News

Paul Reed who works as a consultant in a pre-sales technical role at ISN Solutions, has just passed his Xendesktop CCA. The exam is new, as is virtual desktop technology so this puts ISN ahead of our competitors in London’s IