Going Green with Liquidware Stratusphere UX: How Workspace Monitoring Drives IT Sustainability

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In today’s world, sustainability is more important than ever. As we become increasingly aware of the impact of our actions on the environment, it’s important to consider the sustainability benefits of the products we use in our daily lives. Liquidware Stratusphere™ UX is not only a powerful user experience monitoring and diagnostics solution but also an eco-friendly solution, that helps organizations improve their IT performance while contributing to a more sustainable environment. 

In this blog, we will examine the ways Stratusphere UX can be used to make an organization’s IT infrastructure more sustainable. By optimizing resource usage and reducing energy consumption, Stratusphere UX not only improves IT performance but also contributes to a more sustainable environment. 

How Stratusphere UX Helps Make Your IT Environment More Sustainable 

Stratusphere UX is a comprehensive workspace monitoring and user experience solution for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), virtual application environments as well as physical desktops. It provides valuable insights into user behavior, application usage, and infrastructure performance, helping organizations optimize their IT environments and improve user experience. But beyond its immediate benefits, Stratusphere UX also offers significant sustainability benefits. 

IT Sustainability The image is decorative

Reduce Energy Consumption 

Firstly, Stratusphere UX can help organizations reduce their energy consumption. Providing detailed insights into application usage and infrastructure performance, it can help organizations identify areas where they can optimize their IT environment to reduce energy usage. This includes identifying and removing unused applications, optimizing virtual machine settings, or identifying and addressing performance bottlenecks that are causing unnecessary energy consumption. 

Reduce Carbon Footprint 

In addition to reducing energy consumption, Stratusphere UX can also help organizations reduce their carbon footprint. By optimizing their IT environment, organizations can reduce the amount of energy they consume and, in turn, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This is particularly important in today’s world, where reducing carbon emissions is essential to combatting climate change. 

Reduce E-Waste

Another sustainability benefit of Stratusphere UX is its ability to help organizations reduce e-waste. By providing valuable information about user behavior and application usage, Stratusphere UX can help organizations identify areas where they can streamline their IT environment, reduce the number of devices they need, and extend the lifespan of their existing hardware. This not only reduces the amount of electronic waste generated by organizations, but also reduces the number of resources needed to produce new devices. 

Image showing the amount of e-waste created up until the end of 2022 The image has an informative purpose
Amount of E-waste produced in the world

Conclusion

Liquidware Stratusphere UX is not only a powerful workspace monitoring and user experience solution, but also offers significant sustainability benefits. Helping organizations reduce their energy consumption, carbon footprint, and e-waste, it is an important solution in the fight against climate change and environmental degradation. If you’re looking for a way to improve your IT environment and reduce your environmental impact,  you should definitely consider Stratusphere UX. 

If you want to learn more about the sustainability benefits of Stratusphere UX, be sure to check out our website. 

Experience Next-Level Process Identification: CommandCTRL Unveils Game-Changing ChatGPT Integration

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Liquidware’s CommandCTRL is excited to announce the latest beta feature: ChatGPT integration for efficient process identification! With this powerful addition, users can easily determine the purpose and origin of unfamiliar processes consuming system resources. Say goodbye to manual searches and embrace the convenience of AI-assisted process identification.

It’s a common experience for users to encounter unknown processes while using Windows Task Manager or CommandCTRL’s enhanced Task Manager, which samples data every 3 seconds. Traditionally, the go-to solution has been to search the process name online to learn about its function and manufacture. However, we recognized the need for a faster and more intuitive method, leading us to integrate ChatGPT into CommandCTRL.

Here’s how to set up and use ChatGPT in CommandCTRL:

Sign up for an OpenAI account to obtain access to OpenAI API keys at https://platform.openai.com/overview. After signing up, set up a billing account for the API keys.

Log in to your CommandCTRL tenant and navigate to “Settings” on the left-hand side. Click on “Tenant and Site.” In the “Site” section, you’ll find “3rd Party APIs” and “OpenAI.” Enter your API key and Organization ID under “OpenAI.”

With OpenAI enabled, your CommandCTRL Task Manager’s “Processes” tab will display an OpenAI icon next to each process. Clicking this icon sends a query to ChatGPT, providing information about the selected process, including the manufacturer, description, and manufacturer’s website.

To minimize ChatGPT queries and reduce costs, CommandCTRL stores query results in a global cache for 90 days, accessible by all tenants. By enabling ChatGPT, you can take advantage of this crowdsourced cache to save on query costs.

As AI technology continues to evolve, we plan to incorporate more AI-driven features within CommandCTRL to help our customers work smarter, not harder. Stay tuned for further enhancements that will revolutionize the way you manage and remediate.

