Citrix recently announced XenDesktop 4 FP2 which included the eagerly anticipated XenClient, and not to slow the momentum that desktop virtualisation is creating they have now announced XenDesktop 5.0 at Citrix Synergy Berlin with an anticipated release date of Q4 2010.
XenDesktop 5 is currently available as part of a private beta program only, and as such the public information about what will make the final cut should be treated with care.
Stability and Availability
Citrix’s initial focus on XenDesktop has been to deliver the appropriate level of functionality necessary to meet enterprise adoption criteria. Having now achieved this goal, Citrix is changing priorities and focusing its efforts on ensuring system stability and resiliency. The most significant change here is that Citrix has broken away from the independent management architecture (IMA) system. IMA management architecture is better suited to hundreds or low thousands of XenApp servers rather than tens of thousands of virtual desktops. As part of the transition away from IMA, Citrix has also made a fundamental change to the implementation of XenDesktop’s configuration management database. XenDesktop 5 will use a standard SQL Server database configuration which will go a long way to simplifying support.
The desktop delivery controllers are now fully stateless in the operation, which will significantly improve reliability during failure. Citrix XenApp has had stateless operation of XML brokers ever since they were first introduced, and it is difficult to understand why this model was not adopted from the start with XenDesktop.
Simplified Installation
The biggest criticism of XenDesktop 4.0 (and rightly so) has always been its administrative complexity. Setting up XenDesktop can be a daunting experience; certainly not a task for the inexperienced or fainthearted and something that Citrix’s competition have been quick to take advantage of. Now with XenDesktop 5, much of the previous installation complexity is hidden behind a simple wizard driven interface.
Simplified Management
XenDesktop has also received criticism for its administrative complexity. This has been due in large part to the number of separate management consoles available and the need to access multiple management consoles to perform individual administrative tasks. Citrix’s solution to this complaint is the introduction of two more management consoles; the Desktop Studio Console, and the Desktop Director Console. This time though it looks like Citrix have got it right, although it should be noted that these improvements do not go so far as to integrate XenApp delivered applications directly into XenDesktop’s management structure.
Desktop Studio
Desktop Studio is XenDesktop 5′s primary administrative console where administrators will build, test and deploy virtual desktops. providing seamless integration with all supported virtual infrastructure (vSphere, Hyper-V and XenServer) and storage management systems.
Desktop Director
Where the Desktop Studio supports administrative activities, the Desktop Director is designed to support day-to-day activities of the data center operations and help desk teams. The web based dashboard provides an overview of the operational health of the XenDesktop environment and it’s supporting virtual infrastructure. The dashboard provides a single pane of glass view displaying system alerts, charts and statistics, with the ability to drill down into individual sessions to diagnose and resolve end-user issues. Users requiring direct assistance with individual applications or their virtual desktop can be supported from the console by shadowing the user session (via Microsoft Remote Assistance). In addition to supporting reactive help desk activity, Desktop Director also functions as the primary console for proactive operational management, for example placing virtual desktops into maintenance mode to prevent sessions from being used, or creating them so that once an active user logs off for the session is no longer available for reuse. Finally Desktop Director has full power control over virtual machines allowing an operator to start stop suspend resume or restart virtual desktops on demand. All of the capabilities of Desktop Director are available through the console, and via a new PowerShell SDK enabling scripted automation, integration with third-party management systems, and custom application development.
Desktop Director appears to be targeted purely at operational activities, offering retention of operational data for a 24-hour period only. Leaving room for a XenDesktop specific version of Citrix EdgeSight for subsequent release.
HDX Enhancements
Citrix is making major claims as to improvements in HDX in XenDesktop 5. Printing bandwidth requirements for graphical print jobs have been reduced by as much as 90%, although it should be noted that the number of situations where print performance will see this degree of improvement will be limited. Plug and play print performance has been improved with automatic discovery of wirelessly connected printers and real-time mapping of printers to reflect changes in printer configuration as virtual desktops roam between endpoints. Also new is a native XPS print consumer for Windows 7 clients. XenDesktop 5 includes support for 32-bit colour over ICA for the first time – previously 32-bit colour was only available for XenDesktop when using an RDP connection. Outside of printing, XenDesktop 5 includes a new video codec that is claimed to reduce bandwidth requirements for high-definition video by as much as 80% and HDX Dynamic Colour Compression which will modify how graphical images are compressed based on network conditions.
Expectations are that these new HDX enhancements will appear as part of an update to XenApp sometime in early 2011, most probably in the form of a Feature Pack rather than a full release.
Citrix Receiver Enhancements
Corresponding upgrades have been made to the Citrix Receiver to support new features within HDX. Beyond this, Citrix is continuing to refine its vision for the endpoint by transforming the Citrix Receiver from an ICA\HDX remote presentation client into a single point of access to Citrix’s user-centric computing vision. Improvements to the Citrix Receiver will be covered in depth in a subsequent post as these apply not just to XenDesktop 5.
Conclusion
Citrix XenDesktop 5 looks as though it represents a significant improvement on XenDesktop 4.0 from the perspective of addressing XenDesktop 4.0 ‘s shortcomings as an enterprise application platform. The enhancements to HDX while worthwhile are unlikely to be sufficient to warrant accelerated migration to XenDesktop 5 by themselves. However when looked at in conjunction with recently announced improvements to Citrix Receiver especially on tablet devices such as the Apple iPad, the usability improvements are such that some user communities may encourage rapid adoption.