Citrix, End-User Computing, XenMobile

Citrix Summit 2016 Part 2: XenMobile 10.3 and PVS 7.7

Here’s part 2 in my series of recap posts of the most important updates that came out of the Citrix 2016 partner summit. In this post, I’ve gathered notes from Citrix around XenMobile 10.3 and PVS 7.7. Yesterday, I posted about what’s new with XenApp and XenDesktop in case you missed it. If you’d like to talk about any of these updates in more detail, feel free to reach out.

Citrix XenMobile 10.3

The following features are new in XenMobile 10.3 and rely on an upcoming release of the Worx Mobile Apps and MDX Toolkit to be fully functional:

  • Shared devices in XenMobile enterprise mode. Shared devices is available in MDM mode.
  • Android for Work device owner mode and support for devices earlier than Android L.
  • Retrieval of voice or SMS messages on Android devices.
  • Support for Google Cloud Messaging on Android devices.
  • Fast encryption device policy, VPN policies, and new Restriction policy options for Samsung KNOX.
  • New language support for Korean, German and Portuguese and right-to-left text support in Worx Apps. These languages are available in the XenMobile console with XenMobile 10.3.

New Console Appearance: XenMobile 10.3

XenMobile 10.3 has a new look. The console is updated with new colors, fonts, tabs, and improved functionality.

  • The Dashboard tab in previous versions of the console has been moved under the new Analyze tab, which also includes the new Reporting tab. For details, see Reports.
  • The Manage tab now includes the new Users tab where you manage local users and groups.
  • The Configure tab now includes the new ShareFile tab where you configure settings to connect to the ShareFile account.
  • You access Settings, formerly under the Configure tab, by clicking the gear icon on the upper-right of the console.
  • The Support tab now opens in the same tab as the console instead of in a new tab.

New Platform Support: XenMobile 10.3

XenMobile 10.3 now offers support for the following platforms:

  • Mac OS X
  • Android HTC
  • Android Sony
  • Samsung SEAMS
  • Windows Mobile/CE
  • Windows 10 Phone: Device management in XenMobile MDM and Enterprise modes.
  • Windows 10 Desktop/Tablet: Device management in XenMobile MDM and Enterprise modes.

Citrix PVS 7.7

The following new features are available with Provisioning Services 7.7:

  • Support for Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise and Professional editions.
  • In-place upgrade of target device software. Rather than reverse-imaging, you can install a new version of the target device software without having to manually uninstall the previous version. To do an in-place upgrade from version 7.6 to version 7.7 you must first install version 7.6.1.
  • Support for UEFI pre-boot environments. This enables you to stream at startup time using gigabit network speeds, so users experience faster startups, and to use disks over 2 TB.
  • The licensing grace period for Provisioning Services has changed from 96 hours to 30 days, for consistency with XenApp and XenDesktop.
  • The Provisioning Services API has been enhanced to provide a standard object-oriented PowerShell interface that enables you to integrate your products and tools easily with Provisioning Services.
  • vGPU-enabled XenDesktop machines can be provisioned using the Provisioning Services XenDesktop Setup Wizard, rather than manually or by  using the Provisioning Services Streamed Virtual Machine Setup Wizard. You can provision machines on VMware vSphere 6.0 as well as on XenServer 6.2.
  • System Center Virtual Machine Manager Generation 2 VMs can be provisioned through Provisioning Services. Generation 2 VMs are optimized for modern workloads: the operating system does not carry the overhead of legacy drivers, devices and x86 architectures.
    • Note: This feature has received limited testing, may not be present in future product releases and must not be enabled on production systems. Citrix may not respond to support requests regarding this feature.
  • FIPS support. Provisioning Services uses a new algorithm that is compliant with Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).
  • XenApp Session Recording is automatically available by default on all machines: you do not need to use a manual workaround.
  • Streaming VHDX formatted disks. This feature adds flexibility and efficiency to image and merging operations by letting you stream VHDX files as well as VHD files. Provisioning Services recognizes and uses the file format .vhdx as the extension for base disks and .avhdx for differencing disks (also known as versions). No configuration of this feature is necessary. You perform all image manipulation functions, such as deleting or merging vDisks, or creating new versions, in the Provisioning Services console the same way for both formats.

