Last September Cisco and Citrix announced the first desktop virtualization Cisco Validated Design (CVD) to help customers implement standard, repeatable architectures for XenDesktop with NetApp storage. Many saw this as an indicator that desktop virtualization was (finally!) reaching a tipping point, a perception strengthened with Cisco’s November launch of its Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) vision and our joint release of FlexPod. Cisco and NetApp now offer Citrix XenDesktop on FlexPod and joint customers worldwide are deploying and benefiting from our 3-way solutions.
I finally had the opportunity to meet Citrix director of product marketing Natalie Lambert in person here at Cisco Live shortly before we jointly recorded a Cisco Live TechMinute with Cisco’s Doug Dooley. We talked about this being the first year that Citrix has a presence at Cisco Live and the impact of Cisco’s emphasis on desktop virtualization. As Natalie put it, “When Cisco talks about desktop virtualization, people really listen.”
Natalie absolutely gets the criticality of storage to a successful desktop virtualization project:
