Citrix have released a new version of Citrix XenDesktop 7.11 and XenApp 7.11 and is now available for download.
Citrix raises the bar of for user experience and new product release of following technologies
Virtual Delivery Agents 7.11 for ServerOS and ClientOS
AppDNA 7.11
Storefront 3.7
Provisioning Services 7.11
Profile Management 5.5
License Server 11.14
Citrix Receiver 15.0 for Windows
HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.1.1 for Microsoft Skype® for Busines
Citrix SCOM Management Bundle for XenApp and XenDesktop (2016_08_24)
Linux Virtual Delivery Agent 1.4
Tech preview for HTML5 redirection
This release is an important release no matter if you are working daily with Office application such as Excel, Word or Browsers and even highend applications such as CAD. The features in 7.11 have important improved user experience from the VDA to the Receiver that improves dramtically the user experience. NVIDIA NVENC technology is now part of VDA and supports even multiple monitors. The admin can now monitor RTT within Director this feature have been something I have asked for very long time and now finally its in the product, customer will love this new feature so its fast to see where the issue is in a infrastructure with which users that have latency issues. Version 7.11 is the release that fully supports Microsoft Windows Server 2016 that is soon GA, this means you can install Delivery components on Windows Server 2016, VDA on Server 2016, use Azure N-series with support for Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V Discrete Device Assignment (DDA) or you can use it onpremises with Hyper-V. Support for UWP is HUGE and I am very excited about this technology and this also used in Microsoft Hololens so cant wait to a Receiver for hololens so you can publish UWP apps to Hololens 😉 Imagine that. I can keep going on with all these new features lets dig in below and learn whats new, its incredible that Citrix raises the bar and comes with huge improvements and they this each 3 months 🙂 yes each 3months, you read it correct. If you dont have a plan for this in your company I highly recommend you build a strategy on how you upgrade you Citrix environment frequently to get these awesome new features.
Its time to update your NVIDIA GRID K1, K2, M6, M60 environment.
NVIDIA have released new drivers that supports Windows 10 + fix several bugs.
If you want to test Server 2016 then the new Windows 10 drivers works, I have just tried and they work but they are not “certified” so test this with your own risk, please. Always test this in a test environment and this is not for production environments, unless you want to be early innovators 😉
#HINT – Windows 10 is not supported on Citrix XenServer 6.2 only on Citrix XenServer 6.5.
## HINT – Linux drivers are only available with Tesla M6, M60.
Whats new in vGPU 352.83-354.80
NVIDIA have released a new version of vGPU 352.83-354.80 for NVIDIA GRID 1.0 (K1, K2) GRID 2.0 Tesla M6 and Tesla M60 platform.
NVIDIA GRID Virtual GPU Manager versions 352.83 for Citrix XenServer 6.2 SP1 with hotfixes XS62ESP1009 and XS62ESP1011
NVIDIA GRID Virtual GPU Manager version 352.83 for VMware vSphere 6.0 Hypervisor (ESXi)
NVIDIA Windows drivers for vGPU version 354.80
NVIDIA Linux drivers for vGPU version 352.83.
Important:
The GRID vGPU Manager and Windows guest VM drivers must be installed together. Older VM drivers will not function correctly with this release of GRID vGPU Manager. Similarly, older GRID vGPU Managers will not function correctly with this release of Windows guest drivers
Update existing vGPU GRID Manager (Hypervisor)
GRID vGPU Manager 352.83 upgrade for Citrix XenServer 6.2
If you have a NVIDIA GRID K1, K2 vGPU GRID manager installed in Citrix XenServer. Upgrade with below methodology:
Methodology 1 – the manual way “No GUI”
Upgrading an existing installation of the NVIDIA driver on Citrix XenServer 6.2, use the rpm -U command to upgrade:
If you have NVIDIA GRID K1 / K2
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -Uv NVIDIA-vGPU-kepler-xenserver-6.2-352.83.i386.rpm
Preparing packages for installation...
If you have NVIDIA GRID TESLA M6 / M60
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -Uv NVIDIA-vGPU-xenserver-6.2-352.83.i386.rpm
Preparing packages for installation...
The recommendation from NVIDIA is to shutdown all VMs using a GPU. The machine does continue to work during the update, but since you need to reboot the XenServer itself, it’s better to gracefully shutdown the VMs. So after your VMs have been shutdown and you upgraded the NVIDIA driver, you can reboot your host.
