Cisco, Citrix Partner on HD Desktop Virtualization

September 9, 2010

2 Min Read

Instead of competing with last week’s VMworld noise, Cisco and Citrix waited a few days to discuss their growing virtualization relationship. Specifically, Cisco and Citrix, who are no strangers to virtualization, are working on a new solution to provide high-definition virtual desktops and applications to all users in an enterprise, without breaking the bank. Can it be done? Read on for the details…

Cisco and Citrix say their solution’s priority is cost-effectiveness. Cisco’s new Desktop Virtualizaiton solution with Citrix XenDesktop is designed to combine Cisco’s unified computing and Citrix’s desktop virtualization technologies in one happy package. Cisco says Citrix’s FlexCast and HDX technology will be the tech behind the scenes.

Joint channel partners with both Cisco and Citrix can sell and make available this combined solution. Cisco and Citrix claim that their new partnership will help “accelerate the deployment of desktop virtualization with the best performance, user experience and cost savings” and offer a few highlights…

Preconfigured Kits to Ease Deployment – Customized kits for XenDesktop user scenarios substantially ease operations by accelerating deployment times.
Cisco Validated Design to Help Ensure Pretested Interoperability – To further simplify and accelerate customer implementations, a reference design architecture is now available based on extensive testing at scale conducted jointly by Cisco, Citrix and NetApp.
Greater Density and Performance – Cisco UCS offers memory-extension technology that can deliver up to 60 percent greater virtual desktop density per server with no degradation in application performance
Any Device, Any Location – end users to access their corporate desktops and applications from any combination of PCs, Macs, laptops, thin clients, smartphones and tablets using the universal Citrix Receiver™ software client.
Improved security and access control – With centralization of desktop infrastructure, technologies like Cisco VN-Link and Citrix SmartAuditor technology help maintain data integrity and compliance

If you want to sink your teeth into their enterprise offering, check out the details over here, and the press release here. Even though this is focused around making things ‘cost effective’, there are conveniently, no price details. The press release details cost-saving components, energy efficiency and ease of scalability as the high-points for cash saving, however. But we’ll let you, the reader, weigh in.

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