Citrix Synergy 2011, San Francisco

Standing room only crowd experiences all facets of virtual computing

More than 5,500 attendees – from IT managers to C-level executives – thronged the keynotes, sessions, labs, demos and networking events at Citrix Synergy 2011 in San Francisco on May 25-27. The global conference kicked off with a Welcome Reception in the expansive Solutions Expo of new products and services; focused strongly on innovations in cloud computing and desktop virtualization; highlighted award-winning solutions from Citrix customers and event sponsors; and served as the venue for major news announcements by Citrix and its partners. Synergy San Francisco generated extensive press coverage worldwide and featured streamed, live reporting by theCube.
 
During the Day One Opening Keynote, Citrix CEO Mark Templeton spoke about the powerful force of consumerization and why IT must “feature” rather than “fight” this trend. He described the Citrix strategy for the cloud, stating that the cloud era is replacing the PC era by delivering elasticity, simplicity, variable costs and an opt-in vs. a lock-in mindset. Mr. Templeton then detailed three types of clouds: personal, private and public, and introduced a host of new products that enable them.

• For the personal cloud: GoToMeeting web collaboration with HDFaces video conferencing; XenClient 2 and XenClient XT for virtual desktops “to go”; and Citrix Receiver with Follow-me Apps and Follow-me Data.  
• For private and public clouds: NetScaler Cloud Gateway and NetScaler Cloud Bridge; and “Project Olympus” based on OpenStack to help customers build a cloud infrastructure.

Mr. Templeton also presented the Customer Innovation Award to TD Bank and acknowledged the other two finalists, Seattle Children’s Hospital and KLA-Tencor Corp.

The Day Two General Session, hosted by Citrix CTO Simon Crosby, featured Wyse CEO Tarkan Maner, who discussed cloud computing myths, trends and recommendations, and Michael Mestrovich of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who provided a unique perspective on the challenges of IT in a top-secret government environment.

A surprise guest was Allan Leinwand, CTO of Zynga, the gaming company known for FarmVille, Café World, Mafia Wars and Words with Friends. Leinwand described  zcloud, Zynga’s own public cloud that revolutionized its infrastructure for social gaming.

The Best of Synergy award winners were announced during this keynote:

• Best Partner Solution for Accelerating Cloud Adoption: Gluster.  
• Best Partner Solution for Desktop Transformation:  App-DNA.
• Best Partner Solution for Virtual Datacenters:  abiquo.  
• Best in Show award: Gluster won for its superior horizontally scalable storage solution for the cloud.  

This highly successful event concluded with a gala party featuring the Grammy Award-winning band, Train.

If you missed it, Synergy San Francisco content is available on demand via Synergy Live!

See you at the next event!