Blog posts tagged with 'terminal services'

Sean Whetstone, Head of IT Services at Reed Managed Services in the UK, is a big fan of going green. By using a combination of Citrix XenApp, NetScaler and XenDesktop, Reed Managed Services was able to reduce operating expenses by over 20%, centralize and secure data from over 300 offices, and reduce their carbon footprint by 2500 tons. According to the post on Sean's blog, Reed Managed Services was able to cut utility usage by 5,500,000 kilowatt hours to save over 100,000 pounds as a result of this project.

Sean recently posted a video interview he did at a Citrix event in London on his blog.

You can view Sean's presentation on this topic here.

Citrix EasyCall provides a simple and intuitive way communication enabling your existing applications with the flexibility of using any telephone.

EasyCall enables:

• Click-to-Call from any application
• Any telephone (mobile, office, home)
• Click-to-Call enabled directory & call-log
  
  The embedded presentation below reviews the features of Citrix EasyCall.
  
  

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  Click here to view the presentation in full screen at Slide Share.
  
  

Here is a short demo video that covers how to use EasyCall and reviews briefly how it works.

EasyCall Demo video

EasyCall is a standard feature on:

• Citrix XenApp Platinum Edition
• Citrix NetScaler Platinum Edition
• Citrix XenDesktop Platinum Edition
  
  

You can find the EasyCall Administrator's Guide here and the Getting Started Guide here. The EasyCall User Guide is at this link.

There are several Systems Integrators Guide for various phone systems -

Nortel

Avaya

Bandwidth.com

In this next two minute video screencast posted on UTipu, James Millington covers a great new feature of EdgeSight 5 - the user Troubleshooter.

James Millington has made a new video screencast on UTipu that outlines the changes in the user interface for EdgeSight 5. Watch the five minute screencast with James below.

In my eight and a half years at Citrix, one constant I have seen in successful large rollouts is extensive detailed testing both during a pilot and prior to final rollout. In my opinion, it is essential to test the applications running with actual work flow processes (including file transfers and printing) over the same networks as production (or a simulated network with the same characteristics).

Ideally, after a detailed pilot program is completed and a final architecture design is built, the entire load should be simulated prior to moving into production. This approach reduces the risks of a rollout by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the design prior to putting real users on the system. In the past, many companies avoided this step because load simulation tools were often very expensive. In many cases the available tools were extremely difficult to script to work with applications running on Citrix XenApp.

EdgeSight for Load testing is designed to overcome these issues to allow you to reduce the risks of your production rollouts of XenApp. EdgeSight for Load Testing is built specifically for Citrix XenApp and simplifies the process to build workflow scripts with a wide variety of applications.

The presentation below gives you a brief overview of EdgeSight for Load Testing.

(click here to see the presentation in full screen)

You can find the EdgeSight for Load Testing Installation Guide here and the User Guide here. You can get troubleshooting help for EdgeSight for Load Testing at this link.

XenApp enables IT organizations to reduce the costs of delivering applications by centralizing management, security and control of apps and data. Application virtualization technology provides a flexible application delivery system that can select the best method to deliver an application dynamically, based on the user, application and network.

This next embedded presentation digs down much deeper into the application virtualization technology included in Citrix XenApp 5.0 .

(click here to see the presentation in full screen)

You can download the Delivery and Streaming Best Practices document here and the Office 2007 Profiling document here. The Administrator FAQ is here and you can find a Troubleshooting document here.

You can download a complete virtual appliance of Citrix XenApp 4.5 at this link.

One of the unique new features of Citrix XenApp is Smart Auditor. The Smart Auditor feature of Citrix XenApp gives you the ability to capture all application screens of specific users or applications based on a number of different factors. This information can be used for compliance, activity monitoring and problem resolution. This presention goes under the cover of the Smart Auditor feature to give you an inside look.

(click here to see the presentation in full screen)

You can learn more from the Smart Auditor's Administrator's Guide.

In a previous post I posed the question "If you could wave a magic wand and have any one single feature in the next release of Citrix XenApp, what would it be?".
It is clear many of you would like to wave that magic wand. There have been just over 650 votes and 26 comments so far. This post has been in the Top 5 in total post views since it was posted. Clearly there is a lot of interest in this topic.
I guaranteed you in that post I would share the results with the XenApp product team and I have done that. I also promised to follow up on the feature requests.
I am still working on getting a high level developer or software architect to talk about "live migration of individual sessions". I do have some further info on "Speed Screen Multimedia across all client platforms", the second most popular option in our poll.

