We had the opportunity to host our best LA CUG yet, with 250+ attendees taking in 13 sessions throughout the day at the Hilton Universal City, Los Angeles on Dec. 1st. Special thanks to our Platinum Sponsor RES Software.
In addition to technical breakouts throughout the day we were also supported by eleven additional sponsors. This event is just not possible without the support of these sponsors: Liquidware Labs, NetApp, Wyse, WhipTail, Cisco, Akamai, Quantum, Tricerat, Appsense, eG Innovations, Splunk, SEP, Aruba Networks, and Motorola Mobility.
As prize drawing for attending CUG members RES Software offered three Citrix Synergy San Francisco 2012 passes for raffle. These tickets are valued at $1500 each
Additional raffle items included:
- All registered attendees recieve a $500 discount on Citrix Synergy San Franciso 2012 ticket purchases.
- Citrix Training voucher for week-long classroom session, valued at $5000
- Citrix Training also offered two online training vouchers, valued at $3000@
- Citrix Training 15% discount on one time training purchase, with no limit imposed on purchase.
- Two iPads were also raffled, at the usual iPad price.
- Someone also won a backpack. Priceless!
Below find links to the PPT content provided during the event.
Tweaking the $#!% our of XS – Nick Rintalan
XenAppEscalation_TroubleShooting – Rick Berry
Pizza-Box VDI Write Cache Storage Alternatives – Alex Danilychev
Citrix and Cisco UCS – Bhumik Patel
Architecting for Change – Rick Dehlinger
Liquidware Labs: Transform the Desktop Story
It is a busy time this last month of the year. I wanted to post the PPT from the event as folks are requesting the content. I will update this post as feedback comes my way.
To everyone who attended we thank you very much. We had heavy wind storms in LA the evening before the event, and this did present challenges to attendees whether they be traffic or power outage at the data center. We truly appreciate all of you weathering the storm.
The goal of these events is to offer technical content that is meaningful to the work our CUG members do each day for businesses here in the LA/SoCal area (yes, members did attend from as far away as San Diego!). If you have feedback to contribute toward improving the quality of our event, of course pass this along, we are not the types to turn away a good idea!
Happy Holidays Everyone! We will see you in Q1!
RTE
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Nov
As we meet with customers here in the Los Angeles area we are sure to point out free Citrix Training opportunities available online at http://www.citrix.com/freetraining. These courses are self paced online products that allow customers to become more familiar with technical details and framework conventions for Citrix products. The opportunity to better inform customers is really the opportunity to better assure the success of our customers as they work to leverage Citrix XenDesktop technologies to meet use case requirements for business.
We are excited to announce that Citrix Education is offering during the upcoming Los Angeles Citrix Technology Exchange event on Dec. 1st (see below) a single $5000 classroom training voucher, and two online training vouchers as door prizes to be awarded to attendees of the event! The $5000 classroom voucher will allow the winner to choose from a number of training courses available from Citrix CALC training centers across the U.S. The online training voucher will allow the winner to choose a single self-paced online training course for completion.
Going forward throughout 2012, every Citrix Technology Exchange event taking place throughout the Southern California region will raffle off a single online training voucher to winning attendees!
As well, all Citrix Technology Exchange attendees will receive 15% off of any single purchase of Citrix Training. This 15% discount is available for 90 days after the event (fortunately we hold Technology Exchange events every quarter!). The one time purchase has no limit on the amount of training purchased. An organization can purchase onsite training for up to 10 employees, classroom training sessions, or online training sessions for as much of the service they feel necessary to consume!
So, in summary Citrix Training has offered up three door prizes to the Los Angeles Citrix Technology Event on Dec 1st (details and registration link can be found here), a single $5000 voucher for classroom training, and two self-paced online training vouchers. Throughout 2012 all Citrix Technology Exchange attendees in Southern California will receive 15% off of one time purchases of Citrix Training service, with no limit on the amount of purchase.
Kenny Queen, Citrix Education Field Manager – Western and Central US will be on hand at the event answer any of your questions.
Not bad huh! See you at the CTE!
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Oct
When I was a kid listening to the radio I would hear the announcer come on the air and shout Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! NHRA Drag Racing with Big Daddy Don Garlitz! I have that same feeling in my mind as I post this information about our next round of user groups in Los Angeles. We will be hosting our largest event to date, and we will be changing the name a bit, which we are prone to do at Citrix!
