The torch has been passed to a new generation…

By Sean Donahue, Senior Director Global Alliance Marketing

Today Citrix announced the release of XenDesktop 5.5 and what promises to be one of the most feature rich desktop virtualization products in the company’s 20-year history. I had the distinct honor (again) of being debriefed by the fine folks at Citrix, and let me tell you, as a long time Citrix SME, I have seen many a version come out of Ft. Lauderdale and can honestly say this one has me tingling with excitement.

XenDesktop 5.5 has countless features (such as Flash over WAN) to provide a turbo-charged user experience, especially over higher latency networks. XD now also supports advanced graphics redirection on the client-side and RemoteFX on the server-side. There is a new HDX feature called Instant App Access which improves launching times of hosted applications by 2X. Using streamed apps? This release also features new VHD mounting technology to pre-cache streamed applications for vastly improved start times.

Among these new areas of improvement, I wanted to hone in on the new HDX experience for users of hosted apps or desktops. You see, even though network bandwidth is increasing and becoming more reliable, there is still the occasion when you find yourself in a shared hotspot or some other scenario with a less than optimal bit rate. This is in addition to the fact that connectivity is not always consistent. For proof, simply open Task Manager and watch the Networking tab for a few minutes.

It’s because of these types of conditions, which are out of the control of IT, that the new dynamic adjustment features of HDX and XD are so important. So, for example, with server rendered video, XD will actually automatically adjust to networking conditions with zero configuration on the part of the Citrix admin.

Think use case. Your org may use GoToMeeting , Lync or Skype for video conferencing. With version 5.5 of XD and its multiple protocol delivery streams that enable an unprecedented level of network visibility and QoS for HDX, there is no longer a compromise to the audio and video quality of your video conferences.

I am very excited to see XD 5.5 hit the streets. For me, it has been a long time coming since I was on projects at Microsoft that centered around this release more than 18 months ago. Looking ahead, I am going to dig deeper into the new capabilities of XenClient 2.0 in a future blog post. Spoiler alert! I will also give some insight into how RES Workspace Manager works with and supports XenClient. Shhhhh!

That’s all for now, as I am out of blog space this time around.

Stay virtual, my friends.

Sean