Citrix Virtual Desktops

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Citrix Virtual Desktops (formerly XenDesktop) is a desktop virtualization product.

Contents

History

The virtualization technology that led to XenDesktop was first developed in 2000 through an open-source hypervisor research project led by Ian Pratt at the University of Cambridge called Xen Project for x86. [1] [2] Pratt founded a company called XenSource in 2004, which made a commercial version of the Xen hypervisor. [2] In 2007, Citrix acquired XenSource, releasing XenDesktop version 2.0 in 2008. [3] [4] The company continues to release updated versions, with XenDesktop 7.6 featuring HDX technology enhancements for audio, video and graphics user experience, as well as a reduction in storage costs associated with virtual desktop deployments as a result of improvements to Citrix provisioning services. [5] [6]

In 2018, the software was renamed Citrix Virtual Desktops. [7]

Product overview

The product's aim is to give employees the ability to work from anywhere while cutting information technology management costs because desktops and applications are centralized. [8] XenDesktop also aims to provide security, because data is not stored on the devices of end users, instead being saved in a centralized datacenter or cloud infrastructure. [9] Citrix developed the software for use by medium to large enterprise customers. [10] [11]

Citrix Workspace is able to manage and deliver applications and desktops using a connection broker called Desktop Delivery Controller. [11] [12] It supports multiple hypervisors, including Citrix Hypervisor, VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Nutanix Acropolis to create virtual machines to run the applications and desktops. [11] The software allows for several types of delivery methods and is compatible with multiple architectures, including desktops and servers, datacenters, and private, public or hybrid clouds. [8] [13] [6] [11] Virtualized applications can be delivered to virtual desktops using Virtual Apps. [10]

Release history

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citrix Systems</span> American software company

Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational cloud computing and virtualization technology company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologies. Citrix claims that their products are used by over 400,000 clients worldwide, including 99% of the Fortune 100 and 98% of the Fortune 500.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xen</span> Type-1 hypervisor

Xen is a free and open-source type-1 hypervisor, providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently. It was originally developed by the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and is now being developed by the Linux Foundation with support from Intel, Citrix, Arm Ltd, Huawei, AWS, Alibaba Cloud, AMD, Bitdefender and epam.

Desktop virtualization is a software technology that separates the desktop environment and associated application software from the physical client device that is used to access it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyper-V</span> Native hypervisor by Microsoft

Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian, and briefly known before its release as Windows Server Virtualization, is a native hypervisor; it can create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows. Starting with Windows 8, Hyper-V superseded Windows Virtual PC as the hardware virtualization component of the client editions of Windows NT. A server computer running Hyper-V can be configured to expose individual virtual machines to one or more networks. Hyper-V was first released with Windows Server 2008, and has been available without additional charge since Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8. A standalone Windows Hyper-V Server is free, but has a command-line interface only. The last version of free Hyper-V Server is Hyper-V Server 2019, which is based on Windows Server 2019.

In computing, virtualization or virtualisation in British English is the act of creating a virtual version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, storage devices, and computer network resources.

VMware Horizon is a commercial desktop and app virtualization product developed by VMware, Inc for Microsoft Windows, Linux and macOS operating systems. It was first sold under the name VMware VDM, but with the release of version 3.0.0 in 2008 it was changed to "VMware View". The name was updated to "Horizon View" with the launch of version 6 in April 2014 and is now referred to as "VMware Horizon" to represent desktop and app virtualization.

InstallFree Inc. is a privately held company, backed by Ignition Partners and Trilogy Equity Partners, with headquarters in Stamford, CT and offices located worldwide. It was acquired by WatchDox. in December 2012. InstallFree specializes in Application Virtualization and delivery, based on their proprietary application virtualization technology that works on a variety of Microsoft Windows platforms such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Terminal Server and Citrix XenApp.

A hosted desktop is a product set within the larger cloud-computing sphere generally delivered using a combination of technologies including hardware virtualization and some form of remote connection software, Citrix XenApp or Microsoft Remote Desktop Services being two of the most common. Processing takes place within the provider's datacenter environment with traffic between the datacenter and the client being primarily display updates, mouse movements and keyboard activity.

XenClient is a discontinued desktop virtualization product developed by Citrix. It runs virtual desktops on endpoint devices. The product reached end of-life in December 2016. XenClient runs both operating system and applications locally in the end users device, without the need for a connection to a data center, which is why it is used in environments with limited connectivity, disconnected operation on laptops, and other scenarios where local execution is desired while keeping management centralized.

