During Citrix Synergy, the CTP hosted sessions are among the highest rated, and with good reason. They are, almost without exception highly technical and will provide you with an unbiased view in every way possible. Below you will find an overview on all Synergy session presented by Citrix CTP’s, or Citrix Technology Professionals in full. Note that I’m not saying other sessions are less interesting or of a lower quality, not at all. It’s just that being a CTP myself I’d like to advertise the program (and its members) from time to time, that’s all really.
If you would like to add the CTP hosted sessions to your agenda, or any other session/event for that matter, search the session catalogue using the ‘Speaker Type’ filter and, in this case select ‘Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) – login will be required. Of course, you can do the same for other types of sessions and/or technologies you are interested in. Next to the breakouts a bunch of CTP’s are also involved in the Match.Geek, Hot-topics Fireside chat and Roundtable sessions.
Here goes…
SYN413 – Microsoft Containers in a Citrix World, presented by Mike Nelson: With the release of Microsoft Windows Containers with Server 2016, not only has the DevOps world been transformed by this resilient and very cool technology, but infrastructure has as well. In this session, we’ll discuss what Microsoft Containers are and how they can help solve problems and make your Citrix environment more resilient, as well as how Containers could be used to automate scale for Citrix implementations. There will be demonstrations and plenty of “what if” conversations.
SYN306 – Solving PVS challenges with simple shell scripts, presented by Andrew Wood and Jim Moyle: Citrix Provisioning Services is a key delivery technology with a range of options that can be automated to ease delivery, updates and availability. In this session, we’ll look at automation techniques for rollout, updates and migration. Building on practical examples from field implementations, we’ll cover differences in SDK versions between common releases and what you can do with the tools – from complimentary tools to automation with Citrix Smart Tools integration – in order to scale your environment to meet the demands of your organization.
SYN325 – Automating NetScaler: Talking NITRO with PowerShell, presented by Esther Barthel: Back by popular demand, this session helps administrators include NetScaler CPX, NetScaler VPX and NetScaler MPX deployment and configuration in their automation and orchestration strategies, both on-premises and in the cloud, by showing how PowerShell can help to create automated workflows. We will cover the REST API and NetScaler’s NITRO-based API framework as well as how NITRO with PowerShell can automate the NetScaler configuration with REST API calls. You will also learn PowerShell scripting to automate the deployment of NetScaler VPX on XenServer or vSphere hypervisors with a fixed IP address.
SYN304 – Comparison: Delivering Virtual Desktops with XenDesktop 7.x or Horizon 7.x, presented by Eduardo Molina and Jarian Gibson: This session will cover how Citrix XenDesktop and VMware Horizon desktop virtualization solutions stack up against each other. We will discuss updates and differences between the two, compare features and functionality from each new release, and relay experiences from the field in design and implementation. You’ll also learn how newer cloud options bring more functionality to the desktop virtualization solutions.
SYN707 – Build a robust security framework in the age of hospital smartrooms and IoT, presented by Connie Barrera: Thanks to the wide availability of wireless, Bluetooth and IoT devices, the healthcare industry is enjoying improved workflows, automation and efficiencies. Alongside these benefits, however, lie security holes that allow hackers to penetrate and steal sensitive patient and corporate data. While little thought is given to IP-enabled hand sanitizer devices tracking use, these very same devices, or others similar to them, may cause havoc on your network if not properly architected. This session will discuss the challenges with the healthcare sector and IoT craze, and how Citrix solutions enable a robust and secure network infrastructure. We’ll discuss secure network best practices, behavioral intelligence, and how to develop a framework and operations to manage the unmanageable.
SYN706 – Build a XenApp real-time session monitoring dashboard, presented by Sam Jacobs: Learn how to build a dashboard that can display and filter session and latency information for all the XenApp sessions in your farm. Using PowerShell and the XenApp SDK, you will learn how to build a Windows application to enumerate and filter the sessions using any combination of user ID, username, server, state (active/disconnected) and application. This extremely useful utility can be used by administrators and Help Desks alike to easily identify trouble spots. While this is a session geared towards developers, no development experience is necessary to use the software that will be shared in this session.
SYN303 – Independent Citrix experts’ deep dive on Remote Graphics, user experience and GPUs, presented by Ruben Spruijt and Benny Tritsch: Walk through the latest graphics GPU developments, including solutions offered by NVIDIA, Intel and AMD, with two Citrix Technology Professionals who will share highlights of the hundreds of new test scenarios they have executed. Do you want to know more about GPU, user experience and resource consumption with XenDesktop, XenApp and Citrix Cloud? Want to know what the impact is with different HDX codecs? Do you want to receive insights in sizing, GPU and creating the business case to use Remote Graphics in your environment? You will leave this session with lots of valuable information – it’s a session you won’t want to miss.
