Articles In Virtualization

By Timothy Karl, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

Microsoft Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines chat, audio calling, video conferencing, file storage, and application integration. It is a replacement for Skype for Business, which will reach end of life in July 2021. It comes with a company's Office 365 subscription, depending on your licensing plan, and can integrate with non-Microsoft products. The following Office 365 subscription licensing plans enable users for Teams: Image via Microsoft. By hosting Micros... read more.

• December 23, 2019

By Brian Wagner, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

Microsoft has officially released their Desktop as a Service (DaaS) offering, dubbed Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD). There are some standout features of WVD, and as someone who’s been helping customers deliver Windows desktops and applications for 20 years, I feel a strong market momentum behind this offering. Microsoft is making WVD very attractive, starting with a unique multi-session version of Windows 10 which is only available in Azure through this offering and continuing with extended support for... read more.

• October 01, 2019

By Timothy Karl, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

As of August 2018, the Citrix Workspace app has replaced Citrix Receiver. The Citrix Workspace app securely aggregates all of your applications and data, whether on-premises or in the cloud, from any device into a single unified app. Below is a sample screenshot of the Workspace app: In order to take full advantage of the Workspace app, it needs to be integrated with the Workspace service which is a fundamental component of Citrix Cloud. The service is responsible for aggregating and delivering all of yo... read more.

• June 21, 2019

By Hank Smith, Posted in Virtualization

In a paradoxical way, giving workers more applications to aid in productivity has made them less productive. Inundated by too many apps with too many features, workers are stuck switching between various full-scale enterprise applications to get their day to day tasks accomplished. Citrix is attempting to bring productivity back with the new, intelligent Citrix Workspace. Citrix Workspace has existed as a cloud-only product for over a year, providing access to virtual apps, virtual desktops, and files. Ci... read more.

• June 19, 2019

By Brian Wagner, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

To follow up on my previous blog about the Cloud First world we live in, I thought it would be helpful to highlight an area where the cloud offers a great AND low cost solution for Citrix disaster recovery. The costs of having workloads in the cloud are typically the largest obstacle for our customers to start the journey to the cloud. Citrix teamed up with Microsoft to deliver an option that reduces cost for production workloads and almost eliminates cost for disaster recovery. How does it work? The cost... read more.

• May 08, 2019

By Brian Wagner, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

I remember when Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server edition was released, and the integrated capability of having more than one user access a server at a time was born. Sure, Citrix had created this already with WinFrame on Windows NT 3.51, but Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server edition brought the functionality to the native operating system. We take this for granted now, with every administrator of a Windows server environment heavily relying on RDP for their day-to-day jobs. But it was an exciting time. But the... read more.

• May 08, 2019

By Brian Wagner, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

Overview Citrix acquired Unidesk in early 2017, and quickly integrated the App Layering technology into the stack. This included the ability to separate and individually manage layers for the OS, Platform Tools, and Applications. Applications can be baked in to the final image (template) or mounted elastically on demand based on user provisioning. Here is an overview diagram from Citrix: The ability to support User Layers has been in the “Labs” (previews of potential functionality for futur... read more.

• October 16, 2018

By Hank Smith, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

Citrix Cloud is a cloud-based platform, residing in Microsoft Azure, used to deploy and manage Citrix products, desktops, and applications. It manages public, private, and hybrid cloud-based Citrix environments, as well as on-premises implementations. Here are just a few of the numerous reasons to consider moving to a cloud-based management solution for your Citrix environment. Stay up-to-date on the latest version of Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp seamlessly. Upgrades can be costly, time consuming, and disru... read more.

• June 28, 2018

By Timothy Karl, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

As our customers renewed their Citrix licensing this past year, some have seen SD-WAN in their list of available licenses. A question I often get asked is what is this SD-WAN license and how did I use it? There are two components to Citrix NetScaler SD-WAN: WAN Optimization and Virtual WAN.   WAN Optimization has been a part of the Citrix product portfolio for years, since the acquisition of Orbital Data in 2006. It is basically a network optimization device that provides QoS functionality. The tec... read more.

• December 21, 2017

By Ken Phelan, Posted in AppDev, Infrastructure, Security, Storage, Virtualization

Recently back from AWS:ReInvent, I’m still processing all the data. AWS is Amazon’s Web Services. Amazon is currently hosting 3 times more cloud services than their closest competitor (Azure), making them the 800 pound gorilla of cloud computing. AWS:ReInvent is the trade event they recently held in Las Vegas. Writing a blog helps me process, so here’s my blog about the show. Thanks for helping me process. First of all, ReInvent is huge. Content was being delivered in three different hote... read more.

• December 05, 2017