Original Blogs on BrianMadden.com Blog | BrianMadden.com

In our latest master level training class on Microsoft App-V 4.5 in Boston last week, Christopher Cawvey asked a question that lead us down an unexpected path; through it we may have discovered a new way to deploy virtual applications to terminal servers...

I love the name XenApp. I didn't at first. My gut reaction was that this was a hasty marketing name change by Citrix. But once I got over the shock of change (the shock that would come with any name change), I whole-heartily agree with Citrix that the new name makes much more sense than the old name....

In January, Provision Networks (now part of Quest Software) scored big time when Jeff Pitsch and Patrick Rouse, two well-known Citrix CTPs (and past BriForum presenters) joined the company. Provision has just scored again, this time with another two guys who are well-known to the community....

Provision Networks offers a product suite that competes with several of Citrix's products. For years Provision has operated in relative obscurity, but in November 2007 they were purchased by Quest Software. Now all that's left is to get the word out, and they're doing that in a big way. On January 1, Jeff Pitsch and Patrick Rouse, two very high-profile independent Citrix and Terminal Server experts joined Provision / Quest as employees....

The concept of the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has become trendy in the past few months. In this article, Ron Oglesby looks at what can realistically be done today, and what we need from vendors to make this a real solution moving forward. He also explorers the parallels between VDI and server-based computing....

At the WinHEC conference yesterday, Microsoft announced that they are planning to acquire Softricity. The press release was light on details, so I spoke to people from Microsoft and Citrix about this announcement. In this article, we'll look at what's included in the deal and what this means to the industry....

I've been thinking a lot about Longhorn Terminal Services and the future of Citrix recently, and I found myself wondering what would happen if Citrix stopped working on ICA and just went with RDP....

In this article, John Ferrel will show you how he used Python, Perl, and MRTG to create a script that builds a graph of active session usage on his Citrix server throughout the day. This is done without using the enterprise version of Citrix....

A lot of vendors have been talking about the future of virtualization. Ron Oglesby is not impressed. In this editorial, he paints a picture for how he sees virtualization in the next 2-3 years. The impact or the changes that he suggests could be as major as virtualization itself....

Now that fat client PCs are so cheap and manageable, is there a future for thin client devices? In this editorial, Michel Roth explores this issues by looking at the "traditional" advantages of thin client devices and whether those still apply in today's world of $300 Dell PCs....

Quest Software has acquired Provision Networks. Provision's "Virtual Access Suite" is one of the lesser-known, yet very cool, products that competed with Citrix in the application delivery and desktop virtualization space. What will this mean to Citrix?...

The "three musketeers" of the Citrix support forum (Stefan, Jeff, and Thomas) have compiled this list of the 20 most frequent misconceptions that people have about Citrix MetaFrame and Microsoft Terminal Server....

Ron Oglesby, Scott Herold, and I are working on a new book called "VMWare ESX Server: Advanced Technical Design Guide." Even though this book won't be out until April 2005, we decided to provide a free chapter today....

This technical article explores how applications and the application installation process uses the registry in Terminal Server environments. We'll look at install mode, execute mode, and the oft-overlooked Terminal Server shadow key registry area....

Yesterday VMware released the much-awaited update to their VDI product, VDM2. This is a complete VDI solution, packaging VI3, a desktop broker, and the management tools you need to have a turnkey VDI solution. How will it fare against Citrix, Microsoft, and Provision Networks in the market?...