Citrix has finalized the program agenda for Synergy San Francisco on May 12 – 14, 2010.  Yesterday they confirmed that they have scheduled Shawn Bass and me for the breakout session “Mastering User Profiles in Virtual Desktop Environments”.  Session date-time/location is Thursday, May 13, 11:30 a.m.  – 12:20 p.m. in Moscone West Convention Center - Moscone 2016-2018.

Here is the session description: When looking at user profiles, it’s about each user’s individual digital personality.  As an IT professional, you better try not to reduce workspace flexibility, or your users will make your working life harder every day.  When you only needed to deal with one desktop and one profile per user, things were relatively simple.  But now, with remote desktops and applications delivered through a range of virtualization technologies, we are facing a very different situation.  CTPs Benny Tritsch and Shawn Bass present an all-up view of the different user profile scenarios in multiple virtualization setups.

In addition to our breakout session, Shawn and I will also be speaking at Citrix Synergy Geek Speak Live!  Our session will be about “How Graphics and Media Remoting Really Works”.  Here is the description: It’s an urban legend that Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) shipped with Terminal Services has design shortcomings and scalability limits.  Many IT professionals heard more than once that the Citrix ICA protocol is superior.  Is that true?  Are there ways to improve graphics remoting performance for common user scenarios?  And what are Microsoft and Citrix doing to improve graphics remoting with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2?  How good are RDP and ICA in dealing with GDI, GDI+, DirectX, OpenGL, Windows Presentation Foundation, Flash, Silverlight, videos and animations?  Join virtualization experts Benny Tritsch and Shawn Bass in an in-depth look at how desktop, application and media remoting works.  After attending his session, you will have no excuse for not knowing what RDP and ICA are good for.

Hope to see many of you in San Francisco.

Over the last years I had the opportunity to visit many corporate customers and have deep technical conversations with them, mostly around their existing or future terminal server, Citrix and virtualization infrastructures.  This allowed me to see many corporate IT environments from the inside and speak to the people responsible for planning and design – those mystic IT architects.  A good number of these IT architects were among the most brilliant and motivated individuals I ever got to know in my professional life.  But still, some of them were responsible for IT environments that – with all respect – just sucked.  At the beginning this was a big surprise to me as some of these corporate customers have great reputations for being well organized.  But after a while I figured that great businesses relying on not so good IT infrastructures are more the rule and not the exception.

Now the question is why there is such a big discrepancy between the relevant heads and the results when it comes to IT architecture.  After talking to other peers and expert in that matter I came to a simple conclusion: The issue is a combination of inadequate tools and management mindset.  This conclusion may simplify things a little bit too much, but for now see it as the starting point for a bigger discussion.  Why do I believe that tools and management mindset are the major reason that so many corporate IT architectures suck?

First let me start with the tools.  Are you aware what the most popular expert tools used by IT architects are?  It’s Powerpoint, Visio and flipcharts.  Seriously, would you let a traditional architect re-model or build your private apartment or your house if all he or she has is a Powerpoint slide deck and a couple of simple Visio drawings?  Most probably, you wouldn’t even trust a craftsman you asked to plan the installation of a new bathroom or kitchen if all he has is a hand-painted, rough plan on a piece of paper right before he wants to start working.  And this is a very wise decision as there are better planning tools for that, just go to any kitchen studio and you find out what I’m talking about.

Now compare the planning of many corporate IT environments with the planning in conventional architecture, in the automotive industry or in the aircraft industry.  What would such engineers and designers be without Autocad, Catia and the like?  Only IT design and planning seems to be done with the absence of IT when going beyond simple drawings.  Isn’t that weird?  There are no commonly established component libraries, there are no plausibility checks, there is no mandatory basic simulation method and there are no common criteria to approve a new IT infrastructure.  It all relies on the experience and the “common sense” of the IT architects in charge.  If you were to plan a bridge in the same way it wouldn’t be a big surprise if after your first bridge was built only half of the people or cars were able to make it to the other side.  And don’t tell me that IT infrastructures are too complex for computer-aided design and planning – just compare it to building new airplanes or cars where design and simulation tools are taken for granted.

Don’t get me wrong, most IT architects do the best they can – but quite often they are left alone with the planning.  This is a common situation even if so many enterprises have powerful products and tools to operate and constantly analyze all aspects of their existing IT infrastructure.  But most IT architects don’t have tools accepting the collected data as an input channel for their planning work.  Despite the lack of adequate tools, the expectation on the executive management side is that IT architects are able to provide necessary changes and updates in the IT infrastructure fast, reliable and cost effective – but without any substantial investment into their qualification and available resources.

This leads directly to the second issue; management mindset.  When sitting in meetings with customers, it is always interesting to note how long it takes some executives to make IT-related decisions and how fast they expect results from the IT staff, including IT architects.  In addition to that, there is a clear tendency that CIOs rather follow vendors’ marketing statements, hype topics and market waves instead of identifying and prioritizing the company’s real IT requirements.  Sometimes this is leading to an unhealthy influence of the executive management on an IT architect’s daily job.  Or – even worse – CTOs and CIOs don’t care at all about IT infrastructure planning processes even if it is of vital importance for running their core business.  Not to forget those executive who assign positions in IT architecture rather randomly, not always picking the right person for the job.  Another group of executives seems to believe that being an IT architect is only a part-time job, so they add this role to the job description of an IT administrator.  The same executive would never consider driving a company car that was designed by a motivated part-time car engineer having a day job at a gas station. (Well, on the other side, looking at today’s car industry, it may have been wise to let such down-to-earth part-time engineers make some design decisions regarding future cars – but that’s a different story.)

