While the demand for applications is increasing, organizations are choosing to deploy a variety of platforms that bring together a hybrid mix of on-premises, virtual, and cloud-based workspaces in their environments. Whereas users expect more flexibility to work when and where they prefer, on their endpoint devices of choice with applications that ‘just work’.

This shift towards cloud-based workspaces promotes a SaaS approach to deploy applications, which combines a number of components to provide expanded functionality as a service. Therefore, it has become vital to deploy tools that allow organizations to not only get an inventory of their used applications but also to understand how they are being deployed and used in their environments.

Stratusphere UX monitors application performance by providing detailed metrics and diagnostics data that reveal blind spots to support IT teams and CIOs in making data-driven decisions.

Key Features:

• Metrics for application performance, device health, and network connectivity.
• Detailed device inventory and configuration insights.
• Proactive event logs and alerts.
• Comprehensive compliance reporting.

Reveal User Blind Spots

User Persona and Authored Data: Stratusphere UX allows authorised IT admins gain an accurate and granular view into user persona and authored data, enabling them to better understand how users are interacting with their applications and make data-driven decisions to improve performance.

Liquidware is a longstanding IGEL READY CERTIFIED partner and the first partner to deliver the Stratusphere UX  app on the IGEL APP Portal. This allows our customers and IGEL OS 12 users direct access to deploy the Liquidware Stratusphere UX agent quickly and easily to remote endpoints.

The integration of Liquidware Stratusphere UX with IGEL Cosmos delivers the best digital user experience and maximizes the potential of IGEL solutions by streamlining deployment, updates, and security via Cosmos and with Stratusphere UX delivering enhanced visibility into user, application, and network experiences.

The IGEL Ready program is an ecosystem of compatible solutions that enhances interoperability to offer users seamless integration when building their digital workspaces. Learn more about Liquidware here, and the IGEL OS 12 here.

The post Get in the Know – Reveal Blind Spots in Your Digital Workspace and Enhance UX appeared first on IGEL.

In episode I talk to Ewen Anderson who is the CIO of PX3.

Ewen starts with an overview of his career in which he has been working in IT for 30 years including some time as an IGEL partner. Four years ago, Ewen and his co-founder Justin Sutton Parker founded PX3 to address a gap they saw in the IT industry around independent science-based information on sustainability and IT.

We then look at what is sustainability and why it has become so important to companies. In fact, most companies annual reports now include sustainability as a strategic business objective.

We look at the pandemic and the impact it is had on the environment and how remote working is a key driver in reducing emissions.

We also investigate how EUC has a major impact on emissions and is responsible for 1% of Global emissions which is on a par with the airline industry which I thought was a shocking statistic.

We discuss the partnership with PX3 the work with one of IGEL’s customers and the environmental and cost savings they made by extending the life of existing devices and also how it saved the resources because 3,120 new devices were not manufactured.

We review how efficient the hyperscale data centres are and how from an environmental perspective it makes sense to move your local workloads from your own “Data Centre” to the cloud. In fact, running those workloads in the cloud can be 7 times more efficient than running locally.

To quote Ewen Green IT can be Great IT!

To conclude we look at companies’ sustainability goals and how Ewen would like to see net zero embedded into all companies as a strategy.

We need to make the consumption of excess electricity  and disposable of devices as socially unacceptable as smoking has become.

You can see further information on sustainability and the details of the report at: IGEL Sustainability – Join the Revolution – IGEL

Watch the Life on the Edge Podcast Season 2 Episode 2

UPCOMING ON LIFE ON THE EDGE PODCAST

Stay tuned for our next Life on the Edge podcasts we have lots lined up for 2022!

Subscribe today to IGEL’s channel on YouTube so you don’t miss any of our upcoming episodes. You’ll find the latest and all previous episodes on under the Life on the Edge video podcast playlist. When you subscribe, be sure to enable notifications so you know as soon as a new episode is posted. As always, we aim to deliver the valuable content that will make your Life on the Edge an amazing experience.

For all of those who like to listen to podcasts on the go Life on the Edge is now available as on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Stitcher.

Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy the episode.

The post Life on the Edge Season 2 Episode 2: Sustainability appeared first on IGEL.

