SANTA CLARA, CA - March 31, 2008 -
Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the global leader in
application delivery infrastructure, and NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), a
leading provider of innovative data management solutions, today
announced a global, strategic partnership to deliver a complete
server virtualization solution capable of leveraging the power of
NetApp® storage solutions. Citrix XenServer™ Adapter for
NetApp Data ONTAP® enables customers to unlock the power of
virtualized storage in Citrix XenServer environments. This jointly
developed certified solution simplifies virtual machine creation
and management by allowing customers to centrally manage storage
configuration and provisioning from a single console, making it one
of the industry's few virtualization solutions optimized for
storage environments. Citrix and NetApp are building on their
existing relationship and extending virtualized data management
environment capabilities included in Citrix XenServer 4.1, which
began shipping today.
The growth of virtual servers has complicated the way
in which many IT professionals approach networked storage by
requiring additional new layers of management software or
disruptive changes to the underlying storage architecture. Unlike
other server virtualization solutions, Citrix XenServer features an
open architecture that allows customers to manage storage in the
same way for both their physical and virtual server environments.
The Citrix XenServer Adapter for NetApp Data ONTAP takes this one
step further by allowing customers to access all the storage
features in NetApp Data ONTAP directly from the XenServer
management console. This approach dramatically simplifies the
process of implementing virtual servers in NetApp networked storage
environments and enables customers to leverage their existing
investments in storage infrastructure without retraining users or
implementing new layers of management when using the NetApp
V-Series systems.
"ManageOperations has successfully deployed both
Citrix XenServer virtualization software and NetApp Storage for
customers, automating the management of their large computer
centers running anywhere from 3,000 - 8,000 servers," said Jim
Corrigan, Founder of Manage Operations. "After looking at the beta
product for Citrix XenServer integrated into NetApp, we are excited
about a storage-optimized virtualization solution that will enable
our customers to leverage familiar software to add server
virtualization capabilities and manage it all through one central
management console."
Delivering Storage-Optimized
Virtualization
NetApp Data ONTAP enables IT staff to process resource-intensive
storage services in the storage array to free up physical server
resources to run business-critical application workloads. With the
new Citrix XenServer Adapter for NetApp, these benefits can now be
seamlessly leveraged for virtual server environments running Citrix
XenServer. As a result, customers can quickly take full advantage
of the rich data management and data protection capabilities in
their existing NetApp storage systems directly from the XenServer
management console, including thin provisioning, cloning,
replication, deduplication and backup and recovery. Customers can
now leverage XenServer to use NetApp Data ONTAP for instant thin
provisioning of virtual disk images (VDI), and for VDI cloning and
Snapshot™ copies, improving performance of these
data-intensive operations without affecting the performance of the
virtual machines (VMs) themselves. Other highlights include:
- Integrated and simplified wizard-based set up and
configuration - Citrix and NetApp provide a simplified
user experience, allowing customers to quickly configure their
solution and start using its powerful capabilities right away-all
without scripting, additional downloads, licensing, or add-on
components. Customers can now deploy a server or desktop virtual
infrastructure and realize the full benefits of VM-optimized
storage to maximize system wide performance and storage utilization
and prevent the need to configure complex clustered file
systems.
- Task and resource optimization - Because
server and storage management is unified in the XenServer
management console, customers can leverage NetApp tools such as
RAID-DP™, Snapshot™, FlexVol® and FAS
deduplication to achieve reliable and smarter server and storage
resource utilization. As a result, customers can leverage their
existing investment in NetApp storage management, disaster
recovery, and backup systems for their virtualized infrastructure
to save expenses, training and additional investment.
- Hardware Agnostic - XenServer's integration
with Data ONTAP optimizes all Data ONTAP based systems, including
those from NetApp, IBM, and Fujitsu. For customers using non-NetApp
storage connected to a NetApp V-Series system, all the data
management and data protection provided by the new NetApp adapter
in XenServer can be leveraged.
"Integrating our products with XenServer provides customers with
the unique ability to leverage the virtualization awareness
inherent in NetApp arrays," said Jay Kidd, CMO, NetApp. "By
bringing the worlds of server and storage virtualization together,
we offer operational breakthroughs that help customers improve
their IT infrastructure and processes."
"Our customers want the ability to create a data center
experience with all the benefits of server virtualization without
disrupting their storage virtualization environment," said Peter
Levine, senior vice president and general manager, Virtualization
and Management Division for Citrix. "Citrix and NetApp customers
can now virtualize their servers and directly leverage the superior
data management capabilities from NetApp."
In addition to the availability of the Citrix XenServer Adapter
for NetApp Data ONTAP, NetApp has also completed testing and
certification of Citrix XenServer to assist in seamless integration
and support.
Pricing and Availability
The Citrix XenServer Adapter for NetApp Data ONTAP is included with
XenServer 4.1 and is available today at no additional cost.
About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions
that help you accelerate business breakthroughs and achieve
outstanding cost efficiency. Discover our passion for helping
companies around the world go further, faster at NetApp.com.
About Citrix XenServer
Citrix XenServer, a member of the Citrix Delivery Center™
product family, is an enterprise-class solution for virtualizing
application workloads across any number of servers in the
datacenter as a flexible aggregated pool of computing resources.
With the new Platinum Edition, XenServer becomes the first and only
solution on the market to address both virtual and physical
servers, making the entire datacenter more dynamic.
About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS) is the global leader and the
most trusted name in application delivery infrastructure. More than
200,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any
application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest
security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100% of the
Fortune 100 companies and 99% of the Fortune Global 500, as well as
hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has
approximately 7,680 channel and alliance partners in more than 100
countries. Annual revenue in 2007 was $1.4 billion.
For Citrix Investors
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made
pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The forward-looking statements in
this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance.
Those statements involve a number of factors that could cause
actual results to differ materially, including risks associated
with revenue growth and recognition of revenue, products, their
development and distribution, product demand and pipeline, economic
and competitive factors, the Company's key strategic relationships,
acquisition and related integration risks as well as other risks
detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. Citrix assumes no obligation to update any
forward-looking information contained in this press release or with
respect to the announcements described herein.
For media inquiries, contact:
Julie Geer, Citrix Systems, Inc.
(408) 790-8543 or julie.geer@citrix.com
Ryan Lowry, NetApp
(408) 822-7544 or ryanl@netapp.com