A couple of months ago, in June I wrote about some of the benefits that Tricerat brings to the table when printing from remote, or Cloud-based virtual environments, which, of course, applies to WVD as well. Now that Windows Virtual Desktop has gone GA I thought I’d talk a bit more on how this works from a technical point of view.
Continue ReadingA big step forward for Windows Virtual Desktop printing. Part one
Last month I (virtually) sat down with Andrew Parlette, CTO of Tricerat. We’ve been in contact before and I was wondering if they have anything special up their sleeve regarding the upcoming Windows Virtual Desktop release. As it turns out, their Simplify Print Suite fits in very nicely. Of course, if you know their product stack this doesn’t come as a surprise.
Continue Reading49 facts listed – What I picked up during a WVD Solution Design Workshop
Last week I drove to Microsoft HQ NL, which takes me about 15 to 20 minutes to attend a Solution Design Workshop specifically aimed at WVD. After a formal kickoff (and coffee, of course), the group was split into a technical and business/sales orientated track. Needles to say I joined the technical track. Here’s what I’ve learned. I’m pretty sure there’s some stuff in here you didn’t know already.
Continue ReadingCombine WVD, IaaS RDS, on-prem RDS to scale, protect & migrate
In this blog post I’d like to focus on various services and solutions regarding WVD as well as ‘plain’ RDS, on-premises, within Azure, and a combination of the two. In short, we’ll look at: On-prem and Azure RDS -> Disaster Recovery & Migrating On-prem RDS to Azure RDS -> Migrate Azure RDS to WVD
Continue ReadingThe Windows Virtual Desktop – what we know so far. 83 facts listed
Throughout the last couple of months a lot has been said (and shown) about and around the Windows Virtual Desktop, so much that I thought a summary would be in place. Do note that I’m relying on what’s publicly available or what I’ve picked up from hearsay. In case of the latter I will make note of it. Updated per 25-03-2019 after my visit to Microsoft Ignite On Tour in Amsterdam where multiple announcements have been made. All facts have been verified by a PM of the WVD / RDS team.
Continue ReadingTransitioning to the Windows Virtual Desktop using Liquidware solutions
A couple of months ago I wrote about how Liquidware and Microsoft’s WVD (Windows Virtual Desktop) are better together, read more here. Today I’d like to talk a bit on how Liquidware solutions help in transitioning to the new WVD offering, including the on boarding process as well as continues management and monitoring once in production.
Continue ReadingFocus on Citrix (or VMware, or Microsoft) – not printing!
Average time to read: 6 minutesI’ve always had a big interest in printing. It’s something I have written about and presented on extensively in the past. Throughout the years I have had my fair share of failure when it comes to printing in Citrix/RDSH/VDI based environments (who hasn’t?) so I decided to dig in a bit deeper. Not too long ago I got introduced to Tricerat, a very simple, yet effective and efficient solution when it comes to taking care of all things print related within Citrix environments, or any other type of environment, for that matter. Throughout this post I’d like to share with you how they simplify print management and let you, the IT Administrator, focus on Citrix – not printing!
XenDesktop 7.x internals continued… The Server VDA in more detail.
Average time to read: 3 minutesAlthough the new FMA based Server VDA has been built from the ground up it still has a lot of similarities when compared to the ‘old’ ICA protocol stack deployed with XenApp 6.5 and earlier versions. However, unlike XenApp, the VDA (Virtual Delivery Agent) directly communicates with the Delivery Controller, it does this through the Broker Agent, basically the same way as we are used to with the desktop VDA (PortICA).
XenDesktop Single User Server VDI
Average time to read: 9 minutes
Using the Server VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) feature in XenDesktop 7 allows you to deliver a desktop from a server Operating System for a single user on a one to one basis. Now if you’re not quite sure what to make of this think back to Amazon’s big DaaS announcement just a few weeks ago. Remember how they got away with true one on one VDI based machines in the cloud? We all know that client based Operating System VDI’s aren’t allowed due to Microsoft’s, still limited, licensing structure, so how did they manage to get around this? Well, using the Server VDI feature is one way of doing it. I’ll try and provide you with, not only information on the Server VDI feature itself, but some general background information as well.
DaaS has grown up… Has it?
Average time to read: 8 minutesAmazon WorkSpaces. Fully managed desktop computing service in the cloud. Amazon WorkSpaces allows customers to easily provision cloud-based desktops that allow end-users to access the documents, applications and resources they need with the device of their choice, including laptops, iPad, Kindle Fire, or Android tablets. As stated by Amazon. However, when we look under the hood, it’s still good old Windows Server 2008 R2 (with a Windows 7 user experience) serving us our desktops. Old news, is it?