I recently had the opportunity to have a conversation with Beau Smithback, CEO of Envision IT, about his experience with offering XenServer consulting services. Envision IT has been consulting on XenServer for about 15 years – just as long as they have been a Citrix partner.
Envision has deployed XenServer for multiple customers with 10k+ user Citrix environments. In 2013, Envision did their first large scale deployment to support a 25k user Citrix environment for a large healthcare MSP. XenServer helped this MSP save money on expensive VMware licensing and Envision helped the MSP to replace VMware with XenServer.
Beau noted that he is now hearing from more customers that are interested in moving to XenServer and suspects Envision will see more VMware replacement projects over the next 12 months. “Historically, we didn’t see a lot of hypervisor replacement projects, until recently with the Broadcom acquisition of VMware. Now, hypervisor replacement is a conversation we’re having with customers every week.” -Beau Smithback, CEO of Envision IT
Simplicity, support, and cost are the main drivers Beau sees as to why customers choose XenServer.
“When moving customers to XenServer, from the end-user perspective, they are unaware the migration has happened. And from the admin-perspective, once XenServer is set up it all looks the same and the differences are very nominal. There’s a simplicity of XenServer that VMware doesn’t have. And we’re expecting it to do one thing really well – and that’s run Citrix workloads.” -Beau Smithback, CEO of Envision IT
From the support perspective, Beau notes that Envision customers appreciate having a single support number to call for both Citrix and XenServer, instead of having to work with two separate vendors on a support case.
“Value is the obvious reason that customers choose XenServer. When we do a Citrix project for customers, we look at the cost per user. When you look at the cost of VMware, it can double the cost of the hardware. XenServer is a really easy way to drive the cost down and drive the value up” -Beau Smithback, CEO of Envision IT
Envision IT saved just one customer $1.2 million annually on VMware renewal costs – and that was the pre-Broadcom price. Beau conservatively estimates that they have saved their customers over 10s of millions of dollars over the past few years.
Here are some of the notable customer profiles that Envision IT has helped move to XenServer:
- A healthcare company with 25k users
- An insurance company that recently moved from VMware to XenServer with 1200 Citrix virtual desktops
- A healthcare company with 10k concurrent Citrix users running on XenServer
- A half-dozen small manufacturing customers around the US in the 200-500 user range that Envision moved from VMware to XenServer
- A regional bank with 100 Citrix users running on XenServer
- A large accounting firm with 1000 Citrix users moved from VMware to XenServer
With all of the tools now, Beau noted how easy it is to move Citrix workloads to XenServer. Leveraging tools from Citrix and XenServer, Envision IT will migrate their customers’ existing images so it’s a seamless experience for end-users.
Why should you choose Envision IT for your XenServer project?
In addition to XenServer expertise and a history of deploying numerous large scale XenServer environments, Envision IT has extensive experience throughout the entire Citrix portfolio. Envision focuses on implementation, optimization and management of Citrix and Microsoft environments. Envision IT is a conscious company with 98% client satisfaction rating based on customer surveys.
To get in touch with Envision IT to help with your XenServer project you can email them at info@envisionitllc.com or visit their website: www.envisionitllc.com