Today, Citrix is announcing a program to dramatically simplify the scalability and manageability of VDI environments for mid-market organizations.
We’re launching the Citrix Ready HCI Workspace Appliance Program, which enables hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) appliances from the leading hardware and storage partners to connect to Citrix Cloud to automate the setup and maintenance of XenApp and XenDesktop Service.
We’re creating a comprehensive workspace appliance solution that takes the entire stack into account to reduce complexity and offer the lowest total cost of ownership. Instead of worrying about configuration and hardware and software compatibility, with a Citrix Ready HCI Workspace Appliance solution, partners and customers simply connect the appliance to Citrix Cloud to quickly and easily stand up and deliver virtual desktops and apps. The solution provides new innovative capabilities to simply deliver virtual workspace infrastructure and ensure the best user experience at a lower cost.
Why is this such a big deal? While large companies have depended on XenApp and XenDesktop to provide their employees with secure access to the apps and data they need to work anywhere at any time, mid-market companies lack the IT infrastructure, resources, and expertise needed to stand up VDI and secure app delivery deployments.
HCI solutions help to reduce complexity and cost at the hardware and storage layers, particularly for the mid-market, but they still require a high degree of expertise to stand up the app and desktop delivery layer that sits on top of the HCI platform. And we could see that Citrix is in a unique position to combine cloud services with HCI to offer a comprehensive “Workspace Appliance” solution.
HPE and Atlantis – First to Deliver
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Atlantis have stepped forward as our first partners to join the program, introducing a joint solution that will be based on the HPE Edgeline EL4000 Intelligent Edge Workspace, Atlantis USX software-defined storage solution, and Citrix Cloud XenApp and XenDesktop Service.
Working together with our partners like HPE and Atlantis, we’re combining all of the elements needed for a successful secure app and desktop delivery deployment into one package — a cloud-based control plane with lifecycle management, hardware, hypervisor, storage solution, networking and virtualization software — that allows mid-market customers to quickly stand up secure digital workspaces that are scalable and easy to manage.
Starting with the HPE and Atlantis solution, we see tremendous potential to help government agencies, healthcare organizations, financial services companies and schools to securely deliver apps and desktops to people so they can work using any device, anywhere. Throughout 2017, we will continue to expand this program with additional HCI partners to deliver the vision of the Citrix Ready HCI Workspace Appliance.
It’s a great way to kick off the New Year, and we’re just getting started. This is going to be a great year.
And, if you’re in Anaheim for Citrix Summit, be sure to check out these two sessions in particular:
- HPE break out session (SPON003) – The Promise (and Perils) of IoT –Monday, June 9 at 3:00 PM – 3:45 PM. The panel discussion includes Dr. Tom Bradicich and Olivier Frank from HPE along with our own Chris Matthieu and Steve Wilson.
- Citrix break out session (SELL214) – Citrix Cloud-managed HCI Workspace Appliances for Mid-market – Tuesday, January 10 at 3:30 PM – 4:15 PM, presented by Orestes Melgarejo and Gunnar Berger.
