Citrix Ups Cloud And Mobile Game At Synergy

Citrix has made a host of announcements surrounding its cloud and mobile strategies, during its Synergy conference in San Francisco this week.

The virtualisation player announced a Path to the Cloud plan, as well as a Mobile Enterprise Strategy, building in a number of product launches to support its aims.

Looking to the clouds

In the cloud space, Citrix said it wants to make it easy for customers to create Amazon-like environments. In this space, Citrix has distanced itself from the OpenStack framework created by Rackspace and NASA, instead focusing on the Apache CloudStack, which is powering the brand new CloudPlatform.

CloudStack was acquired in Citrix’s purchase of Cloud.com in July 2011. The CloudPlatform release comes with Amazon API compatibility for increased interoperability, which customers are demanding, according to Citrix.

As part of its cloud vision, Citrix has also announced its app delivery product NetScaler 10 can be delivered over Amazon Web Services. It introduced Project Avalon, which will deliver Windows desktops and apps straight from private clouds.

Citrix said Project Avalon would also offer  “the ability to shift apps and desktops into public clouds to deliver capacity on demand.”

“Project Avalon brings together the openness and innovation of Citrix CloudPlatform, our experience and growing momentum with Citrix Service Providers and our track record of leadership in desktop virtualisation, to transform the delivery of Windows desktops and applications into a service across private and public clouds,” said Bob Schultz, group vice president and general manager for desktops and applications at Citrix.

However, there is currently no availability for Project Avalon, so it may be some time until we see any products emerging from the initiative.

Going mobile

As for its mobile work, Citrix had another tonne of announcements. Its video conferencing software GoToMeeting HDFaces was made available for the iPad, alongside the introduction of a fresh collaboration platform called Podio, following its recent acquisition of that service. That will take the company into closer competition with the likes of Salesforce.com, Microsoft and UK young gun Huddle.

ShareFile StorageZones was unveiled, providing IT with greater ability to decide where to store data. Citrix hopes CloudGateway 2, which does a similar job to Good Technology’s application containers, will help companies deliver and manage apps securely with its policy engine.

Building on its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) reputation, Citrix has announced the acquisition of Virtual Computer, which supplies management solutions for Xen-based client hypervisors. Citrix said it would use its purchase to create  a Citrix XenClient Enterprise edition.

“As companies adopt desktop virtualisation, they will require the ability to deliver the same IT services to workers on the go that they can to office-based users,” said Brett Waldman, senior research analyst covering cloud and virtualisation system software at IDC.

“Solutions like Citrix XenClient and Virtual Computer can address this population. The combination of these powerful technologies into one solution has the potential to really make an impact, and Citrix is showing a strong commitment to advancing its client virtualisation strategy.”

Are you a cloud expert? Try our quiz!