Verify that the NVIDIA kernel driver can successfully communicate with the GRID physical GPUs in your system by running the nvidia-smi command, which should produce a listing of the GPUs in your platform:
Check driver version is 352.83, if it is then your host is ready for GPU awesomeness and make your VM rock.
GRID vGPU Manager 352.83 for Citrix XenServer 6.5
If you have a NVIDIA GRID K1, K2, M6, M60 vGPU GRID manager installed in Citrix XenServer. Upgrade with one of below methodology:
Methodology 1 – the manual way “No GUI”
Upgrading an existing installation of the NVIDIA driver on Citrix XenServer 6.5, use the rpm -U command to upgrade:
If you have NVIDIA GRID K1 / K2
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -Uv NVIDIA-vGPU-kepler-xenserver-6.5-352.83.x86_64.rpm
Preparing packages for installation...
If you have NVIDIA GRID TESLA M6 / M60
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -Uv NVIDIA-vGPU-xenserver-6.5-352.83.x86_64.rpm
Preparing packages for installation...
The recommendation from NVIDIA is to shutdown all VMs using a GPU. The machine does continue to work during the update, but since you need to reboot the XenServer itself, it’s better to gracefully shutdown the VMs. So after your VMs have been shutdown and you upgraded the NVIDIA driver, you can reboot your host.
Select Install Update… from the Tools menu
Click Next after going through the instructions on the Before You Start section
Click Add on the Select Update section and open NVIDIA’s XenServer Supplemental Pack ISO
If you have NVIDIA GRID K1 / K2 select following file:
Click Next on the Select Update section
In the Select Servers section select all the XenServer hosts on which the Supplemental Pack should be installed on and click Next
Click Next on the Upload section once the Supplemental Pack has been uploaded to all the XenServer hosts
Getting Started
Click Next on the Prechecks section
Click Install Update on the Update Mode section
Click Finish on the Install Update section
After the XenServer platform has rebooted, verify that the GRID package installed and loaded correctly by checking for the NVIDIA kernel driver in the list of kernel loaded modules.
Validate from putty or XenCenter CLI
run lsmod | grep nvidia
Verify that the NVIDIA kernel driver can successfully communicate with the GRID physical GPUs in your system by running the nvidia-smi command, which should produce a listing of the GPUs in your platform:
Check driver version is 352.83, if it is then your host is ready for GPU awesomeness and make your VM rock.
GRID vGPU Manager 352.83 for VMware vSphere 6.x
To update the NVIDIA GPU VIB, you must uninstall the currently installed VIB and install the new VIB.
To uninstall the currently installed VIB:
Stop all virtual machines using 3D acceleration.
Place the ESXi host into Maintenance mode.
Open a command prompt on the ESXi host.
Stop the xorg service by running the command:/etc/init.d/xorg stop
Remove the NVIDIA VMkernel driver by running the command:vmkload_mod -u nvidia
Identify the NVIDIA VIB name by running this command:esxcli software vib list | grep NVIDIA
Remove the VIB by running the command:esxcli software vib remove -n nameofNVIDIAVIBYou can now install a new NVIDIA GPU VIB
Use the esxcli command to install the vGPU Manager package:
If you have NVIDIA GRID K1 / K2 select following file:
After the ESXi host has rebooted, verify that the GRID package installed and loaded correctly by checking for the NVIDIA kernel driver in the list of kernel loaded modules.
Verify that the NVIDIA kernel driver can successfully communicate with the GRID physical GPUs in your system by running the nvidia-smi command, which should produce a listing of the GPUs in your platform:
Check driver version is 352.83, if it is then your host is ready for GPU awesomeness and make your VM rock.
Update existing vGPU Driver (Virtual Machine)
When the hypervisor vGPU GRID manager is updated next is updating the Virtual Machines vGPU.
Update your Golden Images and reprovisioning the new virtual machines with updated vGPU drivers, if you have stateless machines update vGPU drivers on each.
