3: The Citrix Session – What’s new with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops: September 2019

Speaker 1:
0:00

[inaudible]. All right. Well, hello everyone and welcome to our third edition of the Citrix session podcast. I'm your host, Andy Whiteside. I've got with me, bill Sutton, uh, who I always have with me. How's it going, bill?

Speaker 2:
0:13

All right, go on. Well, Andy, how about yourself?

Speaker 1:
0:15

And I'm doing lovely for a Monday, you know, Monday, Monday. Um, bill is there pills, the director of services, long time, Citrix guy, longtime citrus consultant and sales engineer, uh, based out of Richmond, Virginia.

Speaker 2:
0:30

Yeah, but I'm coming to you today from Charlotte.

Speaker 1:
0:33

Oh, you're in those Integra office. Awesome. I am hopefully at some time today I'll make it there. And guys, we have with us a mitten, Sharma Nitton is a, with Citrix and he wrote a blog recently or, um, uh, from the Citrix blog site has, where you can find it. It's called what's new with Citrix virtual apps and desktops at September, 2019. And you know, if you're a Citrix guy, this is exciting stuff for you. We are always sitting on the edge of our table, our edge of our chair, sometimes on the table. Uh, waiting to find out more about our, our key products, which we all have grown up knowing and loving for the most part a, which is the virtual app and desktop space. If you go back far enough, you, we would call that wind frame, uh, when frame metal frame presentation server, uh, XenApp, XenDesktop, and now we call that Citrix virtual apps and desktops. So Nitton how's it going? Hey Andy, how's it going? It's good. Do you want to give a little bit more background on yourself for the group?

Speaker 3:
1:31

Yeah, so, um, excuse me. My name's Denton Sharma. I'm senior product marketing senior product marketing manager over at Citrix. Um, so I'm part of the, um, the team that covers the app and desktop virtualization. Um, maybe folks would probably know it as it happens and desktop. Um, but um, folks that may be familiar with, we did a rebranding of it and we now, um, throughout the, throughout my answers I'll be mentioning it as Citrix, virtual apps and desktop. Um, it was Citrix for about seven years. Uh, various roles in sales and marketing, uh, been within the actual product marketing space of the app and desktop portfolio for about a couple of years.

Speaker 1:
2:12

Oh, that's great. That's great. Okay, well let's do this. Let's cover our objective here and let's get into the, uh, the blog that you wrote and lets go with through it section by section and find out what it is Citrix is talking about. We ready? Yup. All right. So the first one, the first section, which a I kinda joked about before the call here, but before we started recording is around longterm service release, which I know for a lot of people that might be kind of kind of boring. Uh, but for me as a consultant for bill as a consultant and for our customers, uh, we have been waiting anxiously for another longterm service release. So let me try to, let me try to discuss what a Citrix virtual app and desktop LTSR is real quick. That's longterm service releases. Those are the ones that Citrix is committed to supporting, I think for five years. Uh, and those are the ones that don't get features. They just get fixes every time. Citrix has a new release. So, well, let me say that differently. So those are the one's that don't get features all the time. A customer stays on that longterm service release and they get cumulative updates, which allows them to get the, the fixes, but not net new features. Uh, every time Citrix comes out with a new release, uh, but if a customer wants to stay up to date with the latest features, they have to go with the most recent build, which would not be a longterm service release. So in this case, we're getting to a point where you guys are announcing something here that later in the year we're going to get a longterm service release. It's going to have the fixes and it's going to have the latest features. So Nitten if I didn't take too much of your thunder, why don't you jump into what the, what you're covering here?

Speaker 3:
3:41

He definitely made my job a little bit easier there. Um, so yeah, like as you're mentioning, um, a long term service release, it's not necessarily, uh, customers are really interested in it because it's more of a, uh, consistent build. Um, you know, a lot of, uh, industries that are specific on that need to have a certified, um, release, you know, like healthcare for example. Um, they're really interested in our, our LTSR, uh, more longterm service release. And yeah, we do release these every about three years and we offer support for about five years after the release. Um, so this is actually going to be, uh, packed with a lot of the futures that, um, we've released since our last longterm service release, which was seven that 15. Um, so this one is going to be a targeting retargeting right now to release this in a queue for the end of the quarter and it's going to be a, our 1912 release or 2012 LTSR. So this is going to feature a lot of, uh, things like, uh, optimization for Microsoft teams in a virtual environment. Um, you know, some of the other asks, some of the other features that we released, uh, in, uh, 1909, which is the release we'll be talking about today or, or in, in also 1906. A key thing here, uh, if you guys are, you know, for customers out there that are listening or you guys are working with customers, they can actually start running, uh, in their pre production environments. The 1909 release, cause it's gonna be very similar code base so they can actually, um, get an idea of what it is and how it's gonna, um, function within their environment. Um, and it'd be great if they, you know, take the opportunity to kind of provide, to provide feedback on how the, how, you know, how it's working within their, their environment. So, um, yeah, it's a big, it's a big, uh, a lot of customers like this, a longterm service release just cause near fact that, you know, they can just have it in their environment and it's a, it's a sort of a consistent and consistent build.

Speaker 1:
5:43

You know, I had, I had practiced before this and reminded myself multiple times to make sure I said the following. And that is the a, the second paragraph in your blog says, let's take a look at the high level updates for the new Citrix virtual app and desktop 19 or release, which will be the on prem release and also the virtual app and desktop service, which is the, as a service cloud offering Citrix has, which is always on the latest release. And so I wanted to make sure everybody knows that everything we talk about from this point on will either be on prem or service or both. Uh, and the longterm service release obviously is the, the on prem conversation, right?

