{"id":172,"date":"2024-07-29T14:05:20","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T14:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xenserver.com\/blog\/?p=172"},"modified":"2024-07-29T14:06:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T14:06:05","slug":"xenserver-consulting-partner-spotlight-envision-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xenserver.com\/blog\/featured\/xenserver-consulting-partner-spotlight-envision-it\/","title":{"rendered":"XenServer Consulting Partner Spotlight: Envision IT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. \u201cHistorically, we didn\u2019t see a lot of hypervisor replacement projects, until recently with the Broadcom acquisition of VMware. Now, hypervisor replacement is a conversation we\u2019re having with customers every week.\u201d<\/strong> -Beau Smithback, CEO of Envision IT<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simplicity, support, and cost are the main drivers Beau sees as to why customers choose XenServer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen 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\u2019s a simplicity of XenServer that VMware doesn\u2019t have. And we\u2019re expecting it to do one thing really well \u2013 and that\u2019s run Citrix workloads.\u201d<\/strong> -Beau Smithback, CEO of Envision IT<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cValue 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\u201d<\/strong> -Beau Smithback, CEO of Envision IT<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Envision IT saved just one customer $1.2 million annually on VMware renewal costs \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some of the notable customer profiles that Envision IT has helped move to XenServer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n