Search results matching tag 'Microsoft System Center'

Parallels jumps into Mac management via SCCM arena, plus they add hypervisor and VM management

Gabe Knuth — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 04:03:00 GMT

Last week I had a call with Parallels, which was my first briefing with them in quite a while. I'm a Parallels Desktop user on my Mac, but besides that Parallels rarely comes up in the desktop virtualization space outside of that (other than a few "what if" scenarios from time to time). What I learned was that earlier this year they released a product called Parallels Management Suite for Microsoft System Center, the main feature of which is to allow you to manage Mac endpoints via Microsoft SCCM.

The product works by installing an agent on the Mac endpoint that is either deployed manually or via a network discovery install. In the latter scenario, SCCM is directed to discover macs on the network, establish an SSH connection to them with predefined admin credentials, and install the software. After the agent is installed, admins are able to deploy software and scripts, inventory software and hardware, and take advantage of SCCM's native reporting functionality. Many of the tasks available to Windows admins are also available to Mac admins.

The only caveat to application deployments that I was made aware of is that the application must support silent installs. I'm not sure how many applications this eliminates from consideration, but I did confirm that you can package Automator scripts that can be used to automatically install applications that require user interaction.

This sounds great, but it isn't the only product on the market that integrates Macs into SCCM. In fact, it's not even the only product from a vendor in our coverage area. When Dell acquired Quest, they also acquired QMX, which is as close to the same product as possible. There are some key advantages that QMX has at the moment, though. First, QMX can deploy OS images to the endpoints. Second, QMX also features management extensions that support iOS and Android devices. Both of these features are on the road map for Parallels Manage Suite, but are not yet part of the product.

What sets it apart from QMX, though, is the ability to manage the hypervisor component and deploy virtual machines, too. I don't mean to imply that it's not possible for QMX to do this via scripts, but Parallels has specifically added functionality to manage Parallels Desktop Enterprise from SCCM (not the cheaper Parallels Desktop). This includes both managing the hypervisor configuration itself and deploying virtual machines. Parallels Management Suite also adds remote support, which I don't believe is a feature of QMX (although I could be wrong).

Still, the only way to de-provision a virtual machine is with scripts. That, combined with the fact that the management agent must live on the host (so the entire device is managed by SCCM) means that this is probably not a comprehensive BYOC solution yet. Future updates, I hope, will bring the ability to manage the hypervisor on machines that are not domain-joined, like contractor laptops. Parallels doesn't have a Windows client hypervisor product, so it would be welcoming to see that or to some other integration with VMware, VirtualBox, or Client Hyper-V, if only for the sake of VM portability.

Still, it's interesting to see some movement in this space beyond Dell QMX, and I think that centralized management of Macs has value in many organizations, especially when you combine that with centralized management of VMs. Prior to this product, you'd have to have multiple solutions (like MokaFive Suite + QMX), but Parallels is trying to bring it all together into one solution. You can argue that QMX + MokaFive gives you more features, but that also brings added complexity. Don't forget, too, that VMware is making waves in the Mac BYOC/Client Virtualization space with VMware Fusion Pro and Horizon Mirage, so I expect to see some back and forth here.

Parallels Management Suite is available today, and retails for $30/user. It works with System Center 2007 and 2012.

Project VRC's State of the Industry survey results: 32% of VDI is stateless, and over 50% of companies don't use third party UEM. These results and more!

Gabe Knuth — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 07:00:00 GMT

Last year, Project VRC invited people around the world complete an extensive survey that asked them to describe their desktop virtualization environment. 662 people took part in the survey, and since it closed, Project VRC has been busy making sense of the data. That information was made available today, and after looking at it, I want to share some of my observations. There are so many useful data points that I can't talk about it all in one article, so I invite you to visit the Project VRC website and download a copy of the results.

Before I get into the data, I thought I'd share some background on Project VRC. It was started in 2009 as a collaboration between PQR and Login Consultants to develop best practices and collect information on the desktop virtualization space. Ruben Spruijt (@RSpruijt) and Jeroen van de Kamp (@TheJeroen) (of PQR and Login, respectively) are the founders of Project VRC, and, along with a team of like-minded geeks, have compiled and shared much information over the years through white papers, presentations, and community involvement. These guys–and I mean this in the best possible way–are crazy! I don't know when they sleep, or when they stop thinking about desktop virtualization. The end result, though, is some really awesome information. (So thanks, guys!)

On with the data

I took a ridiculous amount of notes when reading the survey, but I can't possible write about them all. It's broken down into many sections, including VDI, SBC, comparing stats between the two, and explaining how Oracle stacked the deck. Well, they didn't say "stacked the deck", I did. Let's just say once Oracle learned about this survey, the number of Oracle responses skyrocketed. This information has been sanitized, and the Oracle numbers in the survey are believed to be accurate. We had the same problem (not with Oracle, though) when we polled our readers for the vendors that we should include in Geek Week, when we had a sudden influx of votes from a single IP address that belonged to Symantec :)

Let's look at some key observations:

Hypervisors

There's no surprise here that VMware makes up the vast majority of hypervisor usage, with vSphere 5, vSphere 4, ESXi, and ESX making up 63% of the responses. Surprisingly, Hyper-V 2 is in use in 9% of organizations, which beat out XenServer's 8% share. They also note that 10% of the organizations are migrating to Hyper-V, which I have to say isn't all that surprising. Microsoft has made many improvements, and has all but declared war on VMware in that arena.

