From the RES Community Hero Dept. Today I’d like to introduce a new blog site, which one of my good colleagues, Musa Cakar from RES Support has launched. The blog is called My Virtual Environment, or MYVE.nl. His first article is very useful, as it deals with reducing the size of Mozilla Firefox profiles, using the RES Workspace Manager. Be sure to check out the article here!

From the sideline comments dept. Just before xmas Brian shares his view on what’s important for vendors in relation to Desktop Virtualization. I’m not going to recap his article in total, you can read it here. What I wanted to comment on specifically, is that it’s really nice to have been working with a vendor for 11+ years now, who all along has been doing what the good Dr. Madden orders today! :-) While we originally back in the late ’90s started out being a product only for Terminal Services/Citrix environments, RES products were kept in tune with the times and trends to embrace all windows platforms: Workstations, Laptops and Server Based Computing – what I referred to as tri-platform support back in the day.

With the emergence of virtualization, first on hardware, then later on applications, it was  possible for RES to add 3 more innovative dimensions to that picture:

1. Early VDI Workspace support: RES Software actually didn’t have to change much, if anything in the Workspace Manager (back in the day known as PowerFuse) to support VDI. As the Workspace Composer runs inside the user’s session, seen from a technical perspective of the product, it’s running on a workstation OS, which just happens to be accessed as a terminal server through RDP, HDX or whatever. In other words, all the goodness which Workspace Manager offered already for Laptops, Physical workstations and Terminal servers, was available for VDI from day one.
2. First App-V integration: RES was TRUTHFULLY, THE VERY FIRST VENDOR who worked proactively with the Grand-Daddy of all application virtualization technologies, SoftGrid by Softricity – now known as App-V by Microsoft. Since then, we’ve adapted to support pretty much every major App Virtualization platform out there. Application virtualization is an important piece of VDI as it will allow you to have more apps to co-exist in the same image. Using the workspace manager to differentiate access to these apps, you can litterally cut down your VDI configuration to one golden image per operating system. Look out for an article on this topic later.
3. First Reverse Seamless provider: Back in the day, RES had this little – relatively un-noticed – sidecar utility to the Workspace Manager, known as the RES Subscriber aka Workspace Extender. These were the first implementations of Reverse Seamless Windows. Few people saw the potential early on, but I’d like to highlight a specific video, made by my former colleague Rick Eilenberger, that demonstrates what it was able to do already then in 2007. It was known as the RES Subscriber. The technology later licensed by Citrix, evolved to a stand-alone product, known as VDX. For more information on VDX, go read here.

The only thing we’ve left alone in regards to virtualization, is so called ‘User Virtualization’. This is some sort of horn which the Usual Suspects likes to blow (and do I mean blow… ;-) To my experience, the concept of virtualizing the user makes no sense at all. The user is the only real “object” in the entire getup anyway. Sure, hardware is quite real too, however unlike the behavior of users, it’s behavior is way more predictable, hence virtualizing it is relatively easy in comparison. This is one of the reasons why I believe the idea of redirecting the profile to a database is a flawed concept to begin with. You want as fast and reliable access to your settings to your settings as well as your documents to cater for the user’s sometimes erratic behavior. This is why the RES Workspace Manager was built with purpose to store User Settings in the same manner as User Data is stored; in a location which is unique and readily accessible to the user.

With the ever-growing adaptation of Cloud Computing into the Enterprise space, the profile game is a-changing. Boatloads of other pundits have been describing in vivid detail how users will demand access to their settings virtually anywhere. One way of dealing with this is to provide ACCESS from anywhere to a centralized solution. Citrix have been doing this for well over 20 years. Thing can however quickly become harrowing if changes the user makes should follow them between different infrastructures (different server farms, operating systems or even different laptops). This is where an intelligent and granular approach to handling user settings is required. If you are contemplating storing your settings only in a standard SQL database – or on a fileserver for that matter you are asking for trouble, or at the very least unnecessary complexity. I’ve discussed this previously in this article.