Speaker 3:
6:21

Correct. And um, I'll do, I guys try to make sure I'm clarifying or be really clear as far as like what feature, uh, what we're talking about a feature if it's specific to cloud or if it's specific to on prem or both.

Speaker 1:
6:35

So, so bill a new LTSR, does that make your life as a delivery services director harder or easier?

Speaker 2:
6:42

Uh, it, it actually makes it easier. I think, um, you know, on the one hand that means that means we are likely going to enter into the upgrade process. You'll get folks that are on seven 15 LTSR to the new one, which sounds like it's going to be 1912 and that kind of brings me to another thought and that is to, uh, uh, might want to mention that, um, the, the, the change in the versioning, uh, you know, a lot of customers are used to seven 15 and they got to see this 1912 thing. You might want to just touch on that a little bit so that customers are clear on what the 19 stuff means relative to the old versioning.

Speaker 3:
7:17

Oh yeah. Thank you. Thanks for pointing that out. Um, yeah, we did the versioning change last year. Um, so yeah. Yeah, it wasn't top of my head to top of mind and kind of mentioned that, but, so we changed our versioning to be more in line with their somewhere. Your Ohio and Microsoft does their versioning. Um, so it is a change over from the usual seven dot. X type of, uh, versioning, um, because, um, we now do it a a year, month or a month year. And the goal of this is to sort of, um, give customers a good idea as far as like where they are within the release and how far they are from current releases. Um, it also helps, um, and you know, Citrix admins to be aware of when a specific release came out. So for example, um, when you're saying 1906, I know it may, I know it's a release that came out in June, 2019 versus you told me that your on XenDesktop seven. Dot. Five. I have a rough idea when that was released. Um, but you may not know where we are in the release. Uh, you know, the release stress, you know, the release segments. So with the new versioning where it's a little bit, I know it's for some customers out there that's a minor pain point initially, but, um, if the goal of this a tie to make it a little bit easier and consumable when you're looking at how we release, um, the, uh, in prem cycles and especially our cloud releases too.

Speaker 2:
8:45

Absolutely, yeah, I think it's a great way of approaching it to, to allow customers to get a better idea of where they are on day on day continuum of releases. Um, so the takeaway here is if on seven 15 LTSR and you want to go to the latest LTSR, I'm assuming it gets released in December, uh, you'll go to 1912 from seven 15 LTSR to 1912 S LTSR. Right?

Speaker 3:
9:08

Correct. And then bill,

Speaker 1:
9:11

bill, we'd probably be remiss if we didn't point out that most customers are on seven 15. They're either only cumulative update one, two or three or is there a fourth? I can't remember.

Speaker 3:
9:20

I think three others or four. Yeah. So

Speaker 1:
9:26

I hope you guys are enjoying this podcast. There's just, just that little piece of that, right. As a very valuable bit of information. So, um, 1912 will be the next long term service release. And, and I can't believe we've talked about this part of this long, but I will ask this question, a Nissen, is there any specific feature that between seven 15 cumulative update for and this release coming out that you think customers should be most excited about getting into a long term service release supportable model?

Speaker 3:
9:52

Well, I hinted at it a little bit earlier. Um, actually we've had a lot of customers that are specifically interested in our teams optimization or Microsoft teams optimization within virtual environments. So you know, uh, folks would be similar from area with it. When we released optimization, um, the HDX real time optimization pack for Skype for business. So that was really well adopted. I think we have over 800,000 active users or daily users that are running Skype on a, within at is that app or XenDesktop or virtual app and virtual desktop. But I'm speaking of our customers, that's been one of the things that, you know, their champion at the, at the bid for just sort of, you know, that team's optimization. So that's one of the big things that is in that, um, in that 1912, uh, LTSR um, but also there's a lot of, uh, CPU optimization and bandwidth optimization that we've done, um, you know, with our releases. So that's going to be performing, you know, a lot of performance improvements overall, um, that are going to be built in that, that, uh, that upcoming out TSR release. Um, so like it's just, it's just the, you know, like, um, we released the ability to create, um, you know, a large display can be split up into, uh, up to eight logical monitors. That was something that we released and an on prem released some time last year. So, um, there's a number of HDX features that are going to be in this 1912 release that customers are really excited about.

Speaker 1:
11:24

Yeah, no, that's great. And I will take this moment to highlight that even though Citrix marketing is talking about workspace and workspace service and Citrix sales talks about Citrix workspace and workspace service all the time, you guys are doing a lot to continue to advance the traditional core product that all of us grew up on, which is virtual app and desktop. And a I'd love to see, I love the fact we're talking about it right now cause I don't think that gets enough attention on, on the things that you guys are doing to make that core product better while developing things like the works

Speaker 3:
11:54

face. Correct.

Speaker 2:
11:56

Yeah, I would completely agree with that. And they, I had written in my notes after reading through this that I really love to see the continuous innovation on, on the, on prem as well as the cloud product. I think that's a key indicator of, you know, Citrix is continued support for both delivery models.