Here is a link to setup a beta tenant https://ccbeta.liquidware.com/. Corporate and personal email addresses are welcomed.

Liquidware Secures ISO 27001 Certification: A Testament to Our Commitment to Security and Compliance

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Liquidware, the leader in digital workspace management solutions to the federal government and all major verticals, has recently achieved the prestigious ISO 27001 certification. This adds to our existing certifications in SOC2 Type II and GDPR compliance. We take great pride in this accomplishment, particularly as a sub-100-person company, and attribute our success to the dedication and hard work of our small IT team.

We understand that achieving and maintaining compliance can be challenging for a small team. To address this, we utilized a product designed to help us stay compliant. This tool connects to all our systems in read-only mode, scanning for any compliance issues. It has been instrumental in identifying compliance drift and creating tasks for our teams to address, allowing us to stay in line with compliance requirements in-between audits. This proactive approach prevents the last-minute scramble often experienced before manual audits.

Liquidware has always placed a high priority on compliance and security, as we provide digital workspace management solutions to the federal government and major verticals such as healthcare and finance. Our ISO 27001 certification not only helps ensure the security of our employees’ and customers’ information but also promotes the secure development of our products. Additionally, we maintain stringent controls on our business processes from the top down.

Liquidware’s ISO 27001 certification is a testament to our unwavering commitment to security and compliance. Our small but dedicated IT team has made this extraordinary achievement possible, with the help of a compliance tool that simplifies the process of staying compliant. As an ISV serving all major sectors, we will continue to uphold the highest standards of security and compliance to protect our employees, customers, and product development.

Reference links:

https://www.liquidware.com/company/media/liquidware-achieves-iso-27001-certification-demonstrating-unwavering-commitment-to-security-and-compliance
https://www.liquidware.com/security

Any Desktop, Any Broker, Anywhere: Future-proofing Your Windows Desktop Deployment with Liquidware

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The world of Windows desktop deployment has become increasingly complex with so many options available in the market today. From traditional laptops and desktops, to virtual desktops deployed on-premises, or in the cloud using solutions like Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon AppStream, Nutanix Frame, Citrix Virtual Apps, Microsoft AVD, or Microsoft CloudPC – there are numerous choices to make.

However, choosing a deployment method also means choosing a broker and deciding whether to deploy on-premises or in the cloud. This can lead to vendor lock-in where your users’ profiles might be tied to a specific deployment method, making it difficult to move to another option. Moreover, you may not be able to move your applications from one deployment method to another, and the user experience might not be consistent across different deployment methods.

To address these issues, Liquidware offers a “Switzerland” approach to Windows desktop deployment with its ProfileUnity™, FlexApp™, and Stratusphere™ UX products. With these solutions, you can abstract your user’s profile and application deployment from the underlying OS and platform, making it easier to switch deployment methods without affecting user experience.

ProfileUnity abstracts the user’s profile from the OS with any deployment method, whether physical, virtual, or cloud based. By using ProfileUnity, you can future-proof your deployment options by putting your users under management with your existing deployment method. ProfileUnity’s portability engine ensures that the user’s profile can be saved to any storage medium, including SMB and cloud storage, and restored to any OS, of any version, on any platform.

FlexApp abstracts application deployment from the OS and platform, allowing you to take advantage of fewer images and pools to manage. By abstracting your applications with FlexApp, you can easily move to any new deployment method while keeping the same application delivery model. This ensures that your users have access to the same applications, regardless of the deployment method.

Stratusphere UX helps you monitor user experience on your existing deployment method and ensures that users get the same, or better, experience when you switch to a new deployment method. It continuously monitors your user’s experience to make sure you don’t unknowingly decrease user satisfaction.

In conclusion, with the current state of acquisitions and the evolving end-user computing market, it is essential to future-proof your Windows desktop deployment options. By using Liquidware’s ProfileUnity, FlexApp, and Stratusphere UX products, you can abstract the user’s profile and application deployment from the OS and platform, making it easy to switch deployment methods without affecting user experience. With Liquidware’s solutions, you can ensure that your users have a consistent and seamless experience regardless of the deployment method you choose.

Liquidware’s Channel Program Garners 5-Star Rating by CRN

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We’re pleased to announce that our Channel Program has earned a prestigious 5-star rating in the 2023 CRN Partner Program Guide. This recognition is a testament to Liquidware’s commitment to delivering exceptional value and support to its partner community.

