That’s the way RES rolls!

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.

Citrix and RES Software at Synergy 2011

Well folks, the weekend is upon us and it’s about that time we head out west to take part in next week’s Citrix Synergy 2011 in San Fransisco. From the perspective of RES, this time I can promise you one heck of a show, as we’re going to be more RES people than ever, with even more cool technology to show off. We’re sure as going to be making a big splash at this event on several fronts and be more visible than ever! Make sure you bookmark the official RES event page. There have been many posts and tweets about this event, so with this article it’s my humble ambition to serve up the good stuff in one place. Let’s have a closer look at what’s going on:

Read more »

Two new RESguru technotes

From the we-work-harder-so-you-don’t-have-to dept. My esteemed co-authors Patrick Kaak and Sascha Maier have produced a couple of new articles, which you may find interesting. Patrick has reworked another blog article he found, which compares different profile manager technologies, while Sacha has created an article that describes how you can first-time set up the correct initial keyboard for users in an international organization. This article also includes a buildingblock. Have a look at the articles in the Technote Library below:

<<< RG038 – Differences between profile managers

<<< RG039 – Mapping the right keyboard to the right people

RES Software takes roadshow to 37.000ft

From the Eiffel Sales dept. In a bold move to spread global awareness of Workspace Automation, RES Software today annouced the purchase of a brand new custom designed Boeing 747-400, which has been completely retrofitted to meet the needs of an agile and dynamic salesforce. The aircraft was unveiled at the christening ceremony today in Hangar 18 at Philadelphia International Airport, which will be the new home of RESforce-1 as the aircraft is now formally designated.

To accommodate every conceivable corporate activity on board, RESforce-1 is equipped for fitting interchangeable modules, ranging from multiple conference rooms, a 5-star restaurant and sushi bar, 2 cocktail bars and stay-over facilities for 50+ VIP guests. Riding on the wings of RES Software will indeed be a one-of-a-kind experience as the aircraft is also able to maintain zero-G for up to 4 minutes at a time when the interior is refitted for this experience. Convenient covers for your drinks will be issued before takeoff. Sources close to RES Software indicate that “Even Austin Powers would be green with envy to own this baby”

The aircraft is also fitted with several classified countermeasures, including Anti-FUD systems allowing the flight crew to automatically target and disable incoming false claims and half-baked assumptions.

Making sense of Subscribers, Extenders and VDX

From the Confucius dept. In the RES product portfolio you may have come across terms and names such as Subscriber, Subscriber Agent, Workspace Extender etc. and wonder what the heck it all means. While I’ve done my best to document these products and components in the RESpedia, it is time to set the record straight and give you a shortcut to the big picture. Through this article, it is my ambition to give you an easy overview of what each of these items are, and understand the differences. You will find a brief history of the products that eventually led to the development of the VDX product…

Read more »

3 Great reasons to visit RES Software at MMS

From the What-Happens-In-Vegas Dept. Microsoft Management Summit in sunny Las Vegas is coming up in March, 21st through 25th. If you’re stateside this is a must-attend event, where you will have the opportunity to learn from the experts and see what’s new in the realm of all things Microsoft. Again this year, RES Software, a Microsoft Gold Partner, is exhibiting and presenting System Center integration and VDX at MMS. Here’s a handful of great reasons why you should stop by booth #415 or one of our presentations/labs and see what’s going on… Read more »

All About the RES Portals

From the spells & portals dept. A new technote RG31 describes how you gain access to the RES Portals and what you can do there. Not only will this information become handy in your initial engagement with RES Software, but may perhaps also serve as a grounds for comparison when making you decision on what workspace management technology you will be using in the future. Always compare not only products, but also the underlying support infrastructure of the vendor, as that’s what you may be dealing with on a rainy day if something doesn’t work as expected.

Note: As a prerequisite, I recommend you to read article RG030 on how to install and activate RES product licences.

<<< Click here to read article RG031

WM2010 SP3 Released

From the servicepack department. SR3 for Workspace Manager 2010 has just been released yesterday, December 22nd 2010. Merry Xmas! If you btw are wondering why the console still says PowerFuse, the product is effectively going to change name in the console from the 2011 release. Aside from the usual rollup of all previous updatepacks into this release, there are also several improvements worthwhile looking into. In all there are 100+ enhancements and fixes in this release. Among the most interesting things are:

• MyWorkspace Edition expanded. Yay! That means more bang for the buck, more functionality in this version of the RES Workspace Manager. You can now do FolderSync, ODBC Datasources,  use Instant Reports and use the WebPortal.
• Location and Devices support for additional resolutions. Workspace Manager now detects these additional resolutions: 1280×800, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1600×900 and 1680×1050. Now all I could wish for would be a field to specify custom resolutions, but hey – all good things come to those who wait :)
• Printers can now be refreshed when network changes. This is very cool for location based printing. Imagine you roam through a campus and when you hit a given Access Point or plug into the wall somewhere, you automagically get the network printers available around you without having to logout/login or even manually refresh.
• User Settings Prefetch. This is a setting which allows you to tweak when User Settings for an application are loaded. You can choose between prefetching in background or load on application startup. See the releasenotes below for details.
• Limit selection of wallpapers to approved list. It is now possible to configure Workspace Manager to only allow selection of a set of pre-aproved wallpapers. This is great for companies that want to on one hand to allow users some degree of flexibility, yet want to maintain a corporate look and feel for their desktops, being local, virtual or remote.

To obtain the SR3 ServicePack, just go to the support portal and log in with your SA account. There are several more enhancements and a multitude of fixes, which are described in the release notes. You can download these right here: 

New techote: Guide to PowerFuse registry settings

From the technote department. A new article RG02B has been posted to the Technote Library. This is a massive guide built from scratch, containing info on known registry settings which can be used to tweak the behavior of RES PowerFuse. The article currently has 35+ interesting settings which have been discovered reading through tonnes of documentation, releasenotes and the backs of cereal boxes. As more registry settings are discovered, they will be added to this reference document.

Click here to read the article

PowerFuse 2010 – It’s ALIVE!

From the Hot-off-the-press dept. Finally Febuary 16th has arrived and it’s ReleaseDay! PowerFuse 2010 RC2 is now available on the portal for download for existing customers. There are tonnes of new improvements which you can read all about in the releasenotes. While you are at it, go check out the updated Glossary which now contains definitions of all the new technology.

Initially, may I direct your attention to the Corp. Website where you can download alot of PowerFuse 2010 info already. Scroll down to the end of this page and you will find them.

For those already working the RC1, the major deltas are that the [+] PlusMenu now is implemented for the Workspace Model node and Active Directory Sites are now supported as a new PowerZ… erm Location Rule. The new rule looks like shown here on the right.

Over the next couple of months, expect to see many more feature related articles describing how you can put the new features of RES PowerFuse to work for YOU!

Oh, and feel free to download the ReleaseNotes here :