Our second 2019 event (DuCUG 2019-02, now also known as event #17) held at the Sta@rt near the Apenheul. Traditionally Niek Boevink opened the event with a nice, interesting and funny presentation. Of course again a big thanks to the platinum sponsors.
The first presentation was held by Dennis van Dam. Dennis started with explaining the current situation around IWC and UWM. Dennis is explaining that they build a tool to convert the configuration from IWC to UWM. The tool is unfortunate not available as a download, but is a service from the company he is working for. Dennis continued with mentioning some of the (special) functionality of UWM like desktop icon misplacement, user settings stored in the database, change management, parallel processing, gain logon speed, trusted owner). Next topic was shortly the information needed for the tool, followed by lesson learned (GDPR, train staff in UWM, not easy to get lost of the IWM mindset, not many UWM engineers in the Benelux, not all issues will be solved, good moment to start setting your baseline, each configuration is different). He is also mentioning the differences in the architecture and feature between the products.
Second session was the first BYOS called Automating Citrix Cloud and WVD by Chris Twiest and Chris Jeucken. The gentlemen started with explaining why they think you should automate tasks/activities. Chris (Jeucken) described the steps of the script. Chris (Twiest) continued with issues they have encountered (authentication key automation was not successful yet, scripts can only be run on remote Azure machine, hosting connection can not be automated based on grant permissions, APIs of Citrix not yet finished). Chris Jeucken continued with the requirement before showing the scripts in action. Next topic was an overview of the content of the script, so you can steal the parts that are useful for own scripts. Chris Twiest is also mentioning his script for Windows Virtual Desktop Only (without Citrix).
The last session first the coffee break was our first sponsor session provided by Bas Stapelbroek of KPN. Bas presented about the topic OneDrive loves Citrix SD-WAN. He continued with explaining why they did they research, followed by the scenarios, the tests. Bas continued with the results. Because of this was sponsor session Bas mentioned the services KPN are providing around the SD-WAN.
After the first break Jarian Gibson and Dave Brett were on stage with their session about Citrix on Nutanix. It is base on a customer case of a large healthcare provider Dave is working for. Dave started with explaining the customer case, the considerations and the constraints at the start of the project. Jarian explained briefly what Nutanix is, where Dave continued with the cost topic. Also support and training of the Nutanix staff were discussed. Dave continued with design topics (rack/networking, cluster/sizing/hypervisor, storage design, infrastructure placement, prism central, Nutanix Files, auto scaling). Jarian continued with Image Management and migration from other platforms. The last part needed to be skipped as Jarian and Dave run out of time.
Next our second sponsor session was scheduled. Perparim Bislimi of Liquidware. Perparim is mentioning that his expectation that Windows will be there, but that the user would like to use it and configure it on their own way. According to Perparim the OS, Applications, Documents and Profile are the key factors. He also mentioned the (unique) selling points of Liquidware.
Last session for the lunch Stefan Pieters with a session titled Workspace Intelligence. Stefan started off with two types of work (repetitive/structured busy work and unstructured creative work) and other (shocking) research figures about work. Enterprise apps are missing Consumer Apps functionalities like Integrated Feed, Clear Actions and Notification. Stefan showed how it will look like, both from a user standpoint as the back-end component.
After the lunch Dennis Span was on stage with his session Advanced Application Scripting. Dennis is starting off with the results of the VDI Like a Pro survey results according to Windows application scripting, followed by considerations around the technology to use. Next topic was the scripting library, followed by advanced functions. Dennis continued with Evergreen Application Scripting (start downloading the software within the script from a website/resource location), followed by file type locations considerations including SetUserFTA.exe. Office Add-Ons and Shell Extensions were the next topic and how to move those to the Current User registry. Last topic was explaining FSLogix Application Masking.
Next session was the last sponsor session provided by Ivanti represented by Patrick Kaak with the title Ivanti in Progress. Patrick was mentioning the User Workspace Manager (UWM) functionalities which were introduced lately. Patrick was also mentioning upcoming features, but he asked them not to share to the public as this is still NDA. Ivanti File Director was the next product Patrick was discussing with upcoming features, which again could not be shared online. Last topic was the Unified IT Use cases.
After the last break I together with Gerjon Kunst presented on Citrix FAS. Hope the crowd liked and enjoyed it. We really enjoyed it providing our experiencing with installing and configuring this product.
Last session of the day was A real look at Citrix Cloud in Enterprise by Gareth Carson. Gareth started explain what Citrix Cloud is and what isn’t, followed the architecture. Gareth continued with the identity possibilities and the roadmap on this topic. Gareth continued with the soft costs (reduced lock-in, flexible, tech operations reduced, single management pane, SQL licensing) and hard cost (software/hardware maintenance, software upgrade/patches, automation efficiencies). Also the license costs and options were discussed, followed by the weakness/challenges (management console, policies/tagging, autoscale, authentication/enumeration, WEM, LHC). The schedule update mechanism was described. The next topic was the Citrix Cloud Connector 101 and Autoscale 101. Gareth continued with going into more detail into the identity part with AAA, AD+Token, Okta IDP). Gareth ended with in his opinion why VCADS should be adopted.
After the event we organized a nice dinner using Viva la Pizza which are “cooking” pizzas on the fly. The pizzas were amazing and it was good to see that many people were staying for this important network part of the day.