Citrix VDI-in-a-Box | Datasheet

Citrix VDI-in-a-Box

Simplify desktop virtualization with personalized VDI that costs less than new PCs
Citrix VDI-in-a-Box is an all-in-one VDI solution that delivers personalized virtual desktops for less than the cost of new PCs. VDI-in-a-Box is available as a virtual appliance that runs on off-the-shelf servers and eliminates the need for expensive datacenter infrastructure. Powered by Citrix HDX technology, VDI-in-a-Box delivers an excellent quality of experience to users anytime, anywhere and on any device. Designed for desktop IT administrators, VDI-in-a-Box delivers an immediate return on investment (ROI) by being simpler and less expensive to set up and manage than PCs.

Features Personalized virtual desktops

VDI-in-a-Box provides personalized desktops where users can install their own applications and store their configuration and data. Users can install applications of their choice, set up their profiles and store their data. Administrators can update and manage these personalized desktops just like pooled desktops by updating and managing the single master image from which they were generated.

Reduced costs
VDI-in-a-Box reduces VDI infrastructure costs by more than 60 percent compared to traditional solutions. Deployed on off-the-shelf servers with direct attached storage, VDI-in-a-Box eliminates the need for specialized servers and expensive SAN storage. Integrated management and provisioning, software-based load balancing and connection brokering technologies obviate the need for external management servers, load balancers and connection brokers, respectively. Centralized administration cuts desktop management and support costs by up to 80 percent. For example, only the master images need to be updated and patched, rather than every endpoint. VDI-in-a-Box falls entirely under the purview of Windows desktop administrators, thereby eliminating the need for specialized networking, virtualization, storage and database administrators.

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Citrix VDI-in-a-Box | Datasheet

Single-instance management of personalized desktops eliminates more than 60 percent of image storage costs. Rather than juggling many persistent desktops, IT can maintain one master copy of desktop images while preserving the personalization of user applications and data. This dramatically reduces recurring management overhead.
Component
Off-the-shelf server1 VDI-in-a-Box with Citrix HDX Hypervisor2 Microsoft VDA Licence3 Total

Key benefits
Deploy personalized virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs Eliminate over 60 percent of VDI infrastructure costs Increase service levels with built-in high availability Go from zero to production in under an hour Start small and scale on demand Provide user access anytime, anywhere, on any device Choose from industryleading hypervisors Provide excellent quality of experience powered by HDX technology

Cost/CCU Desktop
$100 - $150 $160 $0 to $65 $0 to $100 $260 to $475 per Desktop

On-demand scalability
The deploy as you grow model gives organizations the flexibility of starting small and adding more off-the-shelf servers as needed. The hot-pluggable grid can be reconfigured on demand without having to turn off a production grid. The desktop administrator need only add a hypervisor-equipped server and answer two questions, and the grid will automatically update the server with all the necessary software and data, then bring it online.

High availability
VDI-in-a-Box provides end-to-end high availability without requiring shared storage. Using the N+1 model, the grid architecture delivers built-in high availability without shared storage, connection brokers or external load balancers. In case a customers IT environment is configured for Microsoft Active Directory failover, VDI-in-a-Box will default to a backup Active Directory server when a primary server fails, thereby increasing availability. The grid-wide virtual IP address feature of VDI-in-a-Box ensures that the entire grid is accessible by one highly available virtual IP address.

Simple setup, easy management

VDI-in-a-Box can be deployed in less than an hour. Setup, management, support, maintenance and upgrades for this solution couldnt be simpler. The all-in-one VDI software appliance with built-in, policy-based dynamic desktop provisioning, load balancing and connection brokering enables full deployment in less than an hour. An innovative grid architecture automatically shares configuration and desktop images, and enables management of all servers as a single entity. Easy, centralized management cuts desktop management and support costs by up to 80 percent. IT resources are spent on managing centralized corporate desktop images versus individual endpoints.
1 2 3

Off-the-shelf server cost based on pricing a server from Dell.com website as of Feb. 2011. Hypervisor cost is zero with XenServer and Hyper-V, up to $65/desktop with VMware vSphere/ESXi as of Aug. 2011. Microsoft VDA is not required with Microsoft Software Assurance ($0); retail price is $100/primary device/year.

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Citrix VDI-in-a-Box | Datasheet

The intuitive, wizard-driven, point-and-click user interface abstracts virtualization details so a Windows administrator can set up and manage virtual desktops without any virtualization, SAN or datacenter expertise. With VDI-in-a-Box, the desktop agent is automatically installed whenever a master image is created or updated. This touchless DTagent saves administrators time in setting up and maintaining desktop images. With full control over VDI desktop names, Windows desktop administrators can automate various management routines by running scripts inside the desktops that leverage their names. Logs in syslog format can be consumed by any third-party log management and analysis tool such as Splunk and Solarwinds to search, monitor, alert and report in real time.

Simplify desktop virtualization Deliver VDI for less than the cost of PCs with VDI-in-a-Box

Excellent quality of experience

Built-in HDX technology ensures a high-definition, high-performance desktop experience for users anytime, anywhere, on any device. Integration with Citrix user profile manager creates a custom user experience by delivering personalized virtual desktops. VDI-in-a-Box supports dual datastores to offer better virtual desktop density by overcoming the input/output operations per second (IOPS) challenge with small, high-IOPS SSDs. This dual datastore arrangement with SSDs and regular SAS disks offers an even better user experience while reducing cost per virtual desktop. The optimization pack for Google Earth, a 3D rendering application, eliminates the need for a GPU to provide high-resolution graphics for Google Earth while providing a good user experience.

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Citrix VDI-in-a-Box | Datasheet

Open architecture
VDI-in-a-Box features an open architecture that provides many platform and protocol options. Virtualization technology agnostic: it is available on Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere hypervisors. Protocol agnostic: it supports both HDX and Microsoft RDP technologies.

Security, compliance and data protection

VDI-in-a-Box provides comprehensive security capabilities to protect corporate data and help ensure regulatory compliance. Nothing is stored on the endpoint, so data is not put at risk in case of a lost or stolen endpoint device. Connection between endpoints and the grid is secured. Seamless single sign-on to a virtual desktop is provided across a VPN. The ability to place users and computers in different Windows domains comes in handy when security regulations require a more stringent relationship between users and their desktops. Policy-based automation enables administrators to set up access control policies per user. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) interface within VDI-in-a-Box enables an organization to accurately time stamp every single log entry, one of the keys for compliance with requirements from HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and GrammLeach-Bliley.

About Citrix Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) transforms how businesses and IT work and people collaborate in the cloud era. With market-leading cloud, collaboration, networking and virtualization technologies, Citrix powers mobile workstyles and cloud services, making complex enterprise IT simpler and more accessible for 260,000 organizations. Citrix products touch 75 percent of Internet users each day and it partners with more than 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2011 was $2.21 billion. Learn more at www.citrix.com. 2012 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix, XenServer , HDX and VDI-in-a-Box are trademarks or registered trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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