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Citrix, End-User Computing, XenApp, XenDesktop

Citrix Summit 2016: What’s New With XenApp and XenDesktop 7.7

I recently attended the 2016 Citrix Partner Summit event in Las Vegas. I gathered what I felt were some of the most important notes provided by Citrix around what’s new with its core enterprise products. In this first post, I will review what’s new with XenApp and XenDesktop 7.7. In my next post, I’ll share what’s new with XenMobile 10.3. If you have questions around these announcements, please reach out. 

Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.7

  • Zones
    • Deployments that span widely-dispersed locations connected by a WAN can face challenges due to network latency and reliability. Configuring zones can help users in remote regions connect to local resources without forcing connections to traverse large segments of the WAN. Using zones allows effective Site management from a single Citrix Studio console, Citrix Director, and the Site database. This saves the costs of deploying, staffing, licensing, and maintaining additional Sites containing separate databases in remote locations. Zones can be helpful in deployments of all sizes. You can use zones to keep applications and desktops closer to end users, which improves performance. For more information, see the Zones article.
  • Improved database flow and configuration
    • When you configure the databases during Site creation, you can now specify separate locations for the Site, Logging, and Monitoring databases. Later, you can specify different locations for all three databases. In previous releases, all three databases were created at the same address, and you could not specify a different address for the Site database later. You can now add more Delivery Controllers when you create a Site, as well as later. In previous releases, you could add more Controllers only after you created the Site. For more information, see the Databases and Controllers articles.
  • Application limits
    • Configure application limits to help manage application use. For example, you can use application limits to manage the number of users accessing an application simultaneously. Similarly, application limits can be used to manage the number of simultaneous instances of resource-intensive applications, this can help maintain server performance and prevent deterioration in service. For more information, see the Manage applications article.
  • Multiple notifications before machine updates or scheduled restarts
    • You can now choose to repeat a notification message that is sent to affected machines before the following types of actions begin:
      • Updating machines in a Machine Catalog using a new master image
      • Restarting machines in a Delivery Group according to a configured schedule
    •  If you indicate that the first message should be sent to each affected machine 15 minutes before the update or restart begins, you can also specify that the message be repeated every five minutes until the update/restart begins. For more information, see the Manage Machine Catalogs and Manage machines in Delivery Groups articles.
  • API support for managing session roaming
    • By default, sessions roam between client devices with the user. When the user launches a session and then moves to another device, the same session is used and applications are available on both devices. The applications follow, regardless of the device or whether current sessions exist. Similarly, printers and other resources assigned to the application follow. You can now use the PowerShell SDK to tailor session roaming. This was an experimental feature in the previous release. For more information, see the Sessions article.
  • API support for provisioning VMs from hypervisor templates
    • When using the PowerShell SDK to create or update a Machine Catalog, you can now select a template from other hypervisor connections. This is in addition to the currently-available choices of VM images and snapshots.
  • Support for new and additional platforms
    • See the System requirements article for full support information. Information about support for third-party product versions is updated periodically. By default, SQL Server 2012 Express SP2 is installed when you install the Delivery Controller. SP1 is no longer installed. The component installers now automatically deploy newer Microsoft Visual C++ runtime versions: 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Visual C++ 2013, 2010 SP1, and 2008 SP1. Visual C++ 2005 is no longer deployed. You can install Studio or VDAs for Windows Desktop OS on machines running Windows 10. You can create connections to Microsoft Azure virtualization resources.

Citrix Director – The Director version provided with this release contains the following new and enhanced features