#HINT – Express upgrade of drivers is the recommended option according to the setup. If you use the “Custom” option, you will have the option to do a “clean” installation. The downside of the “clean installation” is that it will remove all profiles and custom settings. The pro of using the clean installation option is that it will reinstall the complete driver, meaning that there will be no old driver files left on the system. I most of the time recommends using a “Clean” installation to keep it vanilla 🙂
New driver functionality with 354.80
354.80_grid_win8_win7_64bit_international.exe
354.80_grid_win8_win7_international.exe
354.80_grid_win10_64bit_international.exe
354.80_grid_win10_international.exe
NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-352.83-grid.run
#1 Linux driver is not available with Citrix XenServer 6.2 or 6.5 and ESX for K1/K2. This is only available with GRID vGPU for M60
Linux support in only available with GRID Tesla M6 / M60
GRID vGPU with Linux guest VMs is supported on Tesla M60 and M6, with the following distributions:
vGPU 352.83-354.80 for XenServer 6.2 for Tesla M6 / M60
vGPU 352.83-354.80 for XenServer 6.5 for Tesla M6 / M60
vGPU 352.83-354.80 for vSphere 6 for Tesla M6 / M60
For more information about the update from NVIDIA GRID – vGPU 352.83-354.80 contact me.
Citrix technology professional – CTP, and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional MVP, Thomas Poppelgaard provides professional services. Write to me on my email thomas@poppelgaard.com or call on my cell +45 53540356
Citrix have released a new version of Citrix XenDesktop 7.8 and XenApp 7.8 and is now available for download.
Citrix raises the bar of for user experience and new product release for Storefront 3.5, Provisioning Services 7.8, Citrix Receiver 12.1.10 for Mac (OSX), License Server 11.13.1.2 for Windows, XenApp Secure Browser Deployment Kit, AppDNA 7.8, Session Recording 7.8.
This is WILD Citrix released 7.7 in 30th December 2015 with so many features and already two months after we got a major release out.. If you havent upgraded your 7.x environment 7.8 is worth a try.
HINT! – Remember first thing you do is downloading the new version of Citrix License Server 11.13.1.2 cause this is a requirement for below products to work.
Lets look at the build Citrix XenDesktop 7.8 and Citrix XenApp 7.8
The product release includes the following new and enhanced features.
AppDisks For more information, see the AppDisks article.
Enhanced support for Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) App-V article.
Improved tag interface in Studio For more information, see the Tags article.
Requirements, installation, and configuration updates
Call Home Citrix Call Home performs periodic collections of your system and product configuration, plus performance, error, and other information. This information is sent to Citrix Insight Services for proactive analysis and resolution For details, see the Citrix Insight Services article.
Citrix Insight Services link available from within Director You can access Citrix Insight Services (CIS) from the User drop-down in Director to access additional diagnostic insights. The data available in CIS comes from sources including Call Home and Citrix Scout.
VMware SSL thumbprint The VMware SSL thumbprint feature addresses a frequently-reported error when creating a host connection to a VMware vSphere hypervisor. Previously, administrators had to manually create a trust relationship between the Delivery Controllers in the Site and the hypervisor’s certificate before creating a connection. The VMware SSL thumbprint feature removes that manual requirement: the untrusted certificate’s thumbprint is stored on the Site database so that the hypervisor can be continuously identified as trusted by XenApp and XenDesktop, even if not by the Controllers. When creating a vSphere host connection in Studio, a dialog box allows you to view the certificate of the machine you are connecting to. You can then choose whether to trust it.
Virtual Delivery Agents (VDAs) 7.8
Version 7.8 of the VDA for Server OS and the VDA for Desktop OS include the following enhancements:
App-V and Framehawk installer options. The VDA installers offer two additional items you can select on the Features page in the graphical interface or specify on the command line.
Framehawk. Opens UDP ports 3224-3324. Framehawk uses a bidirectional UDP port range (default is 3224-3324) to exchange Framehawk display channel data with Citrix Receiver. For more information, see Framehawk virtual channel.
Citrix App-V Publishing Components. Installs components required if you will use applications from Microsoft App-V packages. For more information, see App-V.
HDX 3D Pro product edition availability. HDX 3D Pro is now available in the VDA for Windows Desktop OS in all XenApp 7.8 and XenDesktop 7.8 product editions. In earlier releases, only certain product editions supported the 3D Pro VDA. HDX 3D Pro is not currently supported on Windows 10.
KACD .MSI file included in VDA packages. This file is included to support future customization of authentication. This file was not included with earlier releases.
HDX technologies
The following new and enhanced HDX technologies features are included in the VDAs:
Framehawk support for HDX 3D Pro VDI. HDX 3D Pro support for the Framehawk virtual channel is extended from XenApp to XenDesktop VDI. This gives users greater flexibility to view large CAD models while on the move on a corporate or public wireless network, or working from an offshore location over a high latency connection. For more information on Framehawk, see Framehawk virtual channel.