EUC Trends for 2022

The episode starts with an intro to Simon and his career progression in the world of EUC. Despite having the title of CMO, Simon used to be a techie! We then look at the major trends of EUC including hybrid working we look at the pros and cons and the questions even get flipped on me and we discuss how despite working together for 2 years we have never met, thankfully we resolved that last week and met up in London. But it highlighted the strange world we have been living in for the last 2 years.

We delve into the rise of DEX(Digital Employee Experience) check out episode 5 of season 1 for a detailed overview – (include link to episode 5) We discuss how because of the pandemic EUC actually is now about the end user !

We then look at chip shortages and how it is not just affecting IT devices. We then look at sustainability and how it is our best weapon to try and reduce the huge e-waste problem that the world has. We look at the important role that IT can play by implementing sustainable solutions, we go through some examples including Standard Life and MarkerStudy where IGEL has helped repurpose devices.

Read more in this Standard Life Case Study and see more in this MarkerStudy Video.

We next look at security and how the rise in remote work can increase the risk of ransomware and malware attacks. To finish I ask Simon what will be the biggest impact in EUC. You will need to watch the episode to get the answer… I also urge you to read more information on IGEL’s  sustainability here.

Watch the Life on the Edge Podcast Season 2  Episode 1 here:

UPCOMING ON LIFE ON THE EDGE PODCAST

Stay tuned for our next Life on the Edge podcasts. We have lots lined up for 2022!

Subscribe today to IGEL’s channel on YouTube so you don’t miss any of our upcoming episodes. You’ll find the latest and all previous episodes on under the Life on the Edge video podcast playlist. When you subscribe, be sure to enable notifications so you know as soon as a new episode is posted. As always, we aim to deliver the valuable content that will make your Life on the Edge an amazing experience.

Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy the episode!

The post Life on the Edge Season 2 Episode 1: EUC Trends for 2022 appeared first on IGEL.

Automated AVD and Cloud PC Deployment.

In this episode I talk to Neil about the recent launch of Windows 365 Cloud PC and Neil gives a detailed description of the solution including Nerdio Manager. Nerdio Manager gives you the ability to automate the deployment and management of AVD and Cloud PC from a single console.

We discuss how Nerdio helps with deployment and Neil runs through a demo of the solution. We also discuss how things have progressed in EUC and how you can use Nerdio, Microsoft and IGEL for a complete end to end solution for AVD and Cloud PC.

Learn more about IGEL and Microsoft here and in the Virtualbrat blog here.

Then watch the Life on the Edge Podcast Episode 4 Here:

UPCOMING ON LIFE ON THE EDGE PODCAST

Stay tuned for our next Life on the Edge podcast. Episode 5 will be a little different because I will be talking to Ben Ward who is a senior SE on IGEL’s Enterprise Team, and we will be discussing Digital Employee Experience and why it has become such an important metric

Subscribe today to IGEL’s channel on YouTube so you don’t miss any of our upcoming episodes. You’ll find the latest and all previous episodes on under the Life on the Edge video podcast playlist. When you subscribe, be sure to enable notifications so you know as soon as a new episode is posted. As always, we aim to deliver the valuable content that will make your Life on the Edge an amazing experience.

The post Life on the Edge Episode 4: Automated AVD and Cloud PC Deployment with Nerdio Manager appeared first on IGEL.

Remote Monitoring and Management of Endpoints

In episode 2 we covered end user experience, in this episode we are covering how you manage and monitor those remote endpoints used by the end users.

During the interview Trentent, Shay and I discuss remote management, the challenges and how Control Up’s solutions in conjunction with IGEL help resolve those challenges. They describe the products in detail and give us a live demo of each in real-life scenarios.

Remote DX is designed for remote users working from anywhere, it  collects performance metrics from off-the-network client devices running Windows, macOS or IGEL OS, without the need for line-of-sight to the Control Up Real-Time DX infrastructure in your data center.

Edge DX allows you to monitor your Windows-, Mac-, Linux-, and IGEL-based physical endpoints in real time, regardless of their location. With it, you can gain a holistic understanding of and detailed information about your endpoints. Delivered as a SaaS application, Edge DX is accessible from anywhere, is designed to work for organizations of any size, and be used by any audience, from IT admins to help desk employees.

