Citrix Releases XenApp 5 for Virtual Desktops
The release of the Citrix Systems XenApp 5 product, formally called Presentation Server, is designed to allow IT to create virtual desktops. Citrix XenApp 5 can work with the Citrix XenDesktop virtualization suite or Citrix XenApp can work alone. The Citrix XenApp 5 allows for the virtualization of Microsoft Windows and Office applications in an enterprise’s virtual desktop infrastructure.
Citrix Systems is releasing the latest version of its XenApp product as part of the company’s larger push into data center and desktop virtualization with offerings such as its Delivery Center virtualization suite.
The latest version of XenApp 5 will allow applications, especially Microsoft Windows and Office applications, to start faster than previous versions of the product. The new XenApp product also works with Citrix XenDesktop for enterprises interested in creating a virtual desktop infrastructure.
Citrix XenApp is the new name for the company’s stalwart Presentation Server product. The updated name reflects Citrix’s $500 million acquisition of XenSource in 2007, and its desire to reach deeper into both data center and desktop virtualization. (The products are based on the open-source Xen hypervisor.)
While virtualization companies such as VMware, Citrix and now Microsoft with Hyper-V, have touted the benefits of virtualization in the data center to help with a myriad of concerns from consolidation to power savings to disaster recovery, the virtual desktop infrastructure is developing as the next area where virtualization technology is about to be tested.
At a forum earlier this year, IDC researchers found that interest in virtual desktops infrastructures was growing among departments as a way to better secure data and have more control of the desktop images and the corporate fleet. However, concerns about the complexity and cost involved in this undertaking, including problems with operating system licensing, are forcing many enterprises to watch from the sidelines for now.
“We have seen a surge in interest and there a lot of people that are interested in application virtualization and they are evaluating what is out there,” said Bill Hartwick, senior director of product marketing for Citrix.
The latest version of XenApp will work within Citrix’s broad suite of virtualization technologies called Delivery Center. Since April, Citrix has been talking up Delivery Center as way to deliver desktop images and application for the data center to individual clients in an enterprise. In May, Citrix detailed another product in the suite called Branch Repeater, a software appliance that sits between the data center and branch or remote offices and helps transmit applications from the main data center facility to these locations.
The key to the suite remains Citrix XenDesktop, which allows the IT department to host a virtual machine in the data center and then allows an enterprises to virtualize Windows desktops and deliver them on-demand via the high-speed Web interconnect to office workers in any location.
Besides allowing Microsoft applications to start faster, the latest version of XenApp allows individual applications packaged and maintained separately within the data center. At that same time, the applications are linked together.
While XenApp allows the different applications to be isolated, it also allows for them to communicate with one another. In an enterprise, a user can then call up what ever application is needed, while IT is allowed to patch and upgrade from a central location.
The newer version of XenApp is also integrated with the Citrix Branch Repeater. In this case, the most frequently used applications are stored closer to the remote or branch office and this allows for the application to be called up faster by users in that location.
XenApp 5 is also integrated to with Windows Server 2008 and 2003.
The cost of Citrix XenApp 5 is priced at $350 per concurrent user for the Advanced Edition, $450 for the Enterprise Edition, and $600 for the Platinum Edition.
Source: eWeek.com