Or Windows on Mac, Thin Client, WinMo, iPhone…
The list grows as Citrix Receiver continues to make the end computing device ambigous. In a previous post I showed how Windows applications or desktops can be delivered to an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.
Right after the post, the guys in engineering called me up and said, “Hey, we’re not finished yet…”. In addition to iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, Citrix Receiver also runs on Android, WinMo, Thin Clients, Mac and PC platforms.
The small feat of magic is that all of this can also be run from a web browser.
I can see it now, you are roaming somewhere, and think, ok let me login to work for a couple of seconds to check something. You launch the browser on your mobile device, Mac, PC or Thin Client and your Desktop is streamed to you. While checking a few things in your work desktop, you navigate away to take a call or use a local app, then navigate back to your work desktop … the way you just left it.
Mobility and the way we live, play and work has just been turned on it’s ear. Bring your own computer (BYOC), an industry momentum started by Citrix, is now a reality for companies that don’t mind providing the desktops and applications for employees to get their work done, but would rather do without the time and expense of maintaining specialized hardware out in the field, or even on employees desks.
Citrix runs Windows applications and Desktops from a central server, called XenDesktop, and pipes it out to your mobile device through the NetScaler AGEE so the data is secure on both the Client and Server side. So, just in case you are not fanatical about the iPhone or iPad, you can still take advantage of the most awesome technology to hit the computing model for the average person. Citrix Receiver along with XenApp and XenDesktop becomes an incredible deal for organizations with a number of different Clients … after all the personal computing device is personal, and you can’t always choose the device the end user will show up with.
Having seen a Windows 7 Desktop running on an iPhone, a PC and a Mac, I wasn’t all that surprised when engineering showed me Windows 7 Desktop running on Android. If you don’t think you need the entire Desktop, you can pipe one or two applications to these devices using XenApp and Citrix Receiver.
We used the previous infrastructure for this Proof Of Concept, because it was already setup with XenApp and XenDesktop. The only new pieces were the end devices. Once again, we used the Citrix Web Interface in XenApp for authentication to keep it simple, however, we have done POC’s with the same setup using LDAP and two factor authentication from the NetScaler AGEE.
Guides
You can have this setup, by following the guides we wrote up as a result of this testing.
Download the Deployment Guide – ICA Proxy for Citrix Receiver.
Download the Deployment Guide – ICA Proxy for Citrix Web Interface.
Citrix Products used in this POC
XenServer
XenApp
XenDesktop
NetScaler AGEE
Citrix Receiver v2.1
Client devices
iPhone
iPod touch
iPad
Mac
PC
Android
WinMo
Thin Client
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Or any Application for that matter.
Chris Fleck gave fair warning. I’m here to tell you that it works and its here, now. The computing model just got turned on it’s ear.
Why would you want this? Because it increases your mobility without having to reboot your laptop everytime you want to use it, it saves time and money, and it delivers any Windows platform or application to your iPhone, iPod or iPad.
What was previously just a future scenario is now a reality.
Citrix runs Windows and Windows Applications from a central server, called XenDesktop, and pipes it out to your mobile device through the NetScaler AGEE. This is perfect for the iPad which has a screen size of 1024×768. Now the touch, squeeze and pinch is available for all of your Enterprise applications, making them usable on an iPad.
The small form factor of the iPhone was a little hindering for Enterprise applications. Now, with the iPad and Citrix Receiver, Enterprise Apps are usable. Although, while putting together this POC the Product Manager sent me an eMail from Microsoft Office 2010 running on a Windows 7 Desktop … from his iPhone. This confirms that form factors and the computing model is about to be rocked.
The magic is in the way that Citrix hosts the Windows desktops and delivers them to the mobile device. The advantage is all of the computing power of multi-core processors and large memory can still be utilized by Windows, while all of your touching and pinching power is localized at your mobile device.
All of the communication is done over secure tunnels, so all of the information is secure.
For this Proof of Concept, We started with XenServer, installed XenApp and XenDesktop, built a NetScaler to Front-end and secure the infrastructure, and fired up our iPhones and iPads. Its fast, easy and cool. We used the Citrix Web Interface for authentication to keep it simple. You can also use LDAP or any other type of authentication method.
Guides
You can have this setup, by following the guides we wrote up as a result of this testing.
Download the Deployment Guide – ICA Proxy for iPhone, using LDAP authentication.
Products
Citrix Receiver is available for Free on the App Store
Get an iPhone, iPod or iPad from Apple.
Watch it live
Tap into the power of AppExpert!
I just read Alessandro’s article asking “Is there any real need for application virtualization?” I say most definitely YES, especially when talking about desktop virtualization! When I talk about application delivery in conjunction with desktop virtualization, I always refer to three ways of integrating applications into the desktop:
- Install
- Host
- Stream
Streaming is what Alessandro means when he talks application virtualization. Is application virtualization required in every virtual desktop implementation? No. Have I seen customer successfully use application virtualization for their applications? Yes. When is it best to use application virtualization? Not a simple yes or no question, but here is when I typically recommend and don’t recommend its use.
Scenario 1: Almost all of an organization’s applications, to be delivered in a virtual desktop, are used by 100% of the users. There are only a few applications that are specific to certain user groups. In this instance I typically recommend forgoing the use of application virtualization. If I created a virtual desktop image for each unique configuration, I would end up with a fairly small number of desktop images due to the similarities between all groups. It would probably end up creating more work to setup an application virtualization solution for this type of environment.
