Planning a Windows 7 migration? How much of your corporate data is at the airport today in a lost or stolen laptop? What is the cost per year to manage your desktops? Are you prepared to support the upcoming “always-on” workforce?

ANNOUNCING TODAY!

The HP Client Virtualization Enterprise Reference Architecture with Citrix XenDesktop 5 on Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 SP1 delivers a preconfigured and performance-optimized solution that simplifies customer integration and testing and reduces risk for deployment.  With the right combination of compute, storage, networking, and system management, this solution is tuned for client virtualization efficiency AND includes options to scale up and out to meet changing customer requirements.

• These best-in-class solutions deliver value at a level that cobbled together components and poorly coordinated partnerships cannot approach. They also deliver value by bringing together three companies that understand the importance and process of partnering.
• HP, Microsoft and Citrix all have long, strong relationships around partnering. 
• The HP and Microsoft global strategic alliance is one of the longest standing alliances of its kind in the industry – 25 years. 
• HP is the leader in Citrix environments with 50% of Citrix installations running on HP servers, more than on IBM and Dell combined.

What makes up the HP-Citrix-MS Client Virtualization Enterprise Reference Architecture?

HP Master Client Virtualization Enterprise Reference Architecture

A self-contained and modular hardware solution that provides performance within the enclosure with the integrated tools to give you enhanced visibility and prevention notifications.

• Targeting the right HP Blade server to optimize the user experience.
• With everything in a rack, a single administrator can handle changes quickly. 
• The rack has redundant networks for connecting to the data center management and production links.
•  All iSCSI network traffic, virtualized application traffic, and VM provisioning traffic stays within the rack. 
• With the storage within the rack, the storage team is not required to manage or be involved in the storage configuration. 

HP client devices

Providing increased security, simplified management, and strong performance, HP Thin Clients are the ideal client devices for Client Virtualization deployments. HP offers a full portfolio of Thin Clients with varying capabilities enabling IT to optimize both end-user experience and their IT budget by deploying a mix of client devices including the new HP webOS TouchPad.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Microsoft released Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 in earlier 2011 with several major enhancements, and major improvement in performance of Hyper-V, the most important enhancement to building the reference architectures is Dynamic Memory.  Dynamic Memory allows utilization of physical memory to its fullest capacity without sacrificing performance.  The release of SP1 has seen great improvements with performance.

Microsoft System Center

HP Insight Control for Microsoft System Center is a strong proof point for the collaboration between HP and Microsoft.  Through management packs for System Center Operations Manager, System Center Configuration Management, and System Center VMM, HP allows customers who have standardized on Microsoft System Center products to expertly deploy, monitor, and control HP hardware providing unified management of Windows across the guest/host boundary in physical and virtual environments. 

Citrix XenDesktop

Citrix XenDesktop transforms Windows desktops as an on-demand service to any user, any device, anywhere. XenDesktop quickly and securely delivers any type of virtual desktop or Windows, web and SaaS application to all the latest PCs, tablets, Smartphones, laptops and thin clients – all with a high-definition HDX user experience.

FlexCast delivery technology enables IT to optimize the performance, security and cost of virtual desktops for any type of user, including task workers, mobile workers, power users and contractors.

For more information visit the HP Client Virtualization website. Remember HP can address your current needs as well as your needs as they evolve – we are your source for Instant-On Solutions.

As we announced yesterday we are proud to have NetApp and Cisco participating in the Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track program and delivering pre-validated private cloud solutions for customers.

The new NetApp Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track with Cisco builds upon the reference architecture and layers on the additional capabilities inherent in the NetApp and Cisco infrastructure.  This joint solution exemplifies a key tenet of Fast Track which is the extensible nature of the architecture.    Check out what NetApp is saying about this solution as well as Cisco. 

If you happen to be at Tech Ed, Alex Jauch from NetApp, will be demonstrating some of the capabilities of their offering in Bryon Surace’s VIR327 session on Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track on Tuesday morning at 10:15 to 11:30 in Room B211 – hope to see you there.    

Scott Rosenbloom
Sr. Product Manager
Server & Cloud Division
Microsoft Corp.

Tech Ed North America 2011 http://bit.ly/mdfwpA kicked into high gear today with news that Cisco and NetApp are participating in Microsoft’s Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track program. Together, NetApp and Cisco have developed a pre-validated private cloud solution for customers who want to deploy with less risk, more flexibility and choice, and more quickly.

Their solution is interesting because it offers the flexibility of the cloud with higher levels of control needed to meet security and regulatory guidelines. It uses Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft Systems Center to ease management, enable automation and self-service provisioning of the entire private cloud infrastructure, including automated self-service provisioning via native Opalis Integration Packs. It is scalable vertically or horizontally, paving the way for greater efficiency, agility and cost savings. Check out the insider insights on this TechNet Edge video from NetApp and Cisco engineers in a TechNet Edge video here: http://bit.ly/jWAplo.

NetApp and Cisco join six of our largest OEM partners who are betting on Microsoft’s private cloud strategy, and our commitment to meet customers where they are and help them plan for the future. Together with our Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track partners, our customers will have the ability to leverage the best of what they have and then move to other options when the time is right, on their terms. Customers get the benefit of proven private cloud solutions now available from eight vendors who represent more than 80% share of the world’s server market.

Customers are on a path toward virtualization and cloud, driving increasing interest in Hyper-V. There is growing recognition that management is key. Our solutions include enterprise-class virtualization and comprehensive management technologies to deliver private cloud services, and powerful application insights to ensure maximum performance and availability across private and public cloud assets. The Windows Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track program ensures customers have a broad choice of predefined, validated configurations for private cloud deployments comprising compute, storage, networking resources, virtualization and management software.

Congratulations to NetApp and Cisco on their decision to Fast Track with us to the cloud!

The Microsoft TechEd Twitter Army is looking for recruits to twitter off the show floor during our premier TechEd event running May 16-19 in Atlanta. If you’re going to the show and want your opinions heard, be sure to check in at the Social Media area in the Microsoft Server & Cloud Platform Booth on Monday afternoon at 12:30 pm.  Recruits who do well on the Twitter front lines will compete for an Xbox 360 + Kinnect package and other prizes to be handed out at a private Twitter Army event happening Thursday at 2 pm. Don’t forget, and remember that Uncle TechEd Wants You!