Profile Containers/Disks for Windows desktops enable Administrators to offload the entire user profile to a profile disk (VHD or VMDK). This approach allows for an otherwise large profile to be read at a block-level (very efficient) over the network. Liquidware ProfileUnity features the option to use a ProfileDisk™ and containers in ProfileUnity. They can be great – except when they are not.  Here are the Pros and Cons that you should know before you rely solely on a profile container/disk to provide an excellent user experience.

Pros

• Great for offloading Office 365/Outlook caches
• Ideal to solve Outlook indexing conundrums for virtual desktops like XenDesktop, XenApp, and VMware Horizon.
• Really great at keeping cloud storage (Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Amazon Drive, Google Drive, etc) on a virtual network drive.

Cons

• Run in the user context only and therefore can’t pick-up or virtualize other areas of the user profile outside of shell folders.
• Profiles are exactly like a local profile except it is on the network so they are susceptible to profile corruption.
• They are locked to a Windows OS version so you must have a disjointed profile disk/container for every OS the user logs onto, the user cannot migrate their profile or co-exist it with another Windows version.
• Network only – there is no method to go offline. Laptops that even occasionally leave the office are not a candidate for a profile disk/container.

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Every feature that has been incorporated in Liquidware FlexApp is in the product because either a customer has requested it or our experienced development and product management teams knows first-hand how important it is to a provide a seamless, enterprise, and scaleable application layering solution.

FlexApp layering has emerged as a leader as a scalable enterprise-ready layering solution. If you are evaluating layering solutions or working on a RFP (Request for Proposal), consider a solution that leads the market with multiple ways to save time, make users more efficient, and save money.

Here are 10 exclusive ways that FlexApp sets the bar for application layering in the industry.

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ProfileUnity and FlexApp v6.7 was recently made generally available with new and innovative features that further simplify User Environment Management and Application Layering. The new version includes advancements that you won’t find in basic profile management and layering solutions from Citrix, VMware, or any other vendor.

Let’s get right to the innovation.

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Citrix Synergy 2017 is still fresh on our minds. If you didn’t make it to Orlando this year here is a look our experience.

I cannot recall a more enthusiastic attendee crowd at a Citrix Synergy! This year many attendees seemed to make a beeline for our booth. Maybe it was our re-brand to “Liquidware,” or latest version of FlexApp Layering and demos of XenApp Session isolation – and how it compares to Citrix App Layering, or perhaps it was our involvement in becoming one of just a few select M7 party sponsors. Let’s breakdown the highlights.

Liquidware Labs chose Citrix Synergy to announce to the end user computing market that we’re now simply “Liquidware.” The time for VDI experimentation in the industry has come to an end. Now more than 1,700 organizations using Liquidware solutions in production to run their physical, virtual, and cloud based desktops. We gave out cold hard cash to celebrate. Everyone that participated won a minimum of $1 and many people won a lot more! Look at this attendee that won $100! Using Liquidware solutions is like money in the bank!

We also announced several new features for FlexApp layering at Synergy. If you have not checked out FlexApp you are doing yourself a HUGE disfavor. We encourage you to try Citrix App Layering first, if it does not work for your needs you should check out FlexApp! Unlike Citrix App Layering, FlexApp truly decouples apps from the underlying operating system. With this approach, applications are not prone to “breaking” with OS update and changes. You can truly package most apps once and they work across OS versions as long as they are the same bit (32/64). And yes, FlexApp can layer complicated applications with drivers and services too. When you choose FlexApp, you can go on building and maintaining your base OS images with Citrix PVS or MCS just as you always have and let FlexApp do its thing to layer apps just in time just after user logon. In the forthcoming version, FlexApp Layering will deliver apps to Citrix XenApp users with session isolation…or on a per user basis without affecting other user’s sessions. Industry first Click-to-Layer capabilities were announced too, enabling users to get FlexApps on demand just by clicking their icon on the desktop. If a user doesn’t need an app, it’s not delivered, it’s that simple. If you don’t have time to compare Citrix App Layering to FlexApp, we’ve done it for you. You be the judge.

