Citrix today announced new releases of XenApp and XenDesktop, extending
its market and technology leadership in application and desktop
virtualization and in business-ready workspaces. XenApp and XenDesktop
7.6 deliver an unmatched user experience with instant app access, and
virtually eliminate the costs of ensuring storage performance. The new
releases set a new industry standard for security, and include many new
capabilities that can be integrated seamlessly into existing Citrix
environments without disruption. Cornerstones of the Citrix Workspace
Suite, the industry’s most complete mobile workspace solution, XenApp
and XenDesktop are built on the third-generation FlexCast Management
Architecture (FMA), and are designed to be deployed in the cloud,
on-premise and in hybrid environments.
Delivers An Unmatched User Experience and Instant Access to Virtual
Apps
The new releases provide new renditions of features made popular in
earlier versions of XenApp, such as application pre-launch, session
linger and anonymous logon. These features combine to deliver instant
app access, which not only improves user experience, but also can be
absolutely critical in industries such as healthcare, where doctors are
able to increase their quality of care as a result. Not only is access
accelerated, but also even more highly available and resilient, with new
features that are able to withstand the temporary loss of a database
connection.
The releases also provide new enhancements to the audio, video and
graphics experience. New high-performance graphics acceleration using
GPUs provide high quality DirectX/2D rendering, an important requirement
for engineers and designers. In addition, support for unified
communications such as Lync Server 2013 and generic redirection of the
latest USB 3.0 peripherals like webcams, headsets and Lync phones for
Windows devices are perfect for contact center agents, contractors and
remote workers. These updates add to the existing wide array of app
delivery user experience functionality that competitors lack, such as
driver-less printing, profile management, client drive access, seamless
local app access and more – all critical to business-ready workspaces.
To enhance the user experience of Windows apps on mobile devices, Citrix
is also releasing a new update to the HDX Mobile SDK. In a fraction of
the time it takes to re-architect apps for mobile operating systems,
developers can customize their Windows applications to be mobile-aware
and provide features that enable GPS location awareness, picture and
video capture, and screen rotation re-factoring.
Obliterates Cost Barriers for Delivering High-Performance Storage
For years, one of the challenges for deploying VDI has been the storage
performance bottleneck and the costs and complexity associated with the
solutions. To address the high Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS)
requirements of virtual desktops, customers had to deploy expensive
Solid State Disks (SSDs) and high-end storage arrays. Even the latest
virtual SAN offerings require costly SSDs to achieve adequate
performance. New enhancements to Citrix provisioning services, a widely
deployed single image management feature of XenApp and XenDesktop uses
commodity servers and RAM to drop the IOPS load on storage by 99
percent. This unprecedented achievement
elegantly solves the storage throughput performance problem without
deploying SSDs and high-end storage arrays.
Only Unified Platform that is FIPS Compliant and under Common
Criteria evaluation
For government agencies and security-minded organizations, XenApp and
XenDesktop provide the only application and desktop virtualization
solution available that meets both Federal Information Processing
Standards (FIPS) compliance and Common Criteria evaluation requirements.
For U.S. federal and state government agencies, FIPS compliance is a key
requirement, while Common Criteria remains a global standard for
security used officially in 19 countries and followed by others.
Security enhancements also have been made to enable granular policies
over clipboard content filtering and directional control. This feature,
inspired by customer requirements in the banking industry to help
prevent credit card data hacking, gives IT control over whether end
users can copy into – or out of – their virtual workspace. In addition,
it provides content filtering so that potentially malicious data,
perhaps embedded in Rich Text Format, cannot be pasted into the secured
environment.
Simplifies App Migrations to Latest Versions of Windows
XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6 Platinum editions include the full power of
Citrix AppDNA application migration technology. Some of the new
enhancements include multiple builds assessment, interoperability
testing, application dependency mapping, and group policy object (GPO)
settings detection, which further boost the performance and accuracy of
AppDNA. With these improvements, even applications with many
interdependencies and integrations with other applications can be
assessed, remediated and migrated into new environments. No other
virtualization solution offers this capability, which is absolutely
vital today when customers are dealing with the end-of-life for Windows
XP and pending end-of-life for Windows Server 2003. With AppDNA, IT can
reduce the time and cost of migrating applications and platforms by as
much as 90 percent.
