Citrix Synergy Keynote Live Blog

Well, access has proved to be an issue (general wireless saturated, I have TWO MiFi's that both wouldn't work) so I'm writing this offline and will publish ASAP.  Usual Live Blog disclaimer, this is me typing as fast as possible, probably spelling and formatting errors, please forgive that.  Limited bandwidth so I'll add pictures a little later today as well.

• Mark T (CEO is up) - introduction of Synergy 2013, packed crowd
• Citrix Cloud Platform is up first, over 200+ production clouds, 40,000+ node scale, lots of references
• Talks about CloudPlatform being based on Apache CloudStack, 35,000 community members, top level Apache project graduation fastest in history, most contributions of any Apache project
• ShareFile - On-premise storage option, private and public cloud data storage, you choose where your data is stored
• ANNOUNCE: ShareFile StorageZonce Connectors - application level connectors into the Enterprise
• ANNOUNCE: Windows Azure support for ShareFile
• MSFT update - 80% growth of XenDesktop on Hyper-V
• A bunch of MSFT Windows 2012 and Windows 8 updates (too many and too fast to type)
• Citrix Receiver for Windows 8 is out
• Moving the Windows experience to a Mac is up next:
• ANNOUNCE: Desktop Player for Mac - Run Virtual Desktops on the Mac, online, offline, encrypted, centrally controlled, tech preview coming next month
• Cisco Partnership up next
• XenDesktop on UCS is a large UCS use case (FlexPod as well)
• Tighter Integration between Cisco and Citrix across the board in all product areas
• NetScaler has taken off (MPX, VPX, SDX) as a replacement for Cisco ACE and joint interoperability and development coming in the future
• Innovation Award: (videos shown of all the finalists, Miami Children's Hospital, USP - University of San Paulo, Essar) - Award goes to… USP for their use case of Cloud Platform and Cloud Portal!!  Very exciting to see our customer receive this great reward.  We are very proud of to partner with them to help them serve their customers, the students of the university!
• Up Next: Going mobile
• What is driving the industry? - Consumerization - Mobile devices and Bring Your Own Anything is taking over!
• Generations - The next generations requires different access than the traditional IT would allow
• Disruptions - self explanatory
• The Pace - Everything is faster and at a greater magnitude in scope
• Paradigm shift - "Don't Own Stuff" - more agile, more flexible because CAPEX and "stuff" isn't holding you back
• "Move, Add, & Change" - How to move faster, change quickly, add and remove quickly. Orgs need to tackle this
• for example 100,000 changes in an org cost 75 million once upon a time. now down to 25 million, savings and efficiency
• It is all about Mobile Workstyles going forward
• Up first, Windows Desktops still prevail in the Enterprise (about 85-90% today) - It is still a Windows world
• What would XenDesktop and XenApp look like in a mobile cloud era? - Project Avalon - 
• ANNOUNCE: first release is called XenDesktop 7 - designed for simplicity and mobility
• FlexCast - Windows Apps and Windows Desktops under one umbrella - FMA - Flexcast Management Architecture
• 1 package to download - automated installation and deployment
• HDX Insight - end to end monitoring of HDX traffic
• no more workload provisioning, app-by-app publishing, windows app migration (all about simplification of the operations and building)
• HDX Mobile - HD video on any device, even over 3G, 100% increase in WAN efficiency, native mobile functions (access, device GPS, sensors, cameras, etc)
• HDX mobile SDK for Windows Apps - take a .NET app, turn it into a Windows "Mobile" app through XenDesktop and XenApp, develop once and it will adjust to the device
• Demo Time - Brad Petterson up to demo XenDesktop 7
• Apps and Desktop provisioning all in one using Studio - showing Director with information from NetScaler and network traffic in real time. Shows XenApp/XenDesktop traffic, goes all the way to the app level, also shows a larger IT Support view that allows better troubleshooting across an entire org, shows an ability to assess and act on the infrastructure
• Now demo of iPad mini connecting with Receiver to a Windows 8 virtual desktop, showing off the Windows 8 experience on an iPad mini, very fluid, flash video is seamless, also showing off a full screen movie streaming over the iPad
• The redesign of Windows Apps is pretty cool to me, makes the VDI on a mobile device potentially less painful. Seems to be a natural progression
• Up Next - Cloud Enable the CPU, GPU, Network and Storage
• Delivering "intense" apps that would normally not be a candidate for delivery
• Jen-Hsun Huang - CEO & Co-Founder of NVIDIA is up to talk about this
• partnership has been around for along time, since 2006
• talking about the "good old days" and how some projects actually failed over the years because the "cloud" wasn't ready for these intense workloads
• Demo Time - Abode PhotoShop running on an iPad - pulls up a picture, using the GPU in the "cloud" to manipulate the picture in real time, shows very complex graphic manipulation in real time.