On Thursday December 1st, 2011 we will be hosting a full day Citrix Technology Exchange event at the Hilton Universal City, Los Angeles. There will be 12 technical sessions focused on Citrix Virtualization and Networking technologies.
Thanks to our Platinum Sponsor for the event, RES Software, three attendees of the LA Citrix Technology Exchange will receive full access passes to Synergy San Francisco 2012! This is $1500 ticket to one of the great technology events taking place in the world today. We are absolutely stoked to offer this opportunity to our attendees! Thank you RES Software! All attendees of the event will receive a $500 discount toward purchase of Synergy San Francisco 2012 passes. We will also be raffling off two iPad 2 devices. We expect there will be more prizes offered by the additional event sponsors.
Rick Dehlinger will be presenting and hosting a Geek Speak session to close out our event. Bring your questions and opinions for feedback! Take the LA Technology Exchange Q4 Survey, tell us what you want more information on for this event!
We will be starting the day early, registration opens 7:30am! Stay tuned for updates as to RSVP for the event. We look forward to seeing you there.
Scheduled Break Out Sessions (so far) are referenced below.
Technical Breakouts Citrix Virtualization:
RES Software: Workspace Manager
RES Software: Automation Manager
Rick Dehlinger: Architecting for Change
Alex Danilychev: VDI in a Pizza Box
Rick Berry: Troubleshooting XA6 – XA6.5 and Flash Redirection
Jonathan Eugenio: Citrix Edgesight Update
Technical Breakouts Citrix Networking:
Secure Remote Access for XenDesktop and XenApp with Global Server Load Balancing
MS SQL, MySQL Load Balancing with Netscaler
Netscaler Cloud Bridge, Connecting Your Datacenter to Cloud Delivery Environments
Netscaler SDX, Single Platform for All Datacenter Service Requirements
Additional Vendor Technical Sessions:
Liquidware Labs: Distributed Compute Monitoring for VDI Implementation
Whiptail: Solid State Drive Revolution for VDI!
Morning Keynote:
Wyse Technology: Morning Keynote Zero Client Presentation
Afternoon Keynote:
Trevor Mansell: Cisco Citrix Partnership Lunch Keynote
Closing Geek Speak Session:
Geek Speak: Hosted by Rick Dehlinger
Registration:
Please be aware that space will be limited. You can register for the event here.
See you there!
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Oct
Items of Interest
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I will list this post within the Tools and Links categories for the site. There have been a number of CTX articles released recently which may well offer value to your administrative efforts. Please see the links below, and tell me what you think. I have been reading up on latest product releases and will have more links and reading material to follow up as we move into the new year!
Citrix Consulting: Desktop Virtualization Best Practices Webinar Series
The Best XD 5.5 Technical Deck of ALL TIME!
Technical Guide for Updating to XenApp 6.5
How to Configure Application Pre-Launch in XenApp 6.5
Provisioning Services Live Site Database Migration
Installation of Access Management Console based on XenApp versions (.Net can getcha!)
CAG 5 Advanced Controller and iPad/iPhone Access
Citrix Quick Launch (longing for the days of PN, this will take you back!)
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Sep
Thanks to all of you who took time to attend the latest round of Citrix User Groups here in the Los Angeles area.
We covered a range of topics during these sessions: VDI Compute Resource Assessment by Liquidware Labs, Task Automation by RES Software, Updates on XD 5.5 and XA 6.5. You can download the PowerPoint presentations from Citrix and Liquidware Labs below. I will have the RES PPT posted as soon as I receive another copy….
RES Software Automation Manager
Citrix What’s New in XA 6.5 XD 5.5
The LWL presentation focused on the technical considerations we should keep in mind as we look to migrate application services into the data center. LWL offers the opportunity to project CPU, RAM, NIC, and Disk requirements for central hosting from the data center. What we are finding in the field is that users in the office setting rarely tax the physical compute resource available from their physical desktops. As we aggregate these physical devices into the data center however, it is important to have insight into the compute requirements needed to get this work done. The purpose of this work is to “right size” the investment required based on analysis of current compute requirements. Customers will find that guessing as to these requirements can be a very expensive proposition for the business. Look before you leap with LWL!
The RES Software presentation focused on their Automation Manager product. RES Automation Manager leverages a database repository to automate common tasks for the network administrator. An example of this would be the “thin provisioning” of a gold image based not on the retention of a images in storage, but instead the exact build process maintained within the DB which can be delivered to any Windows OS workload to match production readiness.