Increases Value-Add and Integration with Microsoft Solutions
All of these new capabilities in this release are significant
enhancements to the underlying Microsoft platform, enabling customers to
derive further value and greater scalability from the combined
solutions. In addition, the new Citrix Connector 7.5 for System Center
Configuration Manager—developed in close partnership with
Microsoft—enables administrators to use Configuration Manager to define
and manage user access to virtual applications and desktops powered by
Citrix.
Citrix also released a new reference architecture for deploying XenApp
and XenDesktop on Microsoft Azure, complete with sizing and costing
data. Published and optimized in collaboration with Microsoft engineers,
the reference architecture materializes the Citrix Workspace Services
vision on Azure that was first unveiled at Citrix Synergy in May 2014.
Integrates and Enhances Existing XenApp 6.5 Deployments
Several features of the latest version seamlessly integrate with XenApp
6.5, including the new provisioning services, updates to Citrix
Receiver, StoreFront and HDX, AppDNA, System Center Connector,
monitoring consoles and more. By adding these new values and
capabilities, customers can improve their current solutions while
simultaneous planning a smooth transition to XenApp 7.6 at their own
pace. To make this task even simpler, Citrix is releasing new migration
tools to help move the existing workloads to the new architecture when
customers are ready.
Streamlines Cloud Deployments with Verified IaaS Providers
The Citrix Ready IaaS Cloud for XenDesktop program gives customers the
peace of mind that a given cloud provider’s infrastructure is
well-suited for the deployment of XenApp/XenDesktop. A growing list
of verified providers gives customers choice when it comes to geographic
location and level of service.
Availability
XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6 will be available in September 2014.
Quotes:
Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group
“For many years now, IT organizations have spent considerable amounts of
time and budget supporting and managing desktop computing environments.
While the desktop virtualization market continues to see increased
adoption in new application delivery and VDI deployments, a key
challenge for IT has remained in the high costs associated with
traditional storage performance requirements for these implementations.
With the significant reduction in IOPS, the new enhancements to Citrix
Provisioning Services has the potential to greatly improve user
experience without the need for customers to purchase expensive storage
acceleration solutions.”
Rakesh Narasimhan, Group VP & GM, Desktops and Apps, Citrix
“XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6 demonstrates why Citrix continues to be the
clear leader in all key technologies for delivering business apps and
data to a mobile workforce. This new release positions customers to take
advantage of the operational and cost benefits of the cloud, also
supports hybrid and on-premises data center deployments, yet continues
to deliver the features and performance people need to work productively
on any device in any location.”
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About Citrix
Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) is a leader in mobile workspaces, providing
virtualization, mobility management, networking and cloud services to
enable new ways to work better. Citrix solutions power business mobility
through secure, personal workspaces that provide people with instant
access to apps, desktops, data and communications on any device, over
any network and cloud. This year Citrix is celebrating 25 years of
innovation, making IT simpler and people more productive. With annual
revenue in 2013 of $2.9 billion, Citrix solutions are in use at more
than 330,000 organizations and by over 100 million users globally. Learn
more at www.citrix.com.
For Citrix Investors
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant
to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of
1933 and of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The
forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees
of future performance. Those statements involve a number of factors that
could cause actual results to differ materially, including risks
associated with the impact of the global economy and uncertainty in the
IT spending environment, revenue growth and recognition of revenue,
products and services, their development and distribution, product
demand and pipeline, economic and competitive factors, the Company's key
strategic relationships, acquisition and related integration risks as
well as other risks detailed in the Company's filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. Citrix assumes no obligation to
update any forward-looking information contained in this press release
or with respect to the announcements described herein. The development,
release and timing of any features or functionality described for our
products remains at our sole discretion and is subject to change without
notice or consultation. The information provided is for informational
purposes only and is not a commitment, promise or legal obligation to
deliver any material, code or functionality and should not be relied
upon in making purchasing decisions or incorporated into any contract.
© 2014 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix, XenDesktop,
XenApp, Citrix Workspace Suite, Citrix Workspace Services, Citrix
Connector, Citrix Synergy, FlexCast, AppDNA, StoreFront and HDX are
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