Which feature is in what product?

Note: This article is obsolete per Febuary 14th 2011, with the release of Workspace Manager 2011, where the product flavors have changed. Please refer to a newer article (which hasn’t been written yet, or look at the corp. website)

One of the most often asked questions we still get asked in the field after 2 years of PowerFuse 2008 is this one: “So is feature X in product Y?” Nothing wrong with that. RES decided for the 2008 series to break up the PowerFuse product in different flavors, where the main differentiators are: max. number of supported concurrent users, featureset and of course the cost. Since we’re mostly into the technical stuff here on the ‘Guru, let’s stick to the features, shall we? :-) PowerFuse 2008 comes in 4 flavors at the moment. There is currently no indication that this mix will change for 2010, although it’s not known yet how the new features in 2010 will be divided among the variants.

• PowerFuse Express. This is a free version of the software, limited at 100 CCU’s and about 20% of the featureset (hey, you get what you pay for :-) This version will essentially help you get started with getting rid of your existing login scripts.
• PowerFuse MyWorkSpace edition. MWS was developed to address certain needs in overseas markets. MWS edition does not have the Security (appguard etc), Reliability (cpushield and so on), Integration (Citrix, Wisdom, etc) subsystems available, but the pricing is very affordable.
• PowerFuse Standard edition. Standard is very similar to MWS, except that we throw in a few more features. AppGuard and Removable Disk security within the security subsystem. Second it contains CPUshield and Instant Logoff in reliability. Filters and instant reports are also enabled. Finally it includes all integration options except Citrix integration.
• PowerFuse Enterprise edition. This is the Grand Enchilada with everything including the kitchensink, blender and matching steak knives :) Enterprise gives you the full range of User Workspace Management power at your fingertips in one easy to manage console.
• Platinum Edition. Yeah, so Citrix invented the idea of lobbing everything into one license and we are graciously following suit :) Platinum is not really a product, but it’s a bundeling offer which is currently includes both PowerFuse Enterprise edition and RES Wisdom. For more information about this and pricing informatiom, contact your local RES folks.

In order to help you get a better overview of what feature is in which PowerFuse edition, I’ve dug out a comparison chart out of the corp website. It shows a breakdown of what features are in there, what the benefits are and a checbox field for all 4 editions:

Click here to download the chart:

If you are new to the RES multiverse, perhaps comming from the SCCM side of things, it can sometimes be a bit confusing to figure out if a certain desired functionality is to be found in Wisdom or in PowerFuse. To help you find your way quicker, here’s a set of rule-of-thumbs for you:

• If the functionality you want has to do with the computer itself, it’s Wisdom you want.  Examples of this is rebooting, installing software, printerdrivers, modifying the contens of the system drives, setting HKLM registry settings
• If it has to do with anything within the users session, such as exposing shortcuts to installed software, mapping to printerqueues, modifying the contens of the profile or homedirectory, or setting HKCU registrysettings – then it’s PowerFuse you want to be looking at.

Where things may become a bit iffy for some, is when they discover Wisdom’s ability to provision users, and most go; “Hey, but that’s something to do with the user, why is it in Wisdom then? There is actually a perfectly good explanation for this. Creating a user is something which needs to be done on a Domain Controller, i.e. it’s not something happening within the user’s session. Basically adding a user to AD is essentially just adding a record to some database, a task which RES Wisdom is also perfectly capable of.

Second, PowerFuse has the capability to fire off a Wisdom job, based on user actions or simply event driven (logon, application launch, etc). This is actually an extremely cool feature which enables you to realize install-on-demand scenarios, as the logged in user does not have to be a local admin! Bear in mind however, that PowerFuse is not about application virtualization like App-V. The concept of PowerFuse+Wisdom integration may seem to somewhat blur the line in terms of which RES product does what. It is however quite simple when you look at it top-down: PowerFuse sits with the user in the session “layer”. PowerFuse knows how to talk to Wisdom below, which on-demand then executes machine tasks on behalf of the user in the “os” layer beneath.

To sum things up, the key difference is that Wisdom doesn’t care if the user is logged on or not, even if the target computer is turned on – as we support WOL. PowerFuse on the other hand, springs to life the moment the user initiates a session and stays with him and manages the environment until session end.

New community contributions

From a pingback on the Wisdom Tips & Tricks article here the ‘Guru, I stubled over VirtuEs, which is a new blog by the hand of.. hmm, not really sure – it doesn’t say? Anyway, it looks to become a cool blog so I’ve added it to the link list here at RESguru. Anyway, the point is VirtuEs has a really useful article on how to prepare the Wisdom Agent for cloning. The article can can be found here.

While we’re at it, the nice folks at RES.NL supplied a set of Feature Profile documents, which outline the technical capabilities of some of the features found in PowerFuse and Wisdom. The documents can be found here.

Thanks everybody for contributing to the RES community – Keep it commin’! :-)

The Guru is Back!

Greetings fellow Guru’s, and happy new year!

It’s been quite a while since something has happened over here on RESguru. New customer projects, job transitions and in general running around in small circles throughout 2009, has attributed to the dip in the steady flow of content.

What matters is that the ‘Guru back in great shape for the new year, with loads of upcomming new and interesting stuff for 2010, which you can use to wrangle even more value out of your PowerFuse and Wisdom environments.

As usual all the good stuff is being put forward to the community in the context of the RES Software Usergroup. Articles found here will be accessible through resug.com also.

In related news, we are on the brink of seeing the release of the brand-spankin’ new PowerFuse 2010 and the Orchestration Pack for Wisdom this year. Plenty of questions will be answered about these. Due to the hush-hush about  new releases, I unfortunatly can’t go into the nittygritty details about PowerFuse 2010 until mid-febuary.

Some of the noteworthy improvements onthe  blog include:

The technote library is receiving a long needed overhaul. I’ve had some catching up to do in regards to what’s happened with product releases, etc. This meant that all articles had to be reviewed and amended if needed. A full list of updated articles is being published soon.

The glossary, which has been around for a while,  is also receiving a facelift. If you haven’t visited it before, you will find in the right side of the toolbar at the top of the page. The glossary has been updated with new terminology relating to PowerFuse 2010 and the upcomming RES Orchestration Package for Wisdom. In general a glossary is a great ressource for those who are new to the RESverse and need a quick reference to all the buzzwords and tech jargon flying around in here.  This is a living document which I hope you will find it worth contributing to. The idea is to create a list of all the often used phrases, technologies, oddities etc which are associated with the RES technologies. This should be a one-stop ressource where RES novices and professionals alike can look up stuff.

New buildingblocks and articles! To start with, there are a couple of interesting new articles in the technote library from RGO1C and up. These are the first of hopefully many to come. As always, if you have stuff you want to share, come forward – YOU can be a RESguru too!

One final little thing, which hopefully will make alot of readers happy. Up until now all large screenshots opened up in a new window, which was annoying. I finally got the LightBox 2 plugin installed in WordPress, so big graphics just zoom up on the existing page. Links to other pages will however still open up in new windows so you can continue reading the article you’re currently at.

RESguru.com is back in action – with a vengeance! ;-) Stay tuned!

Oh yeah, and Mike M – totally love your movies, so please forgive the blatantly crappy  photoshop above! :-)