Citrix Announces Essentials for Hyper-V, Express Edition
Helps administrators take full advantage of powerful storage-based features, including deduplication, thin provisioning, cloning, snapshots, and replication
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Citrix Systems, Inc. has released a new, free Express Edition to its Citrix Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V lineup. The new Express Edition is immediately available for download at http://www.citrix.com/ehvexpress and includes Citrix StorageLink technology that lets Windows administrators dramatically simplify their storage management processes with quick and easy storage configuration and provisioning for their Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and System Center virtual infrastructures.
Citrix Essentials helps administrators take full advantage of powerful storage-based features such as deduplication, thin provisioning, cloning, snapshots, and replication -- features that otherwise hide behind layers of proprietary, specialized virtualization storage file systems.
The new free Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V is designed specifically for Windows IT professional in the early phases of Hyper-V adoption. It will allow them to take advantage of the benefits of shared storage with Hyper-V and simplify storage management in virtual server environments.
The StorageLink technology featured in all editions of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V provides Windows IT Professionals with the tools necessary to easily manage Hyper-V storage in iSCSI and Fibre Channel (FC) SAN environments, enabling them to leverage advanced storage technologies from leading storage vendors that deliver powerful features for performance, storage efficiency, and business continuity. Industry estimates have shown that by applying storage-saving technologies such as deduplication and thin provisioning, Hyper-V customers can often shrink their storage footprint by upwards of 50 percent depending on the nature of their workloads. In cases where virtual machines (VMs) are highly duplicated, such as virtual desktop images, many have seen a nearly 90 percent reduction in storage consumption.
The Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V supports up to two Hyper-V servers and one storage array. Organizations that download the free Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V can easily upgrade to the Enterprise or Platinum Editions. Listed at $1500 and $3000 per server, respectively, the Enterprise and Platinum Editions add dynamic server provisioning, automated lab management, automated stage management, and workflow orchestration.
The StorageLink capabilities in Citrix Essentials include the following four feature sets:
- StorageLink Gateway enables automated discovery and one-click access to native storage services using any of the leading storage architectures and protocols, including DAS, NAS, SAN, iSCSI and Fibre Channel.
- StorageLink Resource Manager makes common actions in native storage arrays visible from within the virtualization management environment, including partitioning, snapshots, backups and data replication.
- StorageLink Image Manager provides a centralized library of virtual machine images that can be instantly converted between XenServer and Hyper-V and rapidly cloned and delivered to any number of target hosts.
- StorageLink Connect provides a set of clearly-defined open APIs that make it easy to link XenServer and Hyper-V environments to third-party backup solutions and enterprise management frameworks.
A new version of Citrix Essentials will accompany the release of Windows Server 2008 R2. Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V, Express Edition applies only to Hyper-V environments. More information is available at www.citrix.com/ehv.