While we don't know the percentage of people migrating away from Hyper-V, the key takeaway here is that while MS was bringing up the rear, they are now the third-place hypervisor, and people are actively migrating towards it.

WAN Optimization

47% of companies have no WAN optimization at all in their environments, which isn't surprising. Those that do are using Citrix, Cisco, and Riverbed, followed by F5 and Juniper. Citrix is the clear favorite there, but with almost half the respondents doing nothing at all, there's a lot of room for growth with regards to the vendors and a lot of room for improvement with regards to the user experience and WAN utilization.

VDI

It's no surprise that XenDesktop has a 44% share of the connection broker space, or that View is second with 27%. What is surprising to me is that Oracle came in at #3 with 13%, beating out Microsoft (6%) and Dell vWorkspace (just 3%). Perhaps this is due to Oracle's marketing efforts (that's the word Project VRC used), but it could also be the loyal following that Oracle VDI has. It will be interesting to see this same statistic next year, which we can use to gauge how Microsoft is doing with RDS in Server 2012 and to see what, if anything, Dell is doing with vWorkspace.

Probably the most interesting aspect of this is that 32% of respondents were using stateless VDI as the primary desktop platform, while another 36% had at least some stateless VDI in their deployments. Those numbers are way out of line with perception, and I can't wait for Project VRC to mine that information more. In the future, they'll slice up the data in other ways to try to get an idea of what's going on. I have personally seen an increase in the use of stateless VDI when I ask the question during the VDI Road Shows that I give, so I'll be curious to see the results.

SBC

Not shockingly, SBC is in widespread use in 85% of respondents organizations. 40% of respondents said that SBC was their primary method of desktop and application delivery, while another 35% said it was in use alongside traditional desktops. Around 2/3 of people said that they use XenApp 5 or 6, followed by Windows Server 2008 R2 with 13%. Oracle and Server 2003 both came in around 4%.

Just over half of the people said that they use Windows Server 2008 R2 x64, while Server 2003 R2 x86 was in second place with 23%. This isn't surprising, since Server 2008 x86 is essentially Vista Server. I don't expect to see that number drop until we get closer to the EOL date for Server 2003, which is July 14, 2015. Until then, we might even see increased use in Server 2003 as a way to extend the life of Windows XP applications past April 8, 2013.

Storage

33% of respondents are using their existing storage for desktops, which we've argued against in the past because desktop I/O is so much different than standard I/O on storage arrays (or even that of server virtualization). It could be that their storage was already optimized for desktops, though, which I imagine would work just fine for everyday use as well. 42% have a dedicated storage solution just for their desktops. The vast majority of them are using well-known vendors. Additionally, of the companies using VDI, almost 3/4 of them are using centralized storage as opposed to local. I wonder if it's possible to mine from the survey the breakdown of stateless/persistent combined with centralized/local storage?

Citrix Provisioning Services beat out VMware Linked Clones, full clones and Citrix MCS for the top method of deploying desktop images.

User Environment Management

The leading method of managing the user environment is simply GPO (35%), followed by custom scripting (18%), then Citrix UPM (14%). RES, AppSense, and VMware View Persona all came in under 10%, while Dell vWorkspace, Liquidware Labs ProfileUnity, VUEM, and Scense were each used in less than 3% of environments. While it doesn't look like there's heavy UEM adoption, there are so many vendors in the space that it can appear that way. The clear favorite among third parties is Citrix UPM, but when you combine it with the shares of all the other solutions, organizations are roughly split down the middle on whether or not they use third party UEM.

Final Thoughts

A common thread throughout the survey is that companies place a high importance on user experience. In fact, the top four "innovation areas" in the survey have to do with User Experience (WAN, mobile performance, unified communications, and rich media). Still products, technologies, or methods that improve the user experience aren't highly used. Almost half of the responses indicated that there is no WAN optimization, and over half of the responses show that companies are simply using GPOs and scripts (although you could argue that people don't see UEM as an innovation area). That can mean one of a few things:

Those are enough and all the users are happy
The users aren't happy but IT doesn't know/isn't willing to fix it
The third party solutions aren't good enough to justify the expense
Awareness of third party solutions is low, or organizations are still just getting the lay of the land

If user experience is truly king, then you would think these solutions would be in more widespread use. I guess there's room for both the vendors and the organizations to grow, and since the key innovation areas called out are more about mobility and connectivity, it appears the public perception of what is needed gels pretty nicely with what we think (hooray!).

There is so much more information in the survey results that I cannot encourage you enough to download it and read it yourself. This article has only looked a comparatively small amount of information. There is detailed stats on SBC, application virtualization, load testing, web applications, storage, networking, server hardware, antivirus, and the vendors associated with each of these aspects of desktop virtualization. You can download the white paper, and check out all the other stuff they do, on ProjectVRC's website. Thanks again to Ruben and Jeroen for all the work they put into this!

