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Sponsor: Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Dana Gardner:
Hello, and welcome to the next edition of the BriefingsDirect Voice of
the Customer podcast series. I’m Dana Gardner,
Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your
host and moderator for this ongoing discussion on digital transformation success
stories.
 |
| Gardner |
One of the key elements of
digital transformation is aligning the core, cloud, and edge using new
architectures and efficiencies. New levels of simplicity are needed to satisfy
the requirements of both the end user and IT operators.
The next BriefingsDirect IT
solutions ecosystem profile interview examines how Citrix and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
are specifically aligned to help bring such digital transformation benefits to
market.
To learn more about the
venerable and always-innovative Citrix-HPE partnership, we are now joined by
executives from these two key enterprise IT players. Please join me in
welcoming Jim Luna, Senior
Director for Global Alliances at Citrix. Welcome, Jim.
Jim Luna:
Thanks, good to be here.
Gardner: We’re
also here with Jeff Carlat,
Senior Director of Global Alliances at HPE. Welcome, Jeff.
Jeff Carlat: Good
to see you again, Dana.
Gardner: Jim,
what trends are driving the need for innovation around mobile workspaces?
 |
| Luna |
Luna: As
customers embark through digital transformation they still need to access their
apps, data, and desktops from anywhere. With the advent of 5G wireless, and new
network connectivity, we need to allow customers to be able to get their data
and apps from any device as well. So we see a transformation in the
marketplace.
Carlat: We are
also looking at a new workforce coming in, the millennials, and they realize the
traditional way of going to your job is totally being changed. To be able to be
at work anytime, anyplace, anywhere -- and removing the barriers of where work
is – that is driving us to co-innovate. We are delivering solutions that allow
the freedom to be more efficient anywhere.
Gardner: There’s
a chicken-and-egg relationship. On one hand, the core, cloud, and edge can work
in tandem to allow for safe, secure, and compliant data and applications sharing
activities. And that encourages people to change their work behaviors, to become
more productive. It’s hard to decide, which is leading which?
Work anywhere, anytime on any device
Luna: Traditionally,
people had a desktop with applications, and they wanted that particular image
replicated throughout their environment. But with the advent of software-as-a-service
(SaaS) applications that are web-delivered, they now need more of a management
workspace, if you will, that allows them to work with any type of application
-- whether it’s being delivered locally, on-premises, or through a cloud-based SaaS
application. Delivering a unified workspace anywhere becomes critical for them.
Carlat: We
also have requirements around security -- increasing the security of data and
personal files. This forces us to work together, to take that workspace but not
have it sitting in a vulnerable laptop left in a Starbucks. Instead that
desktop sits back in the comfort and safety of a locked-up data center.
Luna: People
want a simple experience. They don’t want a complicated experience as they
access their apps and data. So, simplicity becomes key. User experience (UX) becomes
key. And choice becomes key as well.
Carlat: On expectations
of simplicity and UX, if I find it hard to log-in to SharePoint
I may just give up and say, “Well, I’m not going to be using those services.” It’s
so easy to just move to the next item on your list.
Like I said, with millennials,
that’s the expectation. It’s a mandatory requirement. If we can’t deliver that ease
of experience to them, others will.
Gardner: User
expectations are higher. They want flexibility. They want to be more productive
anywhere. We know the technologies are available to accomplish this.
What’s holding back
organizations from executing? How are Citrix and HPE together forming a whole
greater than the sum of the parts to help businesses execute on this vision?
Collaborate to simplify
Luna:
Traditionally it’s been the complexity of the deployment of the architecture --
both on the hardware side, as well as on the software side. The things that we
are doing together are simplifying that process from a deployment perspective,
from a manageability perspective, from a support perspective, as well as the
other features of experience, security, and choice.
We are working to simplify the
experience -- not just in terms of managing and deploying, but also to make
sure that that end-user experience is simplified as well.
Gardner:
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) has been around for some time, but earlier
there were issues around network capacity, and certain media formats lagged.
These performance issues have been largely put to rest. How does that factor
into accelerating mobile workspaces adoption?
 |
| Carlat |
Carlat: In
the 22 years of my IT experience at Compaq and HPE, I’ve seen the processor
compute power increase significantly. The network, storage, and other inhibitors,
from a technology standpoint, are pretty much gone now.
It moves the problem away from
the infrastructure to the complexity issue. How do you unleash that potential
in a manner that is easy to consume. That’s the next level.
Luna: One
of the other things our partnership allows is more choice. With HPE infrastructure,
we have a variety of different choices available to customers, according to
their unique requirements. There is now choice in terms of the architecture
that better suits their deployment requirements.
Gardner: We’ve
heard about hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) helping people on deployments.
We’ve heard about appliance models. Are these part of that new choice?
