Citrix XenClient Virtualization

Last week, Citrix demonstrated their new XenClient virtualization solution. The plan since earlier this year was to introduce a Virtualization solution called "Type 1 hypervisor" usually usually used in server side virtualization. VMWare & Parallels on the client side are referred to as "Type 2 hypervisors". This new technology aims to be both faster and a more secure virtualization environment than previous solutions. "Type 2 hypervisors" need to run on host operating systems. Easy to implement, but the results introduce possible security vulnerabilities and a performance hit due to the added abstraction level.

XenClient being a "Type 1 Hypervisor" runs natively on "bare metal" hardware, giving the virtual environment full access to system resources and 3D hardware acceleration. The benefits of this become evident once you view the video below from the Citrix keynote event.

Citrix