Both products have been developed in partnership with IGEL and more details can be found in the post below.

https://www.igel.com/about-us/press-releases/igel-and-controlup-team-to-enhance-endpoint-performance/

Watch the Life on the Edge Podcast Episode 3 Here:

UPCOMING ON LIFE ON THE EDGE PODCAST

Stay tuned for our next Life on the Edge podcast. Episode 4 will focus on the announcement of Windows 365 and I will chat to Neil McLoughlin the UK Field CTO at Nerdio in the episode we will discuss Windows 365 and how Nerdio assists in the management and deployment of your Cloud PC’s

Subscribe today to IGEL’s channel on YouTube so you don’t miss any of our upcoming episodes. You’ll find the latest and all previous episodes on under the Life on the Edge video podcast playlist. When you subscribe, be sure to enable notifications so you know as soon as a new episode is posted. As always, we aim to deliver the valuable content that will make your Life on the Edge an amazing experience.

The post Life on the Edge Episode 3: Remote Monitoring and Management of Endpoints with Control Up. appeared first on IGEL.

If you don’t already know him, Mark is an EUC veteran and has been awarded Microsoft MVP, Citrix CTP and VMware vExpert EUC. He is also one of the leads on the annual VDI Like a Pro survey which can be found here.

MONITORING AND MEASURING USER EXPERIENCE

During Covid, millions of people needed to work from home. But what sort of user experience do they have?

In the interview Mark and I discuss the concept of end user experience. We try to define what that is and how it has evolved. Mark outlines how Login VSI’s solutions in conjunction with IGEL can help monitor and measure end user experience. These metrics have become vital to organizations as they work to determine the experience their users have while working remotely.

For more background, Login VSI, as an IGEL Ready partner, and IGEL have partnered in the development of an integration which provides a radical new way to deploy the Login VSI synthetic user technology to endpoints worldwide. The solution provides continuous endpoint testing to monitor the digital workspace and to ensure users always have a great experience despite the constant change in EUC technology. For more information, read this blog. It shares how using Login Enterprise with IGEL delivers ease of use, lower cost and enhanced end user experience management, even within constantly changing environments.

Also check out this webinar on IGEL Community “How to Deal with The Non-Stop Rate of Change of The Workspace”

Watch the Life on the Edge Podcast Episode 2 Here:

UPCOMING ON LIFE ON THE EDGE PODCAST

Stay tuned for our next Life on the Edge podcast. Episode 3 will focus on monitoring remote endpoints and features ControlUp. In the episode, I chat with Trentent Tye and Shay Gadidi about how IGEL and ControlUp can help monitor and manage remote endpoints. During the episode Trentent runs through a live demo of Control Up’s new technologies Remote DX and Edge DX.

Subscribe today to IGEL’s channel on YouTube so you don’t miss any of our upcoming episodes. You’ll find the latest and all previous episodes on under the Life on the Edge video podcast playlist. When you subscribe, be sure to enable notifications so you know as soon as a new episode is posted. As always, we aim to deliver the valuable content that will make your Life on the Edge an amazing experience.

The post Life on the Edge Episode 2: End User Experience with Login VSI and IGEL appeared first on IGEL.

As we are all aware EUC has become central to the remote working solutions of companies since the start of the pandemic. Throughout the series I intend to highlight certain topics and the hottest one now has to be Microsoft Teams optimization. Recently, I worked on a detailed overview of the solution provided by Citrix and IGEL and had an idea to do a podcast to expand on these ideas.
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Episode 1: Microsoft Teams optimization with Citrix and IGEL

In Episode 1, I speak to Toby Brown from Citrix who is a Lead EMEA Domain Specialist, Microsoft Cloud Technologies. Since the recording Toby has moved to Microsoft to become a WVD Global Black Belt.

Since the start of Covid demand for Unified Comms solutions such as Microsoft Teams have rocketed as everyone attempts to communicate daily as part of their jobs in this new remote working reality.

In the interview Toby and I discuss Microsoft Teams optimization. Specifically we talk about how IGEL and Citrix can solve the Teams optimization issues and give customers a much better user experience when running Teams. We end with a detailed demo example showing a Teams optimization solution running end to end on Citrix and IGEL.