Anyway, while the usual suspects are duking it out on the commentary section over on BM, RES Software is ready to take on the new year. Stay tuned to this blog for even more tidbits and useful info in 2012! Happy new year everybody.

‘Twas a month before Xmas and through the hotel, nothing was stirring… well maybe, except for the 450+ geeks and guru’s who assembled at the Hilton Universal City, Los Angeles for the first major Citrix Technology Exchange event on Dec 2nd 2012. RES Software had been invited as a platinum sponsor of the event. Besides showing our products at the vendor’s tables, we also had a couple of presentation slots. I want to take a moment to specially thank my friend Rick Eilenberger at Citrix for putting this great event together. Be sure to check out his follow-up article here.

During one of the RES Software presentations, I had the pleasure of once again demonstrating the unparalleled awesomeness of the RES Automation Manager. This time I had the good Mr. Luca Lo Castro with me on stage, as he is indeed the evil mastermind behind this latest creation. What we have here is nothing less than one of the most awesome Run Books created for RES Automation Manager yet. The Runbook does the following:

• Unattended installation of Citrix Provisioning Server 6.0 (PVS)
• Unattended installation of Citrix XenApp 6.5 (XA)
• Unattended installation of Xen Desktop 5.5 (XD)
• Preparation of a Windows 7 image (application of best practices, per Citrix’s recommendations.

This is quite valuable for anyone who installs these products for a living, no matter if you are a consultant, a Citrix SE or perhaps a Citrix admin at a large installation. The cool part is that ALL of the above is done in less than 45 minutes! Add that to the approx. 15 minutes it takes to stand up the RES Automation Manager infrastructure, and ask yourself this: How long does it take you to stand up a XenDesktop + PVS + XA environment under normal circumstances? I trust you see my point. So what are the prerequisites for all this? You’ll need the following:

• Your 3 .ISO files, respectively for PVS, XA and XD. If you haven’t got them, download them from MyCitrix.com
• A server (200x, doesn’t really matter), which will hold your DBMS for Automation Manager and be a mount point for your ISO’s. Let’s call it Server1. If you can run a compatible datastore for Automation Manager, this could be your laptop!
• Mount the ISO’s on this server using Daemon Tools or similar. Alternatively, if you are using a VM, you can just mount the ISO’s directly on the virtual machine as DVD drives. Finally if you already have the ISO’s extracted somewhere, you can just share those folders. Either way, make sure you share the individual mount folders, so the contents of each ISO is available as a \\server1\share UNC path.
• You will also need 3 blank x64 Server 2008R2 servers. And I do mean blank. For example, not manually install the .Net 4 client profile ahead, as it will mess up the unattended installation of SQL Express. These servers will be the target servers for PVS, XA and XD. Lets call these machines Server A, B and C
• Finally you’ll need a blank Windows 7 machine. This is the machine which will be prepped for use with PVS (registry hacks applied, services configured etc) as the golden image.

To get things stood up, here are some guidelines to get you started:

1. Download and install the RES Automation Manager aka AM. Refer to the Getting Started guide.
2. Deploy the AM Dispatcher to Server1
3. Deploy the AM Agents to the 3 blanks Servers A..C
4. Import the buildingblock, which you will find at the end of this article.
5. In the AM console, go to Repository | Run Books
6. Rightclick on the Citrix POC-Sales runbook and select Schedule Job
7. Fill out the parameters for the runbook as described below
8. Hit OK, then hit the local Starbucks.. :)

The parameter screen needs a bit of explanation, because if you don’t fill things in right, then of course “interesting” things may happen. You know the drill: BS in, BS out. So let’s have a look at a screen I’ve already filled out below. Click to enlarge:

 The table below explains each field and what you need to enter. There’s a couple of blank spots, but as soon as I get them validated by Luca I’ll be sure to update the posting.