Carlat: Yes, that’s
why we have come together. We are delivering workspace appliances with Citrix
on top of our HPE SimpliVity
HCI portfolio.
Not only is a customer going to
capture the benefits of everything that’s gone into our SimpliVity HCI
platform, but we marry it with the world that Citrix provides for VDI, virtual
applications, and mobile desktops.
Luna: On one
hand, we’re making it easier for established customers to manage their Citrix
environments through a simplified management plane with Citrix
Cloud Services. But by having the security of that data sitting
locally on a SimpliVity appliance -- that’s really good for customers in terms
of data governance, data control, and data security.
But there are other
architectures for other segments, like in the financial services industry,
where we have trader workstations that provide multi-monitor support and high
graphics capabilities. So, choice is key.
By having the security of the data sitting locally on an HPE SimpliVity appliance -- that's good for customers in terms of governance, data control, and data security.
Through the capabilities we
have coming together – of bridging our leading infrastructure with the Citrix
portfolio -- it makes a magical combination that can be easily deployed, and it
just works.
Gardner: As I
mentioned, we want to provide more simplicity for IT operators. One of the
things that Citrix has been working out for years is intelligent network capabilities.
How Citrix is addressing simplicity around these requirements?
Cloud-control solutions
Luna: Citrix
is moving to a cloud service model where these technologies are available
through a cloud-control plane, whether that’s VDI, or gateway-as-a-service, or
a load-balancer-as-a-service. All of those things can be provisioned from a
central plane, on-premises or on a customer’s device. And those are solutions we
can deliver whether it is on a standard HPE
ProLiant DL380 server, or whether it’s SimpliVity HCI, or whether
that’s on HPE Moonshot
or a Synergy
composable infrastructure environment. Those architectures simply can be
delivered and managed through a cloud service onto HPE infrastructures.
Gardner: We’ve
also been hearing about complexity of hybrid IT models. Not only we are asking
folks to implement things like VDI in workspaces, but now they have to make
choices about private, public cloud, or some combination.
How does the Citrix and HPE alliance
help manage the gap between public and private cloud?
Carlat: We
are aligned, HPE and Citrix, in our view of how IT and consumers are going to
bridge and use public cloud resources. We believe there is a right mix, a
hybrid approach, where you are going to have both on-premises and the cloud.
At HPE we have several tools
to help the brokering of applications between on-premises to off-premises. And
we provide that flexibility and choice in an agnostic manner.
Luna: We’ve
recognized that the world is a hybrid cloud world. The public cloud has a lot
more complexity due to the number and choice of public cloud providers. So we are
not only driving hybrid cloud solutions -- we also have value-added services such
as HPE Pointnext that allows customers to incrementally define their
architecture, better deploy that architecture, and better manage those services
to allow for a better customer experience overall.
Gardner: We
are also thinking nowadays about the edge for many kinds of devices, such as
sensors on a factory floor. Is this an area where the alliance between Citrix
and HPE can be brought to bear? How does the Internet of things (IoT) relate to
what you do?
Explosion at the edge
Carlat: We
see exploding growth at the edge. And we define the edge as anything not in the
data center. Increasingly more-and-more of the analytics and the insights will
be derived at the edge. We are already doing a lot with Citrix.
A major financial institution with
hundreds of thousands of clients is using the edge and our HPE and Citrix technologies
together. This market is only going to grow -- and the requirements increase
from scalability to usability.
The edge can also be grimy; it
can be a very difficult physical environment. We take all of that into account across
the whole solution stack to ensure that we are providing the expected experience.
Luna:
Performance is key. As we look at the core to edge, we have a distributed model
that allows for data to stay as close as possible to that end-customer -- and
therefore provide the best performance and experience. And the best analytics.
We must consider, can we grab
the data necessary that’s being accessed at that particular endpoint and transmit
that data back? Can we provide telemetry to the customer for managing that
environment and making that environment even better for the customer?
In our case, the Citrix Analytics
Service is part of our offering. To pull that data and serve that up
to the customer in a manner that they are able to manage in that environment is
a plus.
Analytics offer insight
Gardner: Analytics
certainly becomes an important requirement. We have analytics at the edge; we
have analytics in the cloud. We are not just talking about delivering apps; we
are talking about first managing data -- and then taking that data and making
it actionable. How does the data and the data analysis factor into what you are
doing?
Carlat: Increasingly
we see the shift to a consumption-based delivery of IT. Our HPE GreenLake
services provide capabilities for customers to not be mired in maintaining and
monitoring all the infrastructure -- but actually just consume it on an as-needed basis. So that’s a one-key element.
Luna: Citrix
is coming out with a Citrix Analytics Service, and we started that with VDI.
