You are here: Home > Blog

XenDesktop Trade-Up Extended to XenApp Advanced

January 18th, 2010 | Posted by Sid Herron in Citrix | Licensing | VDI | Virtualization | XenApp | XenDesktop - (0 Comments)

Citrix has announced that, effective immediately, the XenDesktop 4 trade-up offer has been extended to customers who have XenApp Advanced Edition. This is great news for those customers, because, under the terms of the original trade-up offer, XenApp Advanced customers would have had to first upgrade their XenApp licenses to XenApp Enterprise, and then do the trade-up.

The table below shows the pricing grid for the trade-up program, depending on which version of XenApp you currently own, which version of XenDesktop you want to trade up to, whether you’re trading up all of your XenApp licenses, and whether or not your Subscription Advantage is current (click on the graphic to view full-size):

XenDesktop 4 Trade-Up Pricing

XenDesktop 4 Trade-Up Pricing


Because the part numbers for the trade-up from XenApp Advanced have not yet been released, customers who want to take advantage of it will need to request a special quote. Two other points to remember:

  • If you trade-up 100% of your XenApp licenses, you get two XenDesktop licenses per XenApp license. Otherwise it’s one-for-one.
  • The trade-up offer runs through June 30, 2010. And as much as I hate to say this, that date will be here before you know it, so please don’t wait until the last minute!

The on-line trade-up calculator has been updated to include information for XenApp advanced.

, , , , , , ,

Implementing the New Citrix XenDesktop 4 Licensing Model

November 20th, 2009 | Posted by Steve Parlee in Citrix | Licensing | VDI | XenDesktop - (0 Comments)

A couple of days ago, while reviewing some of the blog posts here, I happened to read Sid’s post regarding Citrix’s new per device or per user licensing model for XenDesktop 4. That led, in a somewhat convoluted way, to this post, which will focus on how you would implement this new model.

Even though I already knew some of the changes that were being incorporated into this licensing model, as soon as I read his post I immediately asked myself how, exactly, from a technical standpoint that was going to work? You see, at that exact point in time I was actively working on upgrading our XenDesktop (XD) and Provisioning Server (PVS) lab to XD4 and PVS5.1 sp1, so this topic really interested me – for the simple reason that what Citrix says is supposed to happen was not what I was seeing in my lab. At that point I was already running XenDesktop 4.0 in my lab, and I’d done nothing to put any per user or per devices licenses in place (I do however still have my previous XD Platinum Licenses from my XD 3.0 build on my 11.6.1 license server), but everything worked and I was not getting any license errors. Strange, you say? I agree!

So, like any curious tech, I started what turned out to be a long and exhaustive search for information regarding how the new license model should be implemented. But after a few hours, and a few emails between Sid and I, I had unfortunately turned up nothing, zilch, nada! In fact, the only thing I could find from Citrix – and this is pretty much common knowledge at this point because lots of people have already blogged on the topic – is the set of XenDesktop 4 documents located in the new Citrix eDocs Library. However, if you actually plow through the XenDesktop 4 documents, you will discover that there is no information on how, from a technical standpoint, this new license model is supposed to be implemented.

During my search I did run across one (yes, only one) blog post which had some insight regarding how it will actually work. That blog post was by Helge Klein of Sepago, a Citrix partner in Cologne, Germany. In that post, Helge states, “If what I have been told is true, the current version of XenDesktop 4 has no licensing enforcement built in.” (emphasis added) Now that statement really got me interested, because that was consistent with what I was actually seeing in my lab, but could it really be true?

Again, my curiosity required that I had to verify this information one way or the other. So today I picked up the phone, called the Citrix XenDesktop support team, and asked, “How does it work?” The initial answer (which I actually expected and would have bet money on) was, “I don’t know!”

To the credit of the Citrix technical support person I had on the phone, he did not just let this drop. Rather, he kept digging and reviewing information until he finally turned up an “internal only” document – which, of course, he could not share with me. However, based upon what he was reading in that document, his answer – specifically regarding the named user model – was that any user who is supposed to be assigned a license will need to be placed into the OU that was created during the install of the Desktop Delivery Controller (DDC). My reaction was, “What? You guys are going to require a business to move their users from their current OU(s), which may have group policies being applied, and place them into the XD OU? That’s crazy, because businesses, especially larger enterprises, are going to laugh at us!” Then I asked, “Can we at least nest the OUs to maintain GPO and AD structure?” to which the answer again was, “I don’t know.”

Once again, to the credit of the Citrix support person, I was asked to hold and give him a few minutes so that he could go talk to the escalation team and get a definitive answer. When he returned he confirmed what he had told me about how it was supposed to work…however, he also confirmed that today in XenDesktop 4.0 there is no license enforcement mechanism coded into the product. Basically, the license enforcement is based upon the honor system and what is written in the EULA.