  • Proactive monitoring and alerting
    • You can now configure proactive alerting and notifications when thresholds are reached. This enables quicker responses even when you are not viewing the monitoring console. For more information, see Alerts and notifications.
  • SCOM integration
    • Deployments that use Microsoft System Center 2012 – Operations Manager to monitor deployments can now view alerts provided by the Operations Manager on the Dashboard and in other high level views in Director. For example, if connections to supported hypervisors fail, the administrator can check Director for Operations Manager alerts. After reviewing alert details in Director, the administrator can then switch to the Operations Manager console for additional troubleshooting, if needed. For more information, see SCOM alerts.
  • Windows Authentication
    • Director now supports Integrated Windows Authentication. For single sign-on, a user’s Windows credentials are automatically used to access Director. This support allows users to log on to their machines using any credential provider and supporting hardware, and use that logged-on identity to access Director. For more information, see Use Director with Integrated Windows Authentication.
  • Desktop and Server OS usage
    • The Trends view now shows the usage of Desktop OS by Site and by Delivery group, and it shows the usage of Server OS by site, by Delivery group, and by Machine. This gives you a real-time view of your OS usage, enabling you to quickly assess your site’s capacity needs. For more information, see Monitor historical trends across a Site.
  • Application limits in Director
    • Application limits configured in Studio are shown in existing views and counts in Director. For example, the User Connection Failures on the Dashboard will indicate when a connection attempt fails because it would exceed an application limit. Citrix has also announced that they are going to release version 7.8 in the first quarter and is intended to enhanced application delivery and management.

Again, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out!

 

By Peter Crepeau, Solutions Architect

 

Miscellaneous IT, Tech New Recap

Tech News Recap for the Week of 1/18/2016

Were you busy last week? Here’s a tech news recap of articles you may have missed for the week of 1/18/2016!

Microsoft is cutting Azure prices by up to 17%. Citrix has hired a new CEO. Microsoft is donating $1B in cloud services to nonprofits. Wal-Mart is pushing for a greater online presence. Cloud infrastructure spend continues to grow. There were also a couple of good interviews that came out with new VMware CIO Bask Iyer and FCC CIO Dr. David Bray, as well as some good articles around wearables, app security, and the worst passwords of 2015. 

Tech News Recap

  • Microsoft Azure Prices Being Cut by up to 17%
  • Ex-Microsoft, BMC Exec Tapped for Citrix CEO
  • New VMware CIO Explains Approach to Containers
  • Cloud infrastructure spend grew by 23% in the third quarter of 2015
  • Google paid Apple $1 billion in 2014 to remain the default iOS search option
  • Which CFO Personality Is Right for IT?
  • IT Infrastructure Trends: 5 Worth Watching
  • Network security vs. app security: What’s the difference, and why does it matter
  • 2016 Roundup of Cloud Computing And Enterprise Software Predictions
  • Microsoft plans to donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits
  • The cloud will own and drive your car
  • Cyber war isn’t turning out quote how it was expected
  • Wal-Mart merges tech teams in online push
  • Wearables are everywere, but are they part of BYOD
  • How will cloud computing influence the business world in 2016
  • These are the worst passwords of 2015
  • FCC CIO on fostering a team of creative problem solvers
  • 8 Ways Cloud Storage Delivers Business Value
  • Trends in CIO hiring: The road to the C-suite passes through operations

Download on-demand webinar, “Microsoft Office 365: Expectations vs. Reality.”

 

By Ben Stephenson, Emerging Media Specialist

 

 

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure Prices Being Cut by up to 17%

At the end of last week, Microsoft announced it will be reducing prices for it’s Dv2 instances by up to 17% next month.

Blair Frank did a write-up on Computerworld:

Good news for businesses using Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform: their infrastructure bills may be shrinking come February.

Microsoft announced that it will be permanently reducing the prices for its Dv2 compute instances by up to 17 percent next month, depending on the type of instance and what it’s being used for. Users will see the greatest savings if they’re running higher performance Linux instances — up to 17 percent lower prices than they’ve been paying previously. Windows instance discounts top out at a 13 percent reduction compared to current prices.

 

To read the rest of the post to get complete details, click here.

 

 

 

Miscellaneous IT, Tech New Recap

Tech News Recap for the Week of 1/11/2016

Were you busy last week? Here’s a tech news recap of articles you may have missed for the week of 1/11/2016!

An issue was found with Fortinet’s FortiOS. The issue affects firmware versions 4.30-4.3.17 and 5.0-5.0.7. Customers running a Fortigate Firewall with these versions are advised to upgrade to version 5.2.3. Could there be a ban of encrypted smartphones in New York? The US Intelligence Chief was hacked by the same teen who hacked the CIA Director. Hyatt Hotels said their data breach hit 250 hotels across some 50 countries. Malware alone didn’t cause the Ukraine power station outage…and more top news from last week! 