SYN327 – Identity federation 1×1 with NetScaler: SAML for SaaS, B2B and enterprise, presented by Thorsten Rood: Securing access to corporate data has become complex. On one end, you need to handle more external users outside your own directory service boundaries while on the other, hybrid cloud architecture and service offerings that leverage SaaS and/or B2B scenarios have created an environment with dispersed data repositories. With those information pools maintained partially under your own responsibility and others operated by foreign providers, it has become critical to understand how identity verification and identity forwarding is done; and the whole authentication framework has to undergo significant evolution. This session will showcase the new authentication and security architecture that SAML brings to the business, how NetScaler fits into federation technologies for inbound and outbound identity processing and why NetScaler is a critical component. We’ll cover the concept at the bit level, including the originator and consumer perspective, along with web services and Office 365.
SYN712 – Analysis of a hack: how to defend and protect with Citrix, presented by Remco Weijnen and Geert Braakhekke: Security is a topic that should be on everyone’s agenda: your systems, data, identity and IP are at risk. Even doing the right things doesn’t mean they’re implemented in the best way. Learn how to protect against hackers, by understanding how hackers think and operate. This session will present the analysis of a fictional attack where hackers managed to capture credentials, harvest password hashes, get elevated to administrator and bypass multifactor authentication. This session will use demos and cover interesting technologies the hackers used such as a USB device that emulates a keyboard, GPU technology to crack hashes and smart card emulators with highly sensitive antennas to show how it can happen to your organization without the proper defense in place.
SYN324 – Connectivity demystified: NetScaler Unified Gateway without configuration wizards, presented by Thorsten Rood: NetScaler Unified Gateway functionality has gone way beyond pure HDX access. With the latest release, Unified Gateway has taken over the main role of centralized authentication engine, core traffic manager and user interface landing experience for different application and access scenarios. Surely you can build one yourself, but can you explore and diagnose the product and its various use cases without touching a configuration wizard? This session will explore Unified Gateway and all of its subcomponents. We’ll cover how to configure functionality and optimize user experience using frequently seen scenarios, and collapse them into a single NetScaler Unified Gateway instance. This will help you create your own universal blueprint for deploying Unified Gateway at different feature levels according to your unique requirements.
SYN330 – Optimize and scale your XenApp and XenDesktop platform the CTP way, presented by Remco Wijnen and Barry Schiffer: Take a technical deep dive and get best practices for optimizing user experience and density, with a closer look at hardware sizing, hardware configuration, the HDX display protocol and various image optimization tasks. The session offers real-world, tested and proven best practices for your XenApp and XenDesktop environment, with Citrix Technology Professionals covering HDX graphics modes and their impact on CPU and bandwidth, persistent desktops in a Citrix world, and power management. You will hear about enhancements to PVS, protocol improvements and the value of upgrading to XenApp 7.x.
SYN309 – Blueprint for easy, fast and cost effective branch office setup, presented by Ruben Spruijt and Tarkan Kocoglu: Today’s businesses demand high-performing, flexible and cost-efficient IT solutions that can support branch offices, especially in financial services and retail, which require new or temporary branch offices to be set up quickly and easily to address seasonal demands and M&As. In this session, get a blueprint for building a modern virtual workspace for your branch offices. Plus hyperconverged appliances and software-defined storage solutions are an important component to drive cost and complexity down while enhancing user and administrator experience. Hear insights and lessons learned on how to use these solutions in your environment.
SYN106 – Fantastic four: the do’s, don’ts and lessons learned of Citrix implementations, presented by Theresa Miller and Steve Greenberg: Implementing Citrix application and desktop virtualization can come with questions and challenges. During this session, you will hear from four of our experienced Citrix Technology Professionals who will dive deep into the do’s, don’ts and lessons learned of these projects, including the business and technical details necessary for project success. They’ll discuss guidance on when you should deploy on-premises or in the cloud, how built-in options, third-party tools, and consultants impact outcomes, and how understanding user needs and expectations can ensure success.
SYN416 – XenServer for VMware admins, presented by Andrew Wood and Jim Moyle: XenServer is the underlying infrastructure powering multiple Citrix core offerings. While many Citrix admins use XenServer to host Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp services, many VMware admins have yet to make a move. If you’re a VMware administrator, you should take a closer look at XenServer management, which can round out your infrastructure skills and enable you to make full use of a Citrix platform that is optimized to work together. This session will cover the XenServer stack, high availability, backup and recovery, troubleshooting, automation and performance monitoring.
SYN304 – Comparison: delivering virtual desktops with XenDesktop 7.x or Horizon 7.x, presented by Eduardo Molina and Jarian Gibson: This session will cover how Citrix XenDesktop and VMware Horizon desktop virtualization solutions stack up against each other. We will discuss updates and differences between the two, compare features and functionality from each new release, and relay experiences from the field in design and implementation. You’ll also learn how newer cloud options bring more functionality to the desktop virtualization solutions.
SYN714 – Citrix and Azure: what else is possible? Presented by Mike Nelson: The ability to deploy Citrix solutions on Microsoft Azure has enticed a lot of folks from IT up to the boardroom and has also spotlighted other capabilities. Microsoft VDI and XenApp Express opens a whole new world of benefits that the Azure cloud in conjunction with a Citrix deployment offers your business and infrastructure. We’ll discuss subscriptions and billing, monitoring and analytics, resource management, development and test labs, Azure AD integrations and more.
There you go, all the CTP goodness up for grabs, enjoy!