Speaker 1:
12:15

Yeah. I, um, I met with an executive, a Citrix of the day and my comment to them was at synergy, they just didn't, they spent a lot of great time talking about workspace, but they missed an opportunity to continue to tell them the fan base, the pop, the, uh, the, the Citrix user community, how much you were still doing for this, the traditional products. It, let's, uh, let's move to the next topic here. I'm very interested in this one, which I think is gonna take us back to the workspace, uh, which is the performance and analytics tech preview. Uh, Nitten you want to kind of give us an overview of what that thing is and, and, and what it means.

Speaker 3:
12:46

Yeah, so we announced this, uh, at Citrix synergy this year. Uh, it's performance analytics, um, very similar if the folks are interested like premiere with security analytics. Um, so let me just start with security analytics because the people will be familiar with that. So what security analytics, um, admins rabid will actually see like user scores based off their, you know, behaviors. So, um, it basically in the context of security, um, abnormalities, like if I'm using, if I'm, uh, specifically logging in from the same device, from the same location and all of a sudden it shows me logging in, um, through my Citrix session in East Europe, somewhere on some jailbroken device and the admin actually will see that risk score spike up and they can take an actionable item to that. So that's just me just describing how we did it from a security analytics side. Cause that's what we have out today. So we're doing that now to improve the actual end user experience where admins can actually see and drill down how the Citrix experiences for their end users and they can get a scoring based off of, of how their Citrix sessions are going. So, you know, like if I'm logging in and it's showing that w, uh, you know, I'm having a poor, you know, uh, you know, slow down or, or an issue, an admin on the other side can see exactly what it is that is causing that. Whether it's, uh, something with my profile loading up or if it's a connection issue, they can actually see, you know, that user score. And then, um, based off what the data that can, uh, they are seeing on their end, they can take an actionable item and see how they can improve that Citrix, uh, that, that, that user session.

Speaker 1:
14:37

I can't get the thought in my head that this is like dancing with the stars and our users are, are the dancers and the judges are telling us real time or at the end or at some point, you know, what, what we given us some aspects of what they thought this, I love that concept both from a security and a performance perspective.

Speaker 3:
14:54

[inaudible] yeah, it's the goal of it is just as to really improve the, uh, the end user experience, right. To, you know, we, we developed the product to be, is very, um, like a very native and local life experience. Um, obviously there's some things that can pop up that can, that can cause some sort of, you know, user experience, um, dips. So for us, it's just sort of like giving admins the ability to diagnose with that issue is to make sure that, you know, they're, you know, like a, they're not only, it's an improvements on the end user experience, but if you're improving the end user experience, you're ensuring that users productive you, no, no downtime, you know, but with like connection Dropbox or, or slow sessions. Yeah. The, the, the fact that, sorry to building

Speaker 1:
15:42

the fact that end users and numbers, right. Numbers don't lie. And uh, I've had multiple situations where I've done a assessments of a customer, uh, using one of our, our, our free micro assessments even, uh, and uh, you know, the, the, the it staff said things are going great. And then you interview a customer with a, you know, two minute logins and, and nobody really noticed that. Uh, this is a great example of a way you might call that. I'll go ahead bill.

Speaker 3:
16:06

Okay.

Speaker 2:
16:06

Yeah. I was just going to ask, is this, uh, this, this is a cloud only feature or is this a able to provide information relative to the on premises version?

Speaker 3:
16:14

So it's gonna be within Citrix workspace, so it should be, yeah, it should be a, I think it's still a bit early as far as like, I think how they're going to break it down, but it's part of the Citrix workspace. Um, if you're an app and desktop customer, um, if your PR, if your workloads are on prem, as long as you're on Citrix workspace, you have the ability to take advantage of this.

Speaker 4:
16:35

I see.

Speaker 1:
16:37

Yeah. So that, so to me that means you've got the on prem solutions, whether it's a virtual desktop edition, which is the old VDI edition all the way up to a virtual app and desktop premiere, which used to be is in desktop, platinum. Uh, but then you have the, your, uh, your, your, your services, right? So there's virtual desktop service all the way up to a virtual app. And desktop service. Uh, and then above that you get the workspace concept, which is virtual app and desktop service plus the workspace, which brings in analytics like performance and security. Right?

Speaker 3:
17:05

Correct. Yeah. Great.

Speaker 1:
17:08

Okay. Uh, well let's move to the next topic here. The next topic you guys have here as on prim licensed server insights. We don't have to go do a ton of detail on this. We actually, uh, we actually did a podcast on this. It will hopefully be released if it's not already a, where we talk about the, uh, the on-prim licensed server insights, which gets rolled up to a cloud service from Citrix. And it anything specific you want to call out about this one?

Speaker 3:
17:31

Yeah, so, um, we're just allowing the ability to an admin to go in the Citrix cloud comm and so, and see, uh, their licensed server usage insights within Citrix cloud. You know, they're on prem deployments. So you know, like it, it can help like with um, you know, managing uptime, reliability like, uh, you know, you see, you could see if you're running out of licenses, um, you know, you can stay on top of like how licenses are, you know, if they're expiring or overages. Um, so making sure that the deployment just kind of, um, always, uh, always up and running and there's no any sort of like disruptions within the business.

Speaker 1:
18:10

Hey bill, anything to add to that after doing the other podcasts? And now getting a chance to comment again?

Speaker 2:
18:16

Not, not, not really. Um, I wonder if, do we want to roll back and let's, let's, let's ask this, talk about this, um, cloud connector enhancements they've made. Um, a couple of, uh,

Speaker 1:
18:30

I'm glad you brought that up. I skipped right past it. So in that case,

Speaker 2:
18:34

no, ordinarily I thought maybe you would, I thought we might want to cover it. I'm simply, because I've had this question before about the updates to the cloud connectors being kind of at random and it looks like the admins are now allowed to schedule them at least a preferred schedule anyways. So can you comment a little bit on that for us?

