Kris visits IGEL DISRUPT 2020, in Munich

Kris Haynes from Axess Systems has recently taken a trip to Munich for IGEL DISRUPT 2020.

Wrapping up warm and gaining a wealth of knowledge from IGEL experts on all the upcoming changes to the technology!

This year is the first-ever year that we have sent someone to DISRUPT. It’s been incredible to see how the event has gone and to get first-hand information.

Kris has written up a summary his time at IGEL DISRUPT.

You can also see expert speakers from Citrix and IGEL at our upcoming event: Citrix Summit Re:loaded, click here to find out more.

I was asked at the beginning of the year: of all the event opportunities available to us, which stands the best at providing value to the business, value to our customers, and the most useful knowledge to take out to market?

IGEL’s DISRUPT event stands out as one of the best in the year!

Coming from humble beginnings of a small collection of customers and consultants some 4 years ago, IGEL now offers what is quickly becoming ‘the’ end-user computing event of the year.

Day 1:

Hosted in Munich, just a short haul flight away – the event started with a Windows Virtual Desktop session hosted by Jim Moyle (@JimMoyle) and Christiaan Brinkhoff (@Brinkhoff_C) – legends I dare say; although these days they go by their own titles of Microsoft Global Black Belts.

The session covered how WVD has grown exponentially over the last 18 months, along with all the changes that have been made and the changes soon to come (some of which are still a bit hush, hush in previews).

Some exciting snippets that came out of the session, include the review of the new Azure Portal which will undoubtedly allow WVD to take over the VDI world.

A big promotion of the new Reverse Connect was presented, which looks like a genuine breakthrough if you’re a techie… proposing a remote desktop connection that works back to front, instead of from the client to the desktop.

It works backwards from the desktop back to the endpoint – say goodbye to 3389 port scanners and vulnerability, this could make typical hacking attempts, considerably more difficult.

There was also a huge overview of MSIX, the new MSI file type evolution (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/overview).

The new installation file type will take some time to gather pace, as developers start to work toward the new standard but it promises yet again a significant technological improvement.

The high-level concept behind the MSIX installer is that you can package your apps along with a manifest, that includes a fully containerised version of the App, it’s Registry, the child processes and the network.

Ultimately leading to each of your applications being separated from the operating system, meaning they’re agile, secure and flexible.

There were some great resources available here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/m365-wvd/ for people to start taking a look at and progressing their learning paths (free and at your own pace)

Also some architecture reference sheets https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/rds-poster?redirectedfrom=MSDN for both RDS and WVD.

The current problem with Windows Virtual Desktop is that you need to be very well versed in PowerShell scripting to begin looking at it, let alone managing it moving forward.

The idea is that Azurev2 should help overcome this challenge.

Finally, was also a big push on Citrix Managed Desktops (available now) and VMware Horizon Client Managed Desktops available in Preview if requested directly:(https://www.vmware.com/learn/323526_TECH_PREVIEW_REG.html)

Day 2:

The second day launched the main event and was just as intense!

With Jed Ayres, the new CEO ,kicking off the event in style.

Last year, IGEL had over $150 million in revenue, and sold 749,000 copies of IGEL OS!

Jed went on to say just how proud of the business he was and demonstrated his passion to be the next big disrupter in the industry.

In 2020, IGEL plan to become the top thin client vendor, up from their current position of third, behind Dell and HP.

IGEL believe that with the projected growth demonstrable of cloud desktops, they can be a $1 billion company with 10 million seats!

Following key speeches from Nathan Hill, Scott Manchester & Sasa Petrovic – Gartner, Microsoft and Citrix – the consensus was that the future consisted somewhere between hosted desktops, OS’ less desktops and machine learning-based workstyles.

It paints an interesting picture for the future of IT and undoubtedly suggests an exciting and evolving premise in IT over the next few years!

Throughout the day a series of breakout sessions were then held with four different sales and/or technical tracks running consecutively every 45 minutes!

Highlights within these sessions were the opportunities to understand Cloud Jumper better, with their CWMS (Cloud Workspace Managed Service) that provides an enhanced deployment, support and scalability method for WVD and RDS. It seemed to be one to watch given seats were being wheeled into the back of the room for people to hear more about the solution.

There was also a review of the new IGEL licensing options, coming live on the 1st April 2020. Mostly consisting around their workspace edition becoming more empowered as a base license, and their Enterprise Management Pack – becoming more focussed on Asset Management and the remote Cloud Gateway Solution.

There was also a session on the new IGEL UD3, and a showcase of the UD3 running Beat Saber on an Oculus Rift, in Azure! Talk about pushing technology to its limits – and it performed incredibly!

Finally, there was an active demonstration of IGELs Cloud Gateway solution – provisioning (and managing) a thin client remotely via the web.

Not only that but there was a mission in the session to provision a new build (ICG) IGEL Cloud Gateway on Linux within Azure, in 15 minutes and have it push out an active configuration to a UD Pocket running over 4G in ‘another network’. I was impressed to say, it was achieved!

Not only was it possible to achieve and deploy – I also learned that not all Live Demos are destined to fail! This started the ball rolling on thoughts around cloud management though.

If you’re running a thin client estate and are worried about how to best expand your deployment, ICG is a definite contender (if not ‘the’ contender!)

Just as it seemed it couldn’t do so, further into the evening, the tempo increased again, dropping straight into dinner and awards!

and…

Axess Systems were then named “Emerging Partner of the Year” an accolade earned throughout 2019 with a commitment to IGEL, Thin clients and virtual desktop infrastructure and one that we’re extremely proud of!

IGEL DISRUPT 2020 was incredible!

We hope to be returning in 2021!

Thanks for an amazing event!

So…

Now that Kris has experienced all the IGEL DISRUPT 2020 updates first hand, that brings me to say that this February we have an event in Nottingham around Citrix and IGEL!

The event, hosted by Axess Systems, Citrix and IGEL is on Thursday 27th February.

This will be an afternoon of information you don’t want to miss.

At the beautiful venue of the Nottingham Motorpoint Arena. The event kicks off with a free buffet lunch at 12 PM, followed by an afternoon of expert speakers and networking with IT experts from across the UK.

To see the full agenda and to sign up for this event click here.