Framehawk server scalability improvements. Over 40% average reduction in memory footprint. Up to 20% increase in CPU efficiency.
Framehawk touch scrolling improvements. Over 50% improvement in bandwidth efficiency when scrolling via touch input. Significantly increased frame rate resulting in a smoother user experience.
GPU acceleration for DirectX windowed applications on Windows 10 VDAs. This release adds support for GPU acceleration for DirectX 10, 11 and 12 windowed applications on Windows 10 VDAs.
Thinwire Build to lossless enhancements. The Build to lossless visual quality for Thinwire has been updated to sharpen fuzzy imagery at a faster rate than delivered in XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6 FP3, and to improve lossy or lossless frame detection. For the main Thinwire article, see Thinwire Compatibility Mode.
Reduced VDA memory footprint in Thinwire. The graphics encoder processing pipeline now eliminates the use of an intermediate frame buffer when running Thinwire without video codec compression.
Clientname passthrough in double-hop sessions. Applications can use the updated WFAPI SDK to query the client endpoint name and pass this information from any Citrix Receiver to published desktops (XenApp/XenDesktop) and through to a XenApp application (a “double-hop”). This clientname awareness in the XenApp session means that users can seamlessly roam from location to location, and the “double-hop” application will be notified of the change in clientname without having to disconnect or reconnect the session. For more information on how to write conforming applications, see the WFAPI SDK documentation or defer to your application SI/ISV.
Session Recording 7.8
Session Recording 7.8.0 includes support for Platinum XenApp 7.8 and XenDesktop 7.8. This support includes:
Session recording support from a Desktop OS VDA. Record on-screen activity of a user session hosted from a Desktop OS VDA over any type of connection, subject to corporate policy and regulatory compliance.
Record sessions on remote PC. Support for recording sessions in Remote PC Access.
Numerous fixes to customer-reported and internally identified issues
Generation 2 Virtual Machines
System Center Virtual Machine Manager Generation 2 VMs can be provisioned through Provisioning Services. Generation 2 VMs are optimized for modern workloads, that is, the operating system does not carry the overhead of legacy drivers, devices and x86 architectures.
How does it work?
Virtual machine (VM) generation determines the virtual hardware and functionality available to the VM. Within a Hyper-V environment, there are two types of supported VMs: generation 1 and generation 2. Generation 2 VMs possess a simplified virtual hardware model, and support Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware rather than BIOS-based firmware.
In previous versions of Hyper-V, only Generation 1 VMs were supported. With the introduction of Windows Server 2012 R2, there are two generations of VMs to choose from when you create a VM. With Generation 2 VMs,the following functionality was introduced:
This release of Provisioning Services provides continued hardening for UEFI support. UEFI represents a standard firmware interface for PCs, and is designed to replace BIOS (basic input/output system). With these enhancements, Citirx Provisioning Services provides:
improved security by helping to protect the pre-boot process against bootkit attacks.
support for larger disk drives (greater than 2.2 terabytes).
support for modern, 64-bit firmware device drivers which can be used to leverage large amounts of memory during startup.
the capability to use BIOS with modern UEFI hardware.
StoreFront 3.5
What’s new in the StoreFront 3.5
StoreFront includes the following new features and enhancements.
Updated StoreFront management console – The StoreFront management console contains a significant number of changes, which enable:
Store-centric console architecture – Authentication and Citrix Receiver for Web settings are organized around stores to simplify navigation for multi-store deployment.
Different authentication settings for different stores.
Configuring delegation of authentication to XenApp or XenDesktop farms or sites.
Configuring multi-site high availability.
Configuring optimal NetScaler Gateway routing.
Setting a Receiver for Web site as the default site in IIS.
Configuring many other settings previously done with web.config.
New administration PowerShell SDK:
Cmdlets in the new SDK are prefixed with STF and focus on administration tasks grouped around StoreFront deployment-wide configuration, stores, authentication, and Citrix Receiver for Web.
Citrix XenDesktop 7.8 and Citrix XenApp 7.8 provides high-level example scripts to enable you to script and automate StoreFront deployments quickly and easily.
The existing cmdlets prefixed with DS are deprecated. They are still available and supported in StoreFront 3.5 to enable a gradual transition to the new SDK.
Configuration export and import:
You can export the entire configuration of a StoreFront deployment. You can import the exported configuration to a deployment with the same StoreFront version for restoration or replication.