Speaker 1:
18:51

Hey guys, before we go into that, let's just say this, the cloud connectors are the magical bridge between the service and the on prem solutions, either hybrid or full. And those things are magical. And those are, those are, they replace, you know, they replaced the uh, Ima servers, they replaced the, uh, controllers for the sites and do a lot of magical things plus broker connections. So guys, if you don't know what a cloud connector is, that's the thing that brings your on prem world to the cloud service. But then you want to go over the, the features that you guys have added here.

Speaker 3:
19:22

Yeah. So, like as bill was kind of mentioning, this was a more of an in demand feature that for our customers that are on, um, you know, virtual app and desktop service or workspace service, um, you know, like they're the connectors and self. Why like they have the advantage of what you just described. Um, a lot of times when we did updates to them, they were at random and sometimes it may not be at a specific idea of time that an admin would want that connector to be updated. So now we've introduced a couple of things, like there's timestamps so admins can actually get notified when a cloud connector is being updated and you know, when it's completed. Um, and then also as, as bill was mentioning, they can do some sort of update scheduling so they can set up preferred time or day for when they want their, their cloud connector updates and manage, you know, manage the resource locations and the, the cloud connectors all in one sort of, um, same in the same one sort of same space.

Speaker 1:
20:22

So from an admin perspective, right. It's their job to have a cloud connector that is a domain member that lives in their environment. Uh, they're responsible for windows updates. You really shouldn't put any other services on it, but Citrix is responsible for the Citrix updates, which sometimes require a reboot. Uh, and now you've got the ability to, uh, to schedule that, right?

Speaker 2:
20:43

Yep.

Speaker 1:
20:45

A bill, anything else on that topic you to cover?

Speaker 2:
20:48

No, nothing. I think that's a great feature and something that I know customers have been asking for, so I'm glad to see that in here.

Speaker 3:
20:54

Yeah. It sounds so simple, but it's actually, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it, yeah, it's like people want to know that, that information and be able to, to, obviously there's, you know, like the reasons why they'd want a schedule. Um, you know, preferred time and date for those connectors in those various regions that they may have. Um,[inaudible]

Speaker 1:
21:13

Hey, Nathan is there, you can't put it off forever there, right. I mean, at some point it's going to apply and you can't.

Speaker 3:
21:20

Yeah. Um,

Speaker 1:
21:23

any insight into how long that is? How long can you put it off for?

Speaker 3:
21:26

Oh, um, I'm actually not familiar with that one. Maybe bill knows,

Speaker 1:
21:34

I don't, I don't think we've had a chance to play with it yet. So we don't know.

Speaker 3:
21:37

Yeah, we'll find out. That's right.

Speaker 1:
21:40

All right, so this next section is a Octa IDP for Citrix workspace tech preview. I am very curious about this one. This is something that, uh, I know it was at synergy, so when we talk Octa in a workspace world, the Octa is just the identity provider or do actually land on the Octa a webpage or October the, the Octa workspace page and then go into Citrix or do I land on the Citrix workspace page and leverage Octa identity for that.

Speaker 3:
22:07

That one is, it's in tech previous, I haven't had a chance to really play this play around with this, but this is one of the most in demand features that we got from when we rolled out workspace. Um, you know, Octa IDP was just sort of like to be able to provide that, that, um, you know, those features that, you know, for, you know, being able to go into securely within their web and SAS apps as well as their, you know, they're published on prem applications all within Citrix workspace. So, um, I think way it works cause I think they'll be able to hit a, they hit a Citrix page and it just does that sort of the handshake back in the background when they're, when I think they cycle through it. But yeah. Um, really it's, it's more eyed, you know, like identity, identity management and identity is probably one of the biggest things that, um, we're looking at and implementing, um, within the workspace to improve, you know, login and, and, and um, insecurity enhancements. Um, but yeah, like I'm not too familiar with how that currently works as far as how that, how it looks for the end user. I don't know if feel if you may have played around with it yet on the tech preview side.

Speaker 2:
23:18

Not really, but I think, uh, the idea was that it would take you to the, you would do, they would enter the URL, it would take you to the Octa page where they sign in and then it essentially sends you back. I think that's the intent, or at least that's what I'd seen in a couple of webinars. But, uh, it could've changed up between pre tech preview and now,

Speaker 1:
23:37

yeah, I have to assume that you would hit the Citrix workspace and then it would be able to pull from Octa either because you put a URL in or something's been inserted into the, and then brings you back to the workspace. Because you know, the Holy grail of this for every company, whether you're Microsoft, Citrix, you name it, is to have people on your workspace as much as possible and, and having you as the aggregate for everybody else. Uh, so I'm, I'm, I would be shocked if it took you to Oxford and you stayed there. Uh, I, I almost

Speaker 2:
24:03

now, I think it's similar to like MFA from some of the other providers. You'd go to the workspace and it pops up a box and says, enter your creds. Um, and then you go back, even though in the background, you're technically going to Octa for that part.

Speaker 1:
24:17

And I think for me with my consulting background and bill, you can elaborate on this, that the idea that you can get that identity and then get all the way to your virtual app or desktop without having to reauthenticate that would be key, right?

