TechAgility

So among several other things this week I managed a quick sneak peak at an early (Alpha?) release of Citrix’s Tarpon (Application Streaming) yesterday, what I found interesting was not that it would appear that Citrix are leaning towards using blue instead of red for some of the pretty bits? nor that there was a nice shiny new Citrix Client, but I suddenly realized that I was examining Tarpon from a purely Technical Focus and to really appreciate what might be possible meant that I had to shift to looking at it from a Marketing perspective, like asking myself will this product have legs? Forget about asking yourself if I would install and use the product, try something more like "Can I convince others to buy the Licensing?" and I think the answer is yes.

This is what we do right? We are Techies, so we examine everything from a Technical perspective, don’t we? We look at Tarpon and it’s intended functionality and feature set and compare it to the other potential Application Virtualization or Streaming products out in the market place today and try to figure out it’s weakness’s and strengths compared to these, and possibly even arrive at a conclusion as to how worthy it is for further consideration, or indeed even recommend it?

Not surprisingly, as this is an Alpha Product, it is found wanting (at the moment) – and when we start comparing it to the features and functionality available in Softgrid 4.0 then it could be said to be well and truly behind the eight ball?

What I had just stopped and considered, as I was looking at this was, “Of course it’ll sell, look how many existing Citrix Customers will want this!”

I’m almost scared to think that I had just been looking at a new product with a Marketing mind set? Too much free thinking and caffeine doesn’t mix?

What am I on about? Well, let’s consider Novell NDS versus MS Active Directory? Nearly anyone who has had a deep look and understanding on these two competing products will tell you that NDS was far and away the superior product, struth!, NDS was on Version 8+ as Active Directory was coming to fruition!!, but which product do most of us use today? AD won the battle, because MS was superior in Marketing and Novell decided that it’s product was so superior it didn’t need marketing! Hey, I’m as cynical as the next guy, but savvy Marketing has the potential to either:

• help make up the mind of the Key Decision Maker, before you pitch or present

• or it at least opens the way to get you in a door that might have been otherwise closed

The rest, as they say is History

So, back to present day, Citrix have just taken Net6 and pumped it, polished it, given it a serious road map with Full Integration in to the rest of the Citrix Architecture, and now not only do they have the fastest selling number one Hit with a star(4,500 units plus?), the Access Gateway, but they also have created another revenue stream completely apart from the classic Presentation Server.

Now if Citrix can do Marketing like that, who would bet against them in a potential battle of Softgrid, Altiris and Tarpon? Just think that Softgrid has done pretty well, but if I recall some of their numbers they have only actually sold it in approx. 1,000 customers? (please correct me if I’m wrong on that?)

How does that stack up against Citrix’s existing installed base? Mmmm?

Also very interesting is that this would then allow Citrix to wave a product under IT Management noses that no longer is paid for by licensing on a concurrent user basis, but would be done on a per device basis?

I would be guessing that Citrix have a lot riding on this, and the potential numbers probably have them smiling?

Tarpon may not look much if you look at it now and compare it directly with Softgrid 4.0 but simply by virtue of the fact that the 4.0 Feature Set is out there means that Citrix already know exactly how good their product needs to be – sure they are probably 2 years behind – but if you have a large enough team with the right funding AND Marketing, you can achieve an awful lot – just ask Microsoft? ;-))

Who knows, right now we need to see if the MS acquisition doesn’t slow Softgrid down any?

posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 5:42 PM

Feedback

# re: Thoughts on Application Virtualization or Streaming - how does Citrix’s Project Tarpon compare with Softgrid and Altiris’s SVS? 7/10/2006 11:48 AM Jonathan

I have to disagree David. Application virtualization has now become firmly entrenched in the desktop management space as one more tool in the suite. Altiris and MS are fighting in this space and Citrix with a weak first attempt is not going to make any headway. Tarpon is not that important to them as I was shown it over 1 year ago. If they could have released it then they would have stood a chance in the space. It is too late now.
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# re: Thoughts on Application Virtualization or Streaming - how does Citrix’s Project Tarpon compare with Softgrid and Altiris’s SVS? 7/10/2006 12:02 PM David Caddick

You could be right Jonathan,
I heard a rumor this morning that MS *might* be going to give away Softgrid with every Longhorn Ent. Server……!!!
So roll on Q1?
Dave
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written by dcaddick

Preamble:

Us Citrix Guys have been bouncing against the issue of migration to dissimilar hardware for a while now, with quite a number of customers with Images or Production Servers based on DL360 G2’s and G3’s and these Images are now needing to be applied to G4’s. Obviously there wasn’t too much issue between the earlier two, but as we start approaching the G4 platform this has caused some issues with the 5i/6i Array Driver.

