Instant Application delivery with FlexApp 6.8.5 Cloaking

Instantly delivering applications to users can be a challenge, as even FlexApps can take some time to activate. For instance, it may take 14 seconds for 15 FlexApps to become available. This can cause users to log in to their desktops before the application shortcuts for all 15 apps are ready to use.

To address this issue, we’ve introduced FlexApps on boot. However, the current implementation of FlexApps on boot has a small drawback: all FlexApps on boot are visible to all users logging in to the RDS host or desktop pool. This necessitates creating multiple pools to segment applications that are layered on boot. While this reduces image management, it increases the number of pools to manage, even if they come from the same image.

But with ProfileUnity FlexApp 6.8.5, we have new technology that solves both image sprawl and pool sprawl. When you assign FlexApps on boot, you now have the option to cloak the FlexApps that a user is not entitled to at login. For instance, if you have two apps on boot, one for accounting and the other for marketing, both apps are layered into the OS on boot, so users don’t have to wait for layering to occur. During login, however, the marketing user won’t be able to see the accounting app, and vice versa.

In addition, we offer predictive block caching. FlexApps are typically streamed over the network, but it’s sometimes better to run the app from our block cache to speed up the user experience. However, downloading all the needed blocks can take time. With predictive block caching, we know what blocks are needed to achieve near-native speeds, eliminating the need to download all blocks while the user waits.

To summarize, we remove activation times (FlexApps on boot), launch times (block caching), download times (predictive block caching), reduce image management (using FlexApps), and reduce pools (FlexApps on boot with cloaking).

To accomplish this, first set up ProfileUnity as a Service. then enable the “Enable Cloaking for on-boot FlexApps” checkbox in ProfileUnity FlexApp 6.8.5 when assigning FlexApps on boot. Then, in the normal login configuration, assign the relevant on-boot FlexApps to the appropriate users. This will ensure that users only have access to the applications they need, while reducing image sprawl and pool sprawl.

Overall, this approach simplifies application delivery and management while improving the user experience. Users can log in quickly and seamlessly access the applications they need, without being burdened by unnecessary apps or activation times.

Amazon WorkSpaces and FlexApp Working Together

Amazon Workspaces Overview “Amazon WorkSpaces is a fully managed, secure desktop computing service which runs on the AWS cloud. Amazon WorkSpaces allows you to easily provision cloud-based virtual desktops and provide your users access to the documents, applications, and resources … Continue reading

Stratusphere UX integration with Business Intelligence, Data Mining and ServiceDesk Workflows

The Stratusphere UX platform has always been about getting enterprises the data that it needed to make better decisions. This was often accomplished through dashboards and custom reports available to administrators. Additionally, the data within Stratusphere UX plays a key role in troubleshooting exercises across any platform. At its core Stratusphere UX will always provide great focus around collecting and analyzing desktop, application and infrastructure metrics for the enterprise to consume.

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Microsoft Application Strategy Discussion 2019

I have spent most of my career discussing applications and how to manipulate them. It is safe to say that 2019 has seen some techtonic shifting in the application space.

Microsoft, has surfaced (no pun intended) to mix it up in the application space again. MSIX is a new application installation format with a goal to become the new defacto standard for application packaging baselines.

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FlexApp version 6.7 release – Features overview

The release of FlexApp version 6.7 this week marks a tremendous set of milestone achievements for Liquidware. In a competitive industry, it is important for software platforms to constantly evolve or run the risk of being replaced. This release builds upon the leadership position that FlexApp has held for a while now.

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Application Layering VS Operating System layering

Managing desktops is always one of the main struggles facing enterprises. Add in complex application management and the issues increase drastically. Software solutions are often geared towards relieving this pain. Over the last few years, the concept of converting the … Continue reading

FlexApp Layering = Enterprise Optimization Revolution

I was presenting to our sales teams at the Liquidware Sales kick off recently and was fascinated by the following response I received.

“Why wouldn’t you leverage FlexApp in your environment? At this point enterprises have virtualized infrastructure, desktops, networks, and storage but still continue to install applications natively.”

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Enterprise Strategy for Healthcare EMR platforms

Many EMR (Electronic Medical Records) platforms used by the healthcare industry are often described as a Hub and Spoke model. Where patients and medical staff interact with countless smaller software packages and then feed data back into the centralized management platform. Patient management, Scheduling, Clinical oversight, are just some of the areas of focus within the main EMR platforms. From an IT perspective, this can become a daunting proposition, considering you must install and maintain each of the individual software packages including the centralized management platform.

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FlexApp Notes from the Field – VMworld 2016 edition

As we approach VMworld 2016, there has been a tremendous amount of excitement building around the solutions from Liquidware Labs. We just released version 6.5.5 of ProfileUnity with FlexApp back in June, here are a few of the highlights:

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VMware UEM and App Volumes Overview Comparison with Liquidware Labs ProfileUnity and FlexApp

Liquidware Labs is announcing the release of a new WP “VMware UEM and App Volumes Overview Comparison with Liquidware Labs ProfileUnity and FlexApp” White Paper. At its core the focus of this new whitepaper attempts to compare and contrast the two platforms. Additionally, the whitepaper provides real world customer based implementation guidance around when to use a Liquidware solution as opposed to the VMware solution stack. Continue reading