Spinning up a Nutanix Cluster in the Cloud – Nutanix Clusters on AWS

Compared to other solutions, it always has been a reasonable easy and fast task to build and implement a new HCI Cluster with Nutanix. However, with the new Nutanix Clusters on AWS offering it’s gotten even faster, easier and more flexible. Yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking it is: Create a new Nutanix AHV Cluster in the cloud on Amazon Web Services AWS!

Compared to other solutions, it always has been a reasonable easy and fast task to build and implement a new HCI Cluster with Nutanix. However, with the new Nutanix Clusters on AWS offering it’s gotten even faster, easier and more flexible. Yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking it is: Create a new Nutanix AHV Cluster in the cloud on Amazon Web Services AWS!

Continue reading “Spinning up a Nutanix Cluster in the Cloud – Nutanix Clusters on AWS”

Running IGEL OS on Chromebooks – Converting the device with IGEL OS Creator and booting from internal storage (Part II)

In my last post I showed how it’s possible to run IGEL OS on a Chromebook by booting the device from an IGEL UD Pocket boot device. While this is great to run IGEL OS on a Chromebook, preserving the original ChromeOS and being able to dual boot based on changing requirements, there might be situations where you would want to convert your Chromebook hardware into a persistent mobile IGEL Thin Client booting from the internal storage of your device. Here is how to get this done.

In my last post I showed how it’s possible to run IGEL OS on a Chromebook by booting the device from an IGEL UD Pocket boot device. While this is great to run IGEL OS on a Chromebook, preserving the original ChromeOS and being able to dual boot based on changing requirements, there might be situations where you would want to convert your Chromebook hardware into a persistent mobile IGEL Thin Client booting from the internal storage of your device. Here is how to get this done. Continue reading “Running IGEL OS on Chromebooks – Converting the device with IGEL OS Creator and booting from internal storage (Part II)”

Running IGEL OS on Chromebooks – The IGEL UD Pocket approach (Part I)

Chromebooks are great and powerful mobile devices. By default they run the Linux-based ChromeOS as its operating system. They are quite widespread in education because of their competitive pricing. Wouldn’t they also make a great mobile thin client, running on IGEL OS? Absolutely! I did some tinkering and was able to boot a Chromebook from a IGEL UD Pocket as well as convert it permanently by putting IGEL OS on the internal storage.

Chromebooks are great and powerful mobile devices. By default they run the Linux-based ChromeOS as its operating system. They are quite widespread in education because of their competitive pricing. Wouldn’t they also make a great mobile thin client, running on IGEL OS? Absolutely! I did some tinkering and was able to boot a Chromebook from a IGEL UD Pocket as well as convert it permanently by putting IGEL OS on the internal storage. Continue reading “Running IGEL OS on Chromebooks – The IGEL UD Pocket approach (Part I)”

Improve the User Experience with Citrix Adaptive Transport – How to make EDT work again on the latest Citrix Gateway and ADC 13.0 release

Adaptive transport is a data transport mechanism for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. It is faster, can scale, improves application interactivity, and is more interactive on challenging long-haul WAN and internet connections.

Adaptive transport is a data transport mechanism for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. It is faster, can scale, improves application interactivity, and is more interactive on challenging long-haul WAN and internet connections. Adaptive transport maintains high server scalability and efficient use of bandwidth. By using adaptive transport, ICA virtual channels automatically respond to changing network conditions. They intelligently switch the underlying protocol between the Citrix protocol called Enlightened Data Transport (EDT) and TCP to deliver the best performance. It improves data throughput for all ICA virtual channels including Thinwire display remoting, file transfer (Client Drive Mapping), printing, and multimedia redirection. The same setting is applicable for both LAN and WAN conditions. Continue reading “Improve the User Experience with Citrix Adaptive Transport – How to make EDT work again on the latest Citrix Gateway and ADC 13.0 release”

IGEL DISRUPT 2020 in Munich – Meet the EUC Community

If you’re active in the End User Computing space, there are not many events in Europe, where you can meet more EUC community folks in one place. IGEL DISRUPT 2020 is going to take place soon from February 4 – 6 in Munich for the second time, after a very successful last year’s edition at the same venue.

If you’re active in the End User Computing space, there are not many events in Europe, where you can meet more EUC community folks in one place. IGEL DISRUPT 2020 is going to take place soon from February 4 – 6 in Munich for the second time, after a very successful last year’s edition at the same venue. Continue reading “IGEL DISRUPT 2020 in Munich – Meet the EUC Community”

Nutanix File Analytics

With the release of Nutanix Files 3.5 (formerly known as AFS, Nutanix Acropolis File Service) Nutanix introduced a new tech preview feature called Nutanix File Analytics, which provides data and statistics about the operations and contents of a file server. Audit trails and anomalies detection made simple and fully integrated with Prism.