Tech News Recap

  • Brief Statement Regarding Issues Found with FortiOS
  • Malware alone didn’t cause Ukraine power station outage
  • Apple iPhone ban? New York looks to outlaw sale of encrypted smarthphones
  • US Intelligence Chief Hacked by the Teen Who Hacked CIA Director
  • Ford: Our new app will be like iTunes, but for cars
  • Hyatt Says Data Breach Hit 250 Hotels in Some 50 Countries
  • Moving to Hyper-converged from a Traditional Virtualized Environment
  • Air Force focused on cloud governance, says CTO
  • Uber pushes into public transit with new app partnership
  • 10 Medical-Device Wearables To Improve Patients’ Lives
  • Top 10 Tactics Cities Can Use to Do More with Big Data
  • Driving stressed or sleepy? Soon your smartwatch will be able to warn your car
  • A dozen Google Chrome extensions to boost your privacy and productivity
  • 6 amazing changes that will change the way we do business in the next 5 years
  • iPhone 7 Rumors: 7 That Have People Talking

If you’re looking for information around migrating and supporting mobile workforces, download this on demand webinar, “Microsoft O365: Expectations vs. Reality”

 

By Ben Stephenson, Emerging Media Specialist

Miscellaneous IT, Tech New Recap

Tech News Recap for the Week of 1/4/2016

Were you busy this week kicking off the new year? Here’s a quick Tech News Recap of articles you may have missed!

Tech News Recap

A modem flaw in the super-secure Blackphone could be used to hijack the phone. The Treasury Department is looking into ways to use big data, Ford wants its vehicles to talk to DJI drones and Amazon Echo, and you guessed it – plenty of 2016 predictions. 

  • Blackphone Hackable Via Newly Found Bug
  • How the Treasury Department looks to use big data
  • Microsoft quietly unwraps a big-data analytics platform based on R
  • IG blasts DOD CIO for lack of cloud metrics
  • A Banner Year Ahead for Containers
  • Data in 2016: 6 Changes to Expect in Security, Cloud and Mobile Tech
  • Legal Firm’s CIO Makes His 2016 Business Mobility Predictions
  • Pitfalls of Microsoft Office 365 Migrations Part 3
  • VMware’s five key cloud-native computing investments
  • 10 outsourcing trends to watch in 2016
  • VMware NSX and Split and Smear Micro-Segmentation
  • Ford wants its vehicles to talk to DJI drones and Amazon Echo
  • Apple’s Record-Breaking Holiday Season Saw Over $1.1B In App Store Sales
  • How to automatically send an ‘I’m busy!’ text from your Android phone
  • Infinio Blog: Executive Viewpoint 2016 Prediction
  • African CIOs need to give cyber security priority in 2016
  • Can enterprises keep mobile security threats from driving customers away?
  • 10 Security Blunders That Will Get You Fired
  • 3D printing hands on: Lessons learned from my first big project

 

[Whitepaper] 6 Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project

 

By Ben Stephenson, Emerging Media Specialist

flash storage, Infinio, Storage, Storage and Information Management

Infinio Blog: Executive Viewpoint 2016 Prediction

This post originally appeared on Virtual-Strategy Magazine and is authored by Scott Davis, CTO at Infinio, a GreenPages partner.  It does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of GreenPages Technology Solutions.

 

It’s that time of year for CTO predictions. The rate of innovation and disruption across IT is certainly accelerating, providing ample opportunities for comment. Although there is a significant amount of disruptive change going on across many disciplines, I wanted to primarily focus on storage observations for 2016.

Emergence of Storage-class Memory

Toward the end of 2016, we’ll see the initial emergence of a technology that I believe will become the successor to flash. This new storage technology (storage class memory, or SCM) will fundamentally change today’s storage industry just as dramatically as flash changed the hard drive industry. Intel/Micron calls one version 3D XPoint and HP/SanDisk have joined forces for another variant.

SCM is persistent memory technology – 1,000 times faster than flash, 1,000 times more resilient, and unlike flash, it delivers symmetric read/write performance. SCM devices connect to memory slots in a server and they are mapped and accessed similarly to memory, although they are slightly slower. Unlike previous generations of storage technology, SCM devices can be addressed atomically at either the byte level or block-level granularity. Operating systems will likely expose them as either very fast block storage devices formatted by traditional file systems and databases (for compatibility) or as direct memory mapped “files” for next-generation applications. Hypervisors will likely expose them as new, specially named and isolated SCM regions for use by applications running inside the guest operating system (OS).

