The Road to BriForum

BriForum 09 session: Decreasing VDI login times

2009-06-12T13:00:00Z

Each day leading up to BriForum 2009 Chicago, we're going to feature one or two sessions here on BrianMadden.com. The presenters will be paying attention, so this is your opportunity to make your voice heard ahead of time and offer suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in each session.

For more information about BriForum or to register, check out BriForum.com.

Presenters:

Michael Thomason, Chief Technical Architect, Emory Healthcare

Session Description:

Are your users complaining about your VDI login times being way too slow? Are your logon problems only getting worse? Attendees of this session will learn first hand best practices from Michael Thomason, Chief Technical Architect for Emory Healthcare for decreasing VDI login times. Many of you have attended Michael's many sessions on decreasing Terminal Services logon times... this session will concentrate more on VDI logon times with an analysis of best practices for VDI logins of client operating systems such as Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

If you have any comments or suggestions for Michael, post them below. Your input could shape the session!

BriForum 09 session: A complete application and desktop delivery solutions overview

2009-06-12T12:57:00Z

Presenters:

Ruben Spruijt, Solutions Architect, PQR

Session Description:

With a wide range of application and desktop delivery solutions available, determining which solution can best accommodate your requirements and desires is no simple matter. In this session Ruben Spruijt presents a completely vendor independent overview of all of the current and upcoming application and desktop delivery solutions.

Topics included:

Server hosted VDI
Server hosted VDI GPU Accelerated
Terminal Services
OS Provisioning
Application Streaming and Virtualization
Local Desktop/Laptop
Web Application and Acceleration
BladePC
Display Protocols
Connection Brokers

If you have any comments or suggestions for Ruben, post them below. Your input could shape the session!

BriForum 09 session: Citrix Provisioning Server strategies: From high availability to throughput and reliability - how to survive demanding customers

2009-06-11T04:00:00Z

Presenters:

Thorsten Rood, Principal Architect, Net.workers Corporation

Session Description:

With the world moving towards dynamic data centers, many reasons exist for using Provisioning Server to deploy your XenApp workload. In some environments, this is easily accomplished with a straightforward implementation without too much thought or experience, but when your company or client requires baseline metrics based on service-level agreements, enterprise dependencies, throughput limits, or use density, things can get quite complicated. Since Citrix Provisioning Server relies on I/O strategies, proper system sizing and deep implementation design are crucial aspects to the success of the project from an end-user, systems administration, and management perspective.

This session with Thorsten Rood is about the high availability and write-cache strategies for CPS in enterprise environments. These strategies are based on business needs, and you’ll be able to use them to measure the performance of your environment and ensure your project’s overall success. Thorsten will also cover how to customize applications at boot time and how to ensure XenApp application publishing remains bullet-proof and reliable when your server footprint is dynamic and the workload is unpredictable.

If you have any comments or suggestions for Thorsten, post them below. Your input could shape the session!

BriForum 09 session: Cloud computing -- what does it mean to me?

2009-06-11T04:00:00Z

Presenters:

Charlton Barreto, Platform Architect and Technology Strategist, Intel

Session Description:

There is much discussion about Cloud Computing, yet given the breadth of architectures and technologies that are part of Cloud, it is unclear to many what it can do for them, and how to quickly deploy and scale their applications, platforms and infrastructure. In this session, Charlton Barreto, Platform Architect and Technology Strategist will discuss what the Cloud offers to users, developers, IT and the business. Also explored in this session:

How you can strategize for Cloud Computing
The three principal models that are represented by Cloud Computing and the scenarios that they address
What you can do to get started with Cloud Computing
How to ramp up your Cloud Computing knowledge quickly

If you have any comments or suggestions for Charlton, post them below. Your input could shape the session!

BriForum 09 session: Behind the scenes: Mastering user profiles in Terminal Server and virtual desktop environments

2009-06-10T04:00:00Z

Presenters:

Benny Tritsch, CTO, Immidio, and
Shawn Bass, Independent Consultant; Citrix Technology Professional

Session Description:

When you talk about user profiles, you touch a very emotional aspect of people’s experience when interacting with Windows; it’s about individual workspaces, each one reflecting its owner’s personality. As an IT professional, you had better not try to reduce workspace flexibility, or your users will make your working life harder every day. Once upon a time, when you only needed to deal with one desktop and one profile per user, things were relatively simple. But now, with remote desktops and applications delivered through ubiquitous terminal servers and the advent of virtual desktop infrastructures, we are facing a very different situation. Using a spectrum of applications from multiple desktops, with each desktop optimized for dedicated tasks, seems to be the new user paradigm both in enterprise and in home environments. If you are being challenged to support such a scenario, than you need to learn some tactical strategies and best practices on how to deal with multiple profiles per user. From dividing and merging user settings on various Windows versions to central profile management and situation-specific adaptation, this session will introduce you to the secrets of what they call “user profile virtualization.”

If you have any comments or suggestions for Benny or Shawn, post them below. Your input could shape the session!

BriForum 09 session: Behind the scenes: Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services exposed

2009-06-10T04:00:00Z

Presenters:

Benny Tritsch, CTO, Immidio

Session Description:

As an IT professional responsible for remote desktop services and remote application delivery, you need to dig beneath the surface if you really want to understand how the technology works. So let’s go on a journey right down to the core.

This session introduces you to details about the system components required for remote sessions and RemoteApp programs. Learn how the negotiation sequence with the server works when a remote desktop client connects. Get in-depth information on application compatibility, in particular about Microsoft Remote Data Services (RDS) installation and execution modes, their impact on file system and registry, and changes introduced with Windows Server 2008 R2. Discover how to modify system settings in order to fine-tune user experience and remote desktop performance.

