The best Software Defined Storage and All-Flash Hyper-Converged Infrastructure platform for vSphere and XenServer just got better! Announcing Atlantis USX 3.0!

It's been a whirlwind year for Software Defined Storage player Atlantis Computing with USX and All-Flash Hyper-Converged Infrastructure platform HyperScale. In fact, it was only a year ago that USX 2.0 was announced and received Best of VMworld 2014 for Storage and Backup products.  If you look at the progression it's quite impressive what Atlantis has accomplished from a product and packaging perspective in just the last year, including adding XenServer, which is huge for customers doing End User Computing from Citrix. As we move toward the end of the year, I'm happy to share the Atlantis USX 3.0 announcement and the new [...]

Deploying Windows 10 Virtual Desktop Infrastructure on Windows Server 2016 (Technical Preview)

Three years back I wrote a blog post on Deploying Windows 8 Virtual Desktop Infrastructure on Windows Server 2012 that has been wildly popular and received lots of blog comments. With the release of Windows 10 anticipated within the next month, I felt it would be appropriate to do an update to this blog post. This time, I will show how to deploy Windows 10, using NVIDIA GRID K1 graphics cards, RemoteFX, and Windows Server 2016 (not the official name, still being called 'Technical Preview 2'). The Windows Server 2016 host is an HP DL380 Gen8 server with two GRID [...]

Entering the Atomic Age, the Intel Nuke (NUC) that will Change Desktop Virtualization History! Powered by MaximumBit Desktop365

Over the last several months I have had the honor of evaluating a killer new solution that will forever change the Desktop Virtualization industry! The Intel NUC (pronounced nuke) small form factor is very disruptive and innovative, but it's the power of ViewSonic's distribution and MaximumBit Desktop365 that will truly make this a game changer. Think of this as VDI Out-of-the-Box (not VDI-in-a-Box)! The automation and management platform that MaximumBit built enables this tiny  device to support a full Desktop Virtualization solution in less than an hour from unboxing, hopefully opening up new markets to the value of Citrix products. [...]

Kicking into Overdrive: Introducing HyperScale, powered by HP and Atlantis USX!

Over the last several years there have been a number of different technology innovations that have truly captivated my attention. Atlantis Computing’s ILIO product evolving into USX Software Defined Storage (SDS) is definitely one of these attention grabbing technologies! When I first learned about ILIO, I personally experienced the value software-based I/O acceleration and data reduction technologies can bring to Server Based Computing (SBC) and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments, for both Citrix and VMware End User Computing. This was definitely game changing in the way I positioned, architected, and built SBC/VDI virtualized environments. With the evolution into USX, Atlantis [...]

PernixData FVP 2.5 – Quick and Painless Host-Side Read and Write SAN or NAS Storage Performance Acceleration

A year or two ago I started keeping tabs on PernixData, a Silicon Valley based storage performance acceleration startup, around the time well known and regarded industry expert Frank Denneman joined as their Chief Technologist. Frank joined several other former VMware elite including Poojan Kumar and Satyam Vaghani, the great minds behind VMware data products and creator of the Virtual Machine File System (VMFS). With such an all-star former VMware team, I knew PernixData would be bound for greatness, but I have just recently started evaluating their FVP products on my own (starting with FVP 2.0). FVP 2.5 released a [...]

Installing and Configuring Atlantis USX 2.2 for VMware vSphere and NOW Citrix XenServer!

Introduction and Overview Several months ago, I wrote a getting started guide for Installing and Configuring Atlantis USX 2.0 on VMware vSphere. Since that time, two additional releases have become available and new to USX 2.2 is the ability to manage, present, and consume storage from Citrix XenServer! Read more about the USX on XenServer announcement here. At Atlantis Connect in early February, my friend and fellow Citrix Technology Professional, Thomas Poppelgaard did a session with Mark Nijmeijer where Atlantis USX 2.2 was installed and configured on Citrix XenServer live (in beta at the time). To learn more about Atlantis Software Defined Storage and USX, visit www.atlantiscomputing.com. USX 2.2 officially released [...]

Creating a Bulletproof Citrix Licensing Server Infrastructure using NetScaler Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) and CtxLicChk.ps1 PowerShell Scripts

Click Accept to Download the Configuration Guide, Visio, and CtxLicChk.ps1 PowerShell Script  I Accept the Terms and Conditions provided on the Copyright and Disclaimer page. Click to Download the Configuration Guide, Visio, and CtxLicChk.ps1 PowerShell Script from ShareFile.com I was recently doing Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop design workshops with Nick Rintalan and Brendan Lin from Citrix Consulting Services (CCS), along with my colleague Victor DiMascio from Entisys. As we were discussing some of the intricate details of the architecture decisions, we touched on a topic that has stumped many a Citrix architect for the last several years (myself included).  The underlying question [...]

Citrix WorkspacePod, an HP Moonshot Architect’s Perspective

TLDR: Citrix WorkspacePod summarized in one word: Bundling. For about the last year and a half, I have been affectionately called Mr. Moonshot among my peers and colleagues.  Thanks everyone, you're too kind! Naturally, at Citrix Summit when one of the big keynote announcements on WorkspacePod surfaced, I started getting a lot of questions. I'm no expert on DataON, so I can't comment on that particular piece. For all I knew, DataON was a commodity/whitebox storage company, and have never even really looked into their Cluster-in-a-Box (CiB) product family. Who knew! Enough about DataON, that's not the focus of this [...]

XenServer 6.5 Dynamic Memory and NVIDIA GRID vGPU? Now Fixed in 6.5! Go For It!

Earlier this year I wrote a blog post highlighting an issue that a coworker ran into with XenServer 6.2 Dynamic Memory Control (DMC) and NVIDIA GRID vGPU. You can find that article here: XenServer Dynamic Memory and NVIDIA GRID vGPU, Don’t Do It! Talking with a couple Citrix and NVIDIA folks including Rachel Berry, Jason Southern, and David Cottingham, I have been informed that this was fixed and validated with the XenServer 6.5 release (aka Creedence). Considering XenServer 6.5 has officially released for web today, it's safe to say DMC is now good to go, provided you're running XenServer 6.5! [...]

Citrix and Atlantis Partner Together to Deliver the First Hyper-Converged Solutions for XenServer 6.5! All-Flash No Less!

Following the heels of the Sanbolic acquisition announcement, today was yet another big day for Citrix in the world of Software Defined Storage! This announcements has more to do with Citrix partnerships, and what they were able to achieve working with one of their longest standing partners in the storage capacity and performance optimization space, Atlantis Computing. This announcement is near and dear to me as I was on staff with Atlantis in August at VMworld when USX 2.0 was launched and awarded Best of VMworld for 2014. Both of these announcements highlight the importance of Software Defined Storage, although [...]

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