Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and mobile work styles are driving the demand for delivering desktop, apps, and data as a service to any mobile device. Data needs to always be available so it can be delivered to end-users at a moment’s notice to ensure that business is not disrupted. Companies are also looking to build an IT foundation that is more agile and scalable and can allow for future expansion.

To help organizations address these business trends, today at Citrix Synergy, we announced new solutions and integrations between NetApp clustered Data ONTAP software and various Citrix technologies for desktop and application virtualization, mobile collaboration, and cloud services. NetApp and Citrix have collaborated on new technologies focused around XenDesktop 7, ShareFile, and XenServer that ensure non-disruptive operations and increase storage efficiency throughout a Citrix environment.

One of the announcements at Citrix Synergy is on XenDesktop 7 (aka. Project Excalibur). XenDesktop 7 introduces simplified architecture and management capabilities, enabling customers to deliver applications and desktops from a single platform. This also means customers can now provision their applications and desktop workloads using the Machine Creation Services linked-clone delivery model or with provisioning services (PVS) feature… and this is where NetApp brings addition value to XenDesktop 7.

I can summarize the NetApp value-add to Citrix in three key areas – desktop and application virtualization, mobile collaboration, and cloud services.

• Desktop and Application Virtualization: NetApp is introducing new validated designs and a management plug-in (XenDesktop 7 on NetApp FAS Storage Systems, XenDesktop 7 on FlexPod from Cisco and NetApp with clustered Data ONTAP, and Virtual Storage Console 2.0 for XenServer), which allow customers to quickly deploy; scale a complete desktop virtualization solution; and deliver applications instantly, while reducing overall cost expenditures.

• Mobile Collaboration: NetApp and Citrix have collaborated to deliver NetApp Recovery Manager for Citrix ShareFile. This new software fully automates recovery of user files and folders from NetApp storage-array based Snapshots, directly from inside the ShareFile user interface.

• Cloud Services: Citrix CloudBridge with NetApp SnapMirror helps customers achieve faster data replication with NetApp SnapMirror accelerated with Citrix CloudBridge. Working together, NetApp and Citrix provide enterprises with a cloud-ready storage environment that deliver efficiency, optimize maintenance, and accelerate IT agility.

What does this all mean? NetApp, Cisco and Citrix believe that mobile work styles, powered by the cloud, have transformed business and are spurring an architectural revolution in IT. We are jointly working on reference architectures for FlexPod with XenDesktop and different hypervisors such as vSphere, Hyper-V and XenServer to deliver to customers a simple way to deploy mobile services rapidly.

For more details about the solution architecture take a look at the FlexPod Deployment Guide.

And don’t forget to drop by the NetApp booth #207 at Synergy to hear more about it.  We also have a session on Thursday, May 23rd @ 2PM to talk about XenDesktop 7 with FlexPod.