Finally, Synergy Keynote time! All eyes were on Mark Templeton as he took the Synergy stage for, what is supposed to be, the last time, since he’s resigning as Citrix CEO later this year. Unfortunately I wasn’t there to experience the buzz myself, but SynergyTV turned out to be a good alternative. At least it was warm where I was sitting :-) With around 5000 people, spread over 66 countries and over 2000 companies, attending Synergy in person and another 5000 following the Keynote live stream you good say that the event was a success before it even started, but to be honest, I didn’t expect anything less, especially with Mark resigning.
Book review! Citrix® XenMobile™ Mobile Device Management, published by Packt.
As some of you might have noticed, Packt Publishing was randomly requesting (on Linked-In and facebook) IT professionals to review their, relatively, new book on Citrix XenMobile. Since Citrix study material (I really mean books here) can be hard to come by, I thought I’d give it a go as well. It’s my first book review, but that doesn’t stop me from being honest. I’ll try to judge from a professional, as well as a ‘beginners’, point of view. What kind of information am I presented with and does it really teach me something new?
16 random reasons to (at least) consider Citrix XenMobile
Ever since Citrix acquired Zenprise and officially launched Citrix XenMobile it has been under constant development. Not to long ago Citrix announced version 8.6.1 (adding in PIN based authentication, multi domain and Site support, single join functionality and more) and I’m sure it won’t be long before we’ll see another version increment. BYOD has always been a hard concept to ‘get’ and manage and over the pas few years (it’s still relatively new) we’ve seen multiple vendors offer their ‘solution’ to take on the challenge. Since Citrix XenMobile is still considered as one of the leading parties, and probably will be for years to come, I though it would be a good idea to sum up some of its most important features.
NetScaler SSL Offloading for XenMobile MDM… Finally!
Well over a month ago Citrix released the XenMobile Device Manager SSL Offload Server Patch for NetScaler. And although this has been something we’ve been waiting for, although ‘we’ is probably still a relatively small group, for some reason I haven’t read or heard a thing about it. Perhaps XenMobile isn’t as popular as I thought or people just don’t mind putting their MDM machines in their DMZ’s, I know I would. Whichever the case may be, from now on you can securely place your MDM machine on your internal network without having to worry about potential unsecure connections, SSL only! Although I do highlight the XenMobile MDM server patch, the below is applicable to other sorts of (web) services as well.
XenMobile what’s new?!
More and more companies are looking at BYOD solutions and want to be able to deliver their corporate (mobile) applications to any device without compromising security. XenMobile does just that. Recently some of my readers, and customers as well, asked me about the various XenMobile editions and features available. I thought this might be a good moment to have a look and sum up some of the differences between previous editions and the recently introduced XenMobile App and Enterprise edition. See my previous Blogs on XenMobile MDM and the CloudGateway for more detailed information on the technologies used.
XenDesktop 7 editions explained
With XD7 lots of new features and capabilities are announced including some major infrastructural changes as well, especially when it comes to the integration of Citrix XenApp (FMA replaces IMA) more than just one step forward. But what about the different editions available, what does one get with the XD7 App edition for example or Enterprise edition for that matter? What’s in it for Subscription Advantage customers? How about the Trade-up program? XenDesktop 7 also offers some cool new monitor and analysis tools including the EdgeSight network analysis feature as part of Director which leverages the Citrix NetScaler HDX insight technology, but how do we get it?! For a full overview on all editions and features per edition scroll down.
Citrix Provisioning Services 7… A sneak preview
With the approaching release of XenDesktop 7 also comes Provisioning Services 7 (PVS from now on) I’m not sure if both products will be released at the same time but it won’t be a surprise, let’s just leave it at that. Although the basic functionality and underlying architecture haven’t changed over the past few years, at least not significantly, it has become a very popular platform and continues to grow each day. With Machine Creation Services (MCS in short) on its heels, especially with the introduction of XenDesktop 7 in which MCS has again been improved and the EOL of Windows XP nearing, PVS will have to dig deep to keep up. I guess it’s up to Citrix which one will come out on top eventually.
XenMobile product overview… and It’s nice!
It was only about a month ago when I was writing my Blog about the CloudGateway that I wondered which route Citrix would take now that they acquired Zenprise, well… here it is… XenMobile, another Xen sibling sees the light! Lets jump right in… I had the opportunity to make use of one of Citrix’s demo environments to have a closer look at MDM, which is an awesome way to explore new and existing products by the way, if your company is a Citrix partner and has access I definitely recommend having a look. Besides that I used the Citrix E-Docs website as well as Citrix.com to find as much information as possible.