That’s not necessarily bad – it’s worked reasonably well for Microsoft for many years. And our experience over the years has been that nearly all businesses want to be legally licensed, and will comply with license requirements as long as (1) they understand what constitutes compliance (which hasn’t always been easy), and (2) they don’t feel like they’re being ripped off. But it’s certainly a bit unexpected, to say the least.

So, finally, I had the answer directly from the Citrix XenDesktop support team regarding how it is implemented, which left only one more question: When will license enforcement be implemented? The answer: “I don’t know!” So, until Citrix decides to shed some light on this for us, we’ll just live with EULA-enforced licensing.

One last thought: With all due respect, wouldn’t you think that Citrix would want to tell their own internal support people the details about something like this BEFORE the product actually launches? Maybe they didn’t want the world to know about the lack of license enforcement – but things like that always come out…it’s just a matter of time. (Pssst! Hey, Citrix – it’s not a secret anymore!)

, , , ,

Citrix Fine-Tunes XenDesktop 4 Licensing

November 9th, 2009 | Posted by Sid Herron in Citrix | Licensing | VDI | XenDesktop - (0 Comments)

In our post of October 6, hard on the heels of the Citrix news release that announced XenDesktop 4, (hereinafter called “XD4” to save wear and tear on my keyboard) we told you that XD4 was moving toward a strict per-user licensing model, rather than the concurrent-use model that Citrix products have been using since forever. Since that initial news release, however, Citrix has backed down on that position, and made some changes in how XD4 can be licensed.

XD4 Enterprise and Platinum Editions can now be licensed in either per-user or per-device mode. The per-device mode has obvious benefits in, say, classroom situations where a single device will be shared by multiple users, a clinical workstation in a hospital that is used by multiple users, or a factory floor where different shifts come and go. This aligns very closely with the Microsoft RDS CAL licensing model. (RDS, or Remote Desktop Services, is the new name for Terminal Services.) If a given use case would be more economically licensed using per-device RDS CALs, then per-device licensing for XD4 will probably make more sense as well.

A user who has been assigned a user license is entitled to use an unlimited number of devices to access an unlimited number of desktops. A device that has been assigned a device license can be used by an unlimited number of users. Just as is the case with Microsoft RDS CALs, user licenses can be reassigned permanently if a licensed user leaves the organization, or temporarily if a licensed user is absent for a protracted period of time. Likewise, a device license can be reassigned if a device must be replaced, or reassigned temporarily while a device is being repaired.

Customers can have both user and device licensing in the same enterprise, and licenses may be switched from user to device and vice-versa after 90 days. Once you reassign a license, you must wait at least another 90 days before you can switch back.

Just in case that’s not confusing enough, the low-end XD4 “VDI Edition” – which supports only VDI deployments and does not include any of the XenApp or “FlexCast” functionality – can be licensed in either per-user or per-device or concurrent mode. Concurrent licenses for the VDI Edition can be upgraded to either user or device licenses for XD4 Enterprise or Platinum Edition. However, within the VDI Edition, you cannot convert VDI concurrent licenses to VDI user or device licenses, nor can you convert VDI user or device licenses to VDI concurrent licenses.

License Management
Device licenses are assigned by manually adding a unique device identity to a device log. This device log must be manually maintained as devices come and go. User licenses leverage Active Directory – you create and maintain a specific OU for your licensed users.

One wrinkle that you may not be aware of is the concept of “overdraft” licenses. Citrix will actually grant one overdraft license for every 10 licenses that you allocate to a license file. These overdraft licenses are automatically rolled into the license file when it’s generated, and are displayed in a separate column of the License Management Console. The allocation of an overdraft license is recorded in the XenDesktop event log, but you won’t know unless you go looking for it – there is currently no alerting system that would proactively tell you that it’s happened. I would expect that, at some point, Citrix will build in some kind of overdraft alert.

Bear in mind that the overdraft licenses are not intended to let you, on an ongoing basis, exceed the license count you purchased. They’re intended to prevent the situation where a user is denied service because of a temporary spike in usage, or because a license hasn’t been properly allocated or re-allocated, and give you time to purchase additional licenses before the lack of available licenses becomes a crisis. Bottom line here is that if you think you’re getting close to your maximum license count, you should probably check the License Management Console from time to time to see how many licenses are actually in use, and whether you’re into your overdraft pool.

