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.
Archives for 2014
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.
Citrix XenMobile MDM… To DMZ or not to DMZ? I might need your help one this one!
About four months ago I wrote an article on SSL offloading for the Citrix XenMobile MDM server and talked about how this new feature helps us in placing the MDM server on our more secure corporate LAN as apposed to the DMZ. And although I still feel that this is a valid, robust and decent set up, I must admit that the idea of placing the MDM server in the DMZ doesn’t sound that bad after all, considering all that comes into play. During my last article on XenMobile I gave it a bit more thought and just recently I discussed it with a few community members as well. Let’s just say that, for now, I’m in doubt. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the matter, I might need your help on this one!
XenMobile prerequisits, what do we need and how does it all fit together?
Don’t underestimate the power of prerequisites! No really, although this may seem like a straightforward topic, there’s a lot to think about, for example, we have to deal with firewall ports and protocols, IP numbers, DNS, AD, certificates, authentication, hard and software, licensing and more. By pre inspecting the prerequisites section, and thinking things through, not only will it tell you if you got what it takes, so to speak, it will also save you a lot of time once you start building and deploying your XenMobile infrastructure. And since I’ve been on the subject for the past few weeks, I thought I’d summarize some of the more important sections and subjects to focus on during the prerequisites and deployment phase, and ultimately show you how it all fits together (Visio included) from an architectural point of view.
Citrix Synergy 2014 Keynote wrap-up, here’s what’s new!
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.
How to integrate StoreFront into XenMobile… And than what?!
As most of you probably know, one of the main components that makes up Citrix XenMobile App edition is the App Controller. It provides us with our Mobile, Web and SaaS applications including any HTML5 based applications and web links. Applications first need to be signed, than wrapped, adding in the MDX binaries, before being uploaded to App Controller and assigned to your users. A process I’ll describe in more detail in one of my upcoming articles. During this blog I’d like to zoom in on the integration of StoreFront and highlight some of the options we have when it comes to using Worx Home and/or Citrix Receiver in contacting either StoreFront, App Controller or both. I’ll show you how we can launch, not only our Mobile, Web and SaaS apps, but Windows based desktops and applications as well, without using both platforms individually.
Introducing Nutanix OS (NOS) 4.0… What’s new?!
Nutanix, founded in 2009, quickly became one of the rising startups to look out for. They were among the first to introduce a simple (converged) compute and storage infrastructure, combining resources, without the need for complex and expensive Storage Area Networks, or Network Attached Storage. They deliver the power of so called Web-Scale technology, which we all know from companies like Google, Amazon and facebook, to name a few, as a turnkey solution directly into your datacenter, basically reinventing the way in which IT services can be delivered. With being awarded the Best of VMworld Gold award and named on Gigaom’s Top 50 Cloud Innovators list, I think it’s safe to say that Nutanix is here to stay!
It’s been a while!
Hi everybody, it’s been a while, I know. I posted my last article on March the 16th, and believe me, for someone who is sued to posting once a week and sometimes even more, it feels like an eternity! But it won’t be long now, there is some good stuff coming, I promise :-) I’ve been invited to some sneak preview sessions, been busy with organizing some stuff at work, talked to a few guys and gals at Citrix and I’ve been really busy working on my own (first) book, which is a lot of work! But also very rewarding and fun to do! The book will take me another few months but I’m sure I can find some time in between to share some of my thoughts with you guys. See you all soon!
Regards, Bas.
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?