A couple of weeks ago Citrix announced the availability of Workflow Studio 2.5.
This release primarily introduces support for Microsoft Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, along with support for SQL Server 2008, PowerShell 2.0 and the .NET Framework 4.0.
The orchestration framework also ships with new activity libraries for Hyper-V and SQL Server, plus a number of new security roles.
Version 2.0 was released exactly one year ago, and in twelve months Citrix only released a very minor update.
As virtualization.info highlighted several times, virtualization vendors are missing the opportunity to bring virtual infrastructures to the next level with automation.
So far Citrix has severely overlooked the potential of its product, but its competitors are not doing any better: VMware is simply giving away its vCenter Orchestrator (acquired from Dunes Technologies three years ago) as part of most vSphere editions, and Novell barely mentions its PlateSpin Orchestrate (formerly ZENworks Orchestrator).
The only company that may be in a better position is Microsoft, which acquired Opalis Software in December 2009, but it has still to deliver integration with Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and the other products of the System Center family.
Meanwhile, infrastructure management vendors are filling the gap with promising tools: HP BladeMatrix Orchestrator, for example, which derives from the Opsware technologies acquired in July 2007, shows how orchestration can be much more than an enhanced scripting tool, delivering the “service” part of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) architectures.