Self-service password reset (SSPR):
Users can unlock their Active Directory accounts or reset their passwords using StoreFront. This requires XenApp 6.5.
Zone-based optimal gateway routing:
XenApp 7.7 and 7.8 and XenDesktop 7.7 and 7.8 support applications or desktops from different zones in a single site. You can configure a different NetScaler Gateway for HDX connections to applications or desktops from a different zone.
Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) powered zone preference:
You can configure GSLB in NetScaler 11.0-65.x and above to supply zone preference information to StoreFront. Along with this feature, you can configure StoreFront to direct the startrequests to the most preferred XenApp or XenDesktop farms or sites for the user location.
Background Server Health Check:
StoreFront runs periodic health checks on each Citrix XenDesktop 7.8 and Citrix XenApp 7.8 broker to reduce the impact of intermittent server availability. You can control the frequency of the health check.
Last year I was invited by HPE to go to their EMEA event HPE Discover in London, which took place the first week of December. I was invited there as part of their Hewlett Packard Enterprise Independent Influencer Program, and I was super proud of being part of this well organized program, which Kristen Reyes manages. HUGE kudos to Kristen Reyes and her team for putting together one of the most organized events I have ever attended as a blogger. Last time I attended HPE Discover was some years ago at their big US HPE Discover which took place at Las Vegas. I remember it was HUGE with lots of people – an epic experience that my previously employer, Arrow ECS managed the trip for. I had pretty high expectations going to the HPE Discover and I knew it was going to be good, but not as good as it REALLY was.
HPE Independent Influencer Program:
I am proud of being part of this program – let me tell you which profiles are part of the program including myself.
The team behind HPE took care of us from the time I flew all the way from Denmark to London. They made sure we got the right hotel and then once at the venue, we got a special VIP room where we got introduce each other. Team had a plan for what happend exclusively for the group. This reminds me of the Citrix CTP program I am humble to be part of where we also meet 2 times a year and are taken especially care of.
I highly recommend you follow above persons, as they are awesome people. This is the first time I have been with such a wide range of technology bloggers in my life and it was a huge difference – so thank you to HPE for daring to put so many different profiles together.
Let’s talk about HPE Discover in London 2015
There was 13.000 attendees. YES! That is INSANE and it felt like being in United States but I was in London. London can also have huge venues and they succeeded with cherry top on the beautiful cake. Yes HPE pulled it off! Please other big vendors – start making EMEA events because London is a perfect spot for this! Citrix, VMware, Microsoft… EMEA salutes you..
I was in for a surprise the first day of the keynote when Meg Whitman kicked off HPE Discover, and Satya Nadella Microsoft CEO talked even thought it was via a conf call (but still pretty cool) and Microsoft showed the flag. I would have loved if Satya could have come in person since that would have been my first time seeing Mr. Nadella in person.
After a great keynotes learning about where HPE is taking the company, it was time to walk around the expo to see what innovative technologies were hidden and what others I was allowed to blog about.
Next gen consumer products for engineers & designers
This device is so beautiful the brand new HP Envy 34, its the widest screen I have ever seen on a professional computer and its powered by Intel HD530 GPU and NVIDIA GTX 960A GPU. The speakers are B&O (Danish design brand).
Price for this device is approx 1700 USD – that’s pretty cheap for an All-in-one machine.
Another beautiful Augmented Reality device I tried was the HP Sprout. This device makes it possible to quickly edit 3D models in real time by taking objects from reality and scanning them directly in to the device. Then you can manipulate with the object and then print it out on a 3Dprinter. This process increases the speed of making a design. Right now, the device is only available for consumers but we might see that change soon for enterprises since the unit was displayed at the HPE Discover 🙂 – so watch out for this space. I also saw AMD had setup several Oculus Rift DK2 units running some great demos. Great to see that VR was at HPE Discover.
Deep Learning & The Machine
I meet many of the brains behind the Deep Learning “things” HPE are doing, and its VERY impressive where they are, and how HPE differs to their competitors. I can’t talk much about it now – and will leave it up to how things are evolving later this year – and then blog more about it when the information is available to the public. But if you are fascinated by the future and AI / Deep learning you should look at what HPE is doing with the concept, “The Machine”. If you look at what they are trying to accomplish and put the puzzle together yourself, you might see for yourself how HPE will make a difference in how next generation datacenters will be built – that’s a fact.
