SANTA CLARA, CA – March 31, 2008 – Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, and NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), a leading provider of innovative data management solutions, today announced a global, strategic partnership to deliver a complete server virtualization solution capable of fully leveraging the power of NetApp® storage solutions. Citrix XenServer™ Adapter for NetApp Data ONTAP® enables customers to unlock the power of virtualized storage in Citrix XenServer environments. This jointly developed certified solution simplifies virtual machine creation and management by allowing customers to centrally manage storage configuration and provisioning from a single console, making it one of the industry’s few virtualization solutions optimized for storage environments. Citrix and NetApp are building on their existing relationship and extending virtualized data management environment capabilities included in Citrix XenServer 4.1, which began shipping today.
The growth of virtual servers has complicated the way in which many IT professionals approach networked storage by requiring additional new layers of management software or disruptive changes to the underlying storage architecture. Unlike other server virtualization solutions, Citrix XenServer features an open architecture that allows customers to manage storage in the same way for both their physical and virtual server environments. The Citrix XenServer Adapter for NetApp Data ONTAP takes this one step further by allowing customers to access all the storage features in NetApp Data ONTAP directly from the XenServer management console. This approach dramatically simplifies the process of implementing virtual servers in NetApp networked storage environments and enables customers to leverage their existing investments in storage infrastructure without retraining users or implementing new layers of management when using the NetApp V-Series systems.
“ManageOperations has successfully deployed both Citrix XenServer virtualization software and NetApp Storage for customers such as T-Systems and Daimler, automating the management of their large computer centers running anywhere from 3,000 – 8,000 servers,” said Jim Corrigan, Founder of Manage Operations. “After looking at the beta product for Citrix XenServer integrated into NetApp, we are excited about a storage-optimized virtualization solution that will enable our customers to leverage familiar software to add server virtualization capabilities and manage it all through one central management console.”
Delivering Storage-Optimized Virtualization
NetApp Data ONTAP enables IT staff to process resource-intensive storage services in the storage array to free up physical server resources to run business-critical application workloads. With the new Citrix XenServer Adapter for NetApp, these benefits can now be seamlessly leveraged for virtual server environments running Citrix XenServer. As a result, customers can immediately take full advantage of the rich data management and data protection capabilities in their existing NetApp storage systems directly from the XenServer management console, including thin provisioning, cloning, replication, deduplication and backup and recovery. Customers can now leverage XenServer to use NetApp Data ONTAP for instant thin provisioning of virtual disk images (VDI), and for VDI cloning and Snapshot™ copies, improving performance of these data-intensive operations without affecting the performance of the virtual machines (VMs) themselves. Other highlights include:
- Integrated and simplified wizard-based set up and configuration – Citrix and NetApp provide a simplified user experience, allowing customers to quickly configure their solution and start using its powerful capabilities right away—all without scripting, additional downloads, licensing, or add-on components. Customers can now deploy a server or desktop virtual infrastructure immediately and realize the full benefits of VM-optimized storage to maximize system wide performance and storage utilization and prevent the need to configure complex clustered file systems.
- Task and resource optimization – Because server and storage management is unified in the XenServer management console, customers can leverage NetApp tools such as RAID-DP™, Snapshot™, FlexVol® and FAS deduplication to achieve reliable and smarter server and storage resource utilization. As a result, customers can leverage their existing investment in NetApp storage management, disaster recovery, and backup systems for their virtualized infrastructure to save expenses, training and additional investment.
- Hardware Agnostic – XenServer’s integration with Data ONTAP optimizes all Data ONTAP based systems, including those from NetApp, IBM, and Fujitsu. For customers using non-NetApp storage connected to a NetApp V-Series system, all the data management and data protection provided by the new NetApp adapter in XenServer can be fully leveraged.
“Integrating our products with XenServer provides customers with the unique ability to leverage the virtualization awareness inherent in NetApp arrays,” said Jay Kidd, CMO, NetApp. “By bringing the worlds of server and storage virtualization together, we offer operational breakthroughs that help customers improve their IT infrastructure and processes.”
“Our customers want the ability to create a data center experience with all the benefits of server virtualization without disrupting their storage virtualization environment in any way,” said Peter Levine, senior vice president and general manager, Virtualization and Management Division for Citrix. “Citrix and NetApp customers can now virtualize their servers and directly leverage the superior data management capabilities from NetApp.”
In addition to the availability of the Citrix XenServer Adapter for NetApp Data ONTAP, NetApp has also completed testing and certification of Citrix XenServer to assist in seamless integration and support.
Pricing and Availability
The Citrix XenServer Adapter for NetApp Data ONTAP is included with XenServer 4.1 and is available today at no additional cost.
About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that help you accelerate business breakthroughs and achieve outstanding cost efficiency. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at NetApp.com.
About Citrix XenServer
Citrix XenServer, a member of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, is an enterprise-class solution for virtualizing application workloads across any number of servers in the datacenter as a flexible aggregated pool of computing resources. With the new Platinum Edition, XenServer becomes the first and only solution on the market to address both virtual and physical servers, making the entire datacenter more dynamic.
About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in application delivery infrastructure. More than 200,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100% of the Fortune 100 companies and 99% of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 7,680 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2007 was $1.4 billion.
For Citrix Investors
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance. Those statements involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including risks associated with revenue growth and recognition of revenue, products, their development and distribution, product demand and pipeline, economic and competitive factors, the Company’s key strategic relationships, acquisition and related integration risks as well as other risks detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Citrix assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release or with respect to the announcements described herein.
Comments
Post a Comment