Scenario 2: There is a wide disparity of applications between different groups of users. Creating desktop images based on these differences would result in 25+ images, each of which must be maintained individually, which will take quite a bit of time. I would be better off separating out the unique applications and finding another way of delivering them to the virtual desktop either via streaming or hosting on XenApp.
Scenario 3: Users who travel with laptops need to have locally available applications. Are these users computer savvy and able to install and maintain their own applications? Maybe, maybe not. If they are not, you really don’t want them to install their own line-of-business applications. You want those applications delivered to them. And because they are mobile users, they need to have these in an offline fashion. This is a place where I would suggest using application virtualization. In fact, if you have an environment with mobile users and virtual desktop users, you can use the same application profile, which simplifies maintenance even more.
I’ve seen quite a bit of success with application virtualization. In fact, I know of a few customers who are streaming large application like SAP. To be honest, I am also receiving most of my apps to my laptop as virtualized applications via Dazzle.
Unfortunately, the application virtualization solution is not an end-all-be-all solution yet. In fact, because of technological limitations in the current versions, you will be hindered by the types of applications you can virtualize (services, ODBC configurations, etc).
The main thing to remember is that you must have flexibility if you are going to do your desktop virtualization designs correctly. Forcing every user into the same environment without the ability to customize is not something I would accept, and neither would other users.
The big question you have to ask yourself is for typical organizations that have thousands of applications, how would you deliver a virtual desktop and applications to the users? Hundreds of desktop images or one desktop image with one application package per application?
Daniel
Lead Architect – Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
Blog for Next-Gen Desktop: Ask The Architect
Questions, then email Ask The Architect
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Have you experienced this before? You need an application to help you with a project. You ask your manager if you can purchase the software and you get approval. You go out and buy the software and install it onto your desktop and away you go to do your job.
This is a common situation, one I’ve done myself on many occasions. These applications make up the non-IT delivered application set of every organization, and it is a massive list. This happens over and over again in every organization and in every department. So when you hear organizations say they have 10,000 or 20,000 applications, they are likely not exaggerating. Out of that massive list, only 500-1,000 of those applications are IT-managed.
This brings about the main challenge with desktop virtualization, how do you deal with the non-IT delivered applications? WithXenDesktop, if you use the recommended strategy of a single image for many users you lose the ability to install the application into the virtual desktop and have it persist across reboots. This is a major issue that must be dealt with or users will not accept the virtual desktop.
First, you need an application assessment. You have a few options. # Entire site assessment: By using a tool or doing a manual assessment you can get a list of applications deployed throughout the organization. This will give you the data points, but the amount of data might be overwhelming. Imagine looking at a list of 20,000 applications. How do you even start determining your optimal solution. This is information overload
- Department-by-Department assessment: By focusing at the departmental level, you get a better grasp of the applications without being overwhelmed from the start. . If you focus at a departmental or group level, your application list should be more manageable.
- Survey: Leave it up to the departments to create a list of what their users NEED to effectively do their job and not what they HAVE. Many of the applications are outdated and unused. By identifying what is needed, the number of applications can be better managed.
Regardless of the approach taken, the following is needed for each application:# User
- Application
- Dependencies
- Mobility requirements
Second, it’s time for layoffs but this time we need to layoff applications. If you ask your users what applications they have installed, they will miss most of them. In fact, many of the applications installed on a typical desktop are not needed anymore. By laying off applications, we can start to get control of our application set and give our IT organizations an opportunity to succeed.
Third, develop an application delivery strategy. We can either install, host or stream. Do you need all three? Potentially. The point to remember is you need to be flexible. Certain strategies will work better in certain situations. Think about it this way. # Certain applications will be used by 100% of your users. These applications are best served by installing into the virtual desktop image. Why add another process (streaming/hosting) for an application that will be used by everyone, everyday?
- Certain applications have such a massive memory footprint. Executing the application within a virtual desktop will result in massive amounts of RAM being consumed. However, if that application were hosted on XenApp, those DLLs and EXEs could be shared between users, thus reducing the overall memory footprint required.
- Certain applications are used by a small group of users (1-2% of users). These applications might best be served via the hosting model on XenApp or via application streaming into the virtual desktop.
- Certain applications go through constant updates (daily/weekly). It would appear to be easier to use a single application image that can be distributed to any device when needed. Instead of maintaining hundreds/thousands of installations, the single package model would appear to be easier.
The point of all of this is if you going to be successful, you must have a strategy for delivering the applications into the virtual desktop. The strategy is also dependent on how well your IT group can service the user requests for all of these applications. If it is just not possible, your other alternative is to go down the Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) route.
In the BYOC model, my physical desktop is maintained and managed by myself. I’m not part of the domain nor do I call support when I have an issue, I do it myself. This also means that the non-IT delivered applications are installed on my own personal desktop. So far, this model has worked for me but I’m a savvy user and know how to fix a lot of issues I run into to. This approach might be more difficult for those not used to self-supporting. But if a user installed their own applications, then technically they are already self-supporting their non-IT delivered applications.
Remember, the desktop is the easy part. Spend your time looking at your application set and remember the following:
- Application Assessment
- Application Layoffs
- Application Delivery Strategy
What other application characteristics have you seen that would help determine your application delivery strategy?
Daniel
Lead Architect – Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
Blog for Next-Gen Desktop: Ask The Architect
Questions, then email Ask The Architect
Facebook Friends: Ask The Architect
