Citrix Demos of a New Kind of Virtual Machine for Mac
Citrix made a number of announcements last week related to Mac and iPhone. While most of these announcements were targeted specifically towards IT/enterprise customers, one announcement has more potential mainstream significance.
To start, Citrix released a free iPhone app called Citrix Receiver [App Store] which is a secure client application that allows you to run Windows applications over a Citrix network. It offers a more efficient method of transmission than VNC and should offer better performance. The app is available for free in the App Store and is intended for existing Citrix customers. Citrix also unveiled an "App Store" for IT applications called Dazzle allowing managers to offer specific applications to their clients on both Mac and Windows. Dazzle and the Receiver application for Macintosh won't be available until the second half of this year.
Perhaps most interesting, however, was Citrix's demo of their new virtualization solution XenClient for the Mac. Virtualization is the process by which you can run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single computer. It has been frequently used on the Mac to run Microsoft's Windows in conjunction with Mac OS X. Citrix first started publicizing their plans for a new kind of Virtualization called "Type 1 hypervisor" back in January.
The technology promises to offer a faster and more secure virtualization environment than existing solutions. Parallel's and VMWare's solutions are considered "Type 2 hypervisors" which must run under a host operating system such as Mac OS X. While this simplifies the implementation, it also results in potential security vulnerabilities as well as a performance penalty due to the added level of abstraction. In contrast, "Type 1 hypervisors" run directly on the "bare metal" hardware.
This video (above) shows this software running on a PC and naturally focuses on security and IT usage, but does touch on the fact that each virtual environment has full access to the 3D hardware. Traditionally, these features have been handicapped on virtual machines, requiring Mac users to reboot to take full advantage. A video from the Citrix keynote event showing a brief Mac demo is available and starts at 42 minutes in. Citrix did not give an exact release date for the Mac version of XenClient.
What this means to the average consumer, however, isn't entirely clear. The creation of such a low-level virtualization solution apparently required a close partnership with Intel and we're not certain if other solutions will be able to easily mimic the functionality.
To start, Citrix released a free iPhone app called Citrix Receiver [App Store] which is a secure client application that allows you to run Windows applications over a Citrix network. It offers a more efficient method of transmission than VNC and should offer better performance. The app is available for free in the App Store and is intended for existing Citrix customers. Citrix also unveiled an "App Store" for IT applications called Dazzle allowing managers to offer specific applications to their clients on both Mac and Windows. Dazzle and the Receiver application for Macintosh won't be available until the second half of this year.
Perhaps most interesting, however, was Citrix's demo of their new virtualization solution XenClient for the Mac. Virtualization is the process by which you can run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single computer. It has been frequently used on the Mac to run Microsoft's Windows in conjunction with Mac OS X. Citrix first started publicizing their plans for a new kind of Virtualization called "Type 1 hypervisor" back in January.
The technology promises to offer a faster and more secure virtualization environment than existing solutions. Parallel's and VMWare's solutions are considered "Type 2 hypervisors" which must run under a host operating system such as Mac OS X. While this simplifies the implementation, it also results in potential security vulnerabilities as well as a performance penalty due to the added level of abstraction. In contrast, "Type 1 hypervisors" run directly on the "bare metal" hardware.
This video (above) shows this software running on a PC and naturally focuses on security and IT usage, but does touch on the fact that each virtual environment has full access to the 3D hardware. Traditionally, these features have been handicapped on virtual machines, requiring Mac users to reboot to take full advantage. A video from the Citrix keynote event showing a brief Mac demo is available and starts at 42 minutes in. Citrix did not give an exact release date for the Mac version of XenClient.
What this means to the average consumer, however, isn't entirely clear. The creation of such a low-level virtualization solution apparently required a close partnership with Intel and we're not certain if other solutions will be able to easily mimic the functionality.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)
36 months ago
...new (and faster) virtualization solutions for the Mac. Having said that, I'm not a gamer and Parallels does a great job of letting me check how badly Internet Exploder treats my otherwise perfect XHTML/CSS. :)
36 months ago
very nice!, although I'm happy with the current speed I get with paralles on my MBP 2.2, but it does help if it is "seamless"...
the iPhone app is a great idea!, I'm going to investigate more on this one.
the iPhone app is a great idea!, I'm going to investigate more on this one.
36 months ago
This is really cool. Parallels works OK but it does kill the performances of OS X when running Parallels.
This Citrix stuff is very interesting, and seems to be very efficient. Looking forward to it.
This Citrix stuff is very interesting, and seems to be very efficient. Looking forward to it.
36 months ago
I use citrix at my job, would love to have a Mac to run it on instead of a crappy Dell.