The Citrix presentation focused on new features to be found in XA 6.5 and XD 5.5. Desktop Director 2.0 offers delegated administration via common browser, while combining both XA and XD session visibility into a single admin console. Fast App Launch was demonstrated, this is the ability to leverage the initial user logon to an endpoint with Receiver 3.0 installed, to simultaneously launch an application from the XA 6.5 farm environment. Fast App Launch takes advantage of session sharing from your XA farm to allow for the immediate launch of applications, no more Citrix splash screen, just an immediate application launch for the user, pretty slick! We also discussed the new multi-stream ICA protocol, details can be found in the slide deck. If you have additional questions, and would like to follow up with local Citrix Sales Team for LA, contact Nathaniel Chadbourne.
We would also like to thank additional sponsors for the event: NetApp, Wyse, Tricerat, and WhipTail
We are planning the next round of LA CUGs to take place the 1st week of December 2011. Stay tuned for details!
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Sep
Links for the Linking
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I have received feedback from some telling me it would be a good idea to include some additional links to sites that I use to collect information on Citrix products. This will be my first post in this regard. I expect going forward I will update this post with additional information as I find it (or it is recommended).
TED Talks Simon Sinek “How great leaders inspire action”
Virtualization Jedi (Paul Wilson)
Citrix Knowledge Center
Citrix eDocs (Documentation)
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Sep
Tools for the Typing
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This will be my first post to a new category on the site, Tools, Tips, Tricks, and Links.
This past week I was having a bit of trouble in my own lab. I was speaking to a colleague who asked, “do you have MedEvac?” I just stared blankly into my IP Phone. What was this person talking about?! Well, I set about finding what MedEvac was and found a few other items along the way. I have included these in a list below.
In a general sense these tools offer service for XA 4.5 and XD4 and above. Click through the tools to review any potential they may offer to assist you in your own Citrix environments. The Disclaimer is that you do everything at your our risk. Read everything carefully, proceed with caution, do not disrupt production, and enjoy!
CTX123005 Citrix UPM Log Parser
CTX124577 CDFMarker On Demand -For XenApp and XenDesktop
CTX124918 SsOnExpert -Single Sign-On XenApp Plug-in Troubleshooting Tool
CTX124949 Citrix Logoff Sessions 2.2
CTX122962 Citrix Printing Tool
CTX125471 XenApp 6 Migration Tool
CTX113472 Citrix ICA File Creator
CTX111344 Citrix License Path Utility
CTX122450 Citrix Port Check Utility
CTX120629 Citrix Profiler Template for SQL 2000
CTX120630 Citrix Profiler Template for SQL 2005
CTX116063 XenAppPrep Integration Utility for XenApp and Provisioning Services
CTX119347 Client IP Extraction Module -ISAPI -For NetScaler
CTX124811 CtxCPMDiag -For Password Manager Agent
CTX123935 CtxsLicChk -Citrix License Check Utility
CTX124406 DSCHECK -XenApp Data Store Checker Tool Commands
CTX124815 DSRepCheck -SQL Replication Test Tool -For XenApp 6
CTX122146 EdgeSight Database Size Estimation Tool
CTX122568 EdgeSight Load Testing XenApp Using Office 2007
CTX121355 Enabling Remote Installation for Citrix Receiver
CTX111343 Endpoint Analysis Antivirus Scan Package Autoupdate Scripts
CTX123058 HDX Experience Monitor for XenDesktop Video 1
CTX123197 Health Monitoring and Recovery Test Pack
CTX124446 LBDiag -XenApp 6 Load Balancing Diagnostic Tool
CTX125089 MFCOM to Powershell Script Searcher
CTX121569 NetScaler CPU tight-loop (LCT) monitor
CTX121568 NetScaler CPU Usage Conditional Profiler
CTX122317 Nsconmsg to Excel Tool
CTX110629 PDBFinder for 32-bit and 64-bit Platforms
CTX111656 SQL Replication Test Tool Version 4.2
CTX111072 SystemDump 3.1 for 32-bit and 64-bit platforms
CTX122318 Wireshark for Netscaler
CTX124805 XenApp Console Discovery Repair
CTX121339 XenApp Template for BGInfo
CTX124963 XenDesktop 4 Client Identity Pack
CTX124012 XenDesktop Session Parser
CTX124379 XenDesktop Virtual Desktop Agent Troubleshooting Utility
CTX121564 XenServer Database Tool
CTX109374 StressPrinters 1.3.2 for 32-bit and 64-bit Platforms
CTX111901 TestWER (Test Windows Error Reporting)
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