Speaker 2:
24:29

Yeah, that's absolutely key. That's what customers want is that single single login. And then from once they get back to their workspace and you know, ultimately once we moved to the intelligent workspace, they can get to any of their SAS or, or local apps, um, or Zen out or see bad delivered apps and desktops without having to reauthenticate.

Speaker 1:
24:48

So a, and this might be the one, you know, we talked about before we started recording that there would be topics on here that we'd say, Hey, we got to double down and come back to that one. So maybe maybe you can help us get an expert on to to go through that one and walk through how that exactly works.

Speaker 3:
25:01

Yeah, definitely. Um, I do have a, the actual person in mind too. Uh, I usually ping a lot of uh, these type of identity management questions off of him as well. Um, so yeah, uh, but if folks are interested in the tech preview, uh, we actually have, um, you know, the blog that I proposed actually goes into like how they can actually, um, set this up and, and take advantage of the tech preview that we released back in about September 10th, I think just when we came out with that.

Speaker 1:
25:31

So then the next section here is always a fun one. It's about device, a device information. And in order to get there you have to understand that the on prem solution for Citrix has a really two options for licensing. One is concurrent based, which we've had forever a and the other is a user slash device based licensing. And, and Citrix is one of the only companies out there that that actually gives you the ability to license users. And devices in a pool. And then the algorithm will try to figure out the least amount of licenses based on the mix of users and devices, uh, that you can, um, that you can come up with. And so in this case, I think what we're talking about here, and then you'll be a certain leash should clear me up if we're not, but a device information as part of the cloud service, uh, as you're pulling that information in. So it's not just users that are accessing your environment but user and device and even some detail on the user that is accessing the license and leveraging it.

Speaker 3:
26:25

Correct. Yeah. And so, you know, previously, uh, you know, this page, so you know, customers that were using being, um, device listening, our device listing there, the page could potentially show like an overused scenario because device licensing enables, you know, various users to connect a single device and only consume a single license. Um, but now like, uh, you know, we're counting all users and unique devices, so both counts are representative admins get like pretty, you know, they get a good transparency across the Citrix service licensing, um, you know, sort of environment. Um, you know, basically assign assigned devices now include, uh, within that console you can see historical trending, um, you know, so admins can see like seasonal trends. Um, there's also like a new tab, like is information on devices and users launching against those devices. Um, in the blog there is actual like a screenshot of what this looks like. Um, I know when I'm describing it, it can be very, um, you know, it's, it's actually visually when you see it, it actually makes all sense, but it's basically to help, um, admins to kind of get better visibility within, within their Citrix environment.

Speaker 1:
27:38

So I'm, I'm looking at the picture now and I think that's a situation where it's a, a shared terminal or maybe a kiosk type scenario or, or maybe shift work where three people come in and use the same computer as themselves. But we want to recognize that the computers being used by three different people. But we're going to pull a device license because that's the way Citrix has enabled the licensing to work. Um, yeah, the, the, the image goes a long way. Hey bill, thoughts on this?

Speaker 3:
28:02

Okay.

Speaker 2:
28:03

Yeah. I actually was on a call last week with a customer that was asking these very questions, how can they track device licensing, how can they track user licensing? And they were all concerned about the user device construct in the Citrix cloud versus the on prem concurrency. So we tried to explain that to them. But, uh, I haven't actually read this in detail, so this would be nice and I'll definitely make sure that we poured it to that customer because this will give them great insight into the licensing piece.

Speaker 1:
28:32

So Nathan, is this for the people using a as a service or the on-prim or both?

Speaker 3:
28:37

So it's cloud for now. Um, I think it will. Um, but if they're, if they're using within cloud, I think it's just for our app and desktop service customers. Okay.

Speaker 1:
28:48

Well, and that's a great opportunity to kind of clarify this for people listening. Um, the marketing guys call it cloud, uh, they also call it service and then we'll be technical guys started talking about it. We talk about it as a service. So if you hear like didn't just do they use cloud and service all within the same, all within the same conversation? Uh, they mean the same things. Right? So, uh, in this case we're talking about people that use virtual app and desktop or virtual desktop or virtual app and desktop or Citrix workspace as a service, a AKA cloud. Uh, this, this, uh, this features enabled for you then? Yeah, sometimes I just have to say it out loud for myself just to make it all clear. All right, a, another topic here is a new site health checks with Citrix scout. So, uh, it might might make sense for you, just to real briefly tell everybody what scout is and then jump into what this feature is.

Speaker 3:
29:42

Yeah, so this is just sort of, um, kind of like a, a thing that we rolled out with 1909, um, centers scout, they, Citrix scout, sorry, uh, enables it admins to perform like a proactive maintenance and diagnostics. Um, it also gives them the ability to troubleshoot issues within like a virtual apps and desktop deployments. So with the new site health checks and Citrix, Citrix scout, it's like a tongue twister there. Uh, admins can now run health checks for Citrix storefront and licensed servers in addition to their, uh, their controllers and BDAs. So, uh, the goal of these like, you know, the health checks. So, you know, they'll run a comprehensive list of, of tests for all major components of Citrix, virtual apps and desktops, and actually have a little, uh, you know, it's like, just, it sounds simple, but it's one of those things where, um, it's one of those domains, one of the requests that we got when we were rolling out with, uh, the new on-prem release.

Speaker 1:
30:40

Well, I mean, you know, knowledge is power, information is power and the more you can know about your ecosystem around the controllers, the better.

