HP expands client virtualisation portfolio

HP today announced additions to its desktop-to-data centre client virtualisation portfolio that offer users improved flexibility, security and productivity.

Announced at Citrix Synergy 2011, the offerings include:

—   HP t5335z and t5565z Smart Clients, which the company claims, are first-of-their-kind, reprogrammable zero clients that can support a choice of Citrix-, Microsoft- or VMware-based infrastructures.

—  The HP Client Virtualisation Enterprise Reference Architecture with Citrix XenDesktop and Microsoft Hyper-V is a preconfigured and performance-optimised solution that simplifies customer integration and testing, while reducing risk for deployment. Combining compute, storage, networking and system management, the solution is tuned for client virtualisation efficiency for all enterprise users and includes options to scale up and out to meet changing customer requirements.

“Only HP has the depth of expertise and global scale to meet customer requirements from the data centre to the end point in client virtualisation and cloud computing deployments,” said Salim Ziade, General Manager, HP Personal Systems Group, Middle East. “With industry-leading flexibility and performance at the lowest price points, these new offerings reinforce our leadership in this market and commitment to delivering the best possible experiences in Citrix environments.”

“Desktop virtualisation is rapidly being adopted by organisations of all sizes as a means to transform traditional desktop computing into a people-centric, on-demand service,” said John Fanelli, vice president of product marketing, Enterprise Desktops and Applications, Citrix. “Through our broad collaboration with HP, we are delivering jointly tested and verified desktop virtualisation solutions that are helping enterprises meet the unique computing needs of all their workers. Citrix desktop virtualisation solutions combined with HP thin clients, Smart Clients and laptops enable unparalleled business productivity by providing customers with virtualisation solutions that span the data centre to the desktop.”

The new HP t5335z and t5565z Smart Clients deliver an unmatched combination of flexibility and affordability to the zero client market. The HP Smart Clients’ intelligent capabilities allow end users to be up and running in seconds with no configuration or management required on the device side.

HP Smart Clients are the only zero clients to offer device repurposing, which delivers the same great hardware platform independent of the virtualisation solution deployed (Citrix XenDesktop via HDX, VMware View or Microsoft Session Virtualisation via RDP) and gives customers the option to migrate to any of the three solutions at any time.

Using HP Smart Clients with Citrix XenDesktop, customers benefit from the HDX optimisations, including HDX MediaStream for smooth multimedia rendering, HDX Plug-n-Play for USB redirection, Citrix Smooth Roaming for secure access from any physical location on the network, and a dock bar for toggling between multiple published applications running through Citrix.