Non-NDA. What’s new from Citrix Summit 2017

This post will cover what’s new from Citrix — announcements made from their annual Citrix Summit conference, held in Anaheim this year. As to be expected, this will be a work in progress for the coming days. All information shared will be non-NDA, meaning it will also be shared on other blogs/websites, like Citrix’s’, for example. Single pane access, that’s the main thought, for your convenience. Here goes.

General news and announcements:

• Citrix acquires Unidesk – Read the details here en here.
• News around partnership with Cisco – Cisco HyperFlex VDI for Citrix.
• Citrix is introducing new packages to transition from on-premises licenses to Citrix Cloud for existing customers – Services that enable Citrix and Microsoft customers to deploy Windows 10 desktops on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, services to deploy apps directly on Azure, and Smart Tools to simplify the deployment of new workspaces. Read more here.
• The  Citrix Ready HCI Workspace Appliance initiative, staring HPE and Atlantis – Citrix blog.
• Citrix support services “Rated Outstanding Assisted Support Global” – read the full story.
• Partnership with Red Bull Racing – Citrix news announcement.
• XenApp and XenDesktop Essentials, Skype for Business, Microsoft Server 2016 adoption, Migrating to Windows 10 and Microsoft EMS and NetScaler – The Citrix and Microsoft Partnership Hits the Accelerator.
• XenApp on Microsoft Azure cost calculator – Link to blog, including the calculator
• Azure Active Directory support – Azure Active Directory for administrator sign-ins to Citrix Cloud. NetScaler Unified Gateway and Microsoft EMS – Provide Conditional Access for Mobile Users
• NVIDIA Grid – Scalable, affordable Windows 10 desktop virtualization with NVIDIA GRID and NVIDIA Tesla M10. Find the guest blog post here.
• Base install for XenServer 7 – Read the full blog here.
• XenServer 7.1 LTSR announcement – Here’s the full story.
• The Tile Shop Creates a Digital Customer Experience with Citrix Solutions – Information on the use of Citrix NetScaler SD-WAN and XenDesktop, read here.
• HDX.next Cuts Bandwidth by Up To 60%. Yes: SIXTY PERCENT! Read all about it.
• Secure Browsing with Citrix & Bitdefender – You’ll find the accompanying Citrix blogpost here.
• NetScaler CPX – Verify Your Containerized Applications with NetScaler CPX Now!!
• Multiple Reboot Schedules for a Delivery Group in XenApp 7.12 – Read about the how and why here.

Shared on Twitter:

• First XenServer LTSR has been announced, to be released shortly. Meaning 10 years of dedicated support. Read more on LTSR. See the above list for the accompanying blogpost.
• FAS (Federated Authentication Services) will be enabled for @CitrixCloud to add FED & MFA for end-users inside Cloud StoreFront. Both leverage a new identity platform.
• New EDT transport layer will be GA with XenApp & XenDesktop 7.13 — Doubles interactivity of Thinwire display remoting at high latency.
• 10x faster file transfers at high latency with #HDX in #XenApp and #XenDesktop 7.13 this quarter.
• Skype for Business on Citrix HDX Ready Pi.
• XenServer 7.1, XenMobile 10.4 and XenApp/XenDesktop 7.13 announced on stage.
• Lifecycle Management has been renamed to Smart Tools (old news, but still). Particularly interested in Smart Check personally. Read the accompanying blogpost.
• HPE, Atlantis and Citrix will deliver the first HCI Workspace Appliance – as highlighted in one of the above mentioned blogs as well. Specifically aimed at Offices, branches, and remote locations, read more here and here.
• Showing the, again, new and improved HDX protocol – HDX interactivity over WAN – 150 ms latency and 1% packet loss, working beautifully. HDX as you have never experienced it before, according to Citrix.
• XenServer deep Hypervisor inspection – protect against zero day attacks with BitDefender #industryfirst Truly agentless malware detection, only on #XenServer. Detect zero day attacks. Detect in-memory only attacks.
• Some impressive numbers on ShareFile: Citrix ShareFile 84K customers 20M business users #core components of CitrixCloud. @Gartner_inc ‘s has recognized @citrix ShareFile as an industry leader for 3 consecutive years says @greglissy
• As a sidenote, I really do not like the #CitrixCan approach.
• Citrix ShareFile Document Workflows announced on stage. Showing off @ShareFile new UI & enhanced workflow. More than just a pretty face.
• Azure is now the default Citrix managed Cloud storage location. ShareFile now provides storage zones on @Azure #CitrixSummit
• ShareFile is the only way to delivery OneDrive for Business in a virtual environment #DriveMapper – No says @Stealthpuppy:

