Define Tomorrow Podcast - Workspace Panel Discussion

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In this episode of the Define Tomorrow Podcast recorded for Define Tomorrow 2020., I am joined by four big names from the EUC community.

We discuss everything important to the modern workspace including

  • What does the term workspace actually mean?

  • What workspace trends are we seeing at the moment?

  • Our top tips for workspace architects looking to move their workspace into the modern world

  • What role does Windows play in the workspace of the future?

As well as other topics.

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Day 2 VLOG from IGEL #DISRUPT

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Day 2 VLOG from IGEL #DISRUPT

Today was our second and final day at IGEL DISRUPT. Today was focusing all around the industry, what challenges people are facing, what technology they are seeing enter the market and ultimately what technology they think will be leading and interesting in 2019.

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Certificate Authentication for Horizon View Access with UAG

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Certificate Authentication for Horizon View Access with UAG

Unified Access Gateway (formally Access Point) is used to secure external access for a Horizon View.  There are numerous advantages over using Security Servers, which are still supported, noticeably the lower resources required to run and the removal of the necessity to pair with a dedicated security server.  Not to mention the lack of Windows!  In a multi-site environment with redundancy that is a significant reduction in deployed resource.

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VMware UEM Troubleshooting

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VMware UEM Troubleshooting

UEM has pretty decent in-built logging which can and should be used to initially troubleshoot both slow logon and application launch times.  As it crops up for me relatively frequently I thought I would do a video running through some of the processes I use.

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Slow Windows Logon? Enable Verbose Messages

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Slow Windows Logon? Enable Verbose Messages

Slow Logons can be a real pain.  I am in the business of trying to create as fantastic a user experience as possible, so a 2 minute logon is not a good start, especially if we are talking about a non-persistent VDI environment where every logon is an initial logon!

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How to enable Session Collaboration in VMware Horizon 7.4

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How to enable Session Collaboration in VMware Horizon 7.4

In a previous post I talked about the new session collaboration feature in VMware Horizon 7.4 and this post looks at how to enable this feature.

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Migrating to Windows 10 and more with Liquidware (@Liquidware)

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Migrating to Windows 10 and more with Liquidware (@Liquidware)

At our annual conference 'Define Tomorrow' I met with Peter von Oven of Liquidware to discuss how their product set was helping meet and exceed these demands. Liquidware have a comprehensive suite of tools that help with three key stages of any workspace transformation project. 

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NVIDIA Grid Update at VMworld 2017 Barcelona

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NVIDIA Grid Update at VMworld 2017 Barcelona

We talk to Jason Southern and Luke Wignall of NVIDIA at VMworld 2017 in Barcelona. They discuss the latest updates to the NVIDIA GRID product range including the new P40 card that uses the latest pascal chipset. NVIDIA also demonstrate the technology in action including a preview of vMotion for vGPU based workloads. 

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Converting a PC to a Thin Client with the IGEL UDC3

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Converting a PC to a Thin Client with the IGEL UDC3

There are many reasons you may decide to convert an existing PC or Laptop into an IGEL thin client and indeed probably an equal number of ways on how to achieve this

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The worlds smallest thin client review - The IGEL UD Pocket

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The worlds smallest thin client review - The IGEL UD Pocket

The guys at IGEL were nice enough to send me an IGEL UD Pocket recently for me to evaluate, the UD pocket is a bootable USB thin client that can be used to turn any X86 hardware into a thin client. I have been using the UD Pocket for the last month and have recorded a video with my thoughts and experiences of the device. 

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Top 5 Tips for View VDI Deployment

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Top 5 Tips for View VDI Deployment

In order to achieve a successful VDI deployment, there are numerous factors to take into consideration, I have picked a few below around some of the technical aspects that are important to get right. 

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NVIDIA GRID Technology Overview and #GRIDdays Discussion

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NVIDIA GRID Technology Overview and #GRIDdays Discussion

Barry Coombs from ComputerWorld caught up with Jason Southern (NVIDIA GRID technology evangelist & solution specialist) to discuss his recent trip to their Calfornia HQ for #GRIDdays and also to dig a  deeper into the NVIDIA GRID technology in general starting with the K1 and K2 cards, before focusing on the newer M60 and M6 cards and their integration with VMware Horizon 7 and specifically the Blast Extreme Protocol. 

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NVIDIA GRID Days - Day 2

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NVIDIA GRID Days - Day 2

The second day for GRID Days focused on two main aspects, the first getting deep with the NVIDIA GRID technology with everything from architecture to sizing methodologies and secondly our thoughts around building a community program, what is important to us in community programs and what should it contain.

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nVidia GRID Days - Day 1

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I was lucky enough to be chosen amongst a select few in the end user computing community to attend NVIDIA's California HQ for their GRID days event, the event was going to focus on NVIDIA starting a community program and bring some of the community influencers together to take a deep dive into their technology now and into the future.  

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Atlantis Computing Interview Recorded Live at VMworld 2015

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Barry speaks to David Cumberworth VP of Atlantis Computing in EMEA, we discuss who Atlantis Computing are, what have they been doing and where are they going? David also shares his top for those of you looking to Define Tomorrow for your organisation.

APPVOLS and UEM - a great partnership

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APPVOLS and UEM - a great partnership

I have been recently been working on a project deliver applications with VMware Appvols to View VDI Desktops. User Environment Manager (UEM) is also employed to roam the user preferences and predefined settings for those apps, these technologies are working really well and offer a significant improvement over using ThinApp alone and View Persona Management.

UEM

AppVols

The application capture process with AppVols is fairly straightforward. Below I will give you a basic run though of the process. 

Capturing the App

  •  Provision an Appstack and attach it to a capture VM.

Step One

1.png

Step Two

Step Three

  • Install your applications natively on the capture VM and test that they work.
  • Finish the provisioning and assign to an AD object be it user /group /computer /OU etc.

**As the apps are installed as if natively installed it drastically simplifies the process from some virtualisation/packaging procedures.

Capturing the application settings with UEM

  • Launch the application through the UEM profiler on a UEM capture machine.

  • Set any predefined settings in the app.
  • Save the configuration file(s).
  • Apply the settings as required.
  • This enables the environment to provide the user with their applications and associated settings/preferences that follow them across non-persistent floating VDI sessions.
  • I have set the personalised application settings to load on launch of the app executable so UEM is very efficient by only loading the settings when the app is in use.

UEM also comes with some built in templates for common applications (such as Office and Adobe Reader) saving time with deployment.

The predefined settings are loaded on demand on the first launch of the app and subsequent user changes are then added to the settings files and persist.

I am really impressed with what I have seen so far so stay tuned for some further articles!

Further Reading

 https://blogs.vmware.com/consulting/tag/uem-application-profiler

 https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/appvolumes/vmware-appvolumes-datasheet.pdf

 https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/user-environment-manager/vmware-user-environment-mngr-datasheet.pdf