Citrix Systems (News - Alert) announced the introduction of a new version of Citrix XenServer which features new storage and networking innovations that will optimize both server and desktop virtualization for customers of all sizes.  It will give administrators an easy way to provide for application hosting.

According to company sources the new release announced at Citrix Synergy (News - Alert), follows the success witnessed by XenServer in gaining market share in server virtualization.

XenServer continues to gain market share as a result of its simpler management and extensive penetration in high-growth areas like desktop virtualization and cloud computing. More new XenServer production activations have been made with at least 1,000 new servers being activated per day.

It was revealed that XenServer is gaining a greater share among cloud providers, building on the presence of the open source Xen hypervisor, the most widely deployed virtualization platform in the cloud. It has become a popular hypervisor for virtual desktops, hosting an estimated 2.5 million VDI-based desktops.

In a release Simon Crosby, CTO, Datacenter and Cloud Division, Citrix said, “Innovating for the desktop and cloud is priority one for us. Not only are cloud and desktop the next frontier in the virtualization of IT, but markets where Citrix has a long history of leadership. That operational history provides deep insights that allow us to deliver new innovations and value to our customers.”

“While XenServer has already proven to be the preferred platform for the desktop and cloud, with these new innovations, we expect another upward inflection in the adoption and standardization of XenServer,” Crosby added.

Desktop virtualization is gaining ground in the present IT scenario. It is enabling customers to deliver Windows desktops and apps as an on-demand service to any device. A popular form of desktop virtualization involves hosting personalized desktop images for each user in the datacenter on a server virtualization platform like XenServer.

Company sources added that this form of virtualization known as VDI or virtual desktop infrastructure has many key advantages. However it requires high upfront capital expenditure, in the form of high storage costs, in the datacenter. To override this problem the new XenServer release features an optimized storage optimization technology for VDI called IntelliCache which is expected to reduce storage costs considerably.