Citrix Branch Repeater Named a Leader in WAN Optimization by EMA

Citrix has been named a Value Leader - the highest honors - in the EMA Radar for WAN Optimization Controllers: Q1 2011. Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm that specializes in providing deep insight across the full spectrum of IT and data management technologies

Traditionally, WAN optimization began with its roots in networking infrastructure and focus on network bandwidth savings. But in the past few years, tectonic shifts such as consumerization, mobility, virtual computing and cloud computing have sculpted a radically new technology landscape. This in turn is increasingly enabling workshifting and Everywhere Employee as the new norm. Envisioning these shifts, we focused on delivering the best user experience... rather than approaching WAN optimization as just a cog in the network plumbing. We in Citrix have been singularly - and some say maniacally - focused on architecting and delivering secure high definition experiences to users in any location, on any network, to any device... for all apps and desktops, both native and virtual... in the datacenter or in the cloud.

Citrix was named as one of the only two Value Leaders by EMA, who evaluated 13 vendors in a detailed analysis of the scope and capabilities of their offerings. They also interviewed end-user customers of the solutions being reviewed - in some cases several per solution provider - in order to validate vendor claims. They ranked the 13 solutions in comparison to each, in terms of Product Strength and Cost Efficiency. Their analysis covered details regarding five key areas: Deployment & Administration, Cost Advantage, Architecture and Integration, Functionality and Vendor Strength.

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Citrix announces Branch Repeater Promotion for XenDesktop customers

This promotion has now expired (end of 2010). But wait it gets better. XenDesktop Platinum now includes free HDX WAN Optimization powered by Branch Repeater VPX. Check the most recent announcement on Feb 14th: Citrix XenDesktop Gets "WAN-tastic"

Branch Repeater promotion was announced today for our Citrix XenDesktop customers. You add Branch Repeater datacenter appliances to your XenDesktop in the datacenter, and we will provide you a total of two free Branch Repeater VPX-10 virtual appliances so you can accelerate the delivery of virtual desktops to workers in two branch offices anywhere - for free! Any new or existing XenDesktop customer can benefit from this promotion. With today's announcement, Citrix will help our XenDesktop customers and pioneers make the delivery of XenDesktop to branch offices simpler, faster and more affordable.

Last month's launch of Branch Repeater VPX-- a software-based virtual appliance - has captured the imagination and interest of Citrix XenDesktop customers. More than 1,000 VPX downloads in barely a month highlight the latent demand for and interest in using Branch Repeater for accelerating the ROI of desktop virtualization projects.

Why don't you find out for yourselves what more than a 1000 pioneers ─ who downloaded Branch Repeater VPX ─ know? Try it out - for free - at http://www.citrix.com/trybranchrepeater or on your MyCitrix account.

Any XenDesktop customer can purchase any of the following hardware or virtual appliances for the datacenter and accelerate XenDesktop to two branch offices free with two free Branch Repeater VPX-10 licenses:
- Perpetual licenses of Branch Repeater VPX-45 (virtual appliance)
- Perpetual licenses of Repeater 8520 (single or HA pair)
- Perpetual licenses of Repeater 8540 (single or HA pair)
- Perpetual licenses of Repeater 8820 (single or HA pair)

Branch Repeater VPX-10 helps optimize and accelerate desktops and applications to branch offices with up to 10Mbps WAN (wide-area network) links, the equivalent of more than six T1 lines.

The promotion is effective May 10, 2010 worldwide (except in ANZ territory where it will be effective July 1, 2010) and will be available through Dec 31, 2010. The qualifying Branch Repeater purchase may occur either on the same order as XenDesktop licenses (new XenDesktop customers) or on a separate order following the purchase of XenDesktop licenses (existing XenDesktop customers), by Dec 31, 2010.

For more details of the promotion, please visit the promotion offer site, contact your Citrix sales or solutions representative, or your partner representative.

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Citrix Branch Repeater 5.7

Branch Repeater 5.7 Ships - Accelerates SSL, More Mobile Users & Broader Branch Microsoft IT. Increases Security & Enables Compliance

Here is a quick overview on what's new:

Enhanced security and Acceleration of SSL traffic: This release enables organizations to deliver a high-definition HDX experience, while increasing security, to their mobile and branch office users by optimizing and accelerating both SSL-encrypted and non-SSL encrypted desktop, application and web traffic.

• SSL/HTTPS Acceleration for SSL-encrypted (ICA) XenDesktop and XenApp traffic, and secure web apps (eg: Microsoft SharePoint over HTTPS). Note SSL acceleration is available for both branch office users (appliance-to-appliance traffic) and mobile users (software client/plugin to appliance traffic).
• Secure data in motion by providing organizations an option to encrypt all (non-SSL) TCP  traffic across WAN.
• Secure data at rest by enabling organizations to encrypt sensitive data stored in compression histories on hard disks with strong AES 256-bit encryption. This release also offers customers the option to encrypt non-SSL data stored on the disk. Many customers have told us about their experiences with limited physical security in remote branch offices; for such situations disk encryption becomes critical for compliance with various security mandates and government regulations.

Broader and deeper innovations and optimizations for Microsoft environments:

• Branch Repeater with Windows Server 2008 R2 broadens the choice of Microsoft operating systems customers have when optimizing branch office infrastructure with consolidated Windows+WAN optimization appliances. This further enables customers who want to accelerate their server-less branch initiatives.
• Repeater Plug-in (software client) for 64-bit Windows 7 helps accelerate virtual desktops and applications, and web applications - SSL or non-SSL, to a broader segment of mobile users.

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How Much Bandwidth Do I Need for My Virtual Desktop

Do you ever wonder how much bandwidth you need to do a desktop virtualization implementation? Regardless of the flavor of virtual desktop being implemented (hosted shared, hosted VM-based VDI, local streamed, etc), the network plays a critical role. That should not be surprising (if it is, we need to have an even bigger discussion). If you don't plan your network bandwidth appropriately, you will have unhappy users, who will make you unhappy.

As we would expect, the user experience degrades as the latency increases and the bandwidth decreases. Proper network planning must be based on the type of work users are performing and the overall network topology. Back in the XenApp-only days, many people used 20 kbps as an estimate for network bandwidth requirements. Can we use that for virtual desktops? NO (although I could configure XenDesktop to only use 20 kbps).

Virtual desktops require more bandwidth because:

• In default configuration, virtual desktops provide a greater and richer experience than the default XenApp configuration.
• Virtual desktop users are idle less often than hosted application users. For example, if a user is sitting in front of a workstation and is accessing a hosted application on XenApp, the desktop and XenApp applications both appear as active. However, when the user is not working with the XenApp application, they are identified as idle by XenApp even though they might be active on their desktop. Due to this difference, the desktop will have less idle time than XenApp hosted applications.
• Desktops access and consume more multimedia and graphical mediums than most applications. A user's desktop session also includes internet activity, which often includes more graphics, video and sounds. When using a XenApp hosted application, these multimedia activities are only utilized if the application allows.

Estimating network impact is not a trivial matter because the ICA/HDX protocol tunes itself based on the amount of bandwidth available. The less bandwidth available means more compression is applied. Also, any estimate must include percentages for different user activities: typing, graphics, Internet, video (Flash, WMV, etc), and printing. With this information, the following table can be used to create an ESTIMATE (and I do mean this is an estimate):

By calculating the percentage of time a user is expected to be doing certain activities, a rough estimate can be determined for HDX bandwidth requirements.