virtuEs.IT

… sharing my IT Quests

Archive for May, 2012

Watch the Citrix Synergy SF 2012 sessions yourself

May 14

Posted by virtuEs in Citrix Synergy 2012 - San Francisco | Comments off

Bookmark and Share

For those that didn’t get to attend all their favorite sessions …

For those that didn’t get to attend Synergy in San Francisco this year …

… And for those that just want to watch the Synergy sessions at their own time and pace

 

You can check out the recorded Synergy sessions at Citrix TV, by just selecting the Synergy channel, or go to this link directly: http://www.citrix.com/tv/#channels/Synergy

And for those that want to get their hands on some of the presentations themselves, check out Summit-in-a-Box (MyCitrix login required)
 

Tags: , ,

Citrix Synergy SF 2012 – General Session announcements

May 10

Posted by virtuEs in Citrix Synergy 2012 - San Francisco | 2 Comments

Bookmark and Share

After the keynote from yesterday I was very curious for more project Avalon information in the General Session, so here’s another quick bulletlist with info gathered during the General Session on day 2 of the Citrix Synergy San Francisco 2012:

(As I ran late joining the live stream, I missed the first half, so alot of quoted tweets in the first list)

  • via @TwistyRoadsCrvr: XenServer Foundation of Public Clouds ~80% of Public Clouds use it! + On Premise / Private Data Centers
  • via @TwistyRoadsCrvr: Cloud is NOT top down but instead according to @GevaPerry, it’s about bottom up adoption (More on: http://ThinkingOutLoud.com)
  • via @TwistyRoadsCrvr: @GevaPerry: Amazon Web Services Adoption (Bottom Up) = Developers ^ IT Execs ^ CIO
  • via @TwistyRoadsCrvr: AWS Cloud is Horizontal not Traditional Vertical vServer stack = Availability zones = start small, scale fast!
  • via @TwistyRoadsCrvr: Apache Foundation = Apache + Tomcat + Hadoop + Cassandra <Caution: Not all data fits well into Hadoop construct>
  • via @matthewsmall: @michaelcrandell and @rjgeyer showing off a custom PaaS built on RightScale API – “the IT Vending Machine”NetScaler now with Amazone Web Services
  • via @TwistyRoadsCrvr: NetScaler = load balance + auto-detect + enables ‘Thin’ Provisioning + seamless scaling
  • via @netscaler: NetScaler now with Amazon Web Services
  • via @citrix: Learn more about NetScaler 10 for Amazon Web Services: http://bit.ly/IYCtKN
  • Nathan Day, Chief Scientist SoftLayer, takes the stage for a demo
  • The demo is no more than a pre-recorded walkthrough of how to configure the NetScaler CloudBridge with SoftLayer
  • Here it is, project Avalon!
  • via @TwistyRoadsCrvr: #ProjectAvalon = Elasticity + Scale + Autonomic + Metering + Biling + Accountabiltiy + Self-Service
  • first project Avalon demo: XenDesktop – choice where your desktops will run, including Cloud services
  • Cool first demo for XenDesktops combined with #CloudStack, provision desktops in the cloud and host them from anywhere
  • #ProjectAvalon: use CloudPortal Service manager to connect users to advertised services w/ App&Desktop Orchestration plugin
  • via @TwistyRoadsCrvr: Cloud Services Portal = PVS on steroids but still easy to use
  • “A few simple clicks to get your users productive, that’s what we call Service Orchestration”
  • “Citrix Apps Studio is the incarnation of project Rainmaker” -> A good use to empower Service Orchestration!
  • One more thing …
  • Updating your server , just point your workload to the new server and let it do it’s magic :-)
  • via @TwistyRoadsCrvr: #ProjectAvalon One more thing = point workload to ‘new’ server; over time will drain users and transition to new server =)
  • More to come !!! … CloudPortal, ShareFile, CloudBridge, NetScaler and CloudGateway integration as well

 

Additional info

  • Read all about it on Citrix Blogs – Project Avalon What does this mean to me? http://bit.ly/J1kcps (from yesterday’s keynote)

 

 

You can watch the Citrix Synergy SF 2012 General session on CitrixTV: http://www.citrix.com/tv/#videos/5745.
 