Those of you who are savy with Automation Manager may wonder why that AM resources aren’t utilized for this RunBook. The reason is twofold: First of all, you don’t wan’t to be waiting to upload the close to 8GB of the 3 ISO’s together to the datastore. Not that it can’t handle it, but think about that you would have to do that every time there is a new .ISO. it would make things really cumbersome. Second, by not using a linked resource we preserve the flexibility of the runbook, without having to modify it, i.e. we don’t need to edit any resource every time we go to a new place where we want to use the Run Book.

I guess at this point you want to have a go at the RunBook, so just click on the Christmas present on the right to download:

Enjoy!

Note: If you have problems with getting the runbook to work, again: Make sure the 2008 servers are blank. If still no luck, post your results in the forum, so we can get some eyes on it. The buildingblock is provided as-is. It’s not something that has been provided officially in the context of RES or RES Support.

From the Read-Between-The-Lines Department. Okay, so I got your undivided attention by tweaking an old movie title, didn’t I? Amazing. It seems a strategic lie here and there is all it takes to get peoples attention these days and maybe also their money – I figure I’d give the attention part a try with the headline! :-) The irony is that Lies and Virtual Applications is exactly what’s at the heart of today’s article. Interested?

Recently my colleague Sean Donahue shared a trip down the memory lane of RES and App-V collaboration. In his article, he covers the time he worked at a company up in Boston, known as Softricity – later a part of Microsoft. At that same time I had a software distribution company in the Nordics, where RES and Softricity were the two vendors I represented. It was – and still is – a great combination of technologies, as they are what I referred to as ‘Tri-Platform’ back then: Supporting both workstations, laptops and server-based computing.

There is an interesting conundrum between the lines of Sean’s story, which may not be visible to the naked eye. So without further adoo, I hereby declare myself Sean Donahue’s one-time, temporary, completely unsanctioned, and unofficial spokesperson – in a segment we here at RESguru like to call:

What Mr. Donahue really meant to say was…

So what’s between those lines anyway? Well, long story short, it came to our attention that The Usual Suspects have been hard[ly] at work in the fabrication department once again. To cut to the chase, their customer prospects are now allegedly being told that these guys were the first company to supported App-V/Softgrid. Digging around, their first announcements date from late 2004. In case you still feel in the dark, let me break it all down for you:

• RES and Softricity’s CTO’s (Bob and Stuart) worked closely together, way before the boys in Manchester probably even knew what a virtual app was.
• As a result, specific code was written into the RES product to handle injection of context-specific settings into virtual apps and importing .OSD files directly.
• Sean Donahue started all the initial App-V/SoftrGrid partner relationships at Softricity.
• In the old days, my company was a Value Added distributor for RES and Softricity. Check out some of the published slides from back then, on the right. I presented the two vendors together in 2002 (hence the Ancient RES logo!)
• It is very unwise of a competitor to claim they were the first kid on the App-V block, when the two guys who can pop that lie, works at RES.

In summary, there are some valuable takeaways for us all here:

1. Dear customer prospects of Planet Earth. Please do your homework before you buy. Especially software. Don’t just take stuff at face value from the salesguy with the shiny green brochures (or orange for that matter), who bought your lunch. Do your own research or at least ask around.
2. When you catch someone lying straight to your face while taking your money, do the world the favor of kicking them to the curb loud and clear, so others may benefit from the experience.
3. Fellas (you know who I’m talking to) – Amateur’s night is over! Please for the love of all things holy, try and hire some professional help over there in the UK to fabricate some decent stories with more than 5 minutes of shelf life. PS: Get a calendar and sort out your timelines. It seems to be a general problem for you.

So... that was my Christmas Rant folks. But since ‘Tis the Season, let’s put our differences aside, join hands, think of warm fireplaces and candlelight. Let’s end the year with smiles, song and dance. Here’s a apropos Christmas song, from the lovely Ms. Nancy Sinatra, picked especially for our esteemed adversaries. Merry xmas, haha!

From the Be-There-or-Be-A-Quad-Sided-Polygon Dept! Los Angeles, December 1st. 2011. A place and time you do not want to miss this year. Citrix Systems and RES Software are getting together to throw the largest UserGroup event yet! There’s be presentations, exhibitions, live demo’s, geekspeaks, and a whole bunch of other interesting stuff to see and experience. RES Software is the platinum sponsor of the event, and your’s truly will be there with my cool colleagues to present, demo, answer all your RES questions and smoke cigars! :-)

Last I heard over 500 folks have already registered, so better hurry and sign up! For more information and itinerary, see Rick’s posting on the LA Citrix blog. For registration, go here.

From the Why-do-I-even-bother-with-these-fools Dept. Since the beginning of the week, several partners emailed me to ask if I’d seen a posting by some marketing dude over at the usual suspects. Lately they’ve been vying so hard for my attention, that it would be a shame not to humor our regular readers with a proper rebuttal – especially when one can pull the pants of said stuffed marketing suit in one swift article. Gareth, I don’t know who you are mate, and I frankly couldn’t care less. But you gave me a total Jon Stewart Moment when I read your article. So, sit back, take a deep breath and enjoy…

So let’s get this mess straightened out: According to our boy Gareth Kitson on his blog here, I am supposed to have copied the design for the RESguru top banner from his company AppSense, and I quote; “the below graphic is what was created for [...] Strata in mid-2009“. End quote. That they created their own so far unexplained eyesore on www.whatisstrata.com in mid 2009 is probably true. The funny thing is that the page after 2½ years at present, still doesn’t tell you a darn thing! It’s just a lame logo! I’m however glad that Gareth is relatively precise about the time AppSense made it. While I do appreciate your reasoning that there’s no reason to let the truth get in the way of a good story, I hope you don’t mind me asking dear Gareth: How exactly did that happen, when RESguru.com went live in the beginning of that year? What’s that? You require evidence? Okay:

• Exhibit A: RESguru.com domain reg. Dec 16th 2008
• Exhibit B: First article posted. Jan 3rd 2009.
• Exhibit C: Date of creation for our Histats counter. Jan 21st 2009.

Gareth, sorry it took a little while to get back to you, as I’m quite busy these days taking business from you. I can hardly wait however for you to apply your stunning marketing powers of logical deduction to explain this temporal paradox. If it involves a Flux Capacitor and a Delorean, I’m all ears. However, in the meantime allow me to assist: You just got yourself caught red-handed in a blatant lie! Are we to believe anything else you have to say? I sincerely doubt that.

In regards to the graphics, in case anyone should still be vaguely interested, the RESguru banner was just a free stock WordPress theme. Gareth, may I suggest you go whine at the creators at BlogChemistry instead if you don’t like it. When RES changed their corp colors, I just recolored the banner to match. We got over the blues and whites a while back, ya know. Speaking of whites, the cold wet sensation you’re feeling sliding down the side of your face right now, may likely be of poultry origin.

By the way, I couldn’t help notice all comments previously posted over on your article have disappeared, except for the obvious kissass. Did someone say something you didn’t like Gareth? Well don’t worry about it matey, because RESguru’s comments section below is always open for business, even for you and Appdetec…, sorry – I meant Harry. Oh, by the way – just in case your posted article should happen to get mysteriously redacted or even completely vanish, I’ve taken the liberty to save a nice PDF copy of the original it, just for the lulz of our readers.

I’m sure that as we speak, you and Harry are probably are refueling your little Fudmobile, angling for another round of sissyslapping. Rest assured, while I’d love to smack you both into the floorboards over and over again (figuratively speaking of course), for all the crap you spread about my employer and the other vendors – I don’t have time for that right now. Moan all you want, but I’ve said my piece. I’ve got loads of partners to train who are fed up with your lies, so adios chicas.

Update Dec 16th: Okay, okay…so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to fire another salvo in the general direction of these posers, just for the fun of it. Speaking of fun: Here’s a little xmas present from all of RESguru to all of you. Click on the package here on the right to download. Merry Xmas! Ho ho ho!