 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

 

By Peter Crepeau, Solutions Architect

Uncategorized

What the Safe Harbour ruling means for your business in 2016

(c)iStock.com/styleTTT

The start of a new year is always a good time for many businesses to get their IT strategies in place. However, there has been one issue in the past couple of months that may potentially cause a lot of complications in IT departments across the US and EU; the implications for cloud compliance of the recent nullification of the EU Safe Harbour Ruling. Safe Harbour, used by over 4,000 firms to move EU data to the US for the past 15 years, was declared invalid by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) back in October 2015.

Companies on both sides of the Atlantic have been left questioning what impact this will have on IT procedures. This ruling has implications for those organisations that transfer customer data across borders, which is increasingly done via a public cloud.

There are many questions that have been left unanswered for many businesses, as IT and compliance leaders alike are grappling with how to ensure compliance when transferring customer data between the EU and the US. 

A rather old framework of regulations, the Safe Harbour Ruling was established in 2000 as a bridge for US and EU firms to share personal data. This was prompted by the EU’s move in 1998 to solidify and unify member states’ personal data regulations; and for many years – 15 to be exact – this worked fairly well. As long as both sides of the Atlantic had proper and audited controls in place, personal data moved rather freely.

However, 2015 saw challenges to the framework emerge in the EU courts that resulted in the Safe Harbour provisions being nullified and in turn forcing many companies to evaluate their data controls and geographical location of that data. So, what does this mean? Unfortunately, this means a lot on both sides of the pond. If your business has been operating in a multinational fashion, shifting data might have been very trite in the past – it is no longer so.

It is imperative that you begin reviewing your privacy policies and statements as well as HR activities and determine whether you should have EU and US versions. Additionally, data collection requirements are now vastly different. EU regulations require an informed opt-in whereas in the US the process usually works with an informed opt-out. This is a significant change for many companies that sell, market and do business internationally, which can be onerous and time consuming for companies not used to operating in that fashion. If you are working from the EU side, now is the time to start looking at local cloud service provider options, since US datacentres may be violating EU laws and regulations.

Does all of this mean the end of transfers of personal data? No, business still needs to be done! Methods and options are available – Model Contract Clauses as well as Binding Corporate Rules can be used to make a transition. However, there can be a substantial overhead cost to mid-sized and smaller organisations. Additionally, both the US and EU governments are working to address the issues with the Safe Harbour framework, but legislation takes time and will most likely lag behind some enforcement activities that will occur after the January deadline.

Data sovereignty is ever-changing and new rules are being implemented constantly, and while these rulings will immediately affect US companies doing business in Europe, in the coming months this type of ruling will spread through other countries quickly. In the end, this is a disruptor but not a destroyer for business. If you make sure your business is staying on top of the regulations, you’ll not get caught out when new laws come into play in the near future.

One final note; as with all international laws and frameworks, it is highly recommended that you engage a subject matter expert for more detailed options and plans – or your cloud provider’s Compliance and IT Security teams. That way you can be assured that you understand all the implications before you determine your strategy.

Uncategorized

Why API Performance Matters (And What to Do About It) By @JustinRohrman | @CloudExpo #Cloud

When working with API teams on API testing, almost all of my time went to seeing if the API was functional.
Ideally, programmers create, read, update and delete (CRUD) when developing new endpoints. Testers spend time on more complex scenarios trying to discover problems a user might come across. And then the whole API is wrapped up in a bow with continuous integration systems and automated checks.

read more

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Enterprise Cloud Maturity Model – How to Guide | @CloudExpo #Cloud

Although we live in a new On Demand Economy defined by the likes of Uber, Airbnb, Facebook and Twitter among others, firms who clearly demonstrate that the strategic use of modern new technologies like Cloud and Mobile to generate huge increases in shareholder value, many still struggle with adoption and are failing to react to the competitive threat the trend represents.
As this IDC report shows only 25% of organizations have repeatable strategies for Cloud adoption, with 32% having no Cloud strategy at all.

read more

hybrid cloud, Microsoft Azure, News & Analysis

Microsoft unveils new Azure Stack migration strategy

Microsoft is to build its Azure Stack by increments on a foundation of consistency and continuity, it has pledged. The software turned cloud service vendor has blogged about the next move in its hybrid cloud strategy. Later this week it will offer the first technical preview of the new Microsoft Azure Stack.

