I am very happy that Synergy is a success in Europe and i hope it leads to more pan-european events just like Synergy. Where my frustration comes into the picture is with the fact that european partners and customers are now unable to attend and refered to a SynergyOnline concept which will bring a few keynotes and most popular sessions.

Normally a sold out event would just mean exactly that to me, a great success for the people doing the event and also for the participants, so why is it that i am irritated by this? Well yes, the reason this Citrix Synergy is such a huge success, in my oppinion can be contributed to the fact that Citrix has an extremely loyal network of distributors, partners and customers who are fully devoted to the strategy and the products. So when Mark Templeton goes on stage in Las Vegas and says “We are going to make a european event, full scale event, just like the one we have had in Las Vegas, and i hope you will all help us get people to attend”(essense of his words, not a direct quote) .. Well the european partners, distributors and customers start preparing. I think for several reasons:

• Bringing this to europe would save travel costs and make it easier to attend
• Making this a success would encourage Citrix to give the european event the same focus as the us-based.
• For distributors and Partners, making a european event like this sends a signal to customers that Citrix cares.

So.. what happend after the announcement from Mark Templeton in Las Vegas? Well the local Citrix offices started focusing on gathering people for the local event, participation from the local offices in europe at the San francisco event was almost nothing compared to earlier, and customers were told, wait! Berlin will be great! And who are the big liars now? The partners and distributors? Maybe we should not have suggested customers wait for Berlin, as i remember there were still available seating at the Synergy in San Francisco.

And Citrix, yes.. you should have known.. you could have prepared, you promised a fullscale event in Berlin, and booked room for like 50% more attendants than you have previously had at local German events..

Want alternatives?

Citrix has done a few things to help ease the pain on some of the people unable to get tickets for the real event, one of which is Synergy Online, more infomation can be found here: http://www.citrixsynergy.com/about/synergyonline.html

I will be blogging and tweeting from Synergy so stay tuned, if YOU are blogging from Synergy, let me know i will make a page with links to blogs from Synergy in Berlin.

And if you have the time and budget an alternative to get the information would be to attend Pubforum Berlin. Pubforum Berlin will be held right after Citrix Synergy in Berlin, and will be featuring sessions with “Best from Synergy” and some of the speakers from Synergy will also be present at Pubforum. For more information about Pubforum check www.pubforum.net . Pubforum is an Expert to Expert european event and there will be no sales sessions.

Citrix has released the videos recorded at the sessions from Citrix Synergy 2010 in San Francisco. I must say i was very impressed with the few videos i have had the time to see so far, very professional editing, a pleasure to see, almost as well as being there, and really a good alternative to attending more than one session at a time

All the sessions can be found here: http://www.citrix.com/tv/#channels/Synergy+2010

Categorized here:

·         Desktop Virtualization
·         Datacenter and Cloud
·         IT Business and Strategy

To those who did not get into the session Jacob and I did on “supporting Macs and iPhones in a corporate infrastructure” or did not go to Synergy it can be found here: http://www.citrix.com/tv/#videos/2284

René Vester

It is ofcourse all under NDA, but i think i wont get shot if i just say that there is a lot of cool stuff under way, some which most likely will be announced this wednesday/thursday at Synergy keynotes, and some may be for Synergy in Berlin later this year.

So today for me it is Citrix Summit time, the Citrix Partner event and that is also under NDA, luckily though this afternoon kicks off Citrix GeekSpeak. First with a couple of Citrix GeekSpeak Live! sessions and then follow up sessions in the Expo hall in a more relaxed form, Citrix GeekSpeak Easy.

i wrote more about GeekSpeak here.

You can see more about the GeekSpeak this year here: http://www.citrixsynergy.com/agenda/geekspeaklive.html

/René Vester

One cool thing i want to bring to your attention is the fact that GeekSpeak is heavily available with this years Citrix Synergy. I like GeekSpeak and the format of being unfiltered sessions delivered by the most passionate to anyone who will listen.

GeekSpeak is available in 3 shapes this time:

• Geek Speak Tonight: The fan favorite that we ran at Synergy 09 returns, where a combination of Citrix Technology Professionals (CTPs) and CTOs lead discussions and debates on pre-determined topics, and the audience takes center stage and joins the conversation! This event will kick off Synergy on Tuesday, May 11 at 4:30 – 6:45 p.m., giving you a chance to begin the conference with a breath of fresh, unfiltered air. Refreshments will be served. Get there early to claim your seat!

• Geek Speak Track: Not your typical formal breakouts! These sessions are complete with open, unfiltered discussion on a variety of technical topics led by CTPs, Citrix CTOs, and other respected industry thought leaders. Held May 12-14 alongside the formal breakout sessions.

• Geek Speakeasy: Geek Speak Live! comes to the Solutions Expo Hall with a relaxed lounge format for conversational sessions, and a lab format for "bring your own laptop" sessions with industry leaders and technical experts from the community. So grab a snack and head over to the Geek Speakeasy for an action-packed set of sessions from May 11-13!

And the invitation was laid out by Laura Whalen like this:

Are you:

• Tired of dark, stuffy conference rooms where you can hear a pin drop?
• Interested in desktop virtualization, client hypervisors & cloud computing?
• Looking for uncut, unfiltered, and unprecedented discussion and debate?

Do you:

• Want to speak your technically focused mind, and all you need is a stage?
• Enjoy mixing it up with master discussionists of the IT universe?
• Write you name in binary code for fun & watch "The Matrix" for the 5th+ time, just because it’s on?

