Last week, Liquidware,  the leader in digital workspace management, launched version  6.6  of its  premier digital experience monitoring solution. The latest version of Stratusphere UX includes the following critical features and metrics:

Windows 11 Hardware Compatibility Inventory

Last fall, Microsoft released the Windows 11 operating system. The new OS places restrictions on key resource components, including CPU Clock, Core #, bit width & generation, RAM, Display size, resolution, Direct X 12/WDDM 2, & Color Depth, and Security (UEFI & TPM 2.0), among others. Stratusphere UX collects information on each one of these restrictions for each machine in the company fleet to determine upgrade compatibility with this OS. It highlights each incompatibility after evaluating it. This provides guidance for planning whether to perform in place upgrades or image refresh that would involve reinstalling applications and/or restoring data.

Expanded Work from Anywhere Metrics

New Work from Anywhere (WFx) metrics have been added to Stratusphere UX 6.6, including machine location, user input delay and machine local user accounts. These metrics provide detailed information as to the exact location the user on the machine is working at as well as how well their local device is performing remotely. Now, issues arising due to location & distance that could cause slow latency are easier to identify. In addition, the local user accounts data indicates whether there are multiple user accounts on the local machine, their status (enabled/disable/locked), when did they login last, and, most importantly, if any of them have administrative privileges. Local accounts with administrative privileges create a potential security issue. Domain accounts can be managed remotely but local accounts present another security attack surface that could result in leakage of sensitive data for the organization.

Dashboard Widget Enhancement

A new Sankey Diagram widget has been added to the Dashboards, displaying data relationships in a one-to-many, many-to-many, and many-to-one visualization. This widget displays the interrelation of digital workspace components including application names, process names, versions, destination IP, machines, processes, and users in a digital workspace environment.

Updated OS

As part of its continued focus on security, Stratusphere UX now runs on Oracle Linux 8 operating system that replaced CentOS 8. The new Oracle Linux 8 operating system provides widespread compatibility across virtual and cloud platforms and has universally accepted Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG) for compliancy within FED and DoD environments.

IT is Making a Major Shift from Devices to Digital Workspaces

There is no question that personal computing has evolved greatly since its mainstream introduction into business. Since Liquidware was born in 2009, we personally have seen the introduction of VDI, the extension of remote desktop delivery technologies,  proliferating SaaS and DaaS applications and cloud.  The nature of personal devices and apps has changed dramatically.  Today, the IT landscape is so altered that  even the term “desktops” has become outmoded.

Today, we tend to use the term “digital workspace,” which essentially refers to  an integrated technology framework designed to deliver and manage app, data, and desktop delivery. It allows employees to access their apps and data remotely and in real-time – on any device, from any location, at any time,  regardless of whether the information is stored through cloud services or in the data center.

The Pandemic Pushed the Pedal on Digital Workspaces

The advent of all these  developments were already driving companies to explore the limits of remote work and flexible digital workspaces.   Many organizations wanted to bring applications and data processing closer to the “action,” so industries  like healthcare, education, law enforcement, inventory management and logistics, for example, could access and transfer data immediately in the location where work needed to be performed.

However, the pandemic hitting the globe in 2020, accelerated the push to remote work more aggressively than any other single force.   Mainly because – for many organizations —  it was a matter of survival.   With many more employees working off-site, digital workspaces became the rule, not the exception.  However, managing digital workspaces is very different from managing desktops and requires an IT staff to make a cultural shift in management techniques.   With digital workspaces, pretty much all of the computing and data management is abstracted and stored in data centers or the cloud, not local machines. It runs on shared, not discrete, systems.  The digital workspaces framework needs a purpose-built solution in order to provide visibility into these abstractions and shared systems.   And so, as devices transitioned to digital workspaces, the need for a new breed of monitoring solution called digital experience monitoring has also arisen.

Digital Workspaces Gives Rise to Digital Experience Monitoring

With the use of cloud and SaaS applications dramatically increasing, the focus has shifted from systems monitoring to Digital Experience Monitoring or  DEM, which goes beyond servers and storage to include end point devices, third party applications, infrastructure, and networks.   DEM solutions coordinate metrics data across all of these in order to provide a true and complete picture of the user experience including the local devices and last-mile networks, which are typically outside of IT’s control.

With the release of Stratusphere UX v. 6.5 this week, we are proud to announce that our solution is currently the only certified end user experience monitoring solution to provide visibility into all three major cloud platforms, including  Amazon Web Services (AWS) Digital Workplace Competency status, advanced monitoring for the  Google Cloud Platform and detailed metrics for WVD on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.

The Importance of Cloud

Cloud platforms to support digital workspace transformation is increasingly important at a growing numbers of enterprise organizations.  Cloud platforms enable uncoupling workers from static devices, thereby letting their workspaces “roam” as needed. 

The latest Stratusphere UX release (v. 6.1.4) has made it to both the Amazon Workspace Marketplace and the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Continue reading →

Over the years, succeeding versions of Windows OS have consumed greater levels of resources, particularly CPU and RAM. This trend is not surprising, as each new version needed to support a wider set of more robust applications and features.

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Six months ago we added Process Optimization to the Stratusphere Connector ID Key (CID Key). With the upcoming release of Stratusphere UX 6.1.3, we’ve added some important enhancements to the feature. For those not familiar, Process Optimization helps minimize the effects of poorly performing applications and processes by prioritizing the CPU resources available to those that are in-focus by the end user. In short, this set-it-and-forget-it Stratusphere UX feature provides a user experience safety net. A safety net to ensure in-focus applications get the resources they need, but also to guard against unplanned-for background processes (and memory—more on that in a bit) causing a negative effect on user performance.

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