Speaker 3:
30:49

Yeah. And the goal of this is also just again, giving admins more tools, but also ensuring that they have the tools to improve, um, that, that Citrix experience for the end users. Um, you know, throughout the, throughout the organization.

Speaker 2:
31:04

Yeah. This has been around for awhile. Um, although it historically was a lot more manual than this. So I like this a for admins definitely.

Speaker 1:
31:14

Because is this something you, you can schedule, are you scheduling these are, you're running them on demand.

Speaker 5:
31:19

Okay.

Speaker 3:
31:21

Uh, that's, uh, I, I think you can schedule them, but now I have to, I have to follow up on that one with the, the product manager that runs this

Speaker 5:
31:29

[inaudible].

Speaker 1:
31:31

Okay. Our next topic is updates for customers running S a S C V M M also known as Microsoft system center virtual machine manager. And that would be for the, uh, the, the infrastructure platform, the host connections, uh, that you're connecting your a controllers and maybe even your, um, cloud connectors too. And then you want to cover this one.

Speaker 3:
31:50

This is more of a, a minor kind of update, uh, basically for customers that are running app and desktop environments on top of and, and V M M stands for system center, virtual machine manager, which is why we have the CVM and acronym. Um, similar with the release of PBS 1909. Um, you know, we're, we're now announcing support for STD in 2019. Um, so the insurers, I could combine Citrix and Microsoft solution just works together. Um, you know that better together.

Speaker 1:
32:24

Yeah. And for those of you that don't know, Citrix already integrates with[inaudible] of course Zen server, uh, as in sort of resource pool, a, um, a vSphere, a site, um, uh, Nutanix Acropolis, a cluster as well as AWS, Google, GCP, all of those guys. So, you know, Citrix by far is the product out there that integrates with the most third party platform systems, uh, without a doubt. And that's one of the benefits of, of working in a Citrix environment. One of the reasons why we choose to be

Speaker 3:
32:54

citrus focused. And Andy, just the kind of answer your, what we were talking about a one topic before you can schedule with Citrix scout, you can do schedules for a periodic diagnostic collection. Okay, great. Thanks.

Speaker 1:
33:12

Oh, was that a, was that you real time collaborating with the product manager

Speaker 3:
33:16

that yeah, it was just sort of like, yeah, I wanted to know that myself. So I begged him and I was, you know, double check.

Speaker 1:
33:23

No, that's great. That's the power of what we have today, right. And ability to reach out realtime and ask those questions. Maybe someday we'll be doing that within Citrix workspace and we won't even have to jump out to another app and do it.

Speaker 3:
33:36

That's the goal. I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 1:
33:40

Okay. Uh, this next topic is a personal favorite of mine. Um, I have been a big fan of session recording for a decade now and guys, if you don't know what session recording is, that's the ability to basically DVR, uh, DeVos what I used to call it. I don't know if anybody would even know what I meant if I said TiVo at these days, but, um, record the sessions, uh, for your users. Uh, I always talk about that either from a compliance perspective or from a support perspective, but it sounds like, you know, even that's gotten some enhancements with this latest release.

Speaker 3:
34:08

Yeah. So we're always, SAS recording's a big thing for security, security purposes or audit purposes. So with 1909, the enhancements we're doing at such a session recording is, uh, now we're giving more control on who can see, uh, the recording, you know, the, the actual recorded sessions. So we've, uh, you know, added a, what's called like role based access control. Um, so you can grant or deny access to specific users for viewing recorded files. Um, admins can now actually grant viewing access to specific published applications, um, or desktops or specific delivery groups. And on, um, in addition to that where we did a tech preview, uh, within session recording with this new, uh, like web-based session recording player. Um, so it just basically, uh, it is what it sounds like it's a web player that offers an improved, uh, admin experience when viewing like recorded files and um, you know, basically built in like a single unified console.

Speaker 4:
35:11

[inaudible]

Speaker 1:
35:12

no, that's great. Hey, just real quick, one of you guys might have some, some a beard or something rubbing on your mic. So just check that real quick.

Speaker 3:
35:19

Oh, it might've been me. Sorry.

Speaker 1:
35:22

Yeah, no worries. That's part of doing it real and real and live and roll. Uh, except for folks listening. It won't be live, but other nets. Um, okay. Now that's great. Uh, I've always been a big fan of session recording and one of the complaints we always had was limiting people who could see the recordings for HR. Legal reasons was a very important a bill. Uh, you're, you're a, a very experienced, uh, Citrix admin, a session recording. Where does that fit in your love of Citrix? Uh, features?

Speaker 2:
35:50

Um, I've always, I've always enjoyed this feature. I've had a few customers in the past that have taken, taken advantage of it. But uh, to your point, um, sometimes the, the lack of adoption was driven by the requirement that only admins or it folks could view the recordings and without giving everyone access to everything. So I think this will, this will help with adoption and helping folks understand that HR can get their access to it as needed or other other folks through the role based access. And I love the look of the web web player. Can't wait, wait to try that out.

Speaker 4:
36:25

[inaudible]

Speaker 1:
36:26

you know, one common misperception of this product is how much data is it going to a store? And of course we're just putting a fork into the ICA. You know, the screen's great piece of the ICA protocol, I can't, I can't call it HDX, I have to call it ICA. Um, but anyway, we're putting a fork in that. And so it really just depends on what's coming across. Right. At the end, user's doing a whole lot of video of visual changes. Uh, then that's what we're going to see. If it's just a, you know, characters on a, in the Excel spreadsheet, then that's what we're going to see changing. So the amount of data captured in session recording can be, uh, can be a lot less than you think, depending on what's actually being captured. That's, that's it.