• Some NetScaler love on stage – One to ANY, MAS and TriScale are the three core differentiators for @NetScaler + foundation for software defined networking. #CitrixSummit.
• #NetScaler takes the stage. Licence pooling for super agility & MAS support for #HAProxy.
• ADC “smoothie” is the way to go with multi-clouds by @achauhan – He says “take the red pill” if you take a uni-cloud approach :-) For the rest it’s a multi-cloud & hybrid world.
• Sweet! @NetScaler SD-WAN is going to have routing and firewall capability! Finally a true branch office replacement!
• SD-WAN with zero touch, stateful firewall and routing… and a drone can deliver it. Need I say more? #Gamechanger
• Coming soon #ShareFile drivemapper for Mac!
• PVS accelerator in XenServer 7.1 is a game changer #CitrixSummit 99%less network traffic, 25% faster boot times and 93% less PVS server CPU load.
• Not from Summit perse, but interesting none te less – latest NVIDIA blogpost, read it here.
• We’ve reached and surpassed XenApp 65. functionality, time to upgrade.
• Read Gabe’s full analyses on the Unidesk acquisition here.
• Remember, #netscaler is the ONLY option for full visibility is n to #Citrix #HDX end to end traffic flows. #UnifiedGateway.
• Fujitsu is proud to accept the 2017 @Citrix Innovation Award for Partners at #CitrixSummit. What a tremendous honor! http://okt.to/KXa8rX 
• IMO the best news from #CitrixSummit : http://HDX.next  Cuts Bandwidth by Up To 60%. Yes: SIXTY PERCENT!
• Calvin Hsu: XenServer, once the “forgotten child,” will see a 10-year commitment under long-term service releases.
• #Citrix has big plans for #XenMobile. Managing any device from desktops to refrigerators :)
• Now available for download: #XenMobile clients 10.4.5 With public App store migration support. https://www.citrix.com/downloads/xenmobile.html … #WeAreXenMobile.
• Did you know that XenMobile is fully integrated into Citrix Cloud? The cloud connector is a great alternative to using IPSec #CitrixSummit — Available Now XenMobile Cloud Connector simplify deployment.
• #PaloAlto #WeAreXenMobile #MobileSecurity Application Security intergration – Packet inspection and act on it.
• #XenMobile Skycure – Deep intergration Check device state before pushing Enterprise or MDX Apps.
• #Sharefile connector management by #xenmobile with all data on premises, NO connection to Cloud Control-plane.
• NetScaler MAS Stylebooks another great new feature to deploy and streamline services to #NetScaler.
• Coming soon #ShareFile drivemapper for Mac! #CitrixSummit.
• Multi DEP Bulk Enrollments for iOS and MacOs #XenMobile.
• NetScaler SD-WAN will get HDX Insight in the standard edition as of version 9.2 #CitrixSummit.
• Great to see that #NetScaler SD-WAN gets the L7 firewall feature!
• @CitrixReceiver for Chrome 2.3 adds true multimonitor in unified desktop mode https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/citrix-receiver/haiffjcadagjlijoggckpgfnoeiflnem … #CitrixSummit #citrixcan @googlechrome
• @citrix #Receiver v2.3 for #HTML5 released http://bit.ly/2jvgUVw  use your @XenApp @XenDesktop sessions w/o client #installs.

And that concludes Citrix Summit 2017.

Bas van Kaam

Field CTO EMEA by day, author by night @ Nerdio

Father of three, EMEA Field CTO @ Nerdio, Author of the book Van de Basis tot aan Meester in de Cloud, Co-author of the book Project Byte-Sized and Yuthor of the book: Inside Citrix – The FlexCast Management Architecture, over 500 blog posts and multiple (ultimate) cheat sheets/e-books. Public speaker, sport enthusiast­­­­­­­­: above-average runner, 3 x burpee-mile finisher and a former semiprofessional snooker player. IT community participant and initiator of the AVD User group Community world wide.