 

Tags:

Citrix Synergy SF 2012 – Keynote announcements

May 9

Posted by virtuEs in Citrix Synergy 2012 - San Francisco | 2 Comments

Bookmark and Share

I’m still fully excited about all the announcements Mark Templeton and Brad Peterson made during the first Citrix Synergy keynote tonight (for me at least). So here’s a small list of the main announcements made (based upon my own tweets):

  • GoToAssist now available for Android and for FREE
  • A new Thin Client: Wyse Xenith 2 (40% faster, more secure, HD, multi monitor, WAN optimized)
  • VDI-in-a-Box now comes with XenDesktop license upgrades
  • VDI-in-a-Box is the winner of the ‘best of Interop Awards 2012′
  • VirtualComputer (and NXTop) is now part of Citrix
  • XenClient Enterprise Edition wil lbe released in Q2 (that’s THIS quarter) and is now part of the XenDesktop Platinum license
  • The Nominees for the Innovation award are Suncorp, IDC Frontier, and Education Services of America.
  • And the award goes to ………….. #drumroll ………………… ESA
  • Mark Templeton introduces a new word: life slicing (to explain how work and private life and intertwined and time is sliced in parts that switch between work and private life)
  • GoToMeeting with HD Faces now available on iPad
  • Podio is now part of Citrix
  • Podio is the tooling for what happens between meetings (=workflow)
  • Tommy Ahlers (VP of Social Collaboration) is invited on stage to show the Podio demo
  • Podio has a yammer/facebook look & feel and looks very user friendly to support collaboration and integrates with ShareFile
  • Podio has GoToMeeting integration as well! … and integration with Receiver to add application shortcuts to your workspace and start them in a webbrowser tab
  • Podio sure looks very promising for collaboration 2.0 :-)   and to quote Mark T “Not just yammer about work, but just get it done together”
  • Podio is free for teams up to 5 people
  • ShareFile with StorageZones (control where you’re data is stored both in public & private clouds)
  • Jesse Lipson is invited on stage to show the ShareFile demo
  • You can download ShareFile StorageZones yourself at http://www.citrix.com/sharefile/storagezonestechpreview
  • ShareFile with StorageZones is about iCloud for Business!
  • Receiver with Follow-Me-Data is shipped in July
  • Cloud Gateway 2 – new content controllers for mobile and data
  • Brad Peterson, Chief Demo Officer, is invited on stage to show the CloudGateway 2 demo
  • Brad shows use a great new feature, introducing the iJacket, with custom made pockets for the many devices with different form factors
  • Cloud Gateway 2 supports native (secure) connections to intranet sites from your Receiver (no published internet browser required!)
  • Cloud Gateway 2 offers a unified storefront for mobile, Web, SaaS and Windows applications through so called content controllers that are added to Cloud Gateway
  • XenDesktop Flexcast now supports Remote PC option
  • Brad returns to stage to demo the new HDX enhancements with a very smooth running CAD application running on the latest gen 3 i7 Intel processor hypervisor VM with a dedicated GPU
  • Brad’s Windows 8 demo on the Samsung Slate with Citrix Receiver almost makes you cross over to the dark side, it sure is looking slick
  • Brad continues to show the latest HP Zero Client, consuming only 13 watts by using PoE (Power over Ethernet) and also has HDX -on-a-chip
  • CloudBridge is almost here as well, shipping in June to offer a simple way to connect your data center to a cloud provider
  • Citrix CloudPlatform powered by Apache CloudStack is available today
  • And how do you deliver all these services? Right with NetScaler 10
  • NetScaler offers Scale Up (pay-as-you-grow), Scale In (delivery services consolidation) and Scale Out (add & go clustering)

 

  • One more thing … project Avalon, delivering Windows Apps & Desktops as a true cloud service
  • project Avalon = CloudStack + XenApp/XenDesktop + Cloud-style Service Orchestration (read all about it on Citrix Blogs)

Or just go to the Citrix Synergy 2012 Newsroom to read all the official announcements & blogs yourself.

 

You can watch the Citrix Synergy SF 2012 keynote on CitrixTV: http://www.citrix.com/tv/#videos/5709.
 

 

Tags: , ,

Using Visio layers to create custom views (part 3)

May 6

Posted by virtuEs in HowTo, Scripts | 7 Comments

Bookmark and Share

In the first part of this series I explained how you can create layers and assign shapes to each layer to toggle the visibility of them as you manage your layers. The second part explained how you can use the Developer tab to add a command button to your drawing and even create custom User Forms using VBA. So now it is time to get to the final part of this series and explain the VBA code that gets all components to work together and offer users a simple interface to toggle the visibility of the layers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ,

Using Visio layers to create custom views (part 2)

May 6

Posted by virtuEs in HowTo, Scripts | 5 Comments

Bookmark and Share

After explaining the manual configuration of visio layers in part 1, it is now time to add some VBA code to the mix and build ourselves a more user friendly interface to toggle the visibility (and printability) of the layers within a drawing.

In order to use the code I will provide, you’ll need to have VBA installed with your Visio installation and enable the use of Marco’s for your drawing.

Visio Setup VBA

Visio Setup VBA

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start with the basics on how to setup Visio to work with VBA.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ,