Citrix releases Express Edition

By Staff Writer for Citrix Systems
Johannesburg, 15 Jul 2009

Citrix Systems unveiled a free Express Edition of its Citrix Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V products, which includes Citrix's StorageLink technology, at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans this week.

The company says StorageLink allows Windows administrators to simplify storage management processes for their Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and System Centre virtual infrastructures.

Citrix Essentials, it notes, gives administrators access to powerful storage-based features like deduplication - where redundant data is deleted, leaving only one copy of the data to be stored - thin provisioning, cloning, snapshots and replication, usually hidden behind layers of proprietary, specialised virtualisation storage file systems.

The new product, adds the company, is designed specifically for Windows IT professionals in the early phases of Hyper-V adoption, giving them the benefits of shared storage.

According to Citrix, industry estimates show that by applying storage-saving technologies like deduplication and thin provisioning, some Hyper-V customers have shrunk their storage footprint by 50% and more.

“In cases where virtual machines are highly duplicated, like virtual desktop images, many have seen a nearly 90% reduction in storage consumption,” the company states.

The Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V supports up to two Hyper-V servers and a single storage array and is immediately available for download, the company adds.