"Through working with Centralis to implement Citrix Presentation Server coupled with the ability to manage the system remotely from headquarters, our IT infrastructure is now robust and flexible, allowing us to drive the company forward into the future with confidence.” Dave Boulton, Infrastructure Project Manager, Speedy Hire.

Product Updates

Welcome to the autumn edition of the Centralis Newsletter, featuring some fantastic new products, details of forthcoming events and Q4 promotions.

So what's new?

Greenlight is the latest enhancement to the Centralis Managed Citrix farm service.

For many years Centralis has been developing tools to assist in reporting, analysis and health checks.  These have now been combined into a single reporting system, giving customers a wealth of additional information about farm health, capacity and usage.  If you are looking to improve uptime, reduce operational costs and prove compliance with SLA and KPIs, Greenlight from Centralis could be the answer.

There are over 130 updates and changes in the new release of Citrix XenApp 5.0 as well as 64 bit WS2008 support. If you would like to know more why not register for the Centralis Post Summit Update on Thursday 27th November.

XenServer 5  has fantastic price performance against competing technologies, the best platform for XenApp5 and a new independent comparative report out, why not register for the Centralis Post Summit Update on 27th November?

Citrix NetScaler 9.0 Web application delivery solutions are purpose built appliances that accelerate application performance up to five times, while simultaneously reducing datacenter costs and improving Web application security.  If high availability, disaster recovery and integrity of your web delivered applications are important to you or if you are interested in global server load balancing, layer 7 application firewall protection then the NetScaler 9.0 may well be of interest. Find out more at the Centralis Post Summit update.

Desktop Virtualisation has come of age in 2008 and customers are benefiting from shared datacentre resources and enhanced user experience.  XenDesktop 2.1 is the Citrix VDI offering and provides the best user experience and best integration with the hosting infrastructure. Find out more at the Centralis Post Summit update.

AppSense Management Suite Version 8.0 will be available for download in November 2008. Combining policy and profile together to give a granular level of end user personalisation and the best end user experience with reduced profile size, AppSense 8 integrates tightly with XenApp in an application-delivery infrastructure and solves the user personalisation challenge in a VDI environment using XenDesktop. Find out more at the Centralis Post Summit update.

Citrix Cloud Centre C3. If you are looking towards a more agile and service oriented future for your infrastructure, contact us to find out more about Citrix Cloud Center (C3), an integrated portfolio of Citrix delivery infrastructure products. C3 integrates cloud proven virtualisation and networking products that power many of today’s largest Internet and Web service providers. This unique combination lets next-generation cloud providers take advantage of the most widely-adopted virtual infrastructure platform for hosted cloud services, as well as the most proven infrastructure to deliver those services reliably and securely to both cloud consumers and enterprise datacenters.

Events

Highly Available, Highly Performing, Highly Agile – Your Systems in 2009

The Centralis Post Citrix Summit workshop focuses on virtualisation, high availability of applications and business continuity - featuring updates on all the new products announced at Citrix Summit including Citrix XenApp™ 5.0, Citrix® XenServer™ 5.0, Citrix NetScaler 9.0 and AppSense Management Suite Version 8.0. The seminar will also include a live demonstration of VDI (virtual desktops) showing the power and agility of the new products through the dynamic provisioning of applications and desktops.

The event is already proving to be popular, so please register now!!

Centralis customer day 9th October 2008, Eynsham Hall, Oxfordshire.

Thank you to everyone who attended our inaugural customer day on 9th October . The day which received 100% attendance was a great success included keynote presentations from the Butler Group, Citrix, Microsoft and VMware. We received positive feedback from the event which concluded with dinner and casino entertainment:

"Many thanks for the session last week. I enjoyed visiting your customers and Centralis staff. Very well organised and delivered some excellent content at the right level!"
Brian Lilley, VP Mobile Technologies, Credit Suisse

"I’d just like say a personal thank you to Centralis for organising a great strategy briefing (and in such an idyllic location). It is efficient for me as all the main vendors are gathered together and not forgetting that I am reminded that E.ON IS have your considerable independent expertise to rely on for when we finally produce or wish to validate our application delivery strategy. It was also nice to network with other organisations over a drink or two. The whole day was much appreciated."
Andrew Dumbleton, Technical Service Consultant – Client & IT Mobility, E.on IS

"Thank you for a very enjoyable and informative event. This has certainly given me a lot to think about!"
Brian Denton, Director of IT, Bishop Fleming

Exclusive Q4 2008 Promotions

Acresso Software AdminStudio special offer!

Platinum is fast becoming the de facto release. Customers upgrading before the end of December 2008 could benefit from a year’s Subscription Advantage at no extra cost. If you are considering adding EdgeSight, Password Manager, WanScaler client or a universal Access Gateway licence then you could be upgrading to Platinum for less than $81. Find out more.

Finally, don’t forget the XenDesktop Promotion – if you have XenApp Platinum, you can get XenDesktop Advanced for just $99 per CCU until 31st December 2008.  

Citrix Subscription Advantage - Renewal Pricing to Remain Unchanged

In the communication notifying you of the Citrix product price increase that came into effect on 1 September 2008, we indicated that pricing for Citrix Subscription Advantage renewal, reinstatement and recovery pricing, including renewals for Appliance Maintenance and Hardware Warranty would increase with effect from 1 January 2009.  

Please be advised that this increase will no longer be implemented on 1 January 2009 and that prices for Subscription Advantage renewal, reinstatement and recovery pricing, including renewals for Appliance Maintenance and Hardware Warranty will remain unchanged until further notice.

Any customer who has Subscription Advantage due for renewal can do so up to 90 days before the renewal date. Centralis offers a speedy and easy to use renewals service. We will co-terminate and renew all your Subscription Advantage licences.  

Call your account manager now or contact sales@centralis.co.uk.  

Centralis approach to virtualisation rated 'Ideal' by technology audit  

Butler Group has praised Centralis in a recent technology audit on application and desktop virtualisation:   “As a group, we are impressed with Centralis’ modular implementation approach; best practices-based methodology; training, testing and management solution development; and managed services and we would recommend the service suite to companies aiming to reduce the TCO and enhance the agility of desktop management operations”, said Rob Hailstone at Butler Group.   “The results of this audit are hugely welcomed by myself and the team at Centralis”, said Ewen Anderson, managing director.

“We make a big investment in emerging technologies, establishing a reputation for independence and expertise through over twelve years of partnership with key vendors and customers across the private and public sectors. It is very gratifying to see this recognised by a highly respectable body such as Butler Group.”  

To request a copy of the full technology audit please email sales@centralis.co.uk.  

Speedy Hire - Citrix and Centralis support exponential company growth

After several large acquisitions, Speedy Hire, the UK’s largest tool and equipment hire company, required an IT infrastructure that would support the needs of the fast growing company.

After a successful proof of concept demonstrating that Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 could deliver Speedy’s key applications to its depots via a resilient, centralised service, Centralis designed and built a solution that was fit for purpose in terms of application delivery, performance, reliability and scalability.

The solution has enabled Speedy to evolve its IT infrastructure to a shared central service model, gaining significant operational benefits through simplification, standardisation and centralisation.

Dave Boulton, Infrastructure Project Manager at Speedy Hire states "Through working with Centralis to implement Citrix Presentation Server coupled with the ability to manage the system remotely from headquarters, our IT infrastructure is now robust and flexible, allowing us to drive the company forward into the future with confidence.”

Read the full case study.  

What Next?

As always if you would like to know more about any of the solutions covered, please register via the website, contact your account manager or e-mail sales@centralis.co.uk. For our previous newsletters please click here.