One of the new features of XenServer 7.1, as mentioned here previously, is PVS Accelerator. While Citrix already have Project Accelerator a free tool to assist with virtualisation project delivery - this is different. PVS Accelerator came from Project Diamond, part of Citrix's Better Together strategy, the PVS and XenServer teams developed a way to assist with simplifying and enhancing Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop deployments.  

From the PVS documentation:  

PVS-Accelerator enables a PVS proxy to reside in Dom0 (XenServer's Control Domain) on a XenServer host where streaming of a PVS vDisk is cached at the proxy before being forwarded to the VM. Using the cache, subsequent booting (or any IO requests) of the VM on the same host can be streamed from the proxy rather than streaming from the server over the network. Using this model, more local resources on the XenServer host are consumed, but streaming from the server over the network saves resources, effectively improving performance.

That's a lot of words for sure. I like Dan Feller's succinct sentence:

PVS Accelerator overcomes PVS server and network latency by utilizing local XenServer RAM/Disk resources to cache blocks of a PVS vDisk to fulfill local target VM requests.

At a base level you'll need XenServer 7.1 (with the associated supplemental pack) and Provisioning Service 7.13 for this feature and this feature is only available in XenServer. 

What is the impact on your services by deploying the PVS Accelerator? What should you watch out for - could something go wrong?

As we stomp into March I'll be having a busy month or so presenting and attending events, with the culmination of the month's activities being the E2EVC Virtualisation Conference in Syndey. Australia for the first time exciting times.

E2EVC  is a non-commercial, virtualisation community event. Its 15 year on-going mission, to bring the best virtualisation experts together to exchange knowledge and to establish new connections. To boldly cram presentations, Master Classes and discussions into one weekend, bringing together virtualisation vendors, product teams and independent experts with those IT admins, managers and consultants out in the field.

E2EVC started in 2003 with just 4 people and was called Pubforum. It has grown, all be it still keeping its hoppy undertones. You may recall my notes on the last E2EVC Rome event back in November.  

Sydney event will be the 32nd E2EVC event. Two days of presentations on Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th March at the Mecure Syndey - there are still places left but its filling up fast

Join over 100 attendees who will ride into Rome on the inside of Jumbos to conquer understanding and get a chance to confer with Microsoft MVP’s, Citrix CTP’s, vExperts and your fellow industry peers. What is the content like? Here are previous presentations. Watched them and done? Change is constant - you can see the Syndey E2EVC agenda here.

Indeed - I'm on twice: I'm bound to get one of the times right. Keynote from the perennially shorted Warren Simondson backed up  with excellent speakers and very interesting topics focused on EUC covering ShareFile, XenApp, Hacking, PVS, Automation and more.

Come, find out how the presentations turn out. Say hello. Enjoy the conversations. Well worth your investment.  

And if you can't make Syndey - there's always Tokyo or, if that seems like an awfully long way, the Citrix UK User Group is in Birmingham - where the women glow and men plunder.

Look forward to seeing you.  

Citrix Lifecycle Management is a cloud service delivered by Citrix to enable organisations to deploy and manage the lifecycle of applications delivered using Citrix technologies on hypervisors, public and private cloud platforms. Take-up of the service could be better. As we stagger into 2017, the intention is to rename Citrix LifeCycle Managment as Smart Tools - as well as add new capabilities and simplify licensing. If they build it more, will they come faster?

I've been an advocate of the service from around release (about 2014 fact fans), post the Citrix acquisition of ScaleXtreme as part of Citrix Workspace Services. I liked ScaleXtreme's tech, agreeing with El Reg's assessment that it was a good solution to allowing a "transition" period between on-premise/off-premise.  The service allowed you to accept the fact that you'd very likely need both but need someway to effectively manage the two (or more). In addition, third party vendors and partners have the opportunity to include their own offerings within a 'store' of services in the Citrix Lifecycle Management platform.  

For Citrix Life Cycle Managment: what does the transition to Smart Tools mean? How will it impact the eco-system in terms of partner opportunity, customer value and differentiation going into 2017 any beyond?