You can find the latest version of the Citrix Visio Stencil from here: Tools
As you saw from my previous post, Citrix now has Linux virtual desktops. You know what this means?
NEW VISIO STENCILS!!!
The new set for XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6 includes
Linux virtual desktop
Receiver
GPU/vGPU
Driver
And remember, pre-built diagrams that you can modify are also included as a stencil (one of my better ideas). Just drag the stencil into your drawing and perform an “Ungroup” operation. You can now modify to fit your needs.
If you were at Citrix Synergy, you heard about XenApp/XenDesktop adding support for Linux virtual desktops. As my hero Homer Simpson says “I’m not impressed easily… WOW a blue car!” And that is what we have, a new car color.
We had red cars (Windows applications), green cars (Windows desktops), and now blue cars (Linux desktops). From my perspective, these are simply different applications we can deliver to users (Yes, I also believe a desktop is just another application, which I said back in 2011)
So what’s the big deal then?
It isn’t that XenApp/XenDesktop is able to deliver a Linux desktop as the Linux desktop is just another viable resource. The big deal is that
Nothing changes
The user simply sees a new resource they can access. The experience is the same. We continue to use whatever Receiver the user has installed, including HTML5. We still provide pass-through authentication for the user so they only have to sign on once.
The admin uses the same tools to deliver the new resource… Studio. The admin creates a new machine catalog and a new delivery group.
The support team uses the same tool to monitor the new resource… Director. The can see in-depth details about the user’s session, including running processes
See for yourself
The big deal is that we deliver applications (Windows apps, Windows desktops, Linux desktops) to users with a single platform.
And once you get your Linux virtual desktop running, feel free to relax with a little entertainment with the following to be executed from the terminal:
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
From the virtual mind of Virtual Feller
Follow @djfeller
I love seeing crazy comparisons and statistics, especially if it has anything to do with science
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
If laid out end-to-end, all DNA within your body would go from the Earth to Pluto and back to the Earth (too bad Pluto is not a planet anymore.)
Humans share 99% of their DNA with everyone else (makes the 7 degrees of separation game kind of pointless.)
If you could type 60 words per minute, eight hours a day, it would take approximately 50 years to type the human genome (Well, I can type 61 words per minute).
Humans have roughly 40-50% of the same DNA as cabbage (I don’t like cabbage, which means I don’t like 1/2 of me).
Back in 2001, it cost roughly $100,000,000 to map the genome, while in 2014 the cost dropped to around $6,000
By understanding the DNA, we can better understand how something works and how it interacts with other things. However, trying to map the DNA is not something you would ever think about doing manually, it would take a lifetime and be prone to many mistakes (plus it would be a pretty boring life). By understanding how something works and how it interacts, we can take preventative actions.
Apps (Hello, World)
There are roughly 200,000 lines of code in a pacemaker
The Space Shuttle contained 400,000 lines of code
The Hubble Space Telescope has 2,000,000 lines of code
While Microsoft Office 2001 had 25,000,000 lines of code, Office 2013 has grown up to 45,000,000 lines
Guess what has the same number of lines of code as Windows Vista? How about the Large Hadron Collider. Each with roughly 50,000,000 lines
And to top things off, it is reported that the United States healthcare.gov website has 500,000,000 lines.
As we all know, upgrading from Windows XP to 7 to 10, from Windows 2003, to 2008 to 2012, from Office 2010 to 2013 to 2016 is not something we do overnight. Just look at the amount of code that is involved in these things. We often spend months and years debating if we should upgrade and then how we should upgrade. We do this because it is not easy as we have a nagging fear that our applications might not work, and for good reason considering Windows 7 had 40 million lines of code. We’ve been bitten too many times by the compatibility bug, so we are willing to forego the added value of the latest releases because we don’t want to experience that nasty bite again.
This is why understanding your application’s DNA is so important. This is why there were a couple of sessions at Citrix Synergy 2015 that focused on AppDNA.
SYN232: Get the most out of AppDNA for app migrations and updates
SYN320: Never let me down again: the future of XenApp and XenDesktop upgrades
To get you started, we’ve put together the following video demonstrating what you can do with AppDNA
Therefore, my question for you is “Why haven’t you looked at AppDNA to help you with Windows upgrades, XenApp upgrades, application upgrades?”