MMS 2012 Video: AppSense announces upcoming features around System Center 2012

Jack Madden — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 04:00:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media)

System Center 2012 was released yesterday, and with that AppSense announced new capabilities as well, including integration with System Center Service Manager and Orchestrator.

AppSense Director of Business Development Michael Kleef gave us a quick overview live from the expo hall floor at Microsoft Management Summit 2012 in Las Vegas, about an hour before he published a blog post detailing the announcements.

Four things we're looking out for at MMS next week (plus, tell us what you want us to look for)

Gabe Knuth — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 04:01:00 GMT

As we gear up for MMS (by "we" I mean Jack), we're trying to focus on certain areas of the show, since a lot of it doesn't necessarily apply to desktop virtualization or consumerization. There is a lot going on, and based on the number of emails I've gotten from the press email list, I'd imagine this is a larger show than it was last year. I thought I'd boil down what I'm looking for at MMS to four things, then ask you for what you want us to find. Here goes:

Will Windows 8 be front and center?

Based on the number of Windows 8 (workstation) sessions, I'd say no. There doesn't appear to be anything specifically about Windows 8, Windows on ARM, or Metro. Since this is a management show, maybe that makes sense. Perhaps they're saving up for TechEd (I wonder what Jack is doing June 11-14?). Maybe Microsoft just doesn't see the need for talking about it right now, as people seem content to sit and wait for it to come out before making plans. Frankly, all organizations should have their focus on getting off of Windows XP at this point, without worrying about Windows 8. Still, I'm hoping we can all learn something more about the big Windows 8 picture next week, and maybe have some conversations around WoA, Windows 8, and Metro.

Windows 8 "Server"?

This looks like a pretty hot area, with at least six sessions covering topics like:

Managing Windows Server 8 with Server Manager and PowerShell 3.0
Overview of Server Management Technologies in Windows Server 8
DirectAccess in Windows Server 8: Taking the RemoteAccess Experience to the Future
Windows Server 8 Dynamic Access Control
Using Dynamic Access Control to automatically and centrally secure data in Windows Server "8"
Managing Network Infrastructure with Windows Server "8"

The problem is that none of those really have much to do with desktop virtualization. I'm sure there's some over-arching management functionality talked about, but nothing specific to RDS. Still, things have a way of coming up during the show, and we'll see what happens.

Hyper-V 3

Hyper-V 3 is supposed to be the one that brings Microsoft's virtualization platform in line with ESX, although there's at least one company that will disagree. At MMS, there's only one session about it, titled "Hyper-V Storage and Networking in Windows Server '8'", which seems a little lean given all the expectations. Still, that session (along with the keynotes) may give us something tangible to look at. From the looks of it, organizations are much more poised to use Windows Server "8" than the desktop counterpart out of the gate.

Consumerization and device management

Last year was a big year for Microsoft and consumerization. They announced the ability to support iOS and Android devices in SCCM, and I can only imagine that trend will continue this year. Will they go beyond cross-platform management and into application management? Does Azure fit into new devices at all? The keynote on day 2 (Wednesday, 8:30AM PDT) should reveal Microsoft's vision for mobile devices, and could, in fact, reveal more information about Windows 8 and WoA.

UE-V and App-V 5

Since they were announced last week, UE-V and App-V 5 have been the talk of the tubes, and for good reason. Next week, we'll hopefully get a good look at what's going on and get to talk to people involved with both solutions. There are many vendors there that have an opinion on UE-V, too, so we'll try to get their story as well. Incidentally, we're planning to have Immidio's Rodney Medina on Brian & Gabe Live next Tuesday (April 17) to talk about the impact of UE-V and how they look at it as a company with a competing solution.

For the most part, the Day 2 keynote is the better of two from a desktop virtualization and consumerization perspective, so pay close attention. We'll have write-ups on both BrianMadden.com and ConsumerizeIT.com. The Day 1 keynote will be more about the server side (where we'll look for RDS and Hyper-V 3 info) and cloud-oriented topics. It's good information, but it doesn't cause much of a frenzy for us. Both keynotes will be streamed live over the web, so if you're not attending, you can still watch.

Stay tuned for analysis from Jack (@JackMadden) and myself (@GabeKnuth) as announcements happen and the keynotes are going on. In the meantime, what else do you want us to look out for?

New free tool lets you manage Citrix XenClient with Microsoft SCCM

Jeroen — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:01:00 GMT

Citrix Synergy has started, and after a couple of previews XenClient 2.0 is ready to be officially released. XenClient is maturing and on its way to become an enterprise solution. By design, Citrix offers management of XenClient systems through the XenClient Synchronizer solution. However, the XenClient Synchronizer does not facilitate in the automated bare metal deployment of XenClient onto physical hardware.

Enterprises already have invested heavily a desktop/laptop deployment infrastructure is in place. Many enterprises use Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM or Config Manager) as their primary deployment and management product for desktops and laptops. Requiring enterprises to include an additional/second deployment infrastructure within highly distributed environments for XenClient is not always feasible and realistic.

My colleague Henk Hofs already did a few ‘cool’ articles on how to perform an unattended installation of the XenClient Hypervisor on his blog www.ithastobecool.com. When Henk got in contact with Citrix about this, the idea was born to develop a true Microsoft SCCM 2007 R3 integrated solution for XenClient 2.0.

Together with the XenClient team, Henk developed an add-on for SCCM2007 that allows the deployment of the Citrix XenClient to end-user systems via the well-known task sequencer. With this add-on it is possible to:

Deploy XenClient to end-user systems using the existing SCCM 2007 infrastructure
Pre-create an empty Virtual Machine during installation.
The entire chain from Deploying XenClient to getting the Corporate Image in the VM that runs on XenClient can be made zero-touch through the use of Unknown Computer support in Config Manager.

The Administrators Guide accompanying this download has detailed steps on how to configure your Config Manager environment to enable these scenarios.

To better understand what the ‘XenClient Integration Toolkit for Config Manager’ is all about, review this 5 minute video (no sound):

(Please visit the site to view this media)

This is the first public (beta) release of the ‘XenClient Integration Toolkit for Config Manager’. It converges conventional desktop management solutions like SCCM with the client hypervisor. In the long run, this is in my opinion the only way to go for client hypervisors and essential for true enterprise adaptation. Brian made some interesting comments in this article, to which I agree in many ways. As usual, this download is completely free and can be found here (registration required).

Will layers matter in time to change the desktop management landscape?

appdetective — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 04:01:00 GMT

This post started as a comment on Brian's article titled "MokaFive plans to release 'Layering' as its own product. Nice!" but I think this topic is important enough to warrant a blog post with it's own commentary.

First, I want to say that it is refreshing to see from Brian's post and the ensuing comments that there is a good understanding that Layering and User Virtualization are different focus areas with some overlap. Both are required to enable the layer cake. It's amazing to me based on my interactions and friends' interactions how poorly both VMware and Citrix understand the problem within their product teams (minus a few exceptions). For the most part the product teams that I have interacted with have no clue what's involved in real-world desktop implementations and are led by clueless executives who just pander to customers with generic statements and do nothing.

Case-in-point: we've been talking about the layer cake, stateless desktop, etc. for years, and the leaders in the desktop virtualization have done nothing to enable it except present PowerPoints and marketing statements. I think it's fair to generalize and say that, in effect, neither provides anything in the layering area. Sure they will argue back and say their respective app virtualization solutions are a part of the layer cake. True, but it's really a coward vendor answer avoiding the meat of the problem that needs to be solved. Citrix will then probably go on to argue that they also have that junk lowest common denominator solution that they licensed (or whatever) from Sepago.

VMware is even worse and does nothing for users thanks to RTO. Interesting question here. Is it because RTO sucks or is it because VMware would not agree to a sweet heart deal with Symantec as a condition of the acquisition of RTO? To refresh your memories, Symantec used to distribute RTO as their profile solution. I've heard different theories here, curious if anybody knows the truth. The party line I've heard is that RTO sucks and they found out when they tried it on Windows 7.

I personally smell a rat here. I've never been a fan of RTO, but surely it can't have been that bad? Regardless, it's a huge gap for VMware. Also, I don't see anything in their latest earnings report that show any signs that their desktop revenues are relevant. That means they will not invest in the desktop, which is bad for the industry since it will make Citrix even stronger and slower to innovate than they already are.

As a result, the world will continue to implement desktop virtualization in one of two ways. The first is 1:1 desktops for the VDI model which is expensive and complex. This will however get better over time with greater core density, storage technology, etc... It won't be mainstream for years, though (if not ever). The other alternative is RDS based solutions like XenApp/Quest. These have their own set of limitations as we all know and love :-) If anybody is actually implementing pooled VDI desktops successfully as opposed to RDS I'd love to hear why you do and are willing to spend so much extra money for it.

So where does that leave us? Desktop Virtualization is a niche and will remain that way. The only way to take desktop virtualization mainstream is to enable the layer cake. Microsoft will tell us to make the desktop cheaper with Application virtualization and Systems center, but that is only part of the problem. Application virtualization does not work 100%, is not a standard, and therefore only gets us part of the way there. Systems Center is too big and complex for many people and over priced as a result. That's why I guess MS will use InTune to address simpler use cases.

I'm confident they will screw up both of them because they will approach both from a distributed computing mindset. The whole layering/user virt thing requires a different mindset involving central management and single images. App virtualization is the closet thing MS has, but even that has no pull within MS or developers. What about ecosystem support? How many vendors support or ship their application as an App-V package? Very few. That may change in the future, but the point I am trying to make is that all this has a very long lead time and there is a lot of uncertainly.

The question on my mind is, will layering ever work? We know from history that App-V will never become a platform since it's been around for 10 years and still 100% of apps don't work. The strategy from MS is to make money with it from MDOP and SA in the desktop world as opposed to making it an operating system feature. It may become a migration tool for legacy to Azure, too. With that in mind, what chance does layering have, and does that fit into the MS view of the world? Is System Center ever going to offer layers (since that is Microsoft's only management tool)? I doubt it. Certainly we will see very little of it in Windows 8 based on the leaks I have seen, and who really cares about Windows 9 this decade? By then will layers matter if the world is starting to move beyond Windows (I'll call it "classic" meaning today's model) to cloud something?

It feels to me that the problems will be different. Access to applications, data, settings, etc... (layers as we think about them today) will be relegated to classic Windows only without really addressing the future. So my theory is that layers, while needed, will take years to get right will need to be provided as a FREE feature of View/XenDesktop/vWorkspace etc. Even if that happens, the management requirements will be new and lots of change will happen. Desktop virtualization vendors will have to ask themselves if they now desktop management vendors. I can see VMware saying "Sure, that's part of vSphere. Look how valuable we are." I can see Citrix/Quest saying that the godfather in Redmond will never allow that, and asking themselves "how can we remain Microsoft's favorite pet by SLOWLY adding value on top of System Center only (or shall we go find a new master)?"

The bottom line is that I have very low confidence that layers will matter. By the time they do, the world will need to solve a new set of more compelling problems. That doesn't mean that people like Unidesk, Moka 5, Wanova, and Ringcube won't keep trying anyway. They should still do just fine, too, as there is real value in solving problems for market segments. As for layers changing the way the world does systems management, though, I'm not holding my breath. Our only hope is that the traditional systems management vendors decided to move into the space and give MS a kick in the balls. Until then, my opinion is that layering is just good blogging material (at least for the most part).

One company that I think has the ability to do the kicking is MokaFive. Those who follow my posts know I have been a huge fan of their management and security policy on client hypervisors for a long time. While I still think they have a good product for that use case, I also think NxTop is catching them fast. With regards to layers, I worry that they are moving away from their core focus. They are small company with limited resources. While I understand their strategy of trying to increase revenue with a broader appeal I am skeptical of their chances of success without more support like they received from Quest. I'm not trying to be negative--just pragmatic. I hope they don't lose focus. I would really like to see Moka 5 become a management layer for Type 1. They have solved a lot of the complex enterprise use cases which is why I tweeted that I think here is an opportunity for Quest to add value to XenClient.

I also see the layers camp dividing. Looking at the upcoming Citrix Synergy solutions expo list, it's interesting to note that both Moka 5 and Unidesk are missing from the list. Clearly Moka 5 is now in the Quest camp, and from all the various marketing I have seen it seems that Unidesk is mostly trying to play in the VMware camp. Ringcube has been included in the Simplify Desktop Transformation with Citrix Ready Partners section in addition to having their own booth. Wanova also has a booth. So will one of these players end up in the Citrix camp? Another unrelated observation is the lack of Quest at the expo, while VMware and Virtual Bridges are there. I wonder what reason those not attending will acknowledge :-) In my opinion, the whole ecosystem is up in the air. Alliances appear to be forming, and with all the uncertainty I outlined above I am not about to mortgage my management strategy on anybody.

So what is one supposed to do? I've been thinking about this lately. I firmly believe we have to move beyond a distributed Windows world to a single image management model at all layers, OS, Apps and User. The OS can be dealt with via desktop virtualization in many cases with a single image. Layering would be useful to patch just the golden image and much less risky in terms of breaking stuff. I can deal with that use case for layering. Apps can, for the most part, be virtualized. The ones that I can't I'd rather bake into the golden image and avoid trying to manage all the layer complexity, not to mention potentially avoiding app compatibility due to layer merging issue.

Even if I got this to work for many apps, I'd just need one app to break the model, have to move it into the base image, and once again have to ask myself whether or not it's all worth it. I'll also repeat my concern about getting support for my apps especially from third parties. I can barely get these folks to talk to about App-V, have spent years getting them to support XenApp, and I don't really want to start a conversation about supporting layers unless there is a compelling value.

That leads me to the user. It seems to me that the more time I spend trying to manage my user environment, the better it is for all my desktops and the better my chance to move to desktop virtualization where and when it makes sense. This also helps me reduce the number of images I need due to personalization needs. The more I understand about my users environment, the greater my chances of moving to future models of Windows. As the world becomes less Windows classic centric, new areas of user virtualization opportunity will open up for my solutions to evolve into. Where will the layers people go? Will they be relevant?

Conclusion?

Lot's to think about, not sure I have reached a firm conclusion. My current view is that we have to have better/new desktop management beyond the current status quo. I see layers as hugely speculative with no major vendor commitment and a limited useful life of the solution. Therefore I plan to spend most of my time thinking about user virtualization and how to best combine it with some aspect of layering that helps manage just the base operating image. I'll also have to just deal with App-V more as Microsoft is pushing in that direction, and get my operational costs down to justify the expense.

I will also stay away from Systems Center for as long as possible, and I'll put more pressure on the desktop vendors to offer some layers golden image update capability in their base product to eliminate Systems Center. Until then, I'll stick to very basic App-V management or instead use ThinApp and run as many apps as I can from a network share. I think if I can do those things I have the highest probability of implementation success. The layer cake is needed, but the question is "where to start?" I think virtualize apps, user virtualization, and a single desktop image is the least risky strategy. If that's the case, will layers as touted by Moka 5, Unidesk, etc... matter beyond a niche?

Brian Madden TV #35: MMS 2011 Roundup - SCCM, RES, App-DNA, & Gabe's Bitchin' View

Brian Madden TV — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:00:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Gabe was in Las Vegas at the Microsoft Management Summit this week. (If you missed it, check out his keynote live blog and written wrap-up.)

