What you may have missed…
Microsoft Ignite was in Orlando last week as many have occurred before. This Ignite was different though mainly because there was no way to ignore the major spotlight that Microsoft was shining on Windows desktop delivery. More specifically, Microsoft had many sessions and announcements around Microsoft WVD (Windows Virtual Desktop). More on that later below.
We co-hosted go-kart racing with IGEL and CloudJumper and were able to accommodate hundreds of registrants. Hundreds of others were waitlisted (our apologies and we’ll plan something even bigger next time). It was a great event.
By our conversations with attendees in The Hub (the show floor), not every desktop architect was there for WVD information. We held discussions with many large enterprise desktop on-prem accounts that are running Citrix and/or VMware desktops. Many had a mixture of Citrix, VMware, cloud and on-prem and were discovering that Liquidware was a perfect fit for workspace management that adapts to the desktop without compromising user productivity. Some of these large Microsoft customers had not even heard of WVD yet and that’s perfectly fine (they will). Microsoft Ignite served as a reality check for Liquidware – with us realizing that many organizations are not in a hurry to change up their on-prem desktop delivery for cloud based desktops. What we did validate was that many organizations want to leverage more and more of the cloud.
It’s a perfect scenario for customers to leverage Liquidware because our workspace management can effectively perform “Cloud Staging” of user profiles, applications, and metrics of the user experience. In short, customers can leverage Microsoft Azure, Amazon, and/or Google clouds today with their on-prem desktops to seamlessly pave the way for transitions when ready. Our innovative support of cloud and object-based storage for user profiles, data, and apps serves as a pathway to the cloud while modernizing your legacy on-prem deployments today.
Back to Microsoft WVD. There were many sessions but the main one was on the first day of the show. The session was delivered by Scott Manchester, Group Program Manager, Microsoft, it was well attended. Highlights of that session and others included:
- WVD will expand to more regions by early next year, beyond the Americas and Europe. No matter where you are, you can now deploy WVD but the increased geographies will decrease latency for far hosted regions in the world.
- Support for Linux thin clients with IGEL, a Liquidware alliance partner.
- Native Domain Controller (AD) support for Azure File Storage.
- Microsoft Teams support
- Improvement with the admin experience is coming soon
- Enhanced integration with Office 365
- WVD will be supported on Azure Stack Hub. That means you’ll be able to run WVD on-prem https://azurestack.blog/2019/11/azure-stack-ignite-2019-updates/. The Native WVD Management Plane will continue to only be available on Azure.
- Preview of MSIX App Attach – and a shout out by Scott (thanks) of working with Liquidware for additional app capabilities with FlexApp
There were tens of thousands in attendance at Microsoft Ignite this year. Wherever you are exploring emerging cloud desktops such as Microsoft WVD, Amazon WorkSpaces or Nutanix XiFrame or you’re looking to leverage more cloud storage to pave the way, Liquidware is the only source for Adaptive Workspace Management that works across all of your desktops. Start your trial today or contact us to let us know how we can assist.