I expect that SCM will provide unprecedented storage performance, upend the database/file system structures we’ve grown accustomed to, and further drive the trend towards server-side storage processing, shaking up everything from storage economics to application design.

VSAN becomes an Alternative to HCI

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a sales strategy wrapped around a software-defined storage architecture that has garnered much attention in the past few years. HCI offerings comprise integrated hardware and software “building blocks” bundled and sold together as a single entity. The hardware is typically a server with direct attached storage disks and PCI-e flash cards. All the software needed to run virtual workloads is packaged as well, including hypervisor, systems management, configuration tools and virtual networking. Perhaps most relevant to our part of the industry, there is always a software-defined storage (SDS) stack bundled with HCI offerings that virtualizes the disks and flash hardware into a virtual storage array while providing storage management capabilities. This SDS stack delivers all the storage services to the virtual machines.

In VMware’s EVO:Rail offering, VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) is this integrated storage stack. Now battle-tested and rich with enterprise features, VSAN will become more prevalent in the datacenter.  Organizations attracted to cost-effective, high-performance server-side software-defined storage solutions no longer have to embrace the one-size-fits-all hyperconverged infrastructure sales strategy along with it. They will increasingly choose the more customizable VSAN-based solutions, rather than prepackaged HCI offerings, particularly for sophisticated enterprise data center use cases.

Flash Continues to Complement Traditional Spinning Drives, Not Replace Them

While the all-flash array market continues to grow in size, and flash decreases in price, the reality of flash production is that the industry does not have the manufacturing capacity necessary to enable flash to supplant hard disk drives. A recent Register article quoted Samsung and Gartner data that suggested that by 2020, the NAND Flash industry could produce 253 exabytes (EB), which is three times the current manufacturing capacity at a cost of approximately $23 billion.

 

Click to read the rest of this post!

 

Are you interested in learning how Infinio could potentially fit into your IT strategy? Reach out!

 

 

Microsoft, O365

Pitfalls of Microsoft O365 Migrations Part 3: Mobile Devices & Help Desk

Here is the 3rd and final part of my video series around common pitfalls of Microsoft O365 migrations (you can watch part 1 here and part 2 here). In this final installment, I dive into the mobile side of Microsoft O365 as well as how your help desk factors in.

 

Pitfalls of Microsoft Office 365 Migrations Part 3

 

Or watch the video here.

Interested in learning more about Microsoft O365 Migrations? Download David’s recent webinar, “Microsoft Office 365: Expectations vs. Reality“

 

By David Barter, Practice Manager, Microsoft Technologies

Microsoft, Office 365

Pitfalls of Microsoft O365 Migrations Part 2: 3rd Party Utilities, DNS, & Management Tools

Here is the second part of my video series around issues & operational considerations of Microsoft O365 migrations (you can watch part one here). In this video, I  cover 3rd party utilities, DNS, and other management tools. Keep your eyes peeled for part 3 coming soon!

If you’re looking for more information around O365 migrations, I recently held a webinar with a couple of my colleagues that takes a deep dive into the topic. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to leave them in the comment section below.

Microsoft O365 Migrations Part 2

 

Or click here to watch the video.

 

Interested in learning more about Microsoft O365 Migrations? Download David’s recent webinar, “Microsoft Office 365: Expectations vs. Reality“

 

By David Barter, Practice Manager, Microsoft Technologies

business agility, Miscellaneous IT

Guest Post: Outsourcing IT – Is it Helping or Hurting Your Business Agility?

This is a guest post and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of GreenPages Technology Solutions.

Bob loves coffee. He loves coffee so much he’s making a career out of it. As Bob contemplates opening his own coffee shop, he’s confronted with a big decision: ‘Do I create my own model and serve up coffee in a unique way or do I join a franchise?’

A franchise is appealing as Bob feels he would have an immediate customer base because of the reputation of the brand. But he also knows that he’ll have to give up the model of something new and unique into the neighborhood, where his passion truly lies.

outsourcing ITThe franchise choice would be quicker and safer and probably yield some profit. Opening his own coffee shop is more risky but Bob gets to follow his passion for coffee and, if successful, has the potential to be very profitable if it resonates with the locals.

