XenApp 5 delivers virtualized apps three ways

Citrix took another step toward becoming the go-to company for all things virtual on the PC today when it released an updated version of XenApp (formerly Presentation Server) that can deliver virtualized desktop applications in three ways. XenApp can deliver applications hosted through Terminal Services. It can stream live applications for local execution on your PC. And now it can deliver complete virtual machine environments. The latter, dubbed VM hosted applications, provides a contained virtual machine environment within which Windows applications run that's isolated from the local user's local operating system and application environment.

"VM hosted apps are for deploying in edge use cases, [for applications that] won’t run on Terminal Services, that require special devices like USB keys, or those that consume too many resources," Alicia Rey, director of product marketing for XenApp, said during a briefing yesterday.

The new features are available to existing users as part of XenApp feature pack 2.3. Other features in the release include support for local execution of Flash content on the client PC to accelerate performance, an Outlook/Exchange acceleration feature that works with Citrix's branch repeater appliance, and new power, capacity management and load testing capabilities.

By supporting all three modes of virtualizing application services, Citrix has taken a step toward tailoring application delivery based on the device the mobile user is using at any given time, says Dan Kusnetzky, analyst with The 451 Group. Users may be working from a desktop PC, a netbook, or an iPhone or Blackberry and want those devices to be able to access their primary applications from any of them, depending on the situation. However, each has different horsepower and security requirements that may require a different virtualized application delivery mechanism.

"Citrix has developed the tools necessary to support all of those environments and allow an IT decision maker to create an environment that supports pretty much whatever employees are using," he says. While Citrix hasn't yet included the ability to automatically detect a device and match the correct application environment to it, Kusnetsky says there's nothing preventing IT organizations from putting that front end in place through their own portals. Citrix, he says, "has provided tools to allow that."

The XenApp feature pack will be available starting September 29th as a download at Citrix.com. It's available at no charge to users with Citrix's Advantage subscription, which Rey says covers 85-90% of Citrix's customers.