Comprehensive demonstrations and comparisons will help you to improve your technical and professional skills in mastering the Windows Server 2008 R2 remote desktop services platform.

If you have any comments or suggestions for Benny, post them below. Your input could shape the session!

BriForum 09 session: App-V: sequencing and deploying using MSI and Active Upgrade

2009-06-09T04:00:00Z

Presenters:

Tim Mangan, Founder, TMurgent

Session Description:

A recent survey of Network Operations Personnel by Network World revealed that over 39% of their time is taken up dealing with applications, as opposed to servers, WAN, security and storage. Application virtualization reduces application issues by eliminating application conflict and allowing for easier centralized deployment, management, and compliance.

In this session, Tim Mangan, using Microsoft App-V to prepare an application for the simplest form of application virtualization deployment without back-end streaming servers, will demonstrate how he customizes the deployment such that the applications can be upgraded without loss of user personalization.

If you have any comments or suggestions for Tim or the audience, please post them below.

BriForum 09 session: The all-new, totally redone Windows 2008 R2 logon process chart

2009-06-08T16:51:00Z

Presenters:

Kevin Goodman, CEO, RTO Software
Brian Madden, Blogger
Gabe Knuth, Blogger

Session Description:

This is the all new, totally revamped logon process chart for Windows 2008 R2. In this session, Brian Madden and Kevin Goodman document the steps of a logon to a Windows 2008 R2 Server all the way from a successful credentials negotiation to the displaying of a published application (RemoteApp). Each step will be described in detail, including how virtual channels, user profiles, and user sessions are initialized. The chart has been totally redone and is in an easier to read format. Even if you've seen previous charts, you must attend this session.

Feedback needed from the community:

These "logon chart" sessions have evolved to become some of the all-time most popular content from BriForum. We created the original chart way back in 2006, and then in subsequent years we simply modified the existing chart to include the latest versions of the software. (Here's one of our older charts...)

The problem with our current layout is that this Visio diagram is so complex that even simple changes require a lot of time as we "untangle" everything.

Then a few months ago, I came across this cool "vertical-only" flowchart on Mint.com explaining how deflation works. I thought this format work well for our logon charts, and Kevin and Brian agreed. It will allow us to add running commentary throughout the processa and should be fairly easy for us to modify as the charts grow and evolve over time.

For the BriForum 2009 chart, we're thinking that we'll focus just on pure Windows Remote Desktop using a seamless RemoteApp. Then we can add third-party components for future versions of the chart, or even make entirely new charts for the various VDI-based solutions out there.

So for the Windows 2008 R2 remote desktop chart, is there anything specific that you'd like to see? What can we do to make this chart (and this session) most useful to you?

Potential BriForum 2009 Chicago dates: Does July 22-24 work?

2008-09-03T15:38:41Z

We're trying to nail down the dates for BriForum 2009. As we've written in the past, finding a venue / date combination is much more complex than we'd like it to be. Most feedback we received was that Chicago and The Navy Pier were great locations this year, so we're going to plan on sticking with the same venue for next year....(read more)

BriForum 2008 Chicago will be the global BriForum this year

2008-04-25T08:44:24Z

We decided that we're not going to have a separate BriForum conference in Europe anymore. It's just too much work for our little four-person company. BriForum is such an awesome event that takes so much energy and so much time, and we realized it's just not realistic for us to do two each year....(read more)

40 BriForum 2008 Chicago sessions announced

2008-04-18T09:57:21Z

Today, we're officially announcing the first batch of sessions that we'll have as part of our sixth BriForum in Chicago from June 16-18. (We'll have 60 sessions total. I still have to work out some more details with a few presenters, which is why we're only looking at 40 sessions so far.) We've never had separate "tracks" per se at BriForum, since this was a narrowly-focused conference that centered on Citrix and Terminal Services. Over the years we've slowly evolved...(read more)

Help us choose the sessions for BriForum 2008 Chicago

2008-04-11T03:01:11Z

As you know, BriForum has been and always will be a community event. Each year we invite anyone and everyone to submit abstracts for the technical breakout sessions, and then we choose the 40 or 50 sessions that we'll present. (Actually, it might be a bit fewer this year because we're increasing the session length to 75 minutes. But we'll still have four separate rooms going at the same time.) Our "call for papers" deadline was April 1. We committed to announcing the full session...(read more)

BriForum 2008 Chicago: Session Submissions due tomorrow

2008-03-31T03:51:03Z

Do you want to speak at BriForum 2008 at the Chicago Navy Pier from June 16-18? If so, please submit your session proposal by midnight tomorrow (April 1). We've received proposals from about 50 different folks so far covering well over 100 sessions. Many of the expected names are on the list, but like in years past, we're looking forward to hearing from first-time presenters as well. As always, if we accept your proposal, we'll pay for your BriForum admissions as well as your airfare...(read more)

Save the date: BriForum 2008 Amsterdam will be November 5-7 [UPDATED]

2008-03-28T06:51:34Z

We finally nailed down the dates for BriForum Europe 2008. It will be November 5-7, 2008 (Wed-Fri) in the same location as last year: The NEMO Science Center in Amsterdam. We'll announce full details in a few weeks when we launch the new BriForum website....(read more)

Our plans for recording videos at BriForum 2008 Chicago

2008-02-22T06:54:53Z

In today's Road to BriForum article, we're going to take a quick look at the various technology voodoo that we use to run the actual BriForum conference. Ever since the very first BriForum in 2005, we've recorded the breakout sessions so that attendees could watch the sessions later, and so that non-attendees could buy DVDs of the content. We've slowly improved our video quality over the years, culminating with our current side-by-side Flash-based video player. One thing that has...(read more)