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BriForum 2013 London DEMO Lab videos are posted!

Justin Meisinger — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

At BriForum London this year, I walked around with a video camera recording booth demos with each of our sponsors. Those videos can be accessed below by clicking on the sponsor logoor by browsing through all of our videos at www.brianmadden.com/videos.

Lakeside Software DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:41:00 GMT

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David Taylor, Partner & Relationship Manager, Lakeside Software

NVIDIA DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:40:00 GMT

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Milan Diebel, Senior Product Manager, GRID, NVIDIA

Oracle DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:39:00 GMT

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Jon Knight, Senior Sales Consultant, Oracle

PureStorage DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:37:00 GMT

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Mark Lewis, Product Marketing Director, PureStorage

RES Software DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:36:00 GMT

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Grant Tiller, Senior Product Manager, RES Software

Splunk DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:34:00 GMT

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Jason Conger, Solutions Architect, Splunk

Streamcore DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:33:00 GMT

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Christophe Peretou, VP Operations, Streamcore

Symantec DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:31:00 GMT

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Joseph Carson, Senior Manager Product Management, Symantec

Xangati DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:29:00 GMT

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Ben Vaux, Director - Systems Engineering, Xangati

Nutanix DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:28:00 GMT

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Rob Tribe, Regional Systems Engineering Manager, Nutanix

IGEL DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:25:00 GMT

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Ainsley Brooks, Sales Director, UK, IGEL Technology

Flexera DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:23:00 GMT

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James Baker, Senior Solutions Engineer, Flexera Software

Atlantis DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:20:00 GMT

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Jim Moyle, Lead Solutions Consultant, Atlantis Computing

AppSense DEMO Lab Video, from BriForum 2013 London

Justin Meisinger — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:13:00 GMT

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Gary McAllister, Pre-Sales Consultant, AppSense

Did you miss BriForum 2013 London? Check out this "State of the Industry" keynote video

Brian Madden — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:25:00 GMT

As you're hopefully aware, BriForum 2013 London is taking place this week. I kicked off the conference yesterday morning with a 20-minute "State of the Industry" keynote presentation. Check out it:

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Basically I explained our evolving view of desktop virtualization, covering the two big changes of the past year that enable VDI to be used in many more scenarios than the past. (This is also covered in the evolution from last year's VDI Delusion book to our new VDI Reality book.)

Announcing the second edition of The VDI Delusion: "The New VDI Reality"

Brian Madden — Thu, 16 May 2013 04:03:00 GMT

Big news from BriForum 2013 London, which kicks off today! It’s been a little over a year since Gabe, Jack, and I published the first edition of our book, The VDI Delusion . While we're incredibly proud of that book, in hindsight we're not sure if we picked the best title. Calling it The VDI Delusion scared many people away as they thought it was a book about VDI haters and that we were anti-VDI. (And with a title like that, who could blame them?) Of course VDI had been talked up by so many...(read more)

VMware is releasing Horizon Mobile Android virtualization, and your phone might be capable of running it today!

Jack Madden — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:00:00 GMT

Today VMware announced that Horizon Mobile for Android, their dual-persona mobile virtualization product, is finally available on two phones from Verizon (the LG Intuition and the Motorola RAZR M). We’ve been waiting for this release for a long time, so today’s announcement feels important. However, there still some interesting surprises that could change the way we think about Horizon Mobile.

Horizon Mobile for Android consists of a guest virtual machine that separates corporate apps and data from personal apps and data on the host. If you’re not familiar with it, you can read these articles to get up to speed:

And of course today, Horizon Mobile for Android is finally being released.

The problem with mobile virtualization is that it requires a specially-modified version of Android to act as the host—it won’t work on just any Android device. With VMware Horizon Mobile, there’s a kernel module that lies latent in the host until it’s activated by installing an app from VMware. Users login and connect the app (called VMware Switch and available in Google Play) to their corporate environment, and then IT can provision and manage a work VM with appropriate apps and policies.

What’s new with today’s announcement is that Verizon is installing the kernel module as part of over-the-air operating system updates. In fact, the two phones that were announced today—the LG Intuition and the Motorola RAZR M—already had the update with VMware’s kernel module pushed to them about a month ago. So if you have one of these phones, it already works with Horizon Mobile!

Verizon has plans to push the update to more existing phone models in the coming months. This means that VMware Horizon Mobile will be available on a larger number of devices than we previously thought. The old assumption was that this would only be available on new phones, so this is kind of a big deal.