Citrix Octoblu & HPE – The Cube
(The ultimate iOT automated conference room)
HPE Smart Digital Collaboration Space (1107), a.k.a. “The Cube.” . That was the name of this cool concept.
This was mind-blowing – and one of the most innovative things I saw at HPE Discover with IoT using Citrix Octoblu.
HPE, together with Aruba and Octoblu have teamed together to create a beautiful workflow that automates a conference room with iOT.
All visitors could try this at the event. HPE allowed 3-4 people to enter the cube as a group. We were asked our name and then were given an iPhone to bring into “The Cube”. The system then welcomed use by name and the room went from “green” to “red” (which was Philips Hue that did this), so the people outside could clearly see that the room was occupied and a meeting was taking place. An HP tablet on the door outside also showed the room was occupied and listed the attendees by name. Inside, the HP surface PCs connected to Skype for Business, Samsung TV started and a business session went live. At the end, “The Cube” took a selfie and put on twitter and sent the photo to our emails and after we left the room. Upon exiting, it reset all the workflows and the room was lit green again – ready for next group. Amazing 🙂
Below is the workflow that was created in Octoblu
Try out octoblu here if you havent tried it yet. Its still beta and “FREE” https://octoblu.com/
It was great to see all the new NVIDIA GRID 2.0 solutions. Two gentlemen proudly showed the HPE ProLiant WS460C Gen9 that now supports NVIDIA Tesla M60 and NVIDIA Tesla M6. This means higher density and more performance. So great to see that HPE is a pioneer, offering the entire solution from NVIDIA. There is soon NVIDIA GTC – and I expect we will see some data on customers running on HPE solution with M60/M6 and we get some data on how many users can run on these new offerings. It’s actually my first time seeing on-hands the M6 GPU from NVIDIA and it looks beautiful and green. These GPUs are made for low end GPU workloads all the way up to high end GPU workloads. The performance of the M60 is 2x the performance compared to K2 (GRID 1.0)
Please keep in mind that NVIDIA has changed GRID 2.0 so when you buy the GPUs, you also have to buy a “software” license.
Your NPN (NVIDIA preferred partner) should be able to help you with providing you the correct information. This license is required both for Pass-through and vGPU of the M60 and M6.
Moonshot and beyond
HPE Moonshot has been a subject I have been following for a while now. It all started when one of my great friends (and fellow CTP) Dane Young talked about HP Moonshot and why it differs to the market. HPE liked Young’s view – and his face is now on the wall at the Houston research facility. So if you are a client or a partner, you might know Dane Young – or you will if you are in Houston to see what HPE is doing with HPE Moonshot.
Citrix had a booth at the HPE Discover and they showed how Citrix is working and offered on a HPE Moonshot stack.
The HPE Moonshot team had several sessions talking about the next generation “trader workstation” which opens my eyes on how users use a computer. Traders are actually some of the most “difficult” users to satisfy – and they have a very short lifetime as an employee because its so hard what they do is so stressful. The amount of monitors and amount of data they look at is shocking and the high availability for this is nothing like you have never seen before. If these people cant work, the moneyflow stops moving – something you don’t want in the financial world. Designers are one thing, but I would definitely call traders the most difficult users. So what´s so amazing about the HPE Moonshot offering? HPE has a new catridge called the M710P, which was released in the Summer 2015. It has a high amount of CPU/GPU (or as others call it APU which is a CPU/GPU processor in 1 unit). Lots of memory and high speed disks. This is all build in a super small server which we call a cartridge. This cartridge can be put in a system and an OS can be installed and now you can have many users connecting to the catridge and using multiple sessions from Microsoft Remote Desktop Services combine this with Citrix super power “XenApp” and you now have an amazing flagship for having high amount of users with low cost. Nothing is virtualized and everything is running on bare metal. The beauty about the moonshot is that in 1 chassis you can put in 45 catridges of the M710P.
Moonshot cartridge building blocks for Citrix workloads
These are the offering that HPE have with Moonshot and Citrix and you can build amazing workloads. Personally, I would look at the M710p because I think this is the cartridge that is mature for the workload. I normally design Citrix solutions with.. wait are you talking about GPU? Yes I am..
If you remember some time ago, Brian Madden, said “Imagine if you could put 20.000 users in a single rack? Let’s see what has happended since then. Things have evolved – and with the new cartridge M710p, its much more powerful than the first cartridges that were built for Citrix
Citrix is using Moonshot internally
At HPE Discover, Citrix had a session with Bob Thompson from Citrix and together with the HPE Moonshot team EMEA telling how Citrix is using HPE Moonshot.