Derek Thorslund, our Multimedia Virtualization Strategist, has written numerous posts about SpeedScreen Multimedia and related technologies. According to Derek, support for SpeedScreen Multimedia Acceleration on the Linux client is currently being developed. Derek was not able to give me a definitive time line for the general release of this capability, but I think they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, our Technology Licensing Partners now have access to a Technology Preview of SpeedScreen MultiMedia Acceleration for the Linux client. I will keep prodding Derek to provide more info as this project reaches completion.

In case you are not aware, SpeedScreen Multimedia Acceleration is currently available for the Win32 Client and the Windows CE WBT client (according to the client matrix). You can see in that document that Image Acceleration, Flash Acceleration and Browser acceleration are all support on multiple clients beyond Win32 and Win CE CBT.

Here are a few relevant blog posts on this topic in case you have not seen them -

SpeedScreenMultiMedaiAcceleration and Rave Video

How Do I Know if RAVE is Working?

What is SpeedScreen Image Acceleration?

Secrets of Optimizing Flash Part 1

Secrets of Optimizing Flash Part 2

Secrets for Optimizing Flash Part 3

Secrets for Optimizing Flash Part 4

Secrets for Optimizing Flash Part 5

New HRP Enhances Flash Support

SpeedScreen Progressive Display Delivers PACS Images



For deeper background technical information, here are some Knowledgebase articles on this topic

Troubleshooting the SpeedScreen Multimedia Acceleration Feature

Windows Media Player Cannot Play the file\


And finally, here is a technical video (narrated by Brian Madden) I found on the SpeedScreen topic -

Deep Dive into Citrix XenApp SpeedScreen Technologies

If you could wave a magic wand and have any one single feature in the next release of Citrix XenApp, what would it be?

While XenApp has literally hundreds of features that have been added over the last 10 years as the product has evolved from MetaFrame 1.0,1.8, XP, FR1 though FR3, 3.0, then 4.0 and now 4.5, is there one feature you really want to have but have not seen yet?

I pulled in a few ideas I have received into a poll. If you would like to add others to the list, post them in the comments and I will add your suggestion. I am looking for big home run features, but ideas that help you in your day to day job are fine as well.

From my past experience, many of you just do not have the time to keep up with every feature added to XenApp/CPS over time, especially if you are migrating to every other release. I have a theory about that as well (but I am saving that theory for a later post). It will be interesting to see if any feature ideas are submitted that have already been added in a past release.

Of course, there is no guarantee anything on this list can or will be included in the future (since I am not on the XenApp product team). I do guarantee I will communicate the results of this poll to that team.

This is a very preliminary list based on an informal survey I took recently. Instead of editing it, I am just posting it to get the discussion (and voting) started. If you want to add a feature to this list, post it in the comments and I will add it. Focus on the problem you need to solve.

If you could wave a magic wand, what feature would you put into the next release of XenApp?	Choose
SpeedScreen Multimedia support across all client platforms
Enhanced smart phone integration
Enhanced Mac integration
Live migration of individual sessions
Diff tool for Microsoft and Citrix patch levels on all servers
Integration with third party app virtualization solutions (MAV or SVS)
Greatly enhanced scalability
Security Analysis and Lockdown Tool
Pool of Pre-Launched Sessions for Faster Launching
Management through an Active Directory OU

UPDATE:Two Additional Choices offered based on comments.

If there is a lot of interest in this poll, I will post follow ups on the features requested and similar polls for other products. My goal here is to get unfiltered feedback from you about what you want to see in the product and how we can improve the product to solve the problems you face.

UPDATE:The response to date on this poll has been excellent. Votes are still coming into the poll. I have sent a screen shot of the results to date to a member fo the XenApp team to ensure the product team is aware of these requests. I am working to get some members of that team to discuss of these requests and the comments posted here.

At the recent Citrix App Delivery Expo in Sydney, Australia, Michale Harries (AKA Dyson), Steve Parry and Adam Jacques have a virtual meeting in Second Life. "Dyson" and his team deliver applications inside this virtual world.