From Citrix iForum: Hypercall API open season

We announced today that the hypercall API, which hypervisor and OS vendors will use to build on top/integrate with Viridian, will be licensed via the Open Specification Promise (OSP). You’ll recall that the Microsoft’s VHD image format is available via OSP. This license will be available at the time of Viridian RTM. And today we published updated – but still draft – hypercall API specifications for customers/partners to start developing. And as I told eWeek, the WMI interface to Viridian will be available to partners as well, and that interface is based on a standards spec under development in the DMTF.

Other than the folks over at Brian Madden, not too many people blogging from Citrix iForum. That ashame because there’s alot of good content on app delivery and Citrix’s plans to virtualize desktops (i.e., VDI) and datacenters (i.e., Xen). I’ll post some photos from this morning’s keynote later today. But it was the first time I’ve seen Peter Levine (former CEO of XenSource, now GM of Citrix’s virtualization group) speak. His big message was “10 minutes to Xen” and showed a couple slick demos of XenMotion and XenCenter. He also referenced the hypercall API news that Mike Neil announced on stage just prior to Peter speaking.

As for the booth, traffic was decent yesterday (photo below). We’re demoing Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop, Windows Server 2008 terminal services (aka, presentation virtualization), SoftGrid, SCVMM and Viridian. The top questions were:

• Do I still need Citrix if I deploy TS in Windows Server 2008? Answer: depends on your situation, but yes for many scenarios. If you use Citrix today, you’ll likely keep doing so.
• What’s the difference between MS SoftGrid and client-side Citrix Presentation Server? Answer: lots of similarities in that they both offer application virtualization and streaming. SoftGrid is fully integrated into System Center (management tools), uses group policy/AD to provision apps to the user, and supports disconnected/mobile users. In the end, you’ll want to kick the tires of both. Note that SoftGrid is available via MS desktop optimization pack (MDOP) for Software Assurance.
• What’s the status of work with XenSource on Viridian? Answer: The interop work is progressing well, as is similar work with Novell. I’d imagine seeing fruits of these labors at upcoming release milestones. FYI – this question is in reference to our July 2006 announcement.

Patrick