Citrix Launches Cloud Management Plane In Australia

Citrix has launched a locally-hosted instance of their Cloud Management Control Plane. This will give companies in Australia and New Zealand local access to a suite of Citrix cloud services. This means they won’t need to be “beholden to a management plane that sits in the Americas or European Union” according to Les Williamson, the area vice president for Citrix in Australia and New Zealand. This will offer better performance though lower latency and assurance that entire cloud operations can be fully managed onshore he said.

Partnered with Microsoft’s Azure platform to deliver the service, Citrix said the new service will be housed in Sydney. Williamson stressed that this new deployment is purely about the management of cloud services, not their actual provisioning. That means the responsibility for where data and applications are housed remains with businesses but they can now manage those applications, services and data from a locally hosted control system.

“We believe the customers are best placed to decide the best place for their applications and data. Citrix can be the front-end to all those applications and all that data. We are cloud agnostic. We connect and talk to any cloud be it AWS, Google, a Dropbox document repository, a Google Drive map, or an on-prem or offshore data centre. Our portfolio is the front door to the workspace of the employee. We have a cloud-based control plane which allows the management and analytics of that workspace,” said Williamson.

Williamson says while there’s not a huge operational difference between using an off-shore hosted service or a local one, many companies want the assurance that services are being handled locally as that gives them confidence from a data sovereignty perspective. They also have local support capability that’s in the right timezone and in-country.

“It’s around those angles that there’s a clear distinction, ” he said.

For customers already using off-shore control planes, Williamson says there won’t be any pressure for them to move to the locally hosted option. They can make that shift if and when they feel its the right time. If they decide to move, Williamson said local support will be available to assist with the transition. Although WIlliamson wouldn’t reveal specific numbers, he said the company would be supporting the new service with local personnel, adding to Citrix’s Australian headcount in Sydney.

As well as offering improvised services in Australia, Williamson said the further bolstering of Citrix’s services in the Asia Pacific region will assist countries that have been less enthusiastic about the cloud make the transition. Some of the technical challenges are overcome by having a closer point of presence as well as some political issues being easier to manage as services are being offered in countries that are seen as being closer allies.

“Australia is at the centre of cloud adoption for the region and that’s why it makes sense to put the first control planes here,” he added.

While many companies are concerned with where their data and applications are hosted, Williamson said it’s rare that businesses ask where the control plane is based. But some more mature sectors, such as finance and mining, are extremely versed in the issues and are offering lots of positive feedback on the move.