In deference to its increasing numbers of Azure users who are nervous of committing to the public cloud, Microsoft announced it will provide incremental upgrades and changes on a foundation of continuity and consistency. While Azure Stack will use identical application programming interfaces (APIs) to the ones that reach into Microsoft Azure, developers are to be given guidance on creating .Net or open source apps that can straddle both public and private cloud. Meanwhile, according to Mike Neil, Microsoft’s enterprise Cloud VP, IT professionals can transform on-premises data centre resources into Azure IaaS/PaaS services without losing their powers of management and automation.

Microsoft is seeing nearly 100,000 new Azure subscriptions every month but many enterprises fear going fully public because of the data sovereignty and regulatory issues, Neil said. Microsoft’s strategy is to work around a client base with one foot in the public cloud and one on-premises. It will do this by providing a consistent cloud platform that spans hybrid environments. In a series of Technical previews, starting on Friday 29th of January, Microsoft is to show how Azure Stack inventions for the hyperscale data centre can be layered onto the hybrid cloud.

Since the APIs are the same, in future apps can be written once and deploy to Azure and Azure Stack and use the Azure ecosystem to jumpstart their Azure Stack development efforts. The same management, DevOps and automation tools will apply said Neil. The application model is based on Azure Resource Manager, so developers can take the same declarative approach to applications, regardless of whether they run on Azure or Azure Stack. Tooling-wise, developers can use Visual Studio, PowerShell, as well as other open-source DevOps tools, creating the same end user experiences as in Azure, Neil said.

A series of technical previews will be the vehicle for adding services and content such as OS images and Azure Resource Manager templates. “Azure has hundreds of applications and components on GitHub and as the corresponding services come to Azure Stack, users can take advantage of those as well,” said Neil, who disclosed that open source partners like Canonical are contributing validated Ubuntu Linux images to make open source applications work in Azure Stack environments.

The first Technical Preview of Azure Stack on Friday, January 29 will be followed by a web cast on February 3rd by Azure CTO Mark Russinovich and Chief Architect of Enterprise Cloud Jeffrey Snover.

Backup, Content & Applications, News & Analysis, Retail, Smartphone, Synchronoss

Cloud backup could save phone retailers days of support time – study

contentCloud-based backup and transfer systems could save 7.3 wasted lifetimes, according to recent 451 Research into the time consuming inefficiencies of modern phone sales, reports Telecoms.com.

American consumers lost 4.5 million hours waiting for their content to be transferred between their old and new smartphones in-store this holiday season, according to the study conducted on behalf of Synchronoss Technologies. That wasted time converts into 187,500 days, 514 years or 7.3 wasted human lifetimes. Cloud based backups, which run in the background, will give smart phone users their lives back, Synchronoss claims.

As 59% of Americans buy new smartphones in physical stores, and each customer now has an average of 10.8GB of picture files, videos and games to transfer over the in-store Wi-Fi connecting their old and new devices, waiting times are likely to get increasingly long, according to Synchronoss. The picture is largely the same in Europe, with 64% of sales in the UK being conducted in store and with an even bigger proportion, 67%, in France. The store channel was used by 62% of Germans, 51% of Italians and 65% of Spanish phone purchasers.

In the study, conducted independently by 451 Research over the holiday season, 33.3 million devices were sold in that period throughout the US and 19.6 million of them were bought in a shop, with 23% of these shoppers asking the sales reps to transfer their personal content for them. At a transfer rate of 10.8GB per hour, that equates to a 4.5 million hours of waiting time.