• What about applications that have required the "big powerful workstations" until now because of the processing power required?
• Talking about the design of the Boeing of 787, the databases on the back end (Data Gravity Again!  Google It), made development around the world difficult
• Instead using remote workstations driven by GPU's and only move the pixels, not the data
• Showing various examples of apps running in realtime, actually showing a 4k video resolution file and editing in real time.  Very cool
• Now talking about how it happens on the back end. Virtualization of more than the CPU is required, we now need the GPU to be virtualized
• New NVIDIA GPU's are designed with virtualization in mind, now integrated with virtualization
• ANNOUNCE: virtual application running on a virtual desktop with a virtual NVIDIA GPU
• Showing AutoCad, PLM (Manufacturing), vGPU remotely for the first time
• Google Earth running on a virtual machine using a hand gesture technology (have to see it to explain it), Demo of hand gesture control of Google Earth in real time, really cool!!
• It's called the NVIDIA GRID vGPU and is integrated into XenDesktop 7
• Open GL Support, industry first direct GPU
• Up Next - XenApp 6.5
• Announce of Feature Pack 2 with many new features (too many to type here)
• June will see shipping for both XenApp and XenDesktop
• The world of apps is moving beyond Windows Apps
• What about IOS, Android, mobile data?
• 3 big areas to mobile devices - devices + apps + data - need a strategy that takes both into account
• Even if you take care of all three areas, the Experience is the most important factor
• How do you deliver a consumer-like mobile experience at work?
• 3 things to do that - infrastructure to manage mobile lifecycle + mobile apple & data + developer tools and app ecosystem
• XenMobile - How to deliver this - Provision, security, apps, and data to mobile devices
• Want seamless windows integration
• Worx Enroll - self-service device registration is the first step (provisioning)
• Worx Home - Mobile settings, support, more (operations)
• Demo Time  - Showing of BYOD of an iPhone 5 using Worx Enroll and Worx Home
• Enroll checks the device, checks if it is jailbroken (Boo!) and certifies the device
• You then enroll and your "apps" are pushed to the device, Worx Home acts like a corporate app store, could be a desktop, an app, a mobile app, a file, etc.
• XenMobile has GoToAssist built in for mobile device support in the Enterprise
• Now sowing XenMobile admin UI, shows all devices in the enterprise with a very nice break down of the devices
• This allows you as an admin to wipe the "business" side of the device
• Now showing a new Samsung S4 and the Nokia with Windows 8, Android on a stick from Wyse
• XenMobile is designed for the full mobile lifecycle
• What about apps that talk to each other (copy, paste, etc)
• You don't want salesforce data leaking out, evernote to contain confidential information for example, create a barrier between life and work
• MDX Technology - Micro VPN and secure app containers, app specific lock and swipe, inter-app communication, conditional access policies
• XenMobile now includes WorxMail (mail, calendar, contacts), WorxWeb, ShareFile as a "basis" for office communications
• Demo Time - Showing email, have a sensitive email, can't open it or move it out of the app "container" but does it allow it on ShareFile
• Showing another email with a link to the internal Intranet and it will fire up a micro-VPN and use WorxWeb to tunnel back
• Showing an integration of ShareFile integrated with internal file shares on the intranet.  Allows you to connect back to corp data on ShareFile along with document editing on the iPad
• SharePoint connector into ShareFile - Pulls SharePoint into ShareFile, allows checkout of documents and editing with many SharePoint tracking features in place.  Check back in with a Note as well
• Podio - can now use the Chat API, (use GTM for real time interaction, Podio for team based actions), can also do video chat built into Podio with builtin one button, it uses HD Faces technology built into Podio
• XenMobile has 3 version - MDM Edition, App Edition,  and Enterprise Edition
• Available in June
• Worx App SDK - Worx Enable any mobile app
• Also a Worx "App store" for IT to enable apps in the Enterprise
• (NetScaler & wrap up content here but had some other things come up so missed them, sorry about that)