But now that is expanding across the entire set of product portfolios from ShareFile,
to NetScaler, Gateways,
Load Balancers,
et cetera. The idea is to unify all that data so that it is seamless to the
customer. Now, that combines with all the analytics data coming out of the infrastructure
to provide the customer with a one-pane-of-glass view.
It all comes down to taking advantage of the technology and progress we have made together to deliver insights and business benefits without jacking up the complexity that acts as a barrier to adoption.
Luna: You’re
really empowering the customer to have better knowledge about their environment.
And with better knowledge comes better performance in their manageability overall.
Gardner: Where
are organizations leveraging the HPE-Citrix alliance in such a way that we can
point to them and say, this is how it works?
Real-world success stories
Carlat: One example
is in engineering design. Imagine the amount of horsepower it takes in
workstations to do computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). There’s solids modeling and major computational design elements. To
purchase the infrastructure and have it at your desk can be quite expensive, and
it can increase security risk.
Citrix and HPE have offerings,
combined with our Edgeline
and HCI
systems, that provide the right experience, and really rich graphics and content.
And we are able to provide that securely, with the data contained in a structured
environment.
Luna: Another
segment is healthcare. Because of HIPAA regulations, Citrix VDI is consumed in
many healthcare organizations today, whether it’s large hospitals or clinics.
That’s one of the environments where we see an opportunity to deliver on the power
of both HPE and Citrix, by allowing that data to be secured and managed
centrally yet providing the performance and the access on any device -- whether
it’s the patient room, or the doctor’s clinic, or anywhere.
Gardner: Let’s
look to the future. As we seek to head off complexity, how will HPE OneSphere
bolster your alliance?
Luna: We
are always looking at innovating together. We are looking at the possibilities for
joint work and development. HPE OneSphere presents an opportunity where we
provide a single pane of glass view of customers as they look to deploy Citrix
workloads. That could be through a central management plane, like OneSphere, or
going onto a public cloud and being able to compare pricing and workloads.
It can also be about managing a
hybrid cloud through HPE infrastructure, and managing all of that seamlessly,
whether it’s in a private-hybrid cloud environment or through a public cloud and
providing analytics. So we are continuing to look at those solutions that
provide innovation for our customers.
Gardner: Jeff
it seems that the opportunity to manage a multi-cloud world is certainly an
attractive opportunity for you going out to alliance partners like Citrix.
Carlat: Yes,
exactly. That’s an expectation of what consumers will be moving to in the
future. It’s not a one-stop shop. We need to be agnostic. To me, HPE and Citrix
are totally aligned to where we see the future going with regards to hybrid
cloud. And by first having that commonality of strategy and vision, it just
makes is easy to snap our stuff together and create these solutions that are
delighting our customers.
Luna: I
think at the end of the day our mission is to make Citrix hybrid cloud as best
as possible on HPE gear and infrastructure, and that’s what we aim to deliver
for our customers.
Gardner: And I
suppose it’s important for us to point out that this isn’t a Johnny-come-lately
relationship. You have been working together for some time. A great deal of the
installed base for Citrix is on HPE kit.
Carlat: Yes,
our relationship is built on 22 years of history between us. We’ve been blessed
by customers desiring to land their infrastructure on HPE.
We have an installed base out
there of customers who have chosen us in the past and continue to use us. For
those customers, we want to provide them a seamless transformation to a new
generation of architectures. The natural evolution is there for us to harvest,
we just have to do it in ways that meet expectations around usability and
experience.
A large portion of Citrix customers run today on HPE. That's a testament to the trust and collaboration within the partnership. It's been a good partnership.
Gardner: I’m
afraid, we’ll have to leave it there. We’ve been exploring how Citrix and HPE
are specifically aligned to help bring digital transformation benefits to the
market, and we’ve learned how aligning the core cloud and edge by new
architectures and efficiencies is finally being made possible.
So, please join me in thanking
our guests, Jim Luna, Senior Director for Global Alliances at Citrix. Thank you,
Jim.
Luna: It
was good to be here.
Gardner: And
Jeff Carlat has been with us. He is the Senior Director for Global Alliances at
HPE. Thanks, Jeff.
Carlat: You
bet. Thanks, Dana.
Gardner: And
thanks as well to our audience for joining this special BriefingsDirect Voice
of the Customer digital transformation success story.
I’m Dana Gardner, Principal
Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host for this ongoing series of Hewlett
Packard Enterprise-sponsored interviews. Thanks again for listening. Please
pass this along to your IT community -- and do come back next time.
Listen to
the podcast. Find
it on iTunes. Get the mobile
app. Download the transcript.
Sponsor: Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Transcript
of a discussion on how Citrix and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are aligned to bring
new capabilities to the coalescing architectures around data center core,
hybrid cloud, and edge computing. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC,
2005-2018. All rights reserved.
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