Green Computing

I'm not much into being green if I have to go out of my way, but HP and Citrix are combining to allow for automatic draining of users, graceful shutdown with iLO and servers and the scheduled turning back on. This should ease power budgets for both cooling and server power draw. This will be available in December.

Random pictures/video from iForum

First time iForum Attendees take note

Here's some rules I've learned over the past 5 iForums to help you out:

Always book your hotel room as close to the conference as possible so you can drop your backpack off when you don't need it anymore or just to get away for a few hours

Always drop you backpack off before the closing keynote. You can tell the newbies from the veterans by how's caring around the backpack when at the final party.

Bring comfortable shoes, you will be walking a lot.

Finally got to talk with a Citrix booth person

I got to talk to the XEN and Provisioning Server engineer (Ardence) for about 3 minutes before I had to run off to a focus group. My 2 questions were:

1) (Q) Does it have the same problem with VMware with both ESX and Citrix trying to manage the CPU? (A) No, XEN takes advantage of the Hypervisor on the CPU.

2) (Q) How can I deploy servers do fast with a template? (A) It takes only seconds to deploy a server. It takes a snapshot of the template, gives you the original template and re-writes the template so you don't have to wait for the template to copy and give you the new copy like VMware does.

3) (Q) Do I need a full disk image for each server I deploy with Provision Server? (A) No, only 1 disk image and some config files for all the provisioned servers.

Citrix Booth

I waited for 15 minutes to talk to the XEN guy or Provisioning server guy. The same people were talking to them the whole time so I never got to ask any questions. Next year Citrix needs to dedicate my floor/counter space and person resources to new products as I'm getting frustrated not being able to ask questions that I have.

Citrix Booth

The Citrix booth dominates the show floor. They have a display with many computer/displays for each product they have. The people working the booth are the product developers/engineers, so there's no smoke being blown up your a.. when you ask a question. If they don't know it they'll drag you around the booth until they get an answer. I talked with the Printing Jedi for a while. He showed me that with project Delaware (PS 5) they rewrote the UPD again. This time there is no Citrix engine to render the print job. It will be using the XPS format (EMF will still work with legacy clients). This will require .NET 3 on both the server and the client rather than embedding into the client.

Closing Keynote points on iForum 2008

Houston, TX (is it going to be downtown or at Astro complex?)

More conference days
More room in Convention Hall
More technical sessions
More vendors focus on Application Delivery

I hope to go given the timing of the show being only about 6 months away.

App Delivery Conference 2008

From the calendar we were given in our books it looks like the next iForum (App Delivery Conference) will be held May 19-22. This may be helpful for people not here this year, but not for people who go on a regular basis. My thoughts are they are trying to do this after the MS Server 2008 product roll outs or to try and get some new comers that can't come in the fall. I hope this isn't a mistake on their part by putting them so close together.

Streaming Windows Apps with CPS

This sessions has room for 813 seated people. There were dozens standing because all the seats were taken. I didn't learn much as I'm already familar with streaming, but want to see if the 4.5 features will be viable for me streaming to clients for future app installs. Basically the session was to promote Streaming Windows Apps on either PC's or Citrix servers using the Isolation Environment technology. They are working on eliminating the first start lag that Isolation Environments have but haven't elminated that yet. They also touched on OS streaming using Ardence. That's a product I'd really like to see as I can't believe performance would be very good.

Take the Load off of PS Performance Testing

Not exactly what I thought it was going to be. The room seats 813 of which maybe 1/3 of the seats were taken. It was a sales pitch for "EdgeSight Manager for Load Testing". I claim to know a lot about Citrix products, and can say I had never heard of the "for Load Testing" product. Just last week my manager asked if there was such a product, and I said that I could write one as I've done in the past.

This product looked very cool as it can dig into the step-by-step process to see where system bottle necks are. Basically it can record your steps and play them back in batch mode to simulate user interaction.

One thing that I was disappointed in is that I don't know if that's a Platinum product or an additional purchased product.

I attended the MTM/Wyse party

This is a vendor of whom used to be my solution provider. I've become good friends with a number of them so I keep in contact even though I'm out of their area. They hosted a party for several hundred people on the 64th floor of "The Hotel" at Mandalay Bay. I've been here before on Citrix's dollar, but tonight was especially fun because it was open bar for 2 1/2 hours at a place where $6-10 beers is typical. Here's a picture from the balcony. I was hoping not to drop the camera 600+ feet to the ground

Still not much for signage and advertising

So I'm walking down the LONG hallway to the Citrix part of the convention center this morning and I didn't see any Citrix signs until the escalators to take you up. Last time it was here there were signs in the hall leading down to the convention center. I see the lack of signage as a lack of virtually free advertising. Citrix should really hit the home user for advertising with the GOTO product line. Home people don't know what presentation server is, but most have heard of GOTO MyPC. Citrix should really advertise their consumer line to the other people who aren't hear for the conference like they randomly do on the web in advertising space.

Internet Access

So I get checked in and try to post something to the communispace site and can't browse the Internet in the Wyse lab. No signs of an HP/Compaq lab. The Wyse lab was maybe 1/4 full of the 50+ or so thin client. They chose to make me browse the Internet on a Citrix server that took over 30 seconds to establish a connection to they the server couldn't connect to the Internet so I couldn't get on. There were lot's of people with laptops in the room as there were many tables setup for personal laptop use. Those people seemed to be connecting just fine.

1 recomendation for those here this morning

Don't bring your backpack to registration with all your stuff. This is a common mistake made by first time attendees. Go to registration with nothing but your ID so you can register and get your new backpack and all it's stuff. Go back to your room and get your laptop if you want it before the sessions start. Wireless access is sometimes unusable because of 1000+ laptops trying to browse the web at the same time. There is always thin client labs for you to get to email and your Citrix networks to work if needed. Wyse and Compaq usually have labs displaying their latest and greatest thin clients. This Internet connection is fast and no lines waiting for terminals as there are dozens.

Got here and no "Signs" of Citrix

Usually when attending iForum there are signs, banners and people in the airport with Citrix shirts and of course the backpacks that symbolize iForum's of the past. I was the only "Sign" of Citrix tonight, that I saw, at the airport (backpack from last year), and at Mandalay Bay tonight. I went walking around to try and time my walk from The Luxor to the convention and didn't see a single sign that pointed towards the convention. I even went as far as the escalators to head upstairs. There was registration tonight for people who were here before me and I hope they figured out where to go without any directions. I don't think GPS's work for finding your destination inside the convention center. I'm sure by tomorrow morning they will be up so the newbies can find it.

Special Focus Groups

I'll be attending 4 small group (12-20 people) focus groups while at iForum in addition to the regular sessions.
1) Citrix Provisioning Server

If the Provisioning Server is as good as I hope, this could be the greatest product from a System Engineering perspective in a long time.

2) Migrating to new Presentation Server Versions

I've worked with/migrated to every version of Citrix PS/Metaframe since WinFrame 1.7 and will get the chance to tell my story about my upgrade processes and best practice theories.

3) Voice over IP and Unified Communications
4) Application Streaming and Your Organization

Why should I use Application Streaming? Hopefully I'll find out

Session Space

I hope Citrix has larger areas for the more popular sessions this year. Every year it seems they don't forecast some sessions very well and end up with a loser session in a huge room and a popular session in a tiny room. I've been to a few sessions where they wouldn't even let me in the door because there wasn't any standing room left. The good thing about Mandalay is the rooms are larger than at the Swan and Dolphin at WDW.