Then recorded a demo of the RES's Max Ranzau about their Reverse Seamless product.

Finnalt, App-DNA's Paul Schnell from showed off what was new from them.

Transcript:

BRIAN: Hello and welcome to Brian Madden TV. From San Francisco, this is Brian Madden.

GABE: And from the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, this is Gabe Knuth.

I’m here this week attending the Microsoft Management Summit. I like it here because it’s not Synergy or VMworld, which are very focused on specific technologies. MMS is a bit more broad of a conference about managing Microsoft products. There’s a lot of focus on System Center, and there’s a bit of desktop virtualization here and there.

BRIAN: All right, so before we get into all the MMS stuff... how’s the wall art in that hotel room?

GABE: I would categorize it as respectful and definitely not worth talking about.

BRIAN: Ok, I’ll leave it at that. So on to MMS. You spent time in the keynotes, you spent time on the expo hall floor...what do you think?

GABE: You know, for me this show was a bit of an eye opener. Not because it was flashy or particularly revealing, but moreso because I realized that we have a pretty strong focus on SBC and VDI, while the world of application and desktop delivery has sort of moved down a level.

What I’m seeing here is a sort of separation of the desktop into two entities...the physical device called “The Desktop” and the concept of “The Desktop”. That’s not a new concept to us in general, but it is in the context of Microsoft and management.

The big takeaways for me amount to big changes in System Center Configuration Manager, which has grown into a product that can manage virtual and physical desktops and applications as well as a large number of endpoints.

BRIAN: Right, I saw you write about that in your live blog today. You can actually use SCCM to control and policy mobile devices running Android, iOS, Symbian, and Windows 7 Mobile.

GABE: Right, and since SCCM is aware of the devices, you can actually deploy applications to each type of device differently. That means a phone might have an app remoted via XenApp and a Windows 7 tablet might have the same app streamed to it or installed locally.

The same is also true for machines that are physical or virtual. SCCM is now aware of this natively, and you can manage devices based on that footprint. The example they gave was with Windows updates, where SCCM is now intelligent enough to be able to deploy updates to physical desktops and skip shared-image VDI desktops.

BRIAN: Wow.. It seems like just yesterday that I took down a whole NT4 domain with SMS 1.2 by accidentally pushing the logon service out to all the BDCs.. and now look how all grown up it is!

GABE: Yeah, and that’s only part of it. Microsoft has built in an element of self-service apps where users can request access to applications. Then, based on the policies configured in CM, the app is provisioned in the best way possible.

Other companies have picked up where Microsoft left off, and they bring to the table their own self-service solutions, along with license tracking & reclamation, reporting, and approval workflows. I talked to SCCM Expert and Matrix 42 about their solutions along those lines, and I hope to actually shoot videos with them at a future date, because I think their solutions are really interesting.

BRIAN: You did shoot some videos on the expo hall floor, right?

GABE: Yeah, and I had about ten conversations that I wish I would’ve recorded, but I guess that’s always the case. The first video I shot was with Max Ranzau of R-E-S Software. He took some time to show us their VDX product that’s been a hot topic on BrianMadden.com recently.

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INTERVIEW WITH MAX RANZAU

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BRIAN: So this is the last time we’re talking about this for a while, right? I mean, I said that last time, but this time I mean it!

GABE: Oh yeah, but they were there showing it off, so I thought we should get a look at it.

I also caught up with AppDNA, who I interviewed last year as well. This year, they’ve added some new remediation and packaging features to their product, so I brought the camera by their booth, too.

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INTERVIEW WITH PAUL SCHNELL

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BRIAN: Ok, good stuff. So, is this what it’s like when I go to a show and you stay home? I’m kind of bored here not talking :)

GABE: Hahah…yeah, something like that. It’s ok, though...you’ve got enough speaking to do this week.

BRIAN: Yeah good point. Tonight I spoke at a dinner here in SF -- I should point out that we’re recording this at about ten at night -- and then tomorrow, or “yesterday” by the time you’re watching this, is our first “Desktop Virtualization 2011” road show. That’s here in San Francisco this week, and then we’re taking it to 18 more cities around the world over the course of the year.

GABE: Yeah, uh... thanks for doing those by the way while I stay at home with my wife and kids!

BRIAN: Nah it’s ok.. You know I like to be on stage and to get out and talk to people. And in fact one of the new things for this year is I got a little video camera that I’ll take with me to all the shows to interview attendees. We’ll pick a topic for each week and then get a sense for what people are doing in the real world.

GABE: Oooh! For next week, can you ask them why they’re doing desktop virtualization in the first place?

BRIAN: Sure. And if you <audience> has any questions you’d like us to ask random IT pros, let us know!

GABE: Speaking of random, how about that view?

BRIAN: Yeah… that’s great Gabe..

GABE: No.. really, top floor!! I can see Russia from here!

BRIAN: Ok, so good bye from Brian Madden in San Francisco

GABE: And from the TOP FLOOR of the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, this is Gabe Knuth. Top floor.