, , , , ,

Citrix Changes the Game Again

October 6th, 2009 | Posted by Sid Herron in Citrix | VDI | XenDesktop - (1 Comments)

Disclaimer: Moose Logic is a Citrix Solution Advisor, and the author has worked with Citrix products for well over a decade – which is about how long there have been Citrix products to work with. As a fan of the company and the technology, it’s sometimes difficult to be objective…but I’ll try.

Citrix has shown in the past that it is not afraid to make bold moves to shake up the market landscape. The most recent was the decision to make XenServer, the “type 1” hypervisor obtained through the acquisition of XenSource, free. With today’s announcement of XenDesktop 4, they’ve made another bold move – arguably the boldest and the most far-reaching retooling of their product line ever.

You can read the press release at the Citrix Web site, and also get all of the details of the new offerings there, as well as from the volumes that will be written in the blogosphere and trade press over the next few days. But the basics are as follows:

  • XenDesktop, in all but it’s most basic version, will include XenApp. With a single XenDesktop license, you will be able to:
    • Deploy a shared virtual desktop from a XenApp-equipped Terminal Server, or deliver published applications running on a XenApp-equipped Terminal Server.
    • Connect to a virtual instance of a PC Operating System running on your choice of virtualization platforms (XenServer, Hyper-V, or VMware) – the classic definition of “VDI.”
    • Connect to a blade PC, if your computing or graphics needs are so demanding that you need dedicated hardware.
    • Stream a PC Operating System in real time to a desktop PC across the LAN – allowing you to boot and run your PCs from a common master image.
    • Stream applications to XenApp servers, PCs (whether virtual or physical), or both, and, if necessary, cache them for off-line use.
    • (Coming very soon) stream a PC Operating System to a client-side hypervisor, where it can be cached for off-line use.
  • XenDesktop will be moving to a per-user license model – a major shift, since Citrix licensing has almost exclusively been based on concurrent use as long as anyone can remember. Sales of concurrent-use licenses for XenDesktop will be discontinued on November 16, when sales of XenDesktop 4 licenses begin.
  • XenApp Enterprise and Platinum users with current Subscription Advantage will be offered a screaming “trade-up” deal that runs through June 30, 2010.
  • Strategically speaking, XenApp is clearly taking the back seat compared to XenDesktop. It will continue to be sold in all existing editions, but is being repositioned as the best solution for customers with high user concurrency (greater than 2:1), or those who use it as a “point solution” (e.g., remote access over limited bandwidth connections, call center applications, etc.). This also is a huge shift, when you consider that XenApp is the product that made Citrix.

So…what’s behind these moves? Citrix clearly believes that the battle for control of desktop delivery is where the future of the company lies. WinFrame/MetaFrame/Presentation Server/XenApp has been the de facto standard for remote access and server-based computing for well over a decade. But if all you care about is deploying Terminal Services (a.k.a. Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2), the value proposition for adding XenApp to your Terminal Servers has been steadily declining – and with the new features of Windows Server 2008 R2, it declines even further. This is why Citrix has worked so hard to reposition the conversation as one about application delivery as opposed to remote access or server-based computing, and why they have continued to roll more features into XenApp – particularly the Platinum Edition, which is really a suite of products more than an edition of one product.

Now they are working to reposition the conversation yet again. Nearly everyone agrees that there will be a huge uptake of Windows 7 over the next couple of years. And as Brian Madden pointed out in a techtarget.com article recently: “…there’s no sense virtualizing your desktops just to end up with XP again. And when Windows 7 launches, there’s no sense migrating to it while still managing your desktops the ‘old’ way.” Clearly, the Windows 7 rollout is a perfect opportunity for organizations to rethink the way they deploy and manage desktops.

The message from Citrix is clear: Desktop virtualization does not equal VDI. VDI, as it is classically defined, is only one way to deliver a virtualized desktop. There are many other ways – which we listed at the top of this article – and all of them have perfectly valid use cases. Since Citrix has solutions that cover all of those ways, it makes sense to offer a single license that will allow customers to “mix and match” and choose the best virtualization solution for each use case.

As the old saying goes, “Nothing succeeds like success.” If this works out the way Citrix obviously hopes it will, it will, by definition, be viewed as one of the most brilliant marketing moves since the deal with Microsoft that led to MetaFrame. At the very least, I think it must be recognized as a pretty gutsy move. And it’s certainly going to be fun to watch.

, , , ,

Latest Blog Feeds
Go to our Blog Page
Testimonials
“Our business is all about process and margins; we rely on Moose Logic to install and manage network solutions that enable us to control both. Moose Logic created solutions that transformed our business relationships and processes.”
Ron Horowitz
Birchwood Park Homes
Read our Newsletter
Copyright © 2010 All rights reserved.
Wordpress Delicate template designed by NattyWP