About two weeks ago I wrote (slides included) about my talk at the Dutch Citrix User Group (DuCUG) where I presented about troubleshooting the FMA. I also mentioned that when we do have to deal with CTX Support, and note that I’m not trying to sound negative here, we need to understand what to do when we are asked to inventory our Sites or to (CDF) trace certain components / modules for example. I also went into a bit more detail regarding CDF traces and the accompanying modules and trace messages that come with it, including some of the steps we can take to interpreted the collected data ourselves. That’s what I’d like to discuss in this (short) two part series as well, let’s have a closer look at Scout, CDF tracing / control, some of the FMA services (PortICA) etc… I’ll start out with some of the basics and take it from there.
The (final) results are in! Project Virtual Reality Check 2015.
If, by skimming the title, you’re not sure what I am talking about here, which I doubt to be honest, than you need to check out this website first before continuing. Just a few hours ago I received the final results of this years Project VRC and I can tell that there are some interesting and useful facts in there. The beauty of it though, at least that’s how feel, is that it’s all a 100% authentic. With that I mean that all information recorded in the survey is provided by you, the all-round, real deal, no nonsense, hard core, customer focused, he (or she) who only sees solutions and eats problems for breakfast – IT professional! Does it get any better then this? No Really? But wait, let’s stay focussed here, I am allowed to publish two results, so without further ado…
Citrix buried VDI-in-a-Box and the Sanbolic acquisition… My thoughts.
Citrix killed VDI-in-a-Box! I got the news from Techtarget.com this morning, although I believe VIAB was already dead and buried over a year ago, so no real surprises there. It has been stated that some of the Citrix products, including VIAB, will be eliminated as part of the recently announced reorganisation. Unfortunately at the same time 700 full time employees and around 200 contractors will loose their jobs as well, of course one hasn’t got anything to do with the other. Citrix also says that some of the products will re-enter their portfolio build-in or as part of an existing or upcoming stack. Some think that the newly introduced WorkspacePod solution will play a role in this. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what they come up with next.
Want to know what’s trending with VDI & SBC? Current and future insights!
You might have heard about something called Project VRC, or Project Virtual Reality Check, in full. The results of this independent and truly unique survey will provide us with many new insights into the usage of desktop virtualization and related technologies around the world. Last year over 1300 people participated, you can download the full 2013 / 2014 report here, and this year we (Ruben Spruijt en Jeroen van de Kamp) would like to repeat this survey to see how our industry has changed and to take a look at the future of VDI and SBC in 2015. To give you an idea on how they are doing, I’ve summarized the results up till now (also published on Twitter). Some interesting results so far, still over two weeks to go though.
Time to participate in the Project VRC “State of the VDI and SBC union 2015” survey
The independent R&D project ‘Virtual Reality Check’ (VRC) (www.projectvrc.com) was started in early 2009 by Ruben Spruijt (@rspruijt) and Jeroen van de Kamp (@thejeroen) and focuses on research in the desktop and application virtualization market. Several white papers with Login VSI (www.loginvsi.com) test results were published about the performance and best practices of different hypervisors, Microsoft Office versions, application virtualization solutions, Windows Operating Systems in server hosted desktop solutions and the impact of antivirus.
LoginVSI advanced performance & scalability testing. What’s new with version 4.1?!
If you recall, and I think you do, last week I published an article / guide, named: The ultimate IOPS cheat sheet, which, I’m glad to report, was an instant success! For those of you who might have missed it you’ll find it here. Throughout the article / guide I talk about what IOPS are, how and why they impact overall performance, how they can be measured and (a lot) more. However, as you’re probable well aware, there is more to it then ‘just’ IOPS and the underlying disk subsystem when it comes to measuring or validating (benchmarking) overall performance with regards to our VDI and or HSD orientated architectures. Although they (IOPS) do make up a large piece of the puzzle, we also have to deal with CPU, memory, networking and more.
Installing and configuring Citrix XenDesktop on the Nutanix computing platform!
Have you checked out the ‘Citrix XenDesktop on Nutanix’ reference architecture solution design document?! No? You should! The Citrix Validated Solution (CVS) provides prescriptive guidance for these components including design, configuration and deployment settings thereby allowing customers to quickly deploy a desktop virtualization solution using Citrix XenDesktop. Validation was performed by extensive testing using Login VSI to simulate real-world workloads and determine optimal configuration for the integration of components that make up the overall solution. Everything in the solution document has been installed, configured, tested and verified by the Citrix Consulting APAC team. Can’t wait? Scroll down!
Breaking! Nutanix Announces Global Agreement with Dell!
Heads up! Just a few moments ago Nutanix announced their global agreement with Dell computing! They have signed an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement with Dell to offer a new family of converged infrastructure appliances based on Nutanix Web-Scale technology. Soon Dell will launch a new series of XC, Web-Scale based appliances, which will consist out of various Dell Poweredge servers with the Nutanix software installed on top. A very powerful and innovative combination which allows datacenters of any size to adopt Web-Scale technology as their own.
Planning your next XenDesktop deployment? Have a look at Citrix Project Accelerator
Have you ever used the Citrix project Accelerator? No? You should! At least have a look and see what you make of it, so did I. Currently there are over 12.500 projects (active and closed) known by Project Accelerator, I’ll get to the how and why in a minute. According to the release notes it has been online and available in beta since December 2012, but I assume they’re only referring to the (upgraded) XenDesktop 7.1 version, right?! For those of you unknown with the concept, I’ll try and explain what it’s about and how it’s done.
Last week Nutanix opened their Dutch HQ and I was there, here are my thoughts.
Last week, Wednesday the 19th of February 2014 to be exact, I was invited for the ‘grand’ opening of the new Dutch Nutanix headquarters in Hoofddorp, near Amsterdam. Before the partner reception took off and everybody arrived we had a private get together which lasted around an hour and a half or so. Of course I wasn’t alone, a group of 10 to 12 technicians, bloggers and pre-sales engineers (Nutanix employees excluded) gathered to hear what Dheeraj Pandey (founder and CEO), Howard Ting (Vice President of product and marketing) and Mark Fisher (senior director, demand generation marketing) had to say. It turned out to be a very interesting and informative conversation.