provides extensive advantages over alternative solutions. These advantages
include faster implementation of Citrix XenServer virtualization technology on
HP ProLiant servers, increased ease-of use for HP ProLiant customers utilizing
Citrix XenServer, and leveraged investments in HP management tools such as HP Integrated
Lights-Out (iLO) for remote server management.
"This integrated solution from Citrix and HP
promises to have a significant impact on the industry by making the
virtualization of servers as easy as managing physical servers," said
Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). "By enabling
virtualization to be simple from the very beginning, it not only helps
proliferate virtualization technology, but also enables enterprises to adopt it
faster and easier."
Integrated Virtualization Done Right
Citrix XenServer is a simple, efficient way to
virtualize servers and help deliver a dynamic data center-a flexible,
aggregated pool of computing and storage resources. Citrix XenServer supports
64-bit and extends the development and testing resources of the open source Xen
virtualization engine, delivering easy-to-use dynamic virtualization solutions.
By tightly integrating Citrix XenServer into ProLiant
platforms, Citrix and HP will provide a simpler deployment and management
environment that speeds adoption of flexible, cost-saving server virtualization
technology, making it the optimal choice for virtualization on HP systems. Highlights
include:
·
New HP ProLiant iVirtualization - This offering
integrates virtualization capabilities into the ProLiant server platform,
empowering customers to virtualize their server environments. It allows
customers to quickly and easily boot up a Citrix XenServer environment, either
on a single server or as part of an end-to-end Citrix solution for server,
application and desktop virtualization (see today's related announcement
from HP).
- New HP ProLiant Virtual Console -
The newly developed HP ProLiant Virtual Console (PVC), unique to Citrix
and HP solutions, provides the same simple-to-use GUI interface to set up
and manage virtual machines as HP customers already use to set up and manage
individual physical servers. HP PVC further removes complexity from
virtualization installations by offering single server virtual machine
management using the server's local keyboard, video, and mouse, or
remotely using HP iLO that comes standard with every ProLiant server. This
reduces the need for a dedicated management server or even a network
connection, as it can be handled directly on the virtualized server.
- Pre-Integrated HP Management
- Citrix XenServer HP products are the only integrated virtualization
solutions to feature pre-integrated HP management agent technology. As a
result, customers can use the same familiar management systems for
virtualization that they have been using on their existing HP ProLiant
servers, such as HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM). HP SIM provides a
consolidated view of system hardware health, configuration, performance
and status information for individual HP servers. In addition, HP Virtual
Machine Manager (VMM) now supports Citrix XenServer and can be used to
perform advanced management of virtual machines.
- Transparent Distribution of
Virtualization Technology - The HP version of Citrix
XenServer will be available on ten models of ProLiant servers, enabling
customers to order systems with XenServer already integrated. The integrated
solution will transparently power on as part of the system start-up,
without any user intervention. This approach enables fast and
straightforward virtual deployments with a consistent, reliable, and
familiar ProLiant experience. Additionally, select models of existing HP ProLiant
servers will be upgradeable with the XenServer technology.
- Seamless Upgrade - Citrix
XenServer HP Select Edition provides a simple license-key upgrade to more
powerful enterprise-class features included in Citrix XenServer Enterprise and
Platinum editions, such as dynamic provisioning of both virtual and
physical servers. - This makes it the only integrated virtualization
solution to allow customers to upgrade and leverage enterprise features
without having to shutdown and re-install new software or backend
management systems.
- End-to-End Virtualization - After
implementing Citrix XenServer, HP customers can also easily take advantage
of Citrix's application and desktop virtualization solutions to make
the IT infrastructure more flexible and dynamic. Citrix XenAppTM for
application virtualization stores all Windows applications in a single
central store in the datacenter and then delivers them to end users
on-demand via innovative application virtualization technology. Citrix
XenDesktopTM is the industry's first comprehensive, fully
integrated desktop delivery
system, moving beyond the limitations of existing virtual
desktop infrastructure (VDI) point solutions to ensure the simple, secure, fast delivery of Windows
desktops to any office worker over any network.
"HP is the largest x86 server vendor in the
world, and by embedding Citrix XenServer into 64-bit HP ProLiant servers, HP
and Citrix will make virtualization available to enterprises of any size and
accelerate the adoption of server virtualization," said Peter Levine, senior vice president and general
manager, Virtualization and Management Division, Citrix. "Citrix and HP
share the belief that virtualization should be a natural extension of the
hardware platform, and the integration of XenServer with ProLiant uniquely
combines the industry's deepest integration with a seamless user
experience."
"We have made significant efforts to ensure our
customers have the leading options for deploying and managing
virtualization," said Scott Farrand, vice president, Industry Standard
Server Software, HP. "HP ProLiant and BladeSystem servers with Insight
Control management tools, combined with the unique architecture of Citrix
XenServer, deliver a truly integrated user experience that makes virtualization
feel like a seamless capability within the infrastructure."
In addition to these comprehensive server virtualization
capabilities, the two companies are also working to strengthen existing storage
capabilities for customers. Citrix is a member of the HP Information
Management and Storage Partner Program and is working closely with HP's
StorageWorks division on compatibility and certification testing across
HP's enterprise storage product portfolio.
Availability
Citrix XenServer HP Select Edition will be available
and supported worldwide from HP on March 31, 2008. More information is
available at www.citrix.com/hpvirtualization.
The Citrix XenServer HP Select Edition offers a low
cost, all-in-one solution with integrated Citrix XenServer and HP ProLiant
Virtual Console for single server management. HP Select Edition allows
creation of an unlimited number of virtual machines per server, with up to 32
GB memory per virtual machine. For optimum enhanced data center flexibility,
HP Enterprise Edition enables additional functionality such as resource pooling
and live migration. This functionality leverages both ProLiant Virtual Console
for single server management and XenCenter for virtual machine management
across multiple servers. HP Enterprise Edition also includes HP technical
support and services.
About Citrix XenServer
Citrix
XenServerTM, a member of the Citrix
Delivery Center
product family, is an enterprise-class solution for virtualizing application
workloads across any number of servers in the datacenter as a flexible
aggregated pool of computing resources. With the new Platinum Edition,
XenServer becomes the first and only solution on the market to address both virtual
and physical servers, making the entire datacenter more dynamic.
About
Citrix
Citrix
Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in
application delivery infrastructure. More than 200,000 organizations worldwide
rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best
performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100% of
the Fortune 100 companies and 99% of the Fortune Global 500, as well as
hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has
approximately 6,200 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries.
Annual revenue in 2007 was $1.4 billion.
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