Project Avalon lets enterprises and service providers deliver Windows apps and desktops as a service from private, public and hybrid clouds for users on any device, anywhere. Transforming app and desktop delivery, Project Avalon allows customers to select, configure and scale more mobile use cases more quickly, easily and economically than ever before.

The Project Avalon Excalibur Technology Preview offers order-of-magnitude achievements in simplicity, scalability and operational performance for cloud app and desktop service delivery to support mobile workstyles. The Project Avalon Merlin Technology Preview provides the ability to provision Windows as a cloud service; orchestrate and automate infrastructure deployment and management across virtual infrastructure, private clouds and public clouds; and enable self-service subscription for users and departments.

Deploy apps and desktops as a cloud service quickly and easily

Whether deploying apps, VDI or hosted shared desktops, enterprises can scale to tens of thousands of Windows apps and desktops as quickly and easily as a cloud service provider. Self-service deployment and automated app and desktop service creation reduce time and costs. Desktop and app infrastructure can be cloud-enabled via your choice of Apache CloudStack, Amazon or Microsoft cloud services.

Project Avalon leverages the new Citrix CloudPlatform, powered by Apache CloudStack, making it easy for current customers to adopt new features at whatever pace they like and tap into public clouds in a capacity-on-demand manner. Project Avalon Merlin Tech Preview can mix and match different versions of Microsoft Windows Server®, Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenApp and span any mix of public and private cloud infrastructure to host and deliver powerful, effective workstyles for all users.

Automate and orchestrate XenDesktop and XenApp environments

Project Avalon lets you define and automate the creation of user workspaces, including performance characteristics, application sets, network configuration and isolation requirements, then have the orchestration engine complete the deployment hands-free. Multi-site deployments and onboarding are automatically orchestrated from a single location.

Reinventing HDX for mobile and video

Today’s mobile users are accustomed to a rich immersive user experience with real-time media rendered on high-resolution displays. The Excalibur release of Project Avalon responds to these expectations with the most significant addition to the Citrix HDX high-definition experience technology in company history.  To ensure user experience quality of service, Project Avalon delivers new HDX EdgeSight for Real-time Analytics and Service Visibility that gives administrators real-time analytics on the experience of end users, helping them quickly diagnose and solve problems.

Simplify technology transitions

An open architecture eliminates technology-specific management of XenApp, XenDesktop, hypervisors and even entire clouds. The ability to mix and match infrastructure allows IT to focus on business needs while extending their current XenDesktop environment without the need to worry about the transition from virtual to cloud or other product architecture changes. Upgrade and migrate at your pace and automate the orchestration of users, desktops and apps for error-free deployment.

Deliver a personalized workspace to every user, in any location

Integrating cloud storage via Citrix ShareFile, Project Avalon ensures that user profiles, settings and application data are securely delivered to every user. Citrix CloudGateway delivers apps, desktops and data to any device via secure self-service enterprise app store. Citrix NetScaler ensures secure, high-performance, reliable and high-availability networking for any user and any device at any location.

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