Springtime in Minnesota means that the local ice cream parlors open their doors for business (hard to sell ice cream when it is -10F). Every visit, whether it is the first visit of the year or the last, leaves me trying to decide what to get. How do I choose between the “Fat Elvis” or the “Heaps of Love” sundae. As I wait, I think about what I’m in the mood for. I look at what others got. I look to see if other people look happy with their choice.
Advice is good.
Good advice is better.
And with the Citrix Synergy 2016 session catalog now available, I’m starting to think about what sessions to attend. But the list is massive. Where to begin?
I have a very strong interest in application and desktop virtualization (XenApp and XenDesktop). I am also interested in tips/tricks, best practices, and learning as much as possible. Based on these criteria, I’ve come up with my
Citrix Synergy 2016
Top 5 Session List for the Application and Desktop Architect
- Number 5: SYN303: Receiver + StoreFront + Gateway (May 24: 4PM)
For a non-networking person, Gateway is scary and intimidating. How to I make sure routing is optimal? How do I deal with fault tolerance? How does it interact with StoreFront and Receiver? Thorsten Rood will definitely deliver an in-depth technical discussion that we can all use in our own environments. - Number 4: SYN326: How to seamlessly migrate 20,000 VDI users between XenDesktop farms (May 26: 11:30AM)
Migration has been a topic of interest for years, but usually from the perspective of migrating XenApp farms (which Carisa Stringer and myself will present in SYN217, May 24 at 3:00PM). However, how do we deal with hardware migrations? Many of us typically align our hardware upgrades with a major OS upgrade. Windows 10 came out late 2015, Windows 2016 comes out in 2016. It feels like we are on the edge of a major hardware upgrade cycle, which is why Shane O’Neill and Paul Stansel’s session is perfect timing. - Number 3: SYN239: UX and the enterprise desktop: like oil and water? (May 26: 3:30PM)
How much “junk” is on your desktop? How does this stuff impact your experience? Helge Klein and Aaron Parker will definitely provide some great insights into how changes to the default operating system will impact logon times and the overall user experience. Plus, I’m sure they will provide useful information that many of us will be able to test and implement in our own environments. - Number 2: SYN306: Preventing possible PVS performance pain points (May 25: 1:30PM)
I’m a HUGE fan of Provisioning Services, which is why I’m always interested in the latest recommendations on how to get even better performance. Storage experts Andrew Wood and Jim Moyle have an extensive background in this technology with a lot of real world experience and recommendations. I’m expecting to learn a few new tricks and tips from these two. - Number 1: SYN323: XenApp and XenDesktop tech update – May 2016 (May 25: 3:30PM & May 26: 2:30PM)
So yes. I picked my own session for #1. I’m a little biased. The challenge with Synergy, and any tech conference, is that there is so much to learn. It has been 12 months since many of us listened to the latest Citrix advancements. The Tech Update session tries to consolidate the latest technology improvements, best practices and performance data into a single session. That means in 90 minutes, you will see and learn a lot. If a topic doesn’t interest you, wait 2 minutes because we will be on a different topic. (Twitter: djfeller)
And to answer my first dilemma with the ice cream parlor, I think I’ll go for the ‘Fat Elvis.”