by Daniel Feller

Truth be told, no one really cared about the desktop before we started talking desktop virtualization.  If a desktop failed, it really only impacted a single user, not a big deal unless the user is the CEO or Payroll. Unfortunately for that user, they could be out of commission for days/weeks.  But in a desktop virtualization world, that user can automatically reconnect and get their desktop back, albeit it is technically a different entity as it is now running on another hypervisor with a fresh OS install and Apps, but it looks and acts the same.

What happens if there is a major glitch, issue, failure, etc with the environment?  Even if your environment is rock solid, someone is going to do something that will bring down a very critical component. You might lose one user, but chances are you will lose hundreds or thousands.  If the failed component is critical, those users might not be able to reconnect.  Now you are in a world of pain.  If you are in IT and in charge of the desktop virtualization solution, it might be time to either

1.    Change your name

2.    Update your Resume

3.    Convince everyone that you are trying to save energy costs and shut down the entire system (not likely to work)

How do you avoid the name change or career change?  By doing your job correctly and designing a desktop virtualization solution that can withstand the failure of components without denying user access.  A High-Availability Reference Architecture and Implementation Guide for XenDesktop have been released to the Ask the Architect site.

The choice is yours, design an environment that has high-availability or design your own rapid exit plan.

Daniel – Lead Architect – Worldwide Consulting Solutions

via What happens if Your Desktop Virtualization Infrastructure has a Failure? » ocb – Citrix Community.

I rec’d a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate by attending the “New Efficiency” conference last week. I’m planning to install it on my new laptop. As much as I love to have it’s 64bit version, the one I got is 32bit. I’m gonna wait till someone releases the 64bit ISO and activate it with my key.

Microsoft did a great job on this release, it is the best version of Windows I’ve ever used. During the conference, I’ve learned a lot of new features, though they have to be implemented on the Server 2008 and IPV6 architecture. A lot of works to be done in the coming years for the IT team!

Here are my tips to the “Senior Tech Wannabe” about windows printer trouble shooting.

Problem: “I selected the printer, and hit the delete key a few times. But it doesn’t delete, though the status says deleting.”
Answer: “Cancel all the unfinished documents in the queue first. Damn it!”

Problem: “I cannot cancel or restart a job in the print queue. It’s just stuck!”
Answer: “Right click on My Computer > Manage > Services and Applications > Services > Right click on Print Spooler > Restart.”

Check this out, apparently shouting at your disks causes extreme latency. So, either keep your noises down in the datacenter, or upgrade to solid state drives! Click read more to watch the video. Read more »

Personally, I think wordpress updates too fast. It’s hard for my blog to keep up. I’m running a lot of customized plugins and my theme just don’t work with a lot of the crap. Each upgrade of the wordpress kernel takes me at least an hour to figure out where to modify so that all the functions work OK.

I’m once again up-to-date with it’s current version: 2.7. And I think I’m gonna stay with this version for a while. Happy new year!

I consider myself a real coffee drinker. But am I really one, if I don’t know the difference between the various kinds of the related beverages? Though, the regular house brewed coffee is what I consume the most. But occasionally, I’ll have a cup or two of it’s cousins from Europe. Either Lattes or Cappuccinos.

I make my own espresso at work, due to the reason being most of my co-workers are coffee-holics. We don’t have a regular coffee maker like the one at home. Instead, Espresso machines (2 of them) are placed in our break room. When I first started working there, I didn’t understand where the pressure release sound (Sssssssss…) came from. I thought they were using liquid nitrogen [N₂] to overclock our servers… LOL!

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Being domain administrator in a complex network, you don’t want to walk around to fix issues or to install a software. You rely on remote desktop solutions to get into other devices. I use the admin share (\\node\x$) command very often. However, when the devices you’re working with has Windows firewall enabled, you’re out of luck. 

Turning off Windows firewall remotely seems to be impossible in enterprise networks. Of course, in a network with 20 desktops, you could just simply walk over and do it. I’ve done a lot of searches and tried various of methods, the conclusion is: No Go!

A guy once wrote an au3 script, some people confirmed it works. But when I tired it recently, it works only if the target client is yourself. When I tried the script targeting another node, it does nothing. The way I see it: If windows firewall blocks incoming ICMP packets, it’s pretty much it. I have to walk over to the node and manually turn WFW off.

Maybe, creating a global policy on the domain controller would be the way to go…