Managing the XenServer instance can be accomplished at the server console or remotely on any PC using the XenCenter application (see Figure 1). While the architecture scales to meet even the most demanding requirements, we were able to install everything on a single server for our proof-of-concept test. Installing and configuring the XenDesktop environment requires some planning if you’re looking to serve a significant number of clients. Measuring the total installation time was not exact as we had to download operating system images to use for the virtual machines and configure both server and desktop images. Installation on the HPE DL580 was completed in under fifteen minutes, although complete installation of the entire solution took something under two hours.

XenServer is Citrix’s virtualization platform based on the open source Xen Project. We did not test any of the cloud options for this review nor did we test any of the GPU acceleration capabilities as these would require additional licensing from Nvidia. We tested both in an on-premises environment using an HPE DL580. The patching and updating of these images is much more efficient for the same reasons.įor this review we used version 7.5 of XenServer and version 7.18 of XenDesktop. Since this happens on a small number of servers, it reduces the total attack surface a company needs to protect.

At the top of the list is security, as all operating system images remain under the control of the VDI management and can be constantly scanned for potential vulnerabilities. Virtualized desktops offer a number of benefits to the enterprise. The interesting twist here is the fact that Citrix XenDesktop will run on a variety of hypervisor platforms, including XenServer, VMware, Nutanix Acropolis, and in the cloud on AWS and Microsoft Azure. Similarly, the desktop virtualization market has two primary leaders in Citrix and VMware, with Citrix holding down the top spot by a slim margin. According to Gartner, the market leader for multiple years running is VMware with a comfortable lead, especially in the enterprise market. When you look at the X86 virtualization market the two big players are Microsoft and VMware.

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