Upcoming on Life on the Edge Podcast

Episode 2 will focus on another important issue and that is end user experience. I will talk to Mark Plettenburg who is a Senior Product Manager at Login VSI. Some people may be aware of Login VSI in terms of load testing but not Login Enterprise which integrates with IGEL and is a great solution for the measurement of end user experience.

Future episodes have been lined up and you can find the latest and all previous episodes on IGEL’s channel on YouTube under the Life on the Edge video podcast playlist. Subscribe to the channel to be notified when a new episode is posted.

Check back here on the IGEL Blog for an updated schedule of topics and guests.

The post Introducing IGEL’s Life on the Edge Podcast appeared first on IGEL.

Teams usage is at an all-time high, according to Satya Nadella on an earnings call in Oct 2020 “Microsoft Teams usage jumps 50 percent from 75 million since the start of the pandemic to 115 million daily active users. “

Given this increased demand, companies need Teams optimisation for the following reasons:

User Experience

By offloading unified communications solutions processes to endpoints, user experience goes up as the endpoint has abundant resources

Density

CPU/RAM load at virtual desktops lowers by offloading unified communication to endpoints, it increases density at the virtual desktops.

Cost

Higher density on multi-user instances requires fewer instances running leading directly to lower costs for workloads.

IGEL and Citrix can deliver a Teams Optimization solution to meet these needs.

Requirements for Microsoft Teams Optimisation 

• MS Teams (1.2.00.31357 or higher)
• CVAD DDC 1906.2
• VDA 1906.2
• IGEL OS 11.04.240 or higher

So how does the Optimisation work? 

Diagram taken from https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/multimedia/opt-ms-teams.html

1. A Teams session is launched on the Citrix VDA running in the Cloud.
2. Teams authenticates to O365 and receives the relevant policies.
3. Teams detects that it is running in a VDA and makes API calls to the Citrix JavaScript API
4. Citrix JavaScript in Teams opens a secure WebSocket connection to WebSocketService.exe running on the VDA, which spawns WebSocketAgent.exe inside the user session.
5. exe instantiates a generic virtual channel by calling into the Citrix HDX Teams Redirection Service (CtxSvcHost.exe).
6. Citrix Workspace app’s wfica32.exe (HDX engine) spawns a new process called HdxTeams.exe or HdxRtcEngine.exe, which is the new WebRTC engine used for Teams optimization. This is a process that is running on the IGEL endpoint and the process HDxRtcEngine.exe shows that Teams processing has been offloaded to the endpoint.
7. Citrix media engine and Teams.exe have a 2-way virtual channel path and can start processing multimedia requests.
8. Peer A clicks the call button. Teams.exe communicates with the Teams services in Office 365 establishing an end-to-end signalling path with Peer B. Teams asks the Citrix Workspace app media engine for a series of supported call parameters (codecs, resolutions, and so forth, which is known as a Session Description Protocol (SDP) offer). These call parameters are then relayed using the signalling path to the Teams services in Office 365 and from there to the other peer.
9. The SDP offer/answer (single-pass negotiation) takes place through the signalling channel, and the ICE connectivity checks (NAT and Firewall traversal using Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN) bind requests) complete. Then, Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) media flows directly between HdxTeams.exe and the other peer (or Office 365 conference servers if it is a meeting).

Configuration

Both IGEL and Citrix have worked to make this an easy process to implement.

On IGEL OS

Teams Optimisation on IGEL requires the editing of the profile on the UMS Under – Sessions – Citrix – Citrix Global – Unified Communications – VDI Solutions and ticking the box as shown below.

On Citrix, this is enabled via a Citrix Policy as shown below.

How do you confirm the Teams session is optimised?  

On Citrix

Within the Teams Citrix session go to About and choose version the following should be displayed

On IGEL OS

Launch a local terminal session then execute the top command.

Start a Teams meeting or call.

Within the terminal window see if the HdxRtcEngine process is running as shown below. This shows that Teams processing has been offloaded to the IGEL endpoint.

IGEL and Citrix can provide customers with an end-to-end Teams Optimisation solution to meet the unified communications demands we all currently face. The solution continues to improve because IGEL OS has near zero-day support for Citrix Workspace App.

If you want to learn more, then this video from DISRUPT, featuring Rob Beekmans from Citrix and Ian Anderson at IGEL

The post Better together – IGEL and Citrix deliver a full end to end Teams Optimisation solution appeared first on IGEL.