Second day of E2EVC started at a really decent time 10:30. Where are the days that at 9:00 we should be there. In this blog my day 2 experiences of E2EVC Berlin 2019.
The day started with a session by Jan Hendrik Meier with the session Citrix Apps with NVIDIA vGPU. Jan Hendrik started explaining which tools (LoginVSI + GPU Profiler Preview) he used for the test workload, followed by describing the test environment. He continued with some issues he encountered with LoginVSI and his test runs with the P4 and P40 cards). Jan Hendrik continued with sharing the results. Other topics were sizing considerations and Codecs Encoding/Decoding. He run test again with NVENC support in CVAD 1801 (or later). He shared some tips and tricks which Citric policies should be configured for using this functionality when using full screen. He compares Full Screen versus Active Regions (difference was not that big based on GPU and CPU usage). Next he shared some tips and tricks when using vGPU within XenApp workloads (some limitations).
Second session I attended the session Building a Cloud Based Application Delivery Controller by Anton van Pelt and Carsten Bruns. Anton started why you would like to use a Citrix ADC in a public cloud (advanced policy infrastructure, application analytics, secure remote access to CVAD). Anton continued with discussing the steps setting up an ADC on Google Cloud Platform (gcloud utility, GCP project, storage bucket, amount CPU = amount of NICs, Google Deployment Manager, Citrix recommends a NIC per service, content switching is an alternative). Next topic was deploying Citrix ADC on Azure (Azure LB required for HA pair deployment, Azure LB per network zone, availability sets and zones are now supported, available in Azure Marketplace but require some additional configuration). Carsten discussed NetScaler on AWS (version can be chosen, only license, updates can be done after deployment, no support for clustering, IAM role for autoscale and HA, HA is not optimal on AWS preferable use Active/Active). Next topic was ADM autoscale. Autoscale requires an ADM, ADM agent in AWS/Azure, enterprise or higher license, Cloud Profile). Carsen demoed the usage of AutoScale.
Next on stage was Andrew Wood with Move your Desktops and Applications to AWS with Amazon Workspace and AppStream 2.0. Andrew introduced quickly the Desktops and AppStream services and other services offered by AWS (Worklink, WorkDocs) by going through the slides on steroids. Check the slides for all details. Andrew demoed Workspace and Appstream.
I continued with the session how to provide virtual resources in Citrix environment with overflow delivery groups by Sacha Thomet. Sacha described the user case at this company, he would have one delivery group with two types of Machine Catalogs (one with GPU, one without). The solution is build around the usage of tags and a PowerShell script checking the availability within the Machine Catalog. Use case Sacha see this concept usable for various hardware, on-premises v cloud. What I should consider within the use cases is that users can/have a different user experience with this “solution”, looking for a scenario where it makes full sense.
The lunch session I attended was Modern Management delivery and management by Gregory Hoogsteyns. He started with history/evolution in the IT. This leas to the definition of Modern Management. The big four puzzles are data, app, device and identity. Gregory is working with personas. (vs deployment models). Next topic was what you need for MS to arrange this (Office 365, device, Azure AD P1 and Intune). He discussed the product/techniques used for some of the earlier mentioned personata. He demoed the autopilot of Windows 10, iPad ABM. According to Gregory there are still improvements (DEP, to many improvements, intune interface/admin experience is poor, W32 application deployment, error messages in EMS and Biometric cloud credentials instead of local to the device). Gregory shares his vision about the modern management future. Windows apps take off?, Legacy apps phased out??, wearables/augmented reality and 5G.
Next session provided by Benny Tritsch and Benny Tritsch What is end user experience going beyond performance counters. Benny kicked explaining what is user experience (graphics API support, application start times, responsiness graphical and so on). Jim continued about subjective usability (real users doing real interactive work), but you need to find something that is not subjective. Benny continued with graphics and media formats, showing what can go wrong what can be measured with performance counters. Jim continued with codecs characteristics of lossless v lossy. Benny took over with the video codec subject. Next topics were Frame rate and user interface time (including results of researches about response times). Jim and Benny are sharing required bandwidth for the current resolutions (HD, 4K), but it requires compute at the client side (based on Google Stadia). It logically not only bandwidth, but also latency and packet loss. Benny explains the REX Framework, which is used to measure the user experience.
Last session I attended was Secure the Digital Workspace with Zero Trust and Modern Management by Felix Block. Felix explains zero trust based by two examples (BeyondCorp at Google and Adobe ZEN). Felix continued how the zero trust can be used in combination with Workspace One one the four pillars (user, app, endpoint, location) via Device Compliance and User Context. Next topic was the supported OS. Next topic was Intelligence (currently mainly focused on VMware, but very soon via the open standard vendors can be added. It’s based on new data sources, machine learning and predictive analysis. Felix demoed the possibility of Intelligence based on missing patches. Last topic was App Analytics Features.