My first Microsoft TechNet Webcast, “Extending Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services with Ericom's Free PowerTerm WebConnect Add-On”, is now behind me and I wanted to thank several people who helped making it successful. First, I would like to thank Joshua Schnoll from Microsoft for being an excellent co-presenter. I also want to thank Michael Shetrit from Ericom for helping me prepare and run the interactive demo. I want to thank Heather Canepa from Microsoft for helping with the technical details. And most of all I would like to thank all of you who viewed the webcast.
If you missed the Webcast you can view it online or download a copy from the Microsoft TechNet website.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Thin Is In
Last year I wrote a somewhat humoristic post about the importance of defaults and not asking end-users for information they are not equipped to provide. As an example of this I described the PowerTerm WebConnect client download and installation mechanism and explained that, unlike other client installers, it does not require end-users to provide any configuration settings such as the server address. The PowerTerm WebConnect client download mechanism has several additional features and capabilities one of which is that it only downloads those components that are actually required by the specific end-point device. Moreover, it downloads these components on-demand, if and when they are needed. This results in the smallest possible download size - my laptop is (still) running Windows XP SP2 and the total size of the PowerTerm WebConnect client downloaded to it is 1.8MB.
I’m describing this mechanism because I just read that the size of the latest version of the Citrix ICA Client (v10.2) is a whopping 14.9MB. This means that it’s 828% the size of the PowerTerm WebConnect client downloaded to my computer! (Apparently it’s also substantially larger than previous Citrix versions.) But is this huge difference in the download size still important in this day and age of broadband and fast corporate networks? In my opinion the answer is a definite yes, it is very important. One reason that it is important is that not every remote or roaming user will be connected via a fast network connection. I’ve encountered a number of situations where such a large client would mean an unacceptably lengthy client download period.
Potentially more significant is the communication overhead involved in provisioning the client to every end-point in the corporate network. For example, if there are 5,000 end-point devices then at least 72.8GB need to travel through the network every time the Citrix is updated! The PowerTerm WebConnect downloader, on the other hand, will only update the components that have actually changed, so the network overhead may be as low as 4GB in the same scenario.
It is worth mentioning that the PowerTerm WebConnect client can also be installed as a standard MSI. The size of this MSI is 3.3MB - still significantly smaller than the Citrix client.
I’m describing this mechanism because I just read that the size of the latest version of the Citrix ICA Client (v10.2) is a whopping 14.9MB. This means that it’s 828% the size of the PowerTerm WebConnect client downloaded to my computer! (Apparently it’s also substantially larger than previous Citrix versions.) But is this huge difference in the download size still important in this day and age of broadband and fast corporate networks? In my opinion the answer is a definite yes, it is very important. One reason that it is important is that not every remote or roaming user will be connected via a fast network connection. I’ve encountered a number of situations where such a large client would mean an unacceptably lengthy client download period.
Potentially more significant is the communication overhead involved in provisioning the client to every end-point in the corporate network. For example, if there are 5,000 end-point devices then at least 72.8GB need to travel through the network every time the Citrix is updated! The PowerTerm WebConnect downloader, on the other hand, will only update the components that have actually changed, so the network overhead may be as low as 4GB in the same scenario.
It is worth mentioning that the PowerTerm WebConnect client can also be installed as a standard MSI. The size of this MSI is 3.3MB - still significantly smaller than the Citrix client.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
I Still Don't Know The Answer
In my previous post I wrote that I don't understand if Citrix will or won’t compete with Microsoft for server virtualization once Microsoft’s Hyper-V is released. A few readers who apparently work for Citrix responded in comments to my post stating that Citrix and Microsoft will not compete because the two companies are collaborating on virtualization. I am indeed aware of this collaboration but I think that "collaboration" should not be confused with "no competition".
Consider the following scenario: a few months from now a large organization decides to virtualize its servers and to standardize on a single vendor. If that organization approaches VMware and asks them which product it should use obviously their answer will be "ESX". Likewise if that organization approaches Microsoft I'm sure their answer will be "Hyper-V". But what will Citrix's answer be? If they answer "XenServer" then by definition they are also competing with Microsoft. If they answer anything else then they are indeed not competing, but this means that they are also not selling XenServer, and then why did they buy XenSource in the first place?
Consider the following scenario: a few months from now a large organization decides to virtualize its servers and to standardize on a single vendor. If that organization approaches VMware and asks them which product it should use obviously their answer will be "ESX". Likewise if that organization approaches Microsoft I'm sure their answer will be "Hyper-V". But what will Citrix's answer be? If they answer "XenServer" then by definition they are also competing with Microsoft. If they answer anything else then they are indeed not competing, but this means that they are also not selling XenServer, and then why did they buy XenSource in the first place?
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Just Answer the Question Please
I recently read a post on the official Citrix blog entitled "Top 2 XenApp Questions at Windows Server 2008 Launch Events". According to this post the two top questions were:
I was very curious regarding Citrix’s answer to question number 1. Unfortunately all I got instead was a lot of Marketing Speak about cooperation and collaboration. This is all very nice but in this case what is expected is a simple Yes or No. It seems to me, based on announced features and capabilities, that Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V will compete with each other, and the Citrix blog post doesn't change this outlook.
I find it very amusing to see an official Citrix blog post which raises two such fundamental questions and then neglects to answer either one of them!
- Do Citrix and Microsoft compete in the virtualization space?
- Do I need Citrix with Windows Server 2008?
I was very curious regarding Citrix’s answer to question number 1. Unfortunately all I got instead was a lot of Marketing Speak about cooperation and collaboration. This is all very nice but in this case what is expected is a simple Yes or No. It seems to me, based on announced features and capabilities, that Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V will compete with each other, and the Citrix blog post doesn't change this outlook.
I find it very amusing to see an official Citrix blog post which raises two such fundamental questions and then neglects to answer either one of them!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
I'm Going To Be On Microsoft TechNet!
Mark it on your calendar - Joshua Schnoll, Senior Product Manager on the Terminal Services team at Microsoft, and I will be delivering a TechNet Webcast titled: Extending Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services with Ericom's Free PowerTerm WebConnect Add-On. It’s level 300 Webcast which means that we will be conducting a live demo of the combined Ericom / Microsoft solution. Join us - it's going to be fun!
For more information about this Webcast and to register to it click here.
For more information about PowerTerm WebConnect for Windows Server 2008 click here.
For more information about this Webcast and to register to it click here.
For more information about PowerTerm WebConnect for Windows Server 2008 click here.
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