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 By admin on Monday, 14th of May 2012 at 08:26 At the keynote session on day two of Citrix Synergy we heard cloud strategist Geva Perry share his insights on the emerging patterns of cloud adoption.
According to Geva, many people wrongly assume the decision to adopt cloud computing is a ‘top-down’ strategic play by CIOs, whereas often the opposite is true. Geva says that, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS are frequently used by rank-and-file developers, IT administrators and business decision-makers, who are using them as a practical means of getting their jobs done and delivering successful outcomes.
Interestingly, Geva also highlighted a growing trend whereby sales people are regularly expensing Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com, so that their use of these services remains ‘off the radar’ of the CIO. He likens this bottom-up approach to the early days of open source software and even draws comparisons with that of how the desktop PC first entered the enterprise.
So why has this bottom-up approach come about and what are the implications for enterprise computing? According to Geva, the key driver has been the consumerisation and democratisation of IT, coupled with the new generation of ‘millennial’ employees entering the workplace. This generation expects to be able to access the same technology and computing power wherever they are and whenever they want it, demanding a wholesale change in attitude.
Ultimately, Geva warns that cloud adoption is happening whether enterprises like it or not, so the best thing CIOs can do is to accept this fact and get on with making it happen in the most appropriate and efficient way for their organisation.
How are cloud services being adopted within your organisation? Is it being dictated from the top, or implemented bottom up? And is your CIO fully aware of the cloud services and applications being used by your employees? We’d be delighted if you would share your thoughts on this topic with us here.
By admin on Friday, 11th of May 2012 at 15:28 This week key members of the Centralis team were in San Francisco for the annual three-day Citrix Synergy event. And with cloud services, consumerisation of IT and mobility driving a fundamental transformation in the way corporate IT services are consumed and delivered; Citrix Systems’ President and CEO Mark Templeton used his keynote address on the opening day to give us his company’s vision for the future of enterprise computing.
Central to this vision is how organisations can address these unstoppable forces and the conflicts that have arisen – namely the need for control via standardisation versus the freedom that users now demand, compounded by the constrictions of legacy distributed computing architectures versus the flexibility afforded by cloud services.
He talked at length about the growing demands of an increasingly mobile workforce who expect the same combination of power and simplicity from their enterprise technology as they get at home, as well as the emerging concept of ‘life-slicing’, which he described as the growing tendency for people to intersperse segments of personal and work activity throughout and beyond the traditional working day.
In terms of Citrix’s strategy, Mark explained how the company will help customers ‘build’ new clouds and create a ‘bridge’ to third-party clouds to ‘deliver’ cloud services; at the same time ‘transforming’ existing Windows desktops and apps into truly cloud-like services.
From a technology standpoint, he announced Project Avalon, a platform that will enable organisations to deliver Windows applications and desktops as a true cloud service, enabling users to perform all computer-based tasks in a cloud environment accessed from any device. The Avalon platform represents the next step in application delivery and is designed to ease the process of managing and deploying workstations, enabling workers to move seamlessly between the increasingly blurred boundaries of work and life.
Despite the fact that Avalon marks a step-change that will fundamentally change the way in which organisations approach the delivery of Windows-based applications and desktop PCs, Mark’s presentation didn’t deliver anything dramatically unexpected. Citrix’s belief in anytime anyplace anywhere access is long held and the fact that knowledge workers want flexibility in where, when and how they work has influenced the company’s direction for some time now. Nevertheless, it was interesting to hear firsthand how Citrix’ strategy will actually achieve this vision and to get more detail on the underlying technologies supporting it.
Certainly, Project Avalon provides a platform that will integrate a host of Citrix technologies to deliver a practical approach to cloud-based desktop as a service (DaaS), but it remains to be seen whether this can be realised at a price customers are willing to pay. With the Avalon Beta not scheduled for release until the second half of 2012, we’ll have to wait a good few months before we see Mark’s vision transformed into a commercial reality.
If you would like to hear more about Citrix’s vision for the future, why not sign up to one of our two Citrix Synergy Update seminars in London and Warwick, where we’ll share all the key news from Citrix Synergy and give our advice on how best to develop your Citrix Infrastructure.
By admin on Thursday, 3rd of May 2012 at 08:47 
Every May, Citrix invites its global user community to the three-day Citrix Synergy event in San Francisco to share its future strategy, latest product developments and technology updates. Once again the Centralis leadership team will be there to find out what these updates mean for your business.
For those not able to make the trip to San Francisco, we will be hosting two post-Citrix Synergy, half-day events back here in the UK. Taking place at the Warwick Hilton on Tuesday 29 May and the IOD London on Thursday 31 May 2012, these information-packed seminars are designed to get you up-to-speed with the latest updates announced at Citrix Synergy, as well as provide practical tips for development of your existing Citrix infrastructure.
The seminars are ideal for anyone holding management or operational responsibility for their organisation’s Citrix infrastructure, who are using XenApp or XenDesktop. The agenda will include:
• A clear vision, directly from Citrix, of the future of application delivery
• An overview of all the key product and technology announcements from Citrix Synergy
• Tips for development of your current Citrix infrastructure
• The opportunity to quiz Centralis’ subject matter experts in XenApp, XenDesktop, XenServer and NetScaler
You can learn more and register on our website. Places are limited though, so register now if you don’t want to miss out!
By Centralis on Monday, 23rd of January 2012 at 14:59  Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) has clear benefits for firms operating in the legal sector, as discussed in our previous blog. However, finding the perfect solution is not straightforward, so what are the options?
Citrix offers an integrated suite that allows for a mix of delivery models under a single XenDesktop license and a range of networking products optimised for security, performance and WAN delivery. Meanwhile, VMware continues to be the vendor of choice for most enterprise-scale server virtualisation projects and has a track record in high-availability, site recovery and fault tolerance.
Of course, it’s difficult to reckon without Microsoft. Although it has allied itself strongly with Citrix with regard to the desktop, Microsoft’s Hyper-V is being adopted in many firms. In addition, its System Center is seeing rapid uptake in medium-to-large organisations. An alternative desktop approach is centralised virtual desktop management technology from Virtual Computer (NxTop). Indeed a range of application virtualisation options are also available. These include App-V from Microsoft, ThinApp from VMware and Desktop Application Streaming technology from Citrix.
Thin clients from WYSE and IGEL, which are optimised for desktop virtualisation, are attractive for any firm looking for low-energy solutions to reduce their carbon emissions. With no moving parts, they are silent, durable, and consume less power than a conventional desktop PC.
Storage is one of the most urgent considerations, given that the business case for many of the early VDI projects fell foul when the storage costs of scaling the solution from pilot to production became known. Simply transferring disk images from cheap SATA devices in PCs to expensive SAN fabric is not an option for most law firms, but thin provisioning, cloning, de-duplication, PAM cards, caching and a range of products and upgrades can all be applied at a cost.
There can be a temptation to go fast and cheap, but skimping on product, strategy, analysis or design is likely to deliver some very unhappy users. Conversely, when approached in the right way, VDI provides features and tools that go a long way in helping forward-thinking law firms deliver the highest quality client service and realise a competitive edge.
For more information visit our desktop virtualisation page.
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