Speaker 3:
36:58

Pretty common question. That's correct.

Speaker 2:
37:00

I've seen this used a lot is for training, you know, training users, um, you know, as well as investigative reasons. But, uh, it's not perhaps not the most exciting DVR recording, but in some cases it can be very, uh, beneficial to customers.

Speaker 3:
37:15

Yeah. And it's been pretty important for, you know, customers that are in the healthcare space or the financial services space.

Speaker 2:
37:22

Yeah.

Speaker 4:
37:23

Yeah.

Speaker 1:
37:25

Alright guys, this is awesome. I love having these conversations. The next topic is on-prim citrus gateway as an identity provider for Citrix workspace. So obviously this is a workspace conversation. Uh, and then it's gonna take us into, uh, you know, what you guys are trying to cover here. And then[inaudible]

Speaker 3:
37:41

yeah. So, and then this kind of goes into that topic where, um, you know, it'd be great to have a feature, one of these where we get into the guy that, uh, some of our guys, my colleagues that are really familiar with identity management because it's a really important topic, especially when it comes to the actual workspace and improving like login access and security. So, um, when we introduced the Citrix workspace last year, we were talking about how young, you know, users can securely authenticate, um, within their published apps or web apps. Um, you know, you know, their actual workspace itself, um, using, you know, whatever the company's preferred identity provider was. So at the time we were going to do it where, um, we're going to do this sort of, uh, uh, Cedric gateway as the, it's going to be, um, the one that takes advantage of, of the, you know, identities that identity management or dating providers that customers using. So now, um, for customers that have already invested with uh, their on-prem gateway, they've already bought Citrix gateway. They can leverage that now, um, with the Citrix workspace and deliver that and use that as a, a dining provider. So, um, you can enable authentication with like radius authentication, smart card authentication, um, it'll do like pass through authentication with integrated, uh, with, with windows, um, and also set like conditional access policies. Um, again, this is more of a, you know, we could, it'd be really great to have a designated topic on this one because it can, there's a lot of information that can, and I, and I'm sure like people would want to know about this one.

Speaker 5:
39:20

Okay.

Speaker 1:
39:22

Oh, great. Yeah, it's definitely a topic we can revisit. Definitely can't. Hey bill, I had you muted just for a second. Trying to figure out what the noise was. Go ahead.

Speaker 5:
39:31

Okay.

Speaker 2:
39:32

Oh, I was just going to say, I think we knit and I think we've brought Andy and I've already talked about having a kind of an identity focused, um, podcast like this in the future kind of cover this. And there's a wealth of information here. Cause you know, here you're talking about on-prem Citrix gateway, but again, you've got Octa and you've got Microsoft MFA and you got[inaudible] duo and a lot of other players in that space. And customers are often looking at all of the above and more. Um, and it's kind of a gray, black box type of thing for some people, myself included and really figuring out, you know, where's the final source of authentication, who's the service provider, who's the Ivy pay, all of the things that go along with that. Um, so I think it'd be a great topic for a future podcast and we're planning on doing that.

Speaker 3:
40:14

Yeah. And I know there's a lot of information on this one because I always ask so many questions with, uh, um, you know, the guys that, uh, that, you know, work within work within this, uh, the idea like our identity management integration here. Um, there's like a lot of information that I, you know, they, they like, they let me know. There's like, I almost have like a question a week when it comes to this.

Speaker 5:
40:38

Okay.

Speaker 1:
40:39

Because the last topic that's in this blog is the Linux VDA updates. Didn't you always say the best for last? So you've got to really knock it out with this one.

Speaker 3:
40:49

So Linux is, we're getting a lot more interest in, uh, with Linux from our customers because they liked the idea of, of choice that could be running some custom applications that are, you know, Unix space. Um, so the goal of, of, well, whenever, whenever we do these, these on prime releases, we try to make sure that we're making our Linux VDA on par with our windows VDA. So one of the biggest things that we're doing with the 1909 release is now customers can see or admins can see protocol information, uh, within Citrix director. So they can see something like, um, information such as EDT or TCP, um, which is within Citrix director. I'm, excuse me. We've also made some re authentication enhancements, um, that just sort of ensures that, um, there was an issue I think where the user is logging in and they authenticated, um, it didn't really ask them to reauthenticate. Um, so that became like a, a request for customers saying we need to make sure that, um, if a user needs to reauthenticate within the Linux session that they're, um, they're asked to reauthenticate. Um, you know, like this is, you know, good for scenarios. So it's when they're using like smart card or, or fast or not in this login or, you know, single sign on. Um, so,

Speaker 2:
42:07

okay.

Speaker 3:
42:07

That's the thing about Lennox is like, we're getting a lot more traction, a lot more user. Our customers are looking at Linux, um, deployments and, um, typ. Previously customers may not necessarily or weren't looking at Linux as an option because it wasn't necessarily on par with our windows, uh, our windows VDA. But, um, those are those that, that, uh, that has shifted now or not shifted. But we've, uh, we've, we're constantly making enhancements to the Linux for the, for the Linux user base out there.

Speaker 1:
42:41

You know, I have a question for you and didn't, are you seeing people use the a, the Linux desktop as a, a landing page or landing, um, a landing page, for lack of a better word, a to get to a, um, maybe a browser base inside that desktop and then using their SAS base apps from there? I, I, I see this SAS world of growing and needing a browser that's centralized and managed and, and maybe Linux as a platform for do, for being the, uh, the, the, the middleman in that.