This annual guide offers essential information to solution providers such as managed service providers (MSPs), value-added resellers (VARs), systems integrators, and strategic service providers as they explore technology manufacturers’ partner programs to find the vendors that will best support their business needs. The 5-star rating is awarded to the companies that go above and beyond in their commitment to nurturing strong, profitable, successful channel partnerships.

For the channel partner community, a critical factor when assessing which IT manufacturers, service providers, and distributors to team with in building world-class technology solutions is the breadth and depth of the partner programs those companies offer. Strong elements such as financial incentives, sales and marketing assistance, training and certification, technical support and more can set a vendor apart and play a key role in boosting partners’ long-term growth.

Our program’s 5-star rating reflects its commitment to partner success by offering a comprehensive line-up of incentives, services, benefits, and training.

Below are some of the factors that had our partner program gain the prestigious 5-star rating from CRN:

1. Partner profitability: Liquidware offers its partners competitive margins and incentives – often 3x that of platform vendors – enabling its partners to grow their businesses and increase profitability. Additionally, the company’s deal registration program ensures that partners are rewarded for their efforts in identifying and closing new business opportunities through additional margin and deal protection.

2. Sales and marketing resources: Liquidware’s partner portal provides partners with a wealth of resources to support their sales and marketing efforts. This includes access to product information, competitive analysis, marketing resources, and virtual training.

3. Training and support: Liquidware provides comprehensive training and certification programs to help partners become experts in the company’s solutions. This includes access to online training resources, live training sessions, and dedicated technical resources to assist with both team competency and customer evaluation and implementation, all provided to partners free-of-charge.

4. Marketing programs: Liquidware offers a range of marketing resources to help partners promote their solutions and generate demand. These include co-branded collateral, email campaigns, social media assets, and marketing development funds for both live and virtual demand generating activities and events.

Overall, our channel program and our staff are committed to helping its partners succeed. By providing competitive margins, robust sales and marketing resources, and through comprehensive training and support, the company enables its partners to consistently deliver value to their customers and grow their businesses. It is this commitment to ensuring the success of our partners that has resulted in Liquidware’s 5-star rating in this year’s 2023 CRN Partner Program Guide.

FlexApp’s Unspoken Features: What are They?

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FlexApp technology is a popular tool used for application layering, virtualization and delivery. While some of its features are well-known, there are some that are overlooked and not talked about enough. In this blog post, we will explore some of the under-the-hood features of FlexApp and explain how they work.

AppData and HKCU Handling

One of the key features of FlexApp is its ability to handle AppData and HCKU. When an application writes into these areas, FlexApp has special handling for layering. This is because these paths are often used as part of the application’s normal install routine, or they may be written to by the packaging administrator during testing or setting default preferences. If these areas of the profile are captured into the layer and do not exist in the user’s profile, FlexApp will physically copy or write them into the user’s profile. This ensures that the user has the necessary read and write access to these areas of the profile going forward.

Corrective Profile Path Tattooing

Another important feature of FlexApp is corrective profile path tattooing. This refers to the practice of capturing the profile path of the packaging administrator and storing it in the layer. This can create issues when an application stores a path to a non-existent location in the HKCU’s registry. FlexApp will flag this kind of event during the packaging process so that on activation of the layer, the registry value that points to the non-existent path can be corrected and pointed to the user’s correct profile path.

Micro Isolation

Micro isolation is a feature of FlexApp that helps to handle conflicts between layers. While FlexApp is not a full-blown isolation technology like Microsoft App-V, it does have some light isolation between layers. This means that when a conflict occurs, each layer will be redirected back to its own version of files or registry. For example, if each layer has a different version of a DLL in a common location that would normally be a last virtual write wins scenario and could crash the application, FlexApp’s micro isolation feature will ensure that each layer has access to its own version of the DLL. Here is a quick demo of Micro Isolation visually that should help your understanding of the technology.

Session Isolation

Session isolation is a feature of FlexApp that allows for handling different applications for different users when working on multiuser systems like Citrix Virtual Apps or Microsoft AVD. This makes layering on multiuser systems extremely flexible. This feature has also been extended to on-boot applications, which I recently wrote about here.

In conclusion, FlexApp’s unspoken features are an important part of its overall functionality. These features ensure that the user has access to the necessary parts of the profile, prevent conflicts between layers, and make layering on multiuser systems more flexible. Understanding these features can help users get the most out of their FlexApp technology and improve the overall user experience.

How Stratusphere UX Login Breakdown Can Help Identify Login Bottlenecks

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Login times are critical for end-users and management, and any delay can impact productivity and user experience. However, identifying the root cause of login slowdowns can be challenging, given the number of factors that can contribute to it. Is it the machine group policy, user group policy, user environment management software, application layering product, antivirus software, security software, or some login script? Stratusphere UX Login Breakdown can help you identify the culprit and take corrective, prompt action.