From the Community Hero dept. My good friend Sylvester de Koster over at CDG in England has taken the time to go through the new SR2 release of the RES Workspace Manager in a new article on the CDG blog. He covers the new additions to the console interface, the new Configuration Wizards, and the new embedded online tutorial videos. Go have a look at the article here.

From the Alliance Partner dept. Wednesday last week, together with a handful of good colleagues, I had the pleasure of presenting for about 300 SE’s at Citrix ServTech 2011 in Santa Clara, California. This is an internal event which Citrix does every year, to update their own folks on the latest and greatest. As a Citrix Ready Leadership partner, RES Software was invited to show off our stuff and explain how we can help Citrix’s field engineers speed up XenApp/XenDesktop Proof-of-Concepts installations. As the whole notion of profile management is a moot point at that stage,  I explained how Automation Manager can roll out an entire Xenapp farm straight from a consultant’s own laptop and showed as an example how our Automation Manager can roll out hotfixes in a matter of minutes. Here’s a few snaps we took during the event (click to enlarge):

Overall it was a great day. Presentations and demo went well, feedback was great, and the ensuing Pool & Cigar party at the Hyatt was awesome! BTW: Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any better,  the CTO of a certain UK based competitor, made his way out of the building as we walked in. Seeing us, the look on his face was priceless! ;-)

Anyway, to make sure this article still holds technical relevance, I’m sharing the actual Building Block for RES Automation Manager that I built during the live demo at ServTech. As mentioned above, this buildingblock installs all current XenApp 6 hotfixes, valid as of August 10th 2011. The list was based on the CTX129229 KB article. I’ve pimped the module a bit with some nice commentary since then, but besides that it’s the very same block:

Click the brick to download the AM BuildingBlock (60MB, faster mirror here)

Note: To the Citrix SE’s who are reading this: Just go to the RES Download page and grab a copy of Automation Manager (you’ll need to enter a few details, but you’ll get the package immediately) Before you install it, you will need a database server. In case you’re not running a server OS on your laptop, consider MySQL or SQL Express.

Finally I want to send thanks to all our friends over at Citrix Systems for hosting us. I look forward to training with you soon! Be sure also to check the good Mr. Donahue’s article on the RES Blog, for more impressions, pictures etc.

Today, I have an exciting new online tool to announce to you. RES Customers and partners can now try RES VDX in an free cloud-based test environment . This online testdrive site allows users to evaluate the capabilities of RES Virtual Desktop Extender with their own computer as a remote desktop client. If you are new to the whole VDX thing, go have a look at this article. In order to try it, a couple of things are needed:

• On the testdrive landing page you’ll need to enter your contact details. An email with a link will be sent to the address you provide.
• You need IE6 for this service (Sorry, it seems the launch interface from Runaware.com does not support FireFox or Chrome at the moment)
• If you don’t have it already, install the Citrix ICA Client plugin.
• Last but not least, install the VDX client plugin. Both plugins are available for download on the demo page also.

In essence with this testdrive option, users can try RES VDX, allowing users to evaluate the product in a sandbox environment in the cloud. This makes evaluating our software faster and easier. I’m told that if this online test drive is successful, we will create online test drives for our other products as well, so be sure to give the good folks of Product Management some good feedback on this! Once you’re logged in, follow the onsite tutorial instructions to take VDX for a spin.

The registration form for the Online Test Drive can be found here. Enjoy!

From the selfstudy dept. Last week RES Software opened up a brand new website, RES Online Learning, which will help you both get started with RES technology. The site consists of A LOT of video material that will let you learn in more detail how to wrangle both the RES Workspace Manager and RES Automation Manager. All the videos are posted on a dedicated YouTube channel, but I highly recommend using the Online Learning website, where you can track your own progress as you work through the material. As of now there are 60+ videos to chomp through. The site is free to use and can be found at tutorials.ressoftware.com.