Founded by Alex Vasilevsky, Virtual Computer was a venture-backed software company in the Boston area that produces desktop virtualization products, which combine centralized management with local execution on a hypervisor running on PCs. By running the workload on the PC, Virtual Computer enables companies to have centralized management without servers, storage, and networking required for server-hosted VDI.

CloudStack is open-source Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud computing software for creating, managing, and deploying infrastructure cloud services. It uses existing hypervisor platforms for virtualization, such as KVM, VMware vSphere, including ESXi and vCenter, XenServer/XCP and XCP-ng. In addition to its own API, CloudStack also supports the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API and the Open Cloud Computing Interface from the Open Grid Forum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2X Software</span> Maltese software company

2X Software was a Maltese software company specializing in virtual desktop, application virtualization, application delivery, Remote Desktop Services, remote access and Mobile Device Management. On 25 February 2015, 2X Software was acquired by Parallels, Inc. The 2X products, Remote Application Server and Mobile Device Management, are now included in Parallels' offering.

GPU virtualization refers to technologies that allow the use of a GPU to accelerate graphics or GPGPU applications running on a virtual machine. GPU virtualization is used in various applications such as desktop virtualization, cloud gaming and computational science.

Citrix Workspace is a digital workspace software platform developed by Citrix Systems. Launched in 2018, it is Citrix Systems' flagship product. Citrix Workspace is an information retrieval service where users can access programs and files from a variety of sources through a central application or a Web browser. In addition to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, Citrix Workspace services include Citrix Endpoint Management, Citrix Content Collaboration, Citrix Access Control, microapp capabilities, usage analytics, and single sign-on capabilities to SaaS and Web apps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citrix Workspace App</span>

Citrix Workspace App is the client component of XenDesktop and XenApp, developed by Citrix Systems. It was released initially in 2009.

Citrix Virtual Apps is an application virtualization software produced by Citrix Systems that allows Windows applications to be accessed via individual devices from a shared server or cloud system.

Citrix Cloud is a cloud management platform that allows organizations to deploy cloud-hosted desktops and apps to end users. It was developed by Citrix Systems and released in 2015.

NetScaler is a line of networking products owned by Cloud Software Group. The products consist of NetScaler, an application delivery controller (ADC), NetScaler AppFirewall, an application firewall, NetScaler Unified Gateway, NetScaler Application Delivery Management (ADM), and NetScaler SD-WAN, which provides software-defined wide-area networking management. NetScaler was initially developed in 1997 by Michel K Susai and acquired by Citrix Systems in 2005. Citrix consolidated all of its networking products under the NetScaler brand in 2016. On September 30, 2022, when Citrix was taken private as part of the merger with TIBCO Software, NetScaler was formed as a business unit under the Cloud Software Group.

Ericom Connect is a remote access/application publishing solution produced by Ericom Software that provides secure, centrally managed access to physical or hosted desktops and applications running on Microsoft Windows and Linux systems.

References

  1. Buytaert, Kris (March 26, 2008). "The Current State of Open Source Virtualization". Virtualization. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  2. 1 2 Waters, John K (March 15, 2007). "Virtualization topics covering definition, objectives, systems and solutions". CIO . Retrieved 25 June 2015.[ dead link ]
  3. "Release: Citrix XenDesktop 2.0". Virtualization. May 20, 2008. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  4. Babcock, Charles (October 22, 2007). "Citrix Launches First Product From XenSource Acquisition". InformationWeek . Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  5. "Citrix makes VDI faster, secure, more reliable and cheaper on storage with the latest XenApp and XenDesktop". Cloud Computing Intelligence. August 20, 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  6. 1 2 Cox, Mark (August 25, 2014). "New Citrix XenApp, XenDesktop releases to take down adoption barriers". Channel Buzz. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  7. Keumars Afifi-Sabet (16 May 2018). "Citrix quietly ditches Xen and NetScaler brands days after Synergy 2018".
  8. 1 2 Ricknäs, Mikael (April 14, 2008). "Citrix sets price and release date for XenDesktop". Network World . Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  9. Howsw, Brett (July 14, 2015). "Citrix brings full support for Windows 10 to its desktop virtualization products". AnandTech . Retrieved 14 July 2015.
  10. 1 2 McMillan, Robert (May 20, 2008). "Citrix's New XenDesktop Options Include Free Edition". CIO . Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Becker, Randy. "Components, features and use cases for XenDesktop 7.5". TechTarget . Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  12. Ruest, Danielle; Ruest, Nelson (January 1, 2009). "Xen and the Art of Hosted Desktops". Virtualization. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  13. Rouse, Margaret. "Citrix XenDesktop". Search virtual desktop. TechTarget . Retrieved 13 July 2015.