We do tend to have a policy of trying to Sysprep where ever possible as Best Practice, and to a reasonable extent this has also allowed us to continue without the need to resorting to any specialist tools to over come this - especially if you use the MassStorage heading in the Sysprep.inf file as commented by VMware at http://www.vmware.com/support/v2p/doc/V2P_TechNote.pdf

There have been occasions where we get stumped and typically these relate to where two specific issues coincide - Server 2003 SP1 and Remapped Drives. Clearly with us looking after Citrix Servers this remapped drives comes around quite often……

In this case the Sysprep procedure, this will typically bomb out when the Drives *collapse* back to the C and D drive, and it all turns a bit ugly after that.

Possible Tools to migrate Servers to/from Dissimilar Hardware:

• Symantec’s LSR Anywhere
• Acronis True Image
• UltraBAC Gold

Now as much as these tools all purport to be able to "Restore Server Images to Dissimilar Hardware" my main issue with these is the word at the front - Restore - these are essentially Backup mechanisms that expect to backup the Server via and Agent and to a certain extent restore in the same manner. Without even reading the manual for Acronis True Image it would appear that you are expected to install a "Hidden Partition" on the server for where the Agent lives…..

It wouldn’t be too bad if these products were either 1 - easy to understand, or 2 - cheap, but they are neither, and as an intended backup mechanism for servers they require something in the order of USD$400 - 600 per Server for the privilege. Not only that you would have to go through the whole palaver of installing Management Consoles etc. just to get your intended Server Image up and running.

I also believe HP will be bringing out a Proliant P2P tool by the end of the month that will simplify Server Migrations, but it is also a chargeable item - not a freebie?

DDChanger from HelperApps.com:

Now this looks like it is small and simple enough to be exactly what I’m after.

Boot the intended target Server Hardware using BartPE (or similar?), bring over the Image using Ghost, etc., Run DDChanger pointing at the local C:\Windows on the disk and add the appropriate Driver as required, now reboot.

The list of supported drivers is at - http://www.helperapps.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=25

Although the 5i and 6i are listed under Compaq, not HP.

What is quite handy is that this can be licensed per Server Owner - rather than per Server…   however I have left the best till last……

FIXVMSCSI:

I had noticed there was a tool called Ultimate-P2V that was a plugin for BartPE, but hadn’t really worried too much about it until a colleague (Alex) mentioned that he had been using it and that it worked very well. So given the issues we have been having been having recently AND that I had a suitable candidate that needed fixing at a client I tried it out.

I got the files from the links below and these simply need to be unzipped in the plugin directory underneath your PEBuilder location, this will give you the facility to ADD 5i/6i Drivers after identifying the root location of Windows on the Target HDD, there are other drivers as well as some other files available from the web site that will do the same for the PERC Drivers if that’s what you need?

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?cat=10

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?page_id=174

From the looks of it, it shouldn’t be too hard to add additional drivers using the format should they be needed? And it’s the right price!!

Conclusion:

It would appear from my point of view that although their maybe some benefits to be gained from using the Symantec/Acronis/etc. solution these are clearly focused at a different end of the market from where we are approaching things. I will be using this FIXVMSCSI / Ultimate-P2V solution based on a BartPE CD as a standard when ever I face similar issues regarding migrating Servers to Dissimilar Hardware.

I hope this helps others?

posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 5:49 AM

Feedback

# re: Migration of Servers to Dissimilar Hardware and other P2V, V2P and P2P Options (Specifically DL360 G2 and G3 to G4 and above?) 7/7/2006 11:51 AM Jeremiah Cook

Please email me because I don’t subscribe to your feedback. So, did you actually have success with the FIXVMSCSI with going from G2 to G4? What program did you use for the imaging? I know you can’t go from G2 to G4 by just pulling a drive, you have to image somehow, I learned that the hard way (something to do with the way G2 and G4 make the Array SCSI id, one makes it 0 and the other makes it 1) . Anyway, email me and let me know if you had success, G2 to G4. jcook@ccs5000.com
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# re: Migration of Servers to Dissimilar Hardware and other P2V, V2P and P2P Options (Specifically DL360 G2 and G3 to G4 and above?) 7/7/2006 4:43 PM Dave Caddick

Hi Jeremiah,
I personally use Ghost, but I’ll also use whatever the Customer/Client normaly uses, it makes no real difference to me.
As to migrating between a G2 and G4, the main thing that might stop you is the incompatibility between the older drives in the G2 and the fact that the G3 and G4’s need the Ultra320 SCSI Drives?
This is when you use the imaging?
On source Server, use BartPE to boot, connect to the network, run Ghost or simlar and save image to network - when complete - reverse procedure on target Server - now you are ready to try using FIXVMSCSI to sort out the SCSI driver issue that cause the BSOD
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# re: Migration of Servers to Dissimilar Hardware and other P2V, V2P and P2P Options (Specifically DL360 G2 and G3 to G4 and above?) 7/7/2006 8:49 PM Jeremiah Cook

Thanks, have you tried this yet? or actually, I think what I tried to do that didn’t work is to take a G4 image and put on G2, go figure, it was a strange situation I know That is where I ran into that SCSI issue I mentioned, I’ll try the fixvmscsi trick next time.
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written by dcaddick