How big? Verizon may be the largest cell phone carrier in the US, but as we’ve known all along, when it comes to mobile virtualization, we still have to deal with fragmentation in some form or another. In this case, Horizon mobile won’t be available on phones from other carriers, and VMware didn’t mention anything about tablets, either. Compare that to other vendors’ dual persona mobile app management products, which can work across a much wider range of devices from different carriers. Right now all VMware has for these other Android devices is the Horizon Workspace app and an email client.

For sure today’s announcement is a huge win, and I don’t want to take anything away from that, but we’re still left wondering if VMware is going to go full-on into mobile app management for Android, like it intends to do for iOS.

Still, this is an exciting time. There was a trial release of Horizon Mobile for Android starting last December in Japan, but now after talking about and debating this product for nearly five years, we finally can get our hands on it and see what happens.

VDI is still about trade-offs. The difference is that in 2013, you can pick which ones.

Brian Madden — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:28:00 GMT

Blog posting on BrianMadden.com might be a bit light this week as we scramble to put the final touches on our BriForum 2013 London conference which takes place this Thursday and Friday in London. (If you haven't registered yet and like to attend, you still can .) But much like yesterday's post , I've got a bunch of little ideas that I'm interested in getting out there, so I figured this week is a good week for them. What I'm interested in today is that idea that thanks to the recent improvements...(read more)

Two reasons why User Installed Apps don't matter anymore

Brian Madden — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:33:00 GMT

It's been awhile since we've talked about User Installed Apps (UIA) on the site. But with the news (rumor?) that AppSense is stopping development on their StrataApps UIA project , I'm starting to wonder if UIA even matters anymore? No, actually we've been wondering this a lot. I think I'm ready to say that UIA doesn't matter anymore. (By UIA, I'm talking about some kind of dynamic run-time app packaging environment that could automatically encapsulate Windows apps that users install when they're...(read more)

BriForum 2012 London session video: App-V and User State Virtualisation: How They Work Together

BriForum Video — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

If you are designing a modern dynamic desktop, you are probably considering application virtualisation. Using application virtualisation not only decouples the application installation, but also decouples the user state for those applications that are virtualised. But what about user's data and settings that are not virtualised using App-V? This presentation will explain the details on how App-V decouples the user state and discuss what the design considerations are. It will also delve into the details around user state virtualisation and how to use it in conjunction with App-V to create a fully dynamic desktop environment. This session will contain multiple technical deep-dive demonstrations. Also, since a public beta of App-V 5.0 has been available for several weeks, attendees will also learn about the changes in App-V 5 and how to approach an upgrade to the full release when it is available.

BriForum is our independent Desktop Virtualization and Enterprise Mobility conference, held in both London and Chicago. Registration for both shows is currently open. The price to attend the two day London show is currently £895. The three-day BriForum Chicago is currently accepting registrations at the Super Early Bird price of $1295 through April 26, after which the price will rise to $1495 until June 14 before ultimately going up to $1595. We're very proud of these shows, and as you can see in the video below, we have some amazing speakers and topics!

Presented by Rodney Medina

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This video was previously recorded at last year's BriForum London.

BriForum 2012 London session video: Branch Repeater and Other WAN Accelerators for Desktop Virtualisation

BriForum Video — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

In this session, Vincent Branger will discuss the need for WAN optimization for virtual desktops. Attendees will learn about potential benefits and challenges of WAN optimization, including the main features such as TCP optimizations, caching/indexation/deduplication, protocols, and more.

Vincent will also delve into the different vendors in the space and what makes them different, and answer common questions about vendor products, such as: Is Riverbed the best for desktop virtualization? Is Silverpeak the main challenger? Is Citrix Branch Repeater a unique solution? What about the others? Specific topics also include:

Caveats and the best methodologies
Branch repeater internal architecture and architectures best practices
Multistream ICA and BR
How to manage high availability and how to prioritize
QoS and VPX
Independent test performances and a full user-case

Presented by Vincent Branger

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This video was previously recorded at last year's BriForum London.

The return of the Start menu? Word is spreading that Microsoft is set to give in on Windows 8 and stop shoving tablet features down the throat of desktops

Gabe Knuth — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:03:00 GMT

Word that Windows 8 isn't selling well is probably only surprising to the people that have bought Windows 8 devices so far, because in enterprises around the world the OS has barely gotten any attention other than by the same tortured souls that tried to run Vista. Many sources this week have made mention of the fact that, due to especially lackluster sales, Microsoft may dial back the radical "features" of Windows 8 to make it more broadly acceptable and boost sales. This is, in large part, to boost consumer sales in the PC and laptop sectors that are losing market share to tablets, but it should also bolster enterprise adoption.