In a nutshell, many IT architects have neither the right tools nor the necessary management support.  All this comes down to the fact that great (part-time) IT architects don’t necessarily create good IT architectures, and nobody should blame them for that.  If companies started treating IT architecture in the same way as they are treating the management of their sales forces, offices buildings and company cars, many IT infrastructures would be in a much better shape – for the sake of an organization’s core business.  I’m dreaming of an “Autocad” for IT infrastructures and some mandatory approval regulations requiring reviews by independent external experts, just like for buildings, vehicles, roads, railroad tracks or power plants.  It’s all about risk management!

That being said, finding great IT architectures in some corporate environments is clear evidence that there are some brilliant IT architects out there.  I see them as outstanding individuals who are able to make things possible, against all odds and without adequate tools.  In most cases, such IT architects are backed up and fully empowered by their executive management.  But it’s so sad that this is the exception and not the rule.

A couple of weeks ago I was speaking at a German cloud and virtualization conference, dominated by attendees working at Internet Service Providers and physical datacenters. There were many sessions about cloud computing, but speakers were also covering topics like datacenter climate control and energy efficiency improvements. It is interesting to note, that there were speakers from Amazon, Google, IBM, and Dell, but not from Microsoft, VMware or Citrix. As a consequence, desktop virtualization and application remoting enjoyed only very limited attention at this event.

But still, there were some interesting statements a majority of speakers and attendees agreed to.

• There is a massive influence from Internet communities and social networks when looking at future business application concepts.
• There are successful examples for business apps delivered through cloud services, such as Salesforce.
• Consumers influence enterprise user, meaning that there is a shift towards user-orientation in contrast to the past notion of technology driving application development. This implies that user demands are getting more important than technical capabilities. More features is not necessarily better anymore.

This all culminated in the generally accepted statement that conventional Windows applications will disappear during the next five years. A majority of speakers and attendees shared the opinion that ALL Windows apps will be replaced by web apps, Google apps, Adobe Flash and Silverlight by the end of this 5-year period. During a panel discussion, I was the only person on stage that didn’t believe this – which was an interesting situation for me. This was a sharp contrast to so many Terminal Server, Citrix and Virtual Desktop events I attended during the last months.

I can tell you quite frankly, this bold statement made by a group of datacenter experts made me think about my own future. Will Microsoft Windows and all UNIX/Linux-based desktop operating systems disappear because they are not required anymore as a common application runtime environment? If all applications are rich web apps (AJAX), Google apps, Flash apps or Silverlight apps, there is no need for remoting conventional Windows applications.

After thinking about this issue for a couple of weeks now, I came to the conclusion that I still don’t believe in this scenario. Now you may say “Sure, he doesn’t believe it, he’s a Microsoft RDS and Citrix XenApp guy. What’d you expect?” But here’s why I’m not a believer in such a drastic move when it comes to apps:

• Microsoft conditioned users for so many years with their application interaction model; so many users will not change their behavior in such a short time. Human beings don’t change their behavior if there is not a real benefit – a rule that applies to all humans except IT geeks.
• When I look at the number of DOS and 16-bit Windows apps that are still out there since more than a decade, I just don’t believe that several 100,000 32-bit Windows apps will disappear in just 5 years.
• People want to watch TV and movies with mobile devices, which require a lot of local computing power. Why should they not use it for apps?
• There are so many cool devices with growing local CPU power and storage capacities; there must be something geared at consuming all these local resources - local apps.
• Microsoft, VMware and Citrix are investing big amounts of resources and money into remoting protocol enhancements and client hypervisor technology. These investments only provide attractive returns if conventional Windows apps survive.

The thing is, if there are local Windows apps, there’s a market for remoting such Windows apps. At this stage I wonder if Microsoft plans to combine Remote Desktop Services and their Azure platform; I mean beyond remote access to your home PC through Live Mesh. Wouldn’t it be cool if we had the opportunity to just install the Windows apps we happen to have valid licenses for in the cloud? Being able to install a hosted Microsoft Office on Azure would be a perfect completion of Microsoft Online Services including Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communicator and Live Meeting. This is what I would call “Instant Cloud” as all components are available today.

• Per user licensing (this is still per user and not named user)
• Per device licensing (XD can be used by unlimited users on a given device) - New option that's great for factories, healthcare, shift workers, etc.
• Campus-wide licensing program - New option that would be great for educational markets and mirrors the model of Microsoft's Campus licensing program
• New Edition of XenDesktop (VDI Edition) - Essentially what the old XenDesktop Advanced Edition was before it was killed off.  This will include Citrix Provisioning Server, StorageLink for XenServer, and User Profile Management.  This edition is capable of being licensed per user/per device or on a CCU (concurrent user basis).  The trick here is that the CCU model requires the $199/ccu sticker price.  This effectively means that there is no longer a CCU option at $99/user (which is what the old Standard Edition was).  Citrix claims this is due to not a lot of customer uptake of the Standard Edition product.  While that may be the case, Standard Edition was perfect for those who wanted just the ICA protocol and weren't interested in doing Provisioning Server, etc.  If this is the worst of the licensing changes, I suppose customers will have to deal with this and just accept it.  It certain puts customers in a much better place.

All of the above being said, it'll be VERY interesting to see how the licensing happens for all of this.  There's already some licensing challenges and now that there's multiple different license types available, it'll be interesting to see how these licenses get deployed, allocated, revoked and troubleshot.

All in all a prettty good move by Citrix.

- Tips and Tricks to optimize and troubleshoot your XenApp environment by Citrix Support