Speaker 3:
43:11

Yeah. Now, so that was, that was exactly like how, um, Linux was used within a virtual environment. Um, now for secure web access or secure web browsing, um, within Citrix workspace, there's secure browser. So it gives you that sort of isolated web browser, um, without having to build in a build out at any sort of backend infrastructure, stand up a server like a Linux VM. Um, but customers yet still leverage it the way that you just described. Um, you know, they'll stand up a Linux VM and sort of isolated away from, um, you know, isolate away from the most of that, the rest of the environment and then, and that can run a lot of their, uh, their published, their know their web apps.

Speaker 1:
43:54

He ability thoughts on the Linux VDA

Speaker 2:
43:57

I've got a project that just came across recently for this. So, um, yeah, I'm, I'm on board with this and glad to see again that Citrix is, uh, given the some love, um, particularly the, uh, the EDT TCP, uh, details and director and some of the other things. Um, so it's all good. I am very pleased to see this and I think the customer that we're with will benefit from this, uh, particularly if they go with, um, the upcoming LTSR.

Speaker 1:
44:27

So guys, we're getting close to the bottom of the article here and about out of time as well. So, uh, it looks like, um, you know, knitting. One of the challenges here are one of the asks here is that, uh, people give some of these, uh, solutions, some of these features, uh, kick right before you guys release them. Uh, and then it looks like you guys also had a, a, a webinar that was September 25th, but I'm sure that's either recordable or going to be rerun at some point or recorded or rerun.

Speaker 3:
44:51

It's actually, yeah, on demand. So I think they, uh, so if they were to sign up, they could watch the, the, the on demand version of it.

Speaker 1:
45:00

Okay, great. All right, well a Nitten anything before we let you go that you'd want to talk about that we didn't bring up here.

Speaker 3:
45:08

Um, so really just the key thing is, uh, we just released, um, uh, support for windows virtual desktop. So I know that was released a couple of weeks ago or a week ago. Um, sorry. I'm like, my time, time time's a little off. I just remembered it was like Monday, Tuesday. Um, but yeah, no, we released a support for windows virtual desktops. So Citrix is like basically one of the only ones where if you're a customer that's an, an existing Citrix customer, you can, um, leverage or take advantage of windows virtual desktop if for some specific reason, um, like maybe you're, uh, running temporary desktops for a temporary workforce. Um, and you can actually manage those and deploy those alongside your existing Citrix applications. Um, but also have a lot of the, the, the management tools and security controls that Citrix brings and apply that to, to windows virtual desktop. So that's actually probably the biggest new thing that we have. And just to reiterate what we were saying earlier, if you guys are, are the long term service release customers, they can try a 1909 today and run in their pre production environment, see how that's working. Um, provide any feedback if there needs to be. So we make sure that 1912 LTSR releases is, um, optimal and meets all, all, uh, everybody's standards.

Speaker 1:
46:30

Yeah. And I'm, I'm sure everybody out there has that preproduction environment that they're able to go and test and play in. That's kind of a kind of a tongue in cheek, um, joke, um, in print. I'm sure a lot of people do and they should. Right. Everybody should. And one of the nice things about the architecture, the FMA, architecture or the service as a service architecture is that it's made it so much easier for Citrix admins to have a pre production environment so that, you know, it is definitely something people should have or should be thinking about how they're going to have. Okay. Well with that, uh, bill, anything before we let you go?

Speaker 2:
47:06

Uh, no sir. I, I'm just glad, uh, didn't, was able to join us today. I think it was a great, uh, great information.

Speaker 1:
47:14

So, bill, if people want to find you a, where would they find you?

Speaker 2:
47:18

Uh, they can find me at[inaudible] in 2009 on Twitter.

Speaker 4:
47:23

Okay.

Speaker 1:
47:23

Yup. Okay, great. And they could also find you by a dude. Yeah. LinkedIn. Yeah. Yup.[inaudible] and if they do a Citrix related project was Integra, they're definitely gonna find your ready. You gonna spend a lot of time with them that way they are definitely going to find me. Yes, they are a niche in any, uh, any parting shots. And where can people find you?

Speaker 3:
47:41

People could find me on Twitter. Uh, uh, so it's my first last name. So Nitten, uh, nit I N S H a R M, a underscore one, um, on Twitter. Or they could find me on LinkedIn, uh, probably users type in it in Sharma and Citrix. And you'll probably be able to probably be the first one to pop up. Um, now I'm in. Thank you guys for having me and, and, uh, allowing me to tell you guys a lot of the new updates that we're coming out with and stay tuned for, for more updates as we, as we kind of close it out the year. And, and then, um, especially when it comes to like the, the new workspace with intelligence.

Speaker 1:
48:21

No, that's great. Yeah. And then we'll, we'll have you back on and we'll do, we'll do this again. Uh, and for people looking to find a, find out more around, uh, myself and Integra. If you just go to his integra.com or even better. Yes. integra.com forward slash events. We're running a workshops and bootcamps all the time. Uh, and uh, for those of you not already going to a Citrix synergy next year, uh, definitely reach out to us about trying to help you, uh, get that taken care of and booked and in large degree paid for, uh, using money. Citrix makes available to partners like us. But with that, guys, I'll, I'll let you guys go and thank you again for your time today.

Speaker 3:
48:58

Okay. All right. Thank you.