According to The Guardian, PC sales have dropped 14% this quarter, despite Microsoft touting how they've sold 100 million copies of the OS. Of course, the majority of those licenses have no doubt gone to unassuming consumers or to enterprises that are immediately downgrading them to Windows 7. Microsoft and, more specifically, former Windows head Steven Sinofsky are catching the blame for the decline of PC sales, and that may not be too far out of line.

What can we expect if Windows 8 executes what Financial Times is calling a "U-Turn?" (or what others have likened to New Coke)? I've written before that Windows 8 is, at its core, still Windows. It's managed the same way as past versions, and it can run all the same applications. Frankly, without Metro and other visual changes, it's probably not much more than a huge service pack for Windows 7. There has been some evidence, however, that Microsoft has re-worked the file system performance such that using Windows 8 in VDI environments allows for better performance and/or higher density. The bottom line: If Microsoft "fixes" Windows 8 and makes it more like the old days, enterprises would probably deploy it by the pallet (or VDI host).

All of this talk, by the way, is coming from a separate vector than the talk of Windows "Blue," which is the codename for the forthcoming update to Windows 8. They could be related, but most of the talk of Blue was centered on killing off the desktop mode entirely. Based on this information, the opposite might be true. It seems like conflicting reports on what Microsoft is up to is the only thing we can ever really count anymore.

So what's likely to change if these latest rumblings prove correct? First and foremost, I wouldn't expect much, if anything to change on tablet-only devices. If Windows 8 was designed with anything in mind, it was for that specific use case (touch-based, with some legacy Windows apps). In fact, Windows 8 in that situation is rather pleasant to use. The problem, as Dan Shappir put so well on twitter, is that it wasn't made for a 24" monitor on your desk.

@gabeknuth also, I actually really like Metro on Surface (WinRT). The mistake IMO is forcing the same interface on desktop with 24" monitor
— Dan Shappir (@DanShappir) May 8, 2013

To accommodate those 24" monitors on desktops (and regular laptops, for that matter), expect to see the Start menu come back. It's the least Microsoft could do to soften the blow. It should be a configurable option, though–perhaps even automatically set based on device type. Tablets would get Metro, Desktops would get the traditional interface, and laptops/convertibles could have an easily accesible option to toggle between the two.

The Start menu isn't the only frustrating aspect of Windows 8, though. The way Metro (or TileWorld, or the Windows 8 interface) integrates with the desktop side of the OS is atrocious. Microsoft can do a lot to either wall one off from the other or to integrate them together in a more intuitive way. IE favorites could persist between modes, for instance, and opening a PDF in the desktop should open a viewer on the desktop instead of in Metro. If something does cross modes to execute, there should be a trail of breadcrumbs to return the user to where they started rather than leaving them stranded in unfamiliar territory.

The search functionality in Metro is actually pretty cool once you realize that it's context-aware. When you're in an application and start searching for something that should be in the control panel, it takes a moment to realize what is going on. I'm an IT guy, and this still frustrates me. Imagine an end user trying to navigate that minefield.

While we're at it, it would be nice to see some education on the gestures, or the ability to use them as a shortcut while giving people something to actually click on to do the same task. Closing applications, switching between them, and docking them in areas of the Metro screen could also use some attention. Solutions could be placing an X back in the corner, and some sort of layout/dashboard feature that let's you see all the apps and arrange them however you'd like.

I'm sure there are many more solutions that people can come up with (even more sweeping things like a different OS for tablets altogether). The important thing is that it appears Microsoft is ready to atone for the problems they've created. Of course, our bellyaching isn't what caused it so much as the aftershocks that continue to rattle throughout the PC industry, but we'll take it any way we can get it. They may have a way to go to win back consumers, especially those that have tried to get to Windows 8 and have a bad taste in their mouth. If I were Microsoft, I might even consider calling it Windows 9 to get away from the bad connotations surrounding 8. For enterprises, though, this could be just the thing to keep Microsoft and Windows in the discussion for a longer period of time.

