Author: Bas van Kaam

Father of three, EMEA Field CTO @ Nerdio, Author of the book Van de Basis tot aan Meester in de Cloud, Co-author of the book Project Byte-Sized and Yuthor of the book: Inside Citrix – The FlexCast Management Architecture, over 500 blog posts and multiple (ultimate) cheat sheets/e-books. Public speaker, sport enthusiast: above-average runner, 3 x burpee-mile finisher and a former semiprofessional snooker player. IT community participant and initiator of the AVD User group Community world wide.

@XDtipster – Linux VDA setup on CentOS 6.6 Pt.1

Average time to read: 10 minutes

Mick1 With the Linux VDA set to drop very shortly as part of the XenApp & XenDesktop 7.6 FP2 release. It seems like a good time to share the high level, yet detailed, set-up process I followed when successfully carrying out internal testing. Taken from various sources including the tech preview RHEL install guide, my colleague Lee Bushen’s detailed SLED based lab set-up guide and a tonne of Google searches and read-through’s, I hope this collection of posts can save people some time and be used and referenced as one of the definitive Linux VDA setup guides for CentOS 6.6.

Continue reading @XDtipster – Linux VDA setup on CentOS 6.6 Pt.1

How to: Upgrading and configuring StoreFront 3.0 – The Unified Experience!

Average time to read: 6 minutes

During the last couple of weeks I have been testing several StoreFront / Receiver features. Relatively simple things like single sign-on for Receiver, working with multiple stores, hiding applications and/or desktops from StoreFront (Store) using PowerShell etc. things like that. At first I started out with the Tech Previews of the X1 Receiver and StoreFront 3.0, which worked ok, but I couldn’t do everything I wanted. When I reverted back to the (back then) latest Receiver build things were again fine and I could continue testing.

Continue reading How to: Upgrading and configuring StoreFront 3.0 – The Unified Experience!

HP Moonshot revisited. Well… by me anyway

Average time to read: 12 minutes

During the last year or so I have had my eye on the HP Moonshot platform. I followed what other community members had to say about it, how HP marketed the product and of course the announced partnership between HP and Citrix, introducing the Workspace Pod series at Summit not that long ago. I was rather skeptic, and I guess I still am. On the other hand, I also acknowledge that times are changing and that, if the use case fits, HP Moonshot might be a valuable solution, it just depends.

Continue reading HP Moonshot revisited. Well… by me anyway

How to: Get up to speed with Windows Azure. Deploying your personal test lab, fast!

Average time to read: 15 minutes

During the last couple of weekends I have been playing with Microsoft Azure. Once I was up to speed with the basics and concepts involved I was surprised how easy it was to set up a small test lab environment. Without using any automated setup and/or configuration scripts, it only took me a few hours to set up a fully functional test environment including Active Directory, DNS, a Certificate Authority, a XenApp/XenDesktop/Director Site, StoreFront/Receiver, Control-up and a few in place policies. Best of all, during the first 32 days it’s completely free of charge, at least for the first 150 euros. And I can tell you; those 150 can get you a long way if spend wisely. Make sure to check my 20+ takeaways and lessons learned near the end.

Continue reading How to: Get up to speed with Windows Azure. Deploying your personal test lab, fast!

E2EVC… The one in Berlin. Presenting on FMA Power Management!

Average time to read: 3 minutes

Today (13-06-2015) Mick (Glover) and I will present on FMA Power management here at the E2EVC conference in Berlin. If you are in the audience, we would like to thank you very much for attending and hopefully you’ll like what we have to tell and show you. On a more personal note I’d like to thank my co-presenter Mick for taking the time, not only here in Berlin, but also leading up to the event while preparing our slides and content, I know how crazy busy you guys are over at Citrix, thanks Mick. We also have a small community announcement coming up, the FMA Internals Co-op. Read on to learn more.

Continue reading E2EVC… The one in Berlin. Presenting on FMA Power Management!

Introducing the FMA Internals Co-op

Average time to read: 2 minutes

As of today, Saturday the 13^th of June 2015, Mick Glover and I are proud to present the FMA Internals Co-op. A co-operation between a seasoned Citrix veteran and an established community blogger and Citrix enthusiast. Which is sort of a unique combination as far as we know.

Continue reading Introducing the FMA Internals Co-op

Ask not what the community can do for you, ask what you can do for the community!

Average time to read: 8 minutes

Now that Synergy has come and gone it’s time to reflect. Don’t worry; I won’t list all announcements, products, technologies etc. that has been done many times over and I think that by now most of you know about the Workspace Cloud, Octoblu, and the renewed love for XenApp etc. to name just a few. I also don’t want to talk about the Keynote(s), this has been chewed on and spit out more times than I can count, which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. The more the merrier, since we can all benefit from positive as well as negative comments and/or feedback one way or the other. And of course we are all entitled to our opinion.

Continue reading Ask not what the community can do for you, ask what you can do for the community!

Citrix IMA vs. FMA… XenDesktop components and terminology cheat sheet

Average time to read: 2 minutes

This post is meant to provide you with a quick comparison, a cheat sheet if you will, between the two architectures. As you all (should) know by now, with the introduction of XenDesktop 7.x XenApp became part of the Flexcast Management Architecture, or FMA in short, and with this came certain terminology and conceptual changes. Here I would like to show you how each former 6.5 (IMA) XenApp component has its equivalent in the FMA world. Although technically there are some differences, on the functional side of things there is not much between them. To be clear, I’m not focusing on features that are in IMA and (still) not in FMA.

Continue reading Citrix IMA vs. FMA… XenDesktop components and terminology cheat sheet

Citrix Synergy 2015, here’s what to expect. Or not.

Average time to read: 7 minutes

Next week I will be in Orlando attending my first ever Citrix Synergy and as you can imagine there’s a lot to be excited about and look forward to. To name a few… there will be dozens of technical deep dive and Geek Speak sessions, meeting up with community friends, getting to know new people, the Keynote, new and (hopefully) surprising product announcements, dinner parties, other parties :) the welcome reception, TechEdge, the closing appreciation party in the Universal Studio’s etc. And besides all that I also have my very own Match.Geek sessions to look forward to (exiting stuff). Yes, I think it’s safe to say that we will all have a great time in Orlando, once again. Like many others, I have my expectations and hopes on what will be announced at Synergy this year, so without further ado I’ll list them here.

Continue reading Citrix Synergy 2015, here’s what to expect. Or not.

Being a Nutanix (NTC) Technology Champion… What is it all about?

Average time to read: 5 minutes

Being a Nutanix Technology Champion, NTC in short, is something special. Let me, throughout this post, try and provide you with some insights on what to expect once you’re ‘in’, so to speak. Although I can’t compare it to any of the other ‘programs’ out there, since this is the first time my efforts got recognized in such a way, I’m confident that they’re doing a more than decent job in keeping their community members up to speed with all that is going on within the company and everything that surrounds it.

Continue reading Being a Nutanix (NTC) Technology Champion… What is it all about?