Device financing, leasing and accelerated upgrade programmes will only make the demand for upgrades – and the subsequent waiting time situation – worse, according to Synchronous, which argued that its new cloud based Backup & Transfer service is the answer.

“Carriers and retailers must deploy backup and transfer solutions so customer content is securely hosted in the cloud before they walk into stores and can be ported to a new device at any time,”

said Daniel Rizer, Synchronoss’s EVP of Product Management.

acquisition, BTI Systems, Juniper Networks, M&A, News & Analysis, Telco Cloud

Juniper Networks buys telco cloud vendor BTI Systems

business cloud network worldData centre infrastructure vendor Juniper Networks is to buy BTI Systems, a specialist developer of software-defined networking (SDN) tools and networking hardware, reports Telecoms.com.

The acquisition was announced on Juniper’s website which gave no details of the terms of the deal. However, in a comparable takeover in 2012, Juniper paid $176 million when it bought SDN startup Contrail. In its statement Juniper explained its need to speed up the delivery of open and automated packet optical transport systems, as demand for cloud services booms.

Juniper’s General Manager of Development Jonathan Davidson said Juniper will integrate the new SDN tools with its NorthStar Controller and use the new network management features to create new end-to-end services.

The move may affect cloud service providers as it gives owners of multiple data centres a new option for juggling huge volumes of data within their own data centre estate. BTI’s data centre and service provider clients include top tier operators such as Equinix, Interxion, Rackspace and VKontakte. It has a client base of 380 data centre operators and cloud service providers.

Since BTI specializes in cloud and metro networking, in which large volumes of content are shifted between data centres concentrated in the same town or city, the new technology addition could position Juniper more favourably when tendering against Cisco and Arista.

Ottowa based Canadian network BTI has previously raised $60 million in venture capital from backers including Bain Capital Ventures, Export Development Canada and Fujitsu Network Communications.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and the expected date for transaction closure was given as ‘Q2 of this year’.

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

 

Uncategorized

Dropbox, Box, Egnyte beef up Microsoft Office partnerships

(c)iStock.com/RonBailey

Cloud storage providers Dropbox, Box, Egnyte, and Citrix ShareFile have announced updates which allow the ability to co-author documents in real time on Microsoft Office products.

The update comes as further validation of Microsoft’s policy for collaboration on Office as opposed to competition, having initially launched the Cloud Storage Partner Program in February 2015. The Redmond giant courted controversy after ditching unlimited offerings of its own storage product OneDrive back in November, over fears a small section of users were taking more of their fair share.

Kirk Koenigsbauer, Microsoft Office corporate vice president, wrote in a blog post: “We announced the Cloud Storage Partner Program and enabled cloud storage providers to connect their services to Office Online and Office for iOS. Today’s interoperability announcements are another step in our journey to make Office more open for customers and partners.”

Alongside real-time co-authoring, Dropbox and Box customers will also be able to further integrate with Office on iOS and seamlessly attach content to emails in Outlook. Microsoft says it is looking to add other mobile platforms later this year, with Citrix ShareFile, Edmodo, and Egnyte integration also coming soon.

The additional move comes days after Dropbox announced the availability of an app for Windows 10. A blog post from the company reads: “With this deeper integration, you get the power of Dropbox right from the Office tools you rely on to get work done.”

Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, said: “Box and Microsoft are delivering an unparalleled collaboration experience where customers have seamless access to their business content regardless of device or platform.” Isabelle Guis, chief strategy officer at Egnyte, said: “By executing successfully at the highest level with folks like Microsoft and Google, we are confident that we can replicate success with a wide variety of new partners.”

Application Virtualization, Parallels RAS, Parallels Remote Application Server, RAS, Remote Application Server, The Cloud, virtual applications, Virtual desktop

Why are Virtual Applications Still a Hot Topic?

The massive computers of yesteryear became smaller and more powerful, and then they became portable; mobile phones became smart, packing more power and more opportunities for networking—and it’s clear that the direction of the technological revolution is more portability, more mobility, and more power to the user, connecting users to who they are and to […]

The post Why are Virtual Applications Still a Hot Topic? appeared first on Parallels Blog.

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