BriForum 2012 London session video: Exploring the Secrets of RemoteFX

BriForum Video — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

What's the difference between RDP and RemoteFX? What is RemoteFX best suited for? In RemoteFX for Windows 8, Microsoft evolved codecs, progressive rendering, optimized text codecs, media remoting and more. But what is Microsoft's remoting protocol REALLY good for now? What are the similarities and what are the differences between RemoteFX on one side and HDX and PCoIP on the other? Attend this session and learn from remote desktop expert Benny Tritsch if RemoteFX is a killer or not.

Presented by Benny Tritsch

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This video was previously recorded at last year's BriForum London.

Will the next versions of Android and iOS solve today’s EMM challenges?

Jack Madden — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:03:00 GMT

Google IO is next week, and Apple WWDC is next month, which means that we’ll soon be learning about all the new features in the next versions of Android and iOS. Today I’m going throw around some ideas about how changes in each of these platforms could impact the enterprise mobility management world.

It’s around this time that bloggers love to tons of wish lists for new features and try to predict what’s in store. So bear with me here... I’ll just say that what follows is going to be pretty speculative.

Today’s Android and iOS challenges

Last week I wrote about the journey that Android and iOS both took, and how they went from being completely unmanageable to having respectable MDM capabilities. However, if you’ve been around around the enterprise mobility management space, you know that’s old news. The real problem is that modern mobile OSes provide lots of ways for apps to share (or leak!) data with each other. As a result, the challenge now is to figure out how to manage and secure corporate apps and data separately from personal apps and data (I use the term “dual persona” for this).

There are a number of ways to accommodate dual persona, but the emerging favorite is mobile application management (MAM). MAM faces some challenges, including how to get all of the apps you need to work with the system, but I believe this problem is being solved.

However, with new versions of Android and iOS due soon, it’s natural to wonder what changes might be coming that could make it easier to deal with dual persona issues. I’ll look at the platforms individually.

iOS

What could iOS do to enable dual persona, or at least make it easier for EMM vendors to do so? This is a question that I think about a lot, and there are a few ideas that come up:

First, iOS could add “secure” or “private” versions of common sharing frameworks, such as an extra contacts API that only the corporate Exchange account and other managed apps could use, a secure document handling framework, and a way so that only certain apps use the VPN, and secure clipboard, and on and on and on...

Soon enough you realize that this gets really complicated really fast! Would this work on older hardware? Who knows? Do you have to build apps that specifically ask for access to the extra set of frameworks? Or could you use configuration profiles to whitelist whatever apps you want? There are a million questions, and this all seems like it would be such a drastic change that Apple would never go for it.

How about approaching it from the other direction? What if configuration profiles could have more options to restrict access to data that’s associated with corporate Exchange accounts. This is more along the lines of the controls that Apple has been adding gradually, so maybe it’s more feasible.

And then there’s another completely different direction that Apple could go in—they could loosen restrictions around the behavior of third-party apps. Right now one of the biggest issue with using MAM to get dual persona is that third-party email apps aren’t allowed to download messages in the background. If Apple were to relax this rule, that would eliminate one of the biggest drawback of third-party mail clients. There’s a history of this type of change, too. In the early days of the App Store, Apple didn’t allow any apps that duplicated the functionality of built-in apps, but today we have lots of options that can easily take their place.

Android

Android is a completely different story. Remember from last week’s article that Android is built around the idea that management features are left up to device manufacturers to do on their own. To that end Samsung KNOX and all of the mobile virtualization vendors have versions of Android with dual persona frameworks already built into the OS.

Because the core version of Android only includes very basic management features, I have very little expectation that revolutionary dual persona features will show up in the next version. But what if something did happen? It still wouldn’t be a big of a deal because we would still have to deal with fragmentation and the fact that most of the devices out there wouldn’t have the new features. MAM would still remain as the best way to achieve dual persona across a wide variety of different versions of Android.

How will this impact the EMM?

Keeping in mind the danger of making predictions, I’m going to say overall that there’s very little that could happen in upcoming OS updates that could have a significant impact on how we deal with dual persona issues. In addition, regardless of what happens with the new OSes, here’s why I think MAM will continue to grow and be strong:

Android fragmentation. Enough said.
Even if dual-persona capabilities are built into devices, you’ll still need to provide apps to do anything beyond email and browsing.
If iOS background processes are opened up, then there will be that much more demand for MAM.
A lot of people don’t want to worry about the device and just manage apps—the fact that dual-persona frameworks would be built into the device would be insignificant.

Stay tuned!

We’ll hear about Android next week, but the bigger news will likely be iOS 7 in June. While I don’t think it will turn the EMM world upside-down, each iOS release has had something in it for the enterprise, so there will be something to talk about.