MMS 2011 wrap-up: SCCM, apps, and the desktop make for a good show

Gabe Knuth — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 04:36:00 GMT

This year marks the second time I've attended the Microsoft Management Summit, and I have to say that I took a lot more away from the show this year than I did last year. Last year, I was on the prowl looking for Microsoft-specific directions on desktop virtualization. This year, I dropped the "virtualization" part and decided to follow what's happening with the entire desktop (this is, after all, the Microsoft Management Summit). Part of that was out of necessity since there wasn't much in the way of desktop virtualization announcements, but another reason is that we're officially now dealing with the "concept" of the desktop, and not the physical device of the same name.

Today's keynote was about the consumerization of IT, and while there was a bit of that laced in throughout the presentation, it was mostly about how changes in SCCM are separating the apps from the desktop and the desktop from the endpoint while keeping the management all in one place. That doesn't necessarily mean "virtualization," but it does show that Microsoft is positioning themselves for a world where "desktop" doesn't always mean "the device under my desk." Instead, "desktop" is a concept that runs on an endpoint. How that desktop is placed on that endpoint is up to you, as is how applications are placed on that desktop/endpoint combination.

One of the demonstrations shown today showed that SCCM 2012 now has the ability to tell whether or not a machine is physical or virtual. Using that information, policies, applications, settings, and so on can be differently configured but all managed from the same interface. It's not a new concept, but it is something that, up to this point, was a daunting task that required an advanced skill set.

Another announcement was that SCCM 2012 will have the ability to policy and control Android, iOS, Symbian, and Windows 7 Mobile devices. This plays into the separation of endpoint and desktop, and using SCCM (combined with other things like XenApp or vWorkspace, plus Microsoft tools like App-V), you'll be able to deliver settings, applications, and desktops to just about any device you can think of. It's worth noting that Blackberry is not on that list. I'm curious of the technical reason for that, so if any one knows, pass the info along :)

Regarding applications, we saw some more enhancements to SCCM in the way of self-service applications. I also spoke with a few vendors (SCCM Experts and Matrix42) that spend time integrating their solutions into SCCM to enable self-service applications, license remediation (and even reclamation), administrative workflow, platform migrations, and reporting.

There was also a few of application compatibility vendors who focus on testing your applications to see if they work with whatever desktop delivery model you want to move to. AppDNA and ChangeBase AOK both seek to help migrations from one platform to another by examining your applications and providing compatibility reports, remediation paths, and automated packaging solutions.

The last standout thing that I noted was that there were three User Environment Management companies with booths. AppSense, RES Software, and Immidio were all there, which only reinforces the trend that we see around the industry of UEM as a red-hot topic. We've got some video from RES and AppSense that we'll post soon, as well as an update from AppDNA.

I think that overall, SCCM is my biggest takeaway, mainly because it's been years since I've put any real focus on it. System Center as a whole is receiving a huge overhaul, with a lot of focus on cloud (read Jo Maitland's wrap-up of the Day 1 Cloud Keynote), but also a refreshingly equal focus on what's happening in the datacenter and in cubicle-land. Turning each layer of the user experience into it's own abstract concept is a smart move (certainly not a new idea), and I think it positions Microsoft and some partners well as cloud models evolve in the enterprise. In the meantime, it results in a more flexible method of managing desktops no matter how they are put together.

MMS wrap-up: XenApp integration into SCCM, Dynamic Memory, and RemoteFX

Gabe Knuth — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:37:00 GMT

Last week, I attended the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas, which is a show that neither Brian nor I have ever attended. In the past, we looked at it as a server management conference, just outside of the scope of what we cover on BrianMadden.com. This year, however, we decided to give it a shot based on the recent news surrounding Microsoft's desktop virtualization initiatives.

As far as the keynotes were concerned, Day Two was the day that I really cared about. Day One consisted of a lot of broad management stuff (as expected at the Microsoft Management Summit), but very little of it fell within the realm of desktop virtualization. Among the things talked about was Opalis, which is a process automation company that Microsoft purchased back in December. There was also a bit of ambiguous cloud stuff that sounds more or less like what every vendor is saying about the cloud. If you're curious, you can watch the Day One keynote here.

The Day Two keynote (available here) from Brad Anderson brought the desktop goodies, though, and early on we learned that Microsoft wants to manage virtual desktops the same way as a traditional desktop infrastructure (which is why I was there in the first place). Microsoft considers "desktop virtualization" as the umbrella term encompassing application virtualization (App-V), presentation virtualization (RDS), hardware virtualization (Hyper-V), and VDI. This is also great to hear, because that's the tune we've been singing for quite a while.

A slide from the Day Two keynote.

Next, we took a look at the new XenApp integration into SCCM, which will be available in June. For XenApp customers that are currently managing their environments from two systems (that is, XenApp and SCCM), it's a pretty big deal. We saw a demo of deploying an application package (which can be MSI or App-V) to XenApp servers, then publishing the application on the XenApp farm, all via SCCM. The demo even went so far as to show the app appearing in Dazzle. If you want to see the demo, skip to 21:45 in the Day Two keynote video.

This is the final nail in the coffin of the whole "Citrix is competing with Microsoft" thing that we've talked about in the past. Citrix and Microsoft are most definitely friends, and Brad even went so far as to ask all the people that work as SCCM and XenApp admins to get together and take advantage of the new integration capabilities. I'm left wondering how it feels for Quest, who is the "other" partner that Microsoft has for desktop virtualization. It's clear they have a good relationship, but I hear less about that relationship (from Microsoft, at least) than I do the Citrix relationship.

