What’s your favorite show to binge watch?
Game of Thrones?
Stranger Things?
Breaking Bad?
Well, for geeks (and I know you’re out there), there’s another kind of show you can gobble up, and it might just be your favorite yet.
Presented in ten parts at Citrix Synergy 2019, the Geek’s Guide to the Workspace breaks down the ins and outs of Citrix Workspace in exhaustive (and, yes, awesome) detail.
This comprehensive guide to Citrix Workspace has everything: Adventure! Chills! Thrills! Action! Romance! Well, maybe not romance, but you will LOVE it. That’s right! From the fundamentals (everyone’s gotta start somewhere, right?) to security, covering your SaaS (so to speak), managing the umpteen bazillion different types of devices your end users use, getting into the nitty gritty of the Citrix Workspace intelligent experience, and lots, lots more, this series has it all.
And because we like you, geek friends (I mean, we’re geeks ourselves, if we’re being honest), we’ve gathered all ten sessions for you right here, so you can get your digital workspace on in snackable bites or one whopping, ten-hour feast. It’s up to you. Ready to dig in? Grab some popcorn and let’s go.
Part 1: Workspace Fundamentals
Currently, users have a fragmented workspace experience, forcing them to think about what device, what identity, and what content repository to use. Figuring out how to get work done becomes the barrier to actually getting work done. In this session, we create a complete Citrix Workspace experience, incorporating virtual apps and desktops, local and mobile apps, as well as content apps. We’ll show you how each Workspace service integrates into a cohesive solution that we’ll build on in later Geek’s Guide episodes.
Part 2: Beyond Pa$$words
One hundred seventy-seven and counting. That’s how many different identities Dan Feller has. Each identity has a password. Are they secure passwords? Probably not. Passwords, by nature, are insecure. Securing authentication isn’t easy because there are so many approaches available. In this session, Dan looks into many of these options, diving into how they work and how they differ, and seeing how they can be incorporated into a primary Citrix Workspace identity.
Part 3: Protecting Your SaaS
SaaS apps are great. They’re easy to buy, easy to deploy, and easy to access. Regardless of the user’s endpoint and location, they can access the app without relying on IT to deploy complex VPNs. Awesome, right? Unfortunately, each SaaS app introduces a new identity for the user to remember. User accounts can be easily compromised with a weak password, resulting in stolen data. We have no easy way to disable access to SaaS apps when users leave a company. This session demonstrates how to incorporate single sign-on, enhanced security, and website filtering for SaaS and web apps into the Citrix Workspace experience.
Part 4: First You Get the Content…
Users create an ever-increasing number of documents, presentations, drawings and other content that are stored in files. There is also no shortage of locations to store those files. Making sure that your users have seamless access to all those files, in any repository, is key to providing a productive user experience. In this session, we demonstrate how Citrix Workspace provides access to all those repositories, including the native Citrix Content Collaboration repository, existing repositories on-premises* and in the cloud, and repositories inside Workspace apps to those integrated into Explorer and Finder, all with a seamless experience.
Part 5: Hands Off My BYOD!
Personal privacy and convenience are important to your users, while security is important to the company. Unfortunately, these things are often in direct conflict. In order to successfully implement a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy in an organization, you need to focus on securing the apps from the device, placing mobile apps into a secure container, and creating a barrier between the personal and the business worlds. In this episode, you’ll learn how to expand your Citrix Workspace experience to incorporate best practices for securing mobile apps on BYO devices with the use of restriction policies and micro-VPN.
Part 6: Managing WinRaspAppRoid Devices
The desktop may still rule the corporate world. But it’s not the only corporate-managed device your users need. Smart devices simplify work, automating repetitive tasks and allowing users to better navigate their environment. In this session, you’ll learn how Citrix Workspace makes it possible for you to expand your management to incorporate Raspberry Pi, Apple, Android, and other platforms in addition to Windows.
Part 7: There’s More Than One Way to VDI
The physical office has evolved into a virtual one. The number of users working outside of the main office is growing, challenging how IT manages access to Windows and Linux-based apps and desktops. The user’s workspace can easily accommodate a distributed workforce with virtual apps and desktops, but this doesn’t mean deploying everything on-premises. Organizations have choices. Here, we demonstrate the latest options, including DaaS, Azure Virtual Desktop (formerly Windows Virtual Desktop), and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, while providing recommendations on when to use each.
Part 8: Intelligent Communications
How many items are currently in your email inbox (no joke: my inbox currently has 1,695 messages awaiting responses)? As organizations expand to include multiple locations, remote workers, and contractors, users need a way to collaborate virtually. In the absence of better options, email and other tools have been pushed far beyond what they were designed to do. Using the wrong tool for collaboration hinders a user’s ability to get work done. Valuable feedback and insights are lost and discussions get fragmented. User productivity is affected as users hunt for the right piece of content. In this session, you’ll learn how Citrix Workspace enables users to better collaborate with workflows and third-party application integration.
Part 9: Designing the Right Workspace
Just as the workforce has expanded beyond the office to include users from remote locations, applications no longer are contained within the confines of the data center. To provide an optimal workspace architecture for users, IT must create an underlying network infrastructure that’s able to integrate on-premises resources with cloud-hosted instances and identify and optimize traffic based on destination. In this session, you’ll learn how to integrate a Citrix Workspace experience that spans on-premises and multi-cloud environments, allowing you to optimize virtual channels, provide optimal routing, and avoid hair-pinning connections.
Part 10: Analytics Thinks That’s Not Normal
Most of us are unaware of the patterns and behaviors that influence our world, but when a pattern changes, it can directly impact each of us. Identifying patterns can be useful in predicting spikes in usage and potential security risks. Over the years, credit card companies developed algorithms to identify when your account is compromised. See how you can do the same within your Citrix Workspace environment. In this session, we take a look at how a user’s Workspace behavior provides insights into potential malicious activities and how changes in patterns can trigger countermeasures to protect the user, the content, and the business.
BUT WAIT! There’s MORE! Just for sticking around, we’ve got a BONUS bit of Workspace geekery for you.
Geek’s Guide Bonus: Turn Your Remote Access Solution Into the Workspace of the Future!
In the mid-to-late 90s, organizations began allowing remote access to corporate assets through dial-up, RRAS, and VPN tunnels. This frequently led to a defragmented solution where RDP/VNC was used as a second layer to remotely connect to the internal PC. This continues today, as organizations still implement outdated and disparate remote access systems, providing a poor user experience and overflowing help desk requests with remotely supporting VPNs.
In this session, we take a look at how to revamp that method using simple, high-performing Citrix technologies, eventually migrating to a full workspace:
- Citrix overview for remote access to PCs with HDX
- Comparing capabilities and architectures to RDP/VPNs
- Real-world deployment of over 140,000 PCs and laptops
- Migrate to an all-encompassing workspace.
And there you have it! Ten delicious hours of toothy, binge-worthy content that will leave you ready to create the digital workspace of your dreams; one that will deliver your users an incredible experience, help them be more productive — on any device, anywhere — and get it all securely.
And we’ll see you next year at Citrix Synergy 2020 in Orlando, where the next chapter of the Citrix Workspace experience will, doubtless, premiere!
*Please remember that it’s on-premises (or on-prem, for short). Every time you say “on-premise,” a kitten dies. Think of the kittens.