I had never heard about Citrix is using it at this scale – and big surprise their demo cloud is also running on Moonshot.
Insights what Citrix IT are doing with HPE Moonshot
“Citrix on Citrix” – team responsible for deploying Citrix products internally
Upgrading to latest version of XenApp
Seamless app access from Windows 10 devices
Superior user experience
Improved security (e.g. both FIPS Compliant and Common Criteria certified)
Migrating to Moonshot (m710) for XenApp from HP Blades
Designed and optimized for XenApp
Less: power consumption, space and cabling
8,500 sessions, across the globe in (4) data centers
“WOW so why arent more people using Moonshot, if this is so good and Citrix is doing this, it is mature”.
M710P & Citrix – Next gen trader workstation
I am very impressed about this new machine and HPE is having HUGE success with this machine for the financial buisness. In fact, some of the biggest banks in the world are running on this. Surprised ? IT’S TRUE
Let’s look at the details of what it is.
Here is a typical trader running with 4 monitors connecting to 1 catridge M710p and only 47% of the GPU is utilized. AMAZING!
M710P catridge – hardware specifications
WORKLOADs
Video transcoding , Application Delivery
CPU+GPU
Intel Xeon E3-1284Lv4 with on-die GPU (GT3e: Iris Pro P6300)
20 independent L2/3 switches with 4.5Tb throughput
450 GPUs
450 CPUs
1180 Cores (3600 with HyperThreading)
54TB – 430TB iSSD Storage
18,000 XenApp users (@40 users per server)
I hope the above gives you a pretty good idea on where Moonshot is going – and this is just for Citrix. HPE Moonshot is much more though -it’s a huge eco system build for enterprises and cloud providers, so check it out https://www.hpe.com/us/en/servers/moonshot.html
More informations about HPE Moonshot M710p – The Trader Workstation:
HPE Discover 2015 blew my mind – and it looks like we are going to have an amazing year in 2016.
I would like to say thank you to Kristen Reyes from HPE for making this happen. Each time I didn’t know what to do, she and her team took great care of me and made sure I meet the correct people at HPE – and there was always “open doors” (which isn’t always the case when techies sees a guy with a “blogger” sign around his neck).
Hi all, if you are looking for an event that is all about CAD, CAM, CAE, PLM, Rendering, 3D technologies, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and 3D printing then is FREE!! then DEVELOP3D LIVE is the event to join. Rachel Berry opened my eyes going there last year 2015 and she made me come all the way from Denmark to Warwick and it was worth the long trip 🙂 If you are looking for travel advice Hotels and such I recommend you read Rachel Berry blogpost, I use myself Kayak.com 🙂 that always saves my life when i am traveling around the world and if you want it cheap use Airbnb.com.
My things learned from DEVELOP3D LIVE 2015
I went there and had high expectations and I was in for a surprise. It was all about above and much more I saw for the first time Carl Bass the CEO of Autodesk, Gian Paolo Bassi the CEO of SolidWorks, Jon Hirschtick the CEO of Onshore and the founder of SolidWorks, Nikola Bozinovic the Founder and CEO of FRAME, and many many more.
I got my hands on the HP Zvr for the second time, I saw the unit for the first time at NVIDIA GTC in 2013 and HP have acquired the company. I also saw another favorite Augmented Device the HP Sprout, which is an amazing unit. 3Dconnexion was off course also there so all my favorite CAD peripherals and next gen tools.
Below is the picture of Carl Bass CEO of Autodesk talking at DEVELOP3D LIVE last year and Rachel Berry trying Fra.me solution
Meet the Speakers of DEVELOP3D LIVE 2016
I am looking very much forward meeting a good friend of mine Adam Jull from IMSCAD Global.
Adam and his team have been early adapters of HDX 3D Pro like myself, so its great to see a pioneer talking at Develop3DLive.
I am also looking very much forward meeting the NVIDIA team + my favorite CAD genius Rachel Berry and also see if AMD have something interesting to show like the Multiuser gpu if its ready for that time.
Get your ticket for free here for joining the awesome CAD event in beautiful Warwick. If you never been to UK well this is your reason to go, learn from the best and brightest people on CAD and see the beautiful country side of England. Two awesome things.