After the Citrix conversation, we saw demos of both Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX. Dynamic Memory isn't memory overcommitment, rather, it's a method of configuring virtual machines with a default and a max memory setting. Machines start with their default setting, and a pool of memory provides the machine with more memory as needed, up to whatever the max setting is. As a VM's memory requirements go down, the memory is returned to the pool.

I don't know how this pool is configured beyond some automatic process that adds up the default requirements of all the VM's on a host and subtracts that from the amount of memory in a system, but it's something I want to find out. If you know, please leave a comment. Otherwise, look for an article in the near future. In the meantime, follow these links (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) for a fantastic set of articles explaining the thought process behind Dynamic Memory (and against overcommit). To view this demo in the keynote video, skip to 33:41.

Next, we saw RemoteFX, which wasn't much different from the video that Brian recorded with Tad Brockway right after RemoteFX was announced. We saw 720p video, Aero Flip, and a Perfmon trace that shows how the processing is offloaded to the GPU (which, for the demo, was probably the same NVIDIA FX5800 used in the video Brian recorded). There was even a nice little dig about how "some competitors" use the CPU to handle similar graphics. AhemVMwareAhem.

Both Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX are slated to be released in Windows 2008 R2 SP1, which is due late this year.

The last thing I thought was interesting is Windows InTune (formerly called System Center Online). Windows InTune gives you the ability to manage desktops via a cloud-based web interface that that will wrap up all that's needed for Windows desktops (Server OS, System Center components, etc…) into a subscription. I talked to a few people at the show that feel that this is where Microsoft wants to go with regards to managing corporate desktops. While I've never been a champion of all things cloud, I have to say that if Microsoft is going this direction, it's going to be hard to fight it. So for now, we'll wait and see, but keep your eyes on InTune.

Overall, I think that MMS was a good show for us to attend, especially with the focus on virtual desktops. While I was there, I managed to record some demos from some of the vendors (Quest's vWorkspace 7.1 is already posted) that we'll post in the coming week or so, and I left with a few questions (like how Dynamic Memory pools work and what's actually going on behind the scenes with the XenApp connector for SCCM) that I'll get answered and write about in the near future.

Want to deliver Citrix apps via System Center? It’s coming in 2010!

Brian Madden — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:22:45 GMT

The other part of yesterday’s Citrix / Microsoft announcement was that you’ll soon be able to manage XenApp environments via Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager.

Remember that Systems Center is the name for a whole family of products. Citrix XenApp has always had support for System Center “Operations Manager,” which meant that you could view the health of your Citrix servers and get inventories and metrics and stuff. Yesterday’s announcement was about Systems Center “Configuration Manager,”—the product that used to be called SMS—which is used for remotely installing and deploying software to servers and desktops.

System Center Configuration Manager was originally only able to deploy software that was bundled up into packages that could be installed in an unattended way, although at some point in the mid-2000s Softricity made a version of their “SoftGrid” app virtualization product that also worked with SMS / System Center Configuration Manager, meaning you could use it to “install” apps remotely or to deploy SoftGrid virtual apps.

Since Softricity is the product that Microsoft bought and renamed to App-V, App-V has always been an option for System Center Configuration Manager apps.

The logical result of this is that since App-V and Citrix XenApp Streaming compete, then it would make sense that you should have the choice, with System Center Configuration Manager, as to whether you want to deploy an App-V package or a Citrix streaming package.

Of course we can take that one step further too. Everyone reading this knows that when users need access to applications, you need to focus on the “use case” to figure out what method you should use to deliver that application. In some cases server-based computing makes sense, which means you deliver the app as a published app via Citrix XenApp. In other cases, running the app locally makes sense, which means you stream the app via Citrix streaming or Microsoft App-V. Of course some apps aren’t compatible with those two streaming environments, so for those apps you’d need to package and deliver them via System Center Configuration Manager.

You can see how confusing this can be!

Yesterday’s announcement is about a future (first half of next year) ability to see Citrix XenApp servers from within the System Center Configuration Manager console. This means that you’ll be able to deliver Citrix XenApp hosted (ICA) apps, XenApp streamed, App-V streamed, and locally-installed apps all through the same management console and with the same product. This is especially cool because you’ll be able to pick which technology is appropriate based on a common rule set and evaluation engine.

This is a pretty big deal and very cool!

There’s another aspect to this which is somewhat minor, but interesting nonetheless. Right now, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager can only deploy software to “managed” clients. (This means clients that are domain-joined and that have the System Center agent running.) But a big part of Citrix’s business has been around delivering apps to unmanaged clients (primarily through their ICA published apps, although XenApp streaming works with unmanaged clients too). So this means that one of the “bonus” benefits of this deal is that System Center Configuration Manager will be able to deliver apps to unmanaged clients.

The bottom line is that Microsoft is putting a lot of effort into System Center, and it’s going to be a huge part of IT infrastructures in the next few years. Citrix to getting in at this level makes a lot of sense, and hopefully they’ll be fully integrated over the next few years when System Center really takes off.