36 months ago
But a type 1 hypervisor on Mac hardware is something that VMware or Parallels could have done ages ago, the issue is without Apple supporting OS X Client (not Server) as a hosted OS, it is totally worthless to OS X users. Basically until Apple is willing to let us run OS X client in a type 1 hypervisor (and they don't allow this at this point, even on Apple Hardware) you could only run Linux and (some versions) of Windows.
The other important point I want to make is that Type 1 hypervisors are much better suited for server environments than workstations, and although they are certainly more efficient in distributing resources across VM's the current client hosted offerings, like Fusion and Parallels, are way better for client workloads. Don't expect type 1 hypervisors to support accelerated graphics emulation and so forth, that hardware isn't designed for low level virtualization like the processors are. You are just barking up the wrong tree here claiming that there would be performance gains since they would be limited to workloads unlike anyone here is likely to be using a Mac for. And before someone starts talking about all the headless xServers they are running, I will point you at Parallel's Hypervisor solution that runs OS X Server (and has done for some time I believe.)
The other important point I want to make is that Type 1 hypervisors are much better suited for server environments than workstations, and although they are certainly more efficient in distributing resources across VM's the current client hosted offerings, like Fusion and Parallels, are way better for client workloads. Don't expect type 1 hypervisors to support accelerated graphics emulation and so forth, that hardware isn't designed for low level virtualization like the processors are. You are just barking up the wrong tree here claiming that there would be performance gains since they would be limited to workloads unlike anyone here is likely to be using a Mac for. And before someone starts talking about all the headless xServers they are running, I will point you at Parallel's Hypervisor solution that runs OS X Server (and has done for some time I believe.)
36 months ago
Very useful from a corporate IT perspective. I look forward to its development and deployment.
I wonder if this could be used to Virtualize an installation of Mac OS X on a PC, Apple EULA concerns notwithstanding?
:apple:
I wonder if this could be used to Virtualize an installation of Mac OS X on a PC, Apple EULA concerns notwithstanding?
:apple:
36 months ago
Why not just port CP/CMS to Intel? It was open source, IIRC, but my memory of the late '60s is as good as anyone's.
36 months ago
But a type 1 hypervisor on Mac hardware is something that VMware or Parallels could have done ages ago, the issue is without Apple supporting OS X Client (not Server) as a hosted OS, it is totally worthless to OS X users. Basically until Apple is willing to let us run OS X client in a type 1 hypervisor (and they don't allow this at this point, even on Apple Hardware) you could only run Linux and (some versions) of Windows.
Well, that's what the thinking was, which makes this so interesting. I think the implication from the video is that this is not Mac OS X Server, but Client. Are you suggesting that Citrix is doing this so people can run Mac OS X Server on their MacBook (again, see they keynote video).
Here's also another comment by a live-blogger of the event (doesn't confirm anything, but gives some context)
http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2009/05/06/live-blogging-the-citrix-synergy-day-2-quot-cloud-amp-datacenter-quot-keynote.aspx
9:23 Ian Pratt is now back out to show their "one more thing." He's showing a Mac running OSX and says they can stream Windows apps there. So you click the link, and the seamless app opens via the local VM. Hmm.. People are cheering, but I'm not sure why. Um, you know VMware and Parallels have had this feature on Mac OSX for years, right? Actually, I wonder if people think this was a Type 1 hypervisor on a Mac. $100 says 'no,' and that it was a Type 2 client VMM, probably Virtual Box. My guess is that the "new thing" is just some code to link the app in the Windows VM to an icon on the Mac. [UPDATE: I confirmed that this Mac demo was a true Type 1 XenClient hypervisor. The story is that the Apple license agreement says that the Mac OS must run on Apple hardware, so it's cool. So to that, let me say WOW!]
36 months ago
wow. can't wait to see this available for mac and windows, though i wonder what the price will be?
[ Read All Comments ]
Analytics firm Chitika today released a report showing that by its metrics iOS has now surpassed OS X in overall web traffic share in the United States. Chitika's methodology involves an analysis...
One of the most frequent reasons for an iPhone to go on a trip to the Apple Store's Genius Bar is because of water damage. Typically, a water damaged iPhone can be replaced for a flat $199...
TheVerge's Joshua Topolsky summarizes the iPad 3 casing findings reported earlier today, but also adds his own sources regarding some details of the iPad 3.
Image from RepairLabs
As...
Last July, Apple discontinued the white MacBook from its consumer lineup, pushing consumers toward the company's popular MacBook Air line or the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company didn't kill...
Popular iPhone Twitter client Tweetbot has finally arrived on the iPad, with a user interface instantly familiar to any current Tweetbot user. Designed for the Twitter power-user, Tweetbot packs a...
