Desktop virtualization 2010: Citrix comes knocking

I'm preparing for a meeting with the Citrix folks today to talk about desktop virtualization and I'm looking for questions.

It's fascinating how, with aggressive promotional licensing, Citrix is rolling the dice as they try to move their cash cow XenApp customers into the broader XenDesktop platform. Citrix has gone all in with XenDesktop. A Gartner analyst I recently spoke thinks the strategy is bold - and risky. I think it's one of the smartest moves the company has made. But that doesn't mean I'm convinced that IT is going to jump in with both feet in the coming year.

PC Virtualization 2010: Not your father's MetaFrame

XenApp is Citrix's classic virtualized application delivery system, formerly known as Presentation Server and MetaFrame before that. It's based on the Terminal Services model of application delivery, where applications reside on a back end host and you exchange keystrokes and screen updates over the network. Citrix is going all in with XenDesktop, which offers six different ways to virtualize the Windows PC environment.

The idea of a system that can detect the type of client, the user's role, and determine the most appropriate way to present the desktop and applications in the user's current context (am I at work on a desktop? At the airport with an iPhone? Working from home on a laptop?) is compelling. But will it sell? Broader adoption is still an open question.

The virtualized, personalized desktop

The headaches of managing PCs are enough to get administrators to take a second look at virtualization technologies for managing Windows desktops. Virtualization brings the user's entire desktop into the data center, where IT can manage it more effectively, and allows for the consolidation of desktop images into a few shared, golden images that can be distributed, along with a bit of personalization, to large groups of users. But do the various schemes available truly add up to a user experience sufficient to satisfy all of users who would never dream of being hemmed in by the more rigid XenApp model, which allowed no customization?

Classic objections include:

• High up front costs to get started. You'll need an initial outlay to build out back end infrastructure that includes servers and virtualization software - as well as learning the nuances of configuring and managing a virtualized desktop population.
• Potential responsiveness and latency issues when interacting with the host. For example, strains on the network when everyone tries to log in in the morning. There is a need to assess and possibly reconfigure local and wide area networks based on anticipated loads that virtualization brings. (and a possible need for network optimization appliances in some offices).
• Limited or no support for offline operation. (That's coming in the first half of next year, both VMware and Citrix say).
• Lack of personalization or customized application sets that cater to the needs of very small sub-groups or individuals. The effort to set up such customizations and deliver them virtually from the back end may not make sense because there are no economies to be had.
• Poor performance for graphics-intensive applications. (Both VMware and Citrix say they've addressed this).
• The need for dedicated hardware for high performance computing. (This can be done but you can't use a shared hosted virtual desktop and you may need to be running on a PC blade - not cheap).
• Cultural resistance to restricting in any way the strategic knowledge worker/business analyst's freedom to control their general purpose Windows computing environment.

Did I miss anything?

2010: Answering the objections, going mainstream

Virtual hosted desktops are like Terminal Services, but deliver the entire desktop environment - and then add a personalization layer so that users can customize their own desktops a bit. That's the big thing right now.

Citrix has answers for many of the objections above with XenDesktop 4, as does VMware with its announcement of VMware View 4 this week.

Citrix announced improvements to XenDesktop last month that improved performance, particularly for graphics intensive applications, which can now process graphics locally while running the bulk of the application on the hosted back end.

While VMware is attacking cost and performance, Citrix most recently has focused on performance and the ability, through its FlexCast feature, to deliver different combinations of virtualization technologies based on role, context and the type of device you're riding in on. Of course VMware says it does that too. But all of this will require quite a bit of policy work to get right - and early IT users tell me that climbing the learning curve isn't as easy as it might sound.

Citrix plans to explain it strategy for 2010 and what it thinks "what will make companies in 2010 open their wallets to IT spending" in the area of PC virtualization.

What would make you open your wallet? Drop me an e-mail at robert_mitchell@computerworld.com or post a comment below. It should be an interesting discussion.

Related Content:

• Citrix: Building strong virtual desktops six ways
• VMware gives desktop virtualization a new View