With the release of Nutanix Files 3.5 (formerly known as AFS, Nutanix Acropolis File Service) Nutanix introduced a new tech preview feature called Nutanix File Analytics, which provides data and statistics about the operations and contents of a file server. Audit trails and anomalies detection made simple and fully integrated with Prism. Continue reading “Nutanix File Analytics”

Test Drive Nutanix in the Cloud

In the past there has been already a way to Test Drive Nutanix Community Edition in the cloud. Today Nutanix launched a new offer for a free 2-hour test drive of their hyperconverged infrastructure solution, based on the latest commercial edition – hosted on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

In the past there has been already a way to Test Drive Nutanix Community Edition in the cloud. Today Nutanix launched a new offer for a free 2-hour test drive of their hyperconverged infrastructure solution, based on the latest commercial edition – hosted on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Have you ever wanted to get your hands on the Nutanix Enterprise Solution everybody in the industry is speaking about these days? Well, here you go! Nutanix launched a new way to set up a private Nutanix instance in the cloud, without the need of any hardware, no installation, ready for you in just a couple of minutes and free to explore for two hours.

For this new offering, Nutanix leverages the power of the Google Cloud Platform. The test instances are implemented in GCP using nested virtualization. That’s quite an interesting fact, if you know that Google is running its cloud infrastructure on KVM based hypervisors and Nutanix’ very own Acropolis Hypervisor AHV is based on KVM as well. Maybe this is a first glimpse on what might come in the near future, who knows?

So in the future technically it might be possible to build a hybrid cloud deployment that eliminates the traditional boundaries between private and public clouds as well as fully functional Nutanix Enterprise Cloud deployment in the public cloud. Brave new world!

So how to get started your Test Drive? Just head over to https://www.nutanix.com/testdrive and register for your personal Nutanix Enterprise Cloud instance. Within minutes you will be ready to access your personal instance and you are ready to start exploring the simplicity of Nutanix. You can take a guided tour to walk you step-by-step through the process of creating VMs, performance monitoring, image management and more or, what’s really cool, you just start exploring the playground and spin up your own VMs, monitor their real-time performance, create storage containers, disk images, take snapshots, clone machines, etc.

The two hours will pass by in a flash! However after having completed your Test Drive you can join the community at https://next.nutanix.com/test-drive-nutanix-in-the-cloud-67 to connect with other users to share and exchange your experience and provide your feedback.

Linux Apps and Desktops delivered by Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

There are tons of great free Linux applications available today, but since most users aren’t using Linux on their devices this whole parallel universe of hidden gems isn’t that easy to discover and to add to the personal toolbox. But wait, there is Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly known as Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop) to jump in. In this article I will show you how to publish virtual apps and desktops from a Linux operating system. As a small additional giveaway I will also explain how to add support for Citrix Federated Authentication Service (FAS) in an existing Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop (CVAD) deployment.

There are tons of great free Linux applications available today, but since most users aren’t using Linux on their devices this whole parallel universe of hidden gems isn’t that easy to discover and to add to the personal toolbox. But wait, there is Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly known as Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop) to jump in. In this article I will show you how to publish virtual apps and desktops from a Linux operating system. As a small additional giveaway I will also explain how to add support for Citrix Federated Authentication Service (FAS) in an existing Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop (CVAD) deployment. Continue reading “Linux Apps and Desktops delivered by Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops”

Cleanup unused FSLogix Office 365 Containers

It’s this time of the year again: Our graduate students left and the new ones started. As every year we have to do some housekeeping on our file servers to cleanup the unused home directories and user profiles of the students who left our school. With the implementation of FSLogix Office 365 Containers there is now a third piece of user related data we have to take into account. Here is how to accomplish this task with a simple Powershell script.

It’s this time of the year again: Our graduate students left and the new ones started. As every year we have to do some housekeeping on our file servers to cleanup the unused home directories and user profiles of the students who left our school. With the implementation of FSLogix Office 365 Containers there is now a third piece of user related data we have to take into account. Here is how to accomplish this task with a simple Powershell script. Continue reading “Cleanup unused FSLogix Office 365 Containers”

Nutanix Life Cycle Management (LCM)

With AOS 5.0 Nutanix introduced the Life Cycle Manager (LCM) feature, which helps you to track and upgrade software and firmware versions of all entities in the cluster. LCM is supported for all Nutanix NX and SX platforms. But be aware there are some limitations around scenarios where you have LACP enabled – I learned it the hard way!

With AOS 5.0 Nutanix introduced the Life Cycle Manager (LCM) feature, which helps you to track and upgrade software and firmware versions of all entities in the cluster. LCM is supported for all Nutanix NX and SX platforms. But be aware there are some limitations around scenarios where you have LACP enabled – I learned it the hard way! Continue reading “Nutanix Life Cycle Management (LCM)”