Time for GeekSpeak?

I for one will be there as much as i can.. its usually great, so if you are at Synergy og Summit, do go join the GeekSpeak sessions

For more information have a look at Laura Whalens blogpost here: http://community.citrix.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=141099044

Rene Vester

The finalists are:

I will not make myself judge on who diserves it the most, but i have to say it is one of the best finals i have seen, most in very different areas. I cant wait to see the winner revealed … and i do hope we get an award home to Denmark

You can read more about the finalists on Vicky’s blog here: http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/vickyp

/René Vester

So.. i was thrilled to see that Chris Fleck did a blog post about one of the many Citrix Ready Partners which has come up with something i think might be good news for all the people who wants to deliver their company information to mobile devices.

Chris writes:

“If you want to provide great looking mobile apps for your organization you probably have already faced a number of issues. A sample of these may include:
  1. The company only supports Blackberry , but the employees want iPhones and Androids.
  2. The apps work on XenApp but they don’t look great on a Mobile.
  3. Requirement to control access to apps, data, and users just like with XenApp.
  4. Multiple app development platform expertise required like Objective C, Blackberry JDE, etc

If any of these or other obstacles have prevented you from delivering Mobile Apps to your users you should check out PowerGadgets Mobile for XenApp. Our Citrix-Ready partner SoftwareFX has developed a great WYSIWYG tool for building great looking mobile apps. The only input required is a database query ( SQL, Access, Oracle, etc ) or a Web Service or a Powershell command. The rest is click, drag and drop.”

Read the full blog post here: http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2010/04/23/Sneak+Peak+at+PowerGadgets+for+XenApp%2C+a+WYSIWYG+Mobile+App+Creator

The software is build by SoftwareFX, you can visit them at www.softwarefx.com

For me this supports what Jacob Berg and I will be presenting in a great way, as it is a challenge faced by a lot of organisations.. the users want to work in the way THEY feel comfortable, not always in the way the organisations would like it to be.

A better way to deliver information to non-specific devices like with Citrix Receiver for mobile devices, really make sense, if you can get your apps to fit the device they are targetted for.

I really hope i have time to build a small demo and app to show as part of the Breakout session.. we will see if time allows

/Rene Vester

This time however i have the pleasure of presenting, and i am very much looking forward to that. We are just now finishing up on second presentation draft, and i think it is going to be, like Tony would say, Greeeeeeeaat!

I have the pleasure of Co-presenting with a good friend Jacob Berg in a session about Macs and iPhone in the corporate infrastructure. To me it is a topic which often comes up when discussing future solution architecture. A lot of our users have grown happy with the Apple way of doing things, some starting from the graphical industry, others just falling in love with the iPod ..

Our session will be: SYN321- Supporting Macs and iPhones in your corporate infrastructure

Session Description:
Mac computers and iPhones are getting more and more popular among the users of corporate IT infrastructure. BYOC concepts are introducing more Mac’s into "no-Mac" companies. With the introduction of more operating system platforms, IT organizations face new challenges to handle these non-Windows user devices. In this session we will layout the options with live demonstrations of Mac/Citrix use cases to show how this new type of user device can be incorporated into existing or planned Citrix infrastructure.
In this session you will learn:
• How Citrix technologies complement the Mac and the iPhone
• How to get the most out of Citrix on Mac/iPhone
• Best practices on how to implement Citrix solutions on Mac

So.. that is going to be fun i think, and hopefully you will join us

Aside from that i have been given the great pleasure of participating in a panel discussion on cloud at the GeekSpeak Tonight! event more info here: GeekSpeak Tonight! for me the GeekSpeak atmosphere is always a blast, unfiltered discussions.. its what we all need

And last but not least i have the pleasure of presenting in the Expo-Area in the GeekSpeak Easy lounge with Alexander Ervik a good friend and fellow CTP from norway. We will take you through “The essentials to a virtual datacenter”, but more on that when you get to San Francisco

Hope to see you there!

/René

You can download the entire document here: http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx123684

Some of my thoughts after reading:

• Great to see the XenDesktop solution based on ESX!
• Great and honest in-depth description of problems encountered
• Why say scaling to 5000 when you only launch 3268 sessions? i get that 5000 sounds better but 3268 is cool enough
• Very impressive PVS scaling i will be looking into the mentioned changes.

What do you guys think? is this possible?

What interest me most.. whats the price pr. Concurrent Device?

But worth a read for sure for everyone considering VDI.

/René Vester

After having visited the Norwegian User group on their spring event from Oslo to Kiel, then visiting Las Vegas for the Citrix Partner Summit and the Citrix Synergy event which i have blogged about earlier i we held the 2009 Pubforum Dublin just earlier this month. It was a great event, sadly my duties during the event kept me from blogging as much from the event has i have done earlier. But i can tell you that the event was great, awesome presenters and as it is with Pubforum wonderful attendees. At Pubforum everyone is a family.. presenter and attendee alike, it is one of the great things and i am happy to be a part of the event. Next Pubforum will be in Frankfurt Germany the home city of Pubforum Founder Alex Y..Dr.Conti, so i bet he will do what he can to make us all feel like we were at home

Now i am back to attending my day-job, and at last i have worked my way through the work which had piled up on my desk. And with the summer coming i hope i will have time to write articles and blog posts about all the many impressions i have gotten over the last couple of months. I will be kicking of today or tomorrow with the first part of a serie i have chosen to call The Essentials of Virtualization.

Back on the Blog.. back on twitter.. its good to be home ……… maybe i should get out more

Rene Vester