Furthermore, we announced that we’re extending ProfileDisk features to Citrix XenApp users. ProfileDisk will now support multi-session XenApp sessions and each user can get their robust profile from VHD! This takes care of Office 365 use cases where the profile can be very large due to Outlook and OneDrive caching and sync. ProfileDisk automatically takes care of Outlook, while our VHD profile containers can easily keep the current sync of OneDrive, Dropbox and more. This gives a quick logon without bloating XenApp servers and we’ve long supported XenDesktop in this capacity.

Stratusphere UX was prominently on display as well, we were showing off the latest reports, discussing the ease of scalability to deployments with thousands of users, and revealing new agents for Mac OS to close friends. NVIDIA asked us to show off our latest GPU metric and reports in their booth and our very own Chris Walker attracted quite a crowd!

VMblog.com stopped by and interviewed us about what we were showing as well. Here’s their 3 minute video overview. 

Liquidware was one of just  a few exclusive vendors to sponsor the week’s most sought after party, the M7 Partner event. The M7 are a group of key Citrix partner integrator that lead the way in selling, consulting, and implementing Citrix and Liquidware solutions. We were happy to step up and be a major sponsor this year in the absence of other vendors that were absorbed by acquisitions this past year. The competitive landscape for User Environment Management, Application Layering, and Monitoring has changed dramatically in the past year and Liquidware continues to lead on all three fronts. If you haven’t given our Workspace Environment Management solutions for physical, virtual, and cloud a try yet you need not wait any longer. Download and try them today.

Citrix, VMware, and Amazon are racing to the cloud to serve customers that want desktops/workspaces with less management, lower costs, and (hopefully) better
performance. But we must ask the question, “Is every desktop user a good candidate for DaaS?”  While increasingly the answer is “yes,” for office workers, it’s not the right answer every time. How do you know who is a candidate? How do you ensure a satisfactory User Experience? And, how do you deliver cloud based desktops with the same benefits as on premise desktops?

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Citrix released Citrix App Layering last week. The Citrix solution layers applications, and optionally the OS, to Citrix desktops and XenApp servers. We’d encourage every Citrix customer that has access to the solution to try it, after all most features are included in the Citrix stack while some advanced features are reserved for Citrix Platinum customers. Ever since the recent introduction of Citrix AppDisk, Citrix customers seemed to have longed for something more capable so it’s good news to customers now that they have another method of layering in their stack to try in the form of Citrix App Layering. When layering works correctly the image management and application delivery benefits of layering can be tremendous.

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After the release of Windows 10 Anniversary update last August, Windows is now solid and we fully recommend your organization giving it a serious look. If you are not already moving users, you should start planning your move right away. But are you ready?

Here are four key questions your organization needs to consider before migrating your users to Windows 10.

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Citrix announced today that they’ve acquired Unidesk for layering. Full disclosure: we’re a leading Citrix Ready partner and a former competitor of Unidesk, with our FlexApp layering solution. I’d like to share Liquidware Labs’ perspective. Citrix briefed Liquidware Labs last week and we thank them for the official confirmation of the rumor that has been around the last couple of months. I asked firsthand how it will be available and those details are below.

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FlexApp is a leading Windows application layering solution for Citrix, VMware, Amazon WorkSpaces, and well-connected physical environments. Other competitors in this market include Unidesk and App Volumes from VMware. Citrix AppDisk is in this category as well, however Citrix has not treated partners that add value to their platform as competitors. Lately we have seen a printed competitive analysis battle card from one of our FlexApp competitors and it was riddled with falsehoods. To dispel the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), we thought we’d list 10 things that application layering vendors would rather you not know about FlexApp. Continue reading →

Healthcare organizations have some of the most mobile workforces anywhere. As doctors, nurses, and technicians move from room to room, building to building, or campus to campus, they need fast, secure, and reliable workstations to log on to in order to do their jobs efficiently.

To accomplish this, many Imprivata and Liquidware Labs healthcare customers are delivering secure virtual and physical desktops with Single Sign On, robust User Environment Management, and Application Layering capabilities. I recently worked with the product management team at Imprivata to publish documentation in order to share with the world how dozens of healthcare organization are using our solutions together. Our combined solutions ensure a seamless sign-on and login experience for tens of thousands of users in production worldwide.

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