I worked in the ‘traditional IT’ model for about 15 years. I’ve been in the room where executive management is telling IT management to provide a solution that supports some business goal, “no excuses!” There were times when I hated those ‘discussions’; the demand was inefficient and disruptive and always came at a time where my distributed system design was in full swing. It forced me create something I felt was clumsy and inefficient like forcing a round peg into a square hole. Nevertheless, I’ve seen smart people get creative and do amazing things and the business flourishes, despite the crazy demands. It was the IT team’s ‘Scotty moment.’

Some businesses may not be a good fit for outsourcing IT services, regardless of how efficient and cool we Architects and Engineers think they are. Many executives who have gone the external cloud route find that they lose agility. Why? Because they lost the ability to share their vision and business goals with IT. Instead of talking to an internal team within the company culture, they have to talk to contracts and SLAs and some services simply aren’t possible. In this case, internal IT may be a better fit for business goals and agility, like Bob’s coffee shop where he wants to offer something unique to his customers, he has control of the model.

On the other hand, startups who want to hit the ground running and don’t have a complex set of applications, may find a predefined outsourced model makes more sense, like the coffee shop franchise model. Maybe an established company can simply move their offerings to an outsourced model, but larger established companies can fall into a special trap, where they invest heavily in the ‘Cloud’ but realize they have to keep their existing infrastructure to support some applications that aren’t ready – the worst of both worlds from a cost perspective. So, a mature application discovery phase and well-defined time-line for these business goals is crucial.

Every smart company looks for ways to improve agility and efficiency. Both insource and outsource models have their merit. It will be interesting to see how these decisions affect the success of both small and large companies in their endless varieties in the long term.

I’d love to get your perspective on this subject, so please feel free to provide some feedback and/or your own stories of IT success or disillusionment.

 

About the author

Mark Macinnis is a Cloud Architect and Performance Analyst at Teradata. He has over 20 years of experience in enterprise IT engineering, planning and building distributed systems to support multiple locations. In his current role, as well as his past role at Pearson Education, Mark has supported robust applications used to help the organizations stay ahead of market trends.

Miscellaneous IT, Tech New Recap

Tech News Recap for the Week of 12/21/2015

Given how busy the holiday season can be, here’s a quick Tech News Recap of articles you may have missed from this week!

Tech News Recap

Tech News Recap

A newly discovered hack has the United States fearing foreign infiltration. Microsoft acquired Metanautix and messaging app, Talko. Servers used in US bomb threats were seized by German police. WhatsApp was blocked in Brazil, Christmas lights could be slowing down your Wi-Fi connection, Nutanix filed for an IPO, and more top news and articles you may have missed from last week!

  • Newly discovered hack has U.S. fearing foreign infiltration
  • Microsoft acquires Metanautix to offer enhanced big data solutions
  • Facebook scandal or can bug bounties replace traditional web security?
  • Servers of email host used in US school bomb threats seized by German police
  • Microsoft Buys Talko Messaging App from Ray Ozzie
  • Why Christmas Lights Could Be Slowing Your Wi-Fi Connection
  • Chobani CIO Creates a Recipe for Business Success
  • Pitfalls of Microsoft O365 Migrations Part 1: Mailbox Size, Spam Filtering, & Address Change
  • Storage Tech Company Nutanix Files For IPO
  • After WhatsApp’s Blackout In Brazil, Who Should Hold The Data Keys?
  • Better cybersecurity might have saved the Death Star
  • From Hello Kitty to Little League Baseball, Companies Are Leaking Kids’ Data All Over The Web
  • Report: Google to team up with Ford to build self-driving cars
  • Turn your smartphone into three interesting, unusual and useful tools
  • Holiday travel? Robots will make it easier
  • Why Hacking Is An Integral Part of The Future Of The Internet
  • How Amazon Delivers Packages in Less Than an Hour
  • Big banks battle startups with new apps and services
  • A ‘street battle’ is brewing between Amazon and Microsoft
  • Just what do CIOs do all day, anyway?
  • Microsoft’s ‘Hello Cloud Challenge’ gives students chance to win $1,000 over Christmas vacation

[Whitepaper: 10 Things You Need to Know About Docker]

 

By Ben Stephenson, Emerging Media Specialist