Before you begin fixing the issue, it’s best to establish a baseline of your environment’s capabilities. You can create a test environment by taking a machine that closely matches your users, removing any antivirus or security software, blocking inheritance on any group policies, disabling any user environment management software and any application layering technology. This baseline provides a goal to work towards and helps hold products or people accountable for causing too much overhead in login times.

Once you have established a baseline, you can start identifying the culprit. With Stratusphere UX Login Breakdown, you can break down the login process into its constituent parts and analyze which parts are taking the most time. For example, you can identify inefficient group policies and take corrective action. You can either clean up the group policy and test your logins again or move most of the group policy to a user environment management product, like ProfileUnity, that is more effective in processing time than group policy.

Similarly, you can identify inefficient user environment management software, which can cause delays by running the regedit.exe command repeatedly to import settings or user preferences. Stratusphere UX Login Breakdown can provide a per-process breakdown of the entire login, helping you identify and address these inefficiencies.

Application layering products can also contribute to login delays by blocking the login from the user while it activates layers or by consuming too many CPU resources during the login. Stratusphere UX Login Breakdown can provide visibility into how much CPU is being consumed during the login, enabling you to optimize resource allocation and speed up logins. ProfileUnity FlexApp can assign application layers on boot and speed up logins by removing contention during the login process.

Antivirus and security software can be challenging to optimize for login performance, given that they are inline to process open, file system R/W, and network R/W. With Stratusphere UX Login Breakdown, you can analyze how much overhead your antivirus and security software are adding to all processes duration times and how much CPU they are consuming during the login. Taking a Login Breakdown snapshot before and after removing antivirus and security software this gives you the proof of the overhead to consult with your antivirus and security teams.

Finally, login scripts can spawn from various places, causing delays during login. With Stratusphere UX Login Breakdown, you can get the entire script duration and any process launched from that script. This visibility helps the script owner optimize the script and reduces resource consumption during the login, resulting in faster login times.

In conclusion, Stratusphere UX Login Breakdown is a powerful, non-invasive tool that can help you track down login bottlenecks with ease. With its ability to break down the login process into its constituent parts, you can identify the root cause of delays and take corrective, prompt action to improve login times, making your end-users and management happy.

Look back at Ireland CUCG

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On the 9th of March 30+ brave souls ventured out into the arctic-like conditions to attend the Citrix User Group in Dublin but they were rewarded with some fantastic sessions, networking, food, and drinks.

The day started with an impromptu Dublin EUC Breakfast Club though it was rebranded Brunch given the time of the day

To start the day we had Marc Aurel Evers talking about how Google Chrome Flex is a secure Chrome-based endpoint software for accessing Citrix. Marc started with an overview of the product including the benefits over a Windows PC. These benefits focused on the fact you can extend the life of existing hardware by converting it with Chrome OS Flex. Extending the life of the device is obviously a huge sustainability gain for any organization and also there are the associated cost savings. Marc even passed around some converted devices including an old converted  XPS 13. Overall it was a very interesting session and will be fascinating to see how Chrome OS Flex compares against other vendors in this very competitive market.  

 

The next session was from David Pisa and Gavin Strong and they gave a very detailed overview of Citrix App Layering including a deep dive into how to set up the infrastructure required for an App Layering  POC in Azure.

Afterwards, we had a short coffee break then I gave the group an overview of Liquidware’s digital workspace solutions. I then introduced FlexApp and FlexApp One firstly outlining what it was not before describing the solution and then showing a demo video of how easy it is to run FlexApp One apps in a matter of minutes. Finally, I introduced our brand new innovative helpdesk remediation solution CommandCTRL coming later this year, and I even gave a live demo which thankfully went off without a hitch.

To finish the day Wendy Gay and Javier Lopez Santacruz delivered a session on Identity and SSO with Citrix and focused on Primary Identity and FAS (Citrix Federated Authentication Service). Identity and SSO are big topics in EUC so this was a very well received session to close out the day

Congrats to Paul Matthews who won the Liquidware Festival pack that is on the way to you

We then adjourned to the bar for drinks and food where the conversations could continue.

Overall it was a great event, with some very informative sessions, and great networking including reconnecting with my old IGEL colleague Ben Ward who is now Field CTO for the UK and Ireland at Liquit.  

The next event is scheduled in Belfast in June and should be another enjoyable day.

Simplifying Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity with Microsoft FSLogix and ProfileUnity’s Portability

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Using profile containers, like FSLogix or ProfileUnity’s ProfileDisk container, can present challenges when it comes to disaster recovery and business continuity. Issues such as localized corruption caused by network or storage outages, performing backups on large containers, replicating for DR, and setting up an active-active desktop deployment are just a few of the challenges organizations face.

This is where ProfileUnity’s portability comes into play. With its ability to compress user profiles into a smaller, more efficient backup format, ProfileUnity’s portability solves many of the issues associated with disaster recovery and business continuity. By targeting the file system and registry with surgical precision, the engine excludes large files like the Outlook cache that can be easily re-created from the cloud, making the archived copy of the profile much smaller and more manageable. In addition, the portability engine only writes out what has changed in the session, resulting in fewer files to manage and less network traffic to replicate.

Corruption recovery is also simplified with ProfileUnity’s portability. By removing the corrupt profile container and allowing the portability engine to restore and populate a new container with only what is needed for the user to continue working, organizations can quickly recover from localized corruption without the need for a full restore.

Backing up a large profile container can also be a challenge. ProfileUnity’s portability engine version of the user’s profile is typically between 100 – 1000 MB in size, making it much more practical to backup. In the event of container corruption, simply remove the corrupt container and have the user log in again. The portability engine will take care of re-populating the newly created container with the user’s preferences.

Replicating a large, monolithic file that is locked for 8-12 hours a day can also be impractical. However, ProfileUnity’s portability engine archives are stored in many small files that are not locked while the user is logged in, making replication options almost infinite and very cost-effective. Any SMB file-level replication technology, Azure blob replication, or even Amazon S3 replication can be used to replicate the archives.

For organizations looking to set up an active-active desktop, unique profile containers at each site that do not replicate would be used. The portability engine archives can then be replicated and, since the engine only writes out changes that occur within sessions, replication is fast and efficient.

Our team has been hard at work continuing to develop new features for our products, and we’re excited to announce that our next version of ProfileUnity will include a new template specifically designed to simplify disaster recovery and business continuity for Microsoft’s FSLogix profile container. With this template, our customers will be able to take advantage of out-of-the-box solutions that help ensure business continuity in the event of localized corruption, storage outages, and other common challenges. We believe that this new template will be a valuable addition to our product and will help our customers to better manage their FSLogix profile containers. The next version is due in April 2023.

In conclusion, using ProfileUnity’s portability on top of a profile container like Microsoft’s FSLogix or ProfileUnity’s ProfileDisk is an excellent way to simplify disaster recovery and business continuity. With its surgical precision and ability to compress user profiles into a more efficient format, ProfileUnity’s portability provides organizations with an effective recovery plan from container corruption, replication for DR or active-active desktop deployments.

Introducing Liquidware Spotlight: Shedding Light on CommandCtrl, the Ultimate Helpdesk Remediation Solution

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Liquidware has recently launched a new video series called “Liquidware Spotlight.” This video series aims to showcase the latest product offerings from Liquidware and demonstrate how these solutions can help organizations optimize their digital workspaces.


One of the featured products in the Liquidware Spotlight video series is CommandCTRL, a helpdesk remediation solution that will streamline the IT support process and improve the end-user experience.


This product is currently in Beta and planned GA is in Q2 of 2023. You can sign up for the beta here.
The CommandCTRL solution is designed to simplify the troubleshooting and remediation process for IT support teams. The solution provides a centralized console that allows IT support personnel to easily view and manage end-user issues across multiple endpoints, including virtual desktops, physical desktops, cloud-based desktops and laptops.
In addition to the centralized console, CommandCTRL also includes a range of remediation tools that can help IT support teams quickly resolve issues. These tools include remote access, a command-line interface, file, and registry editing, and more .


The Liquidware Spotlight video series features a dedicated video on CommandCTRL, which provides a detailed overview of the solution and its key features. The video also includes a demo of the solution in action, showcasing how CommandCTRL can help IT support teams quickly troubleshoot and remediate issues.
Episodes one through three are now available, episode one focuses on a general overview of the product, while episode two dives into the scripting functionality with CommandCTRL, and, finally, episode three focuses on our unique DVR playback feature.

 

Overall, the Liquidware Spotlight video series is an excellent resource for IT professionals looking to stay up-to-date with the latest workspace management solutions from Liquidware. Whether you are looking for a helpdesk remediation solution like CommandCTRL or any of Liquidware’s other digital workspace management solutions, the Liquidware Spotlight video series is a valuable resource that can help you make informed decisions about your digital workspace strategy.


Go take a look now!

Spotlight Series