With the merge of XenApp into XenDesktop’s Flex Management Architecture (FMA) a lot changed, for most XenApp admins it meant they had to rethink their designs and as a result it was back to the drawing board. Take application, or resource, publishing for example, we now have to deal Delivery Groups and Machine Catalogs, nothing new if you’re used to working with XenDesktop, but if it’s ‘just’ XenApp you know, well… Even now where XenApp 7.5 is a product on it’s own, again, it’s still based on the Flex Management Architecture meaning it also still uses the same wizards and configuration options as in XenDesktop 7.x a few months ago, for the most part anyway.
Archives for June 2014
Breaking! Nutanix Announces Global Agreement with Dell!
Heads up! Just a few moments ago Nutanix announced their global agreement with Dell computing! They have signed an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement with Dell to offer a new family of converged infrastructure appliances based on Nutanix Web-Scale technology. Soon Dell will launch a new series of XC, Web-Scale based appliances, which will consist out of various Dell Poweredge servers with the Nutanix software installed on top. A very powerful and innovative combination which allows datacenters of any size to adopt Web-Scale technology as their own.
What is Web-Scale technology and where does it come from?
According to Gartner, and as you know they’re always right, by 2017 Web-Scale technology will be an architectural approach found operating in 50 percent of global enterprises, up from less than 10 percent in 2013! Large cloud providers like Amazon, Google and facebook, to name a few, basically reinvented the way their IT services are delivered. This on it’s own isn’t news, but now this technology, a.k.a. converged architectures, is available for ‘mainstream’ enterprise organisations as well. Small and big I might add.
Citrix Certification, revisited, again! Solution-based certifications.
As you might recall, last year Citrix introduced a few new certification programs which also offered various upgrade paths, existing CCIAs and CCEEs could update to the new equivalent level by passing only one exam. The same applied to current CCA’s and CCAA’s. Eligibility to update required a, at that time, unexpired valid credential and the upgrade paths were available till the first versions of the CCE-AD, CCP-AD and CCA-AD exams were retired. During that time they also announced some ‘still to come’ networking and mobility orientated certification tracks. Just recently they’ve launched their new ‘solution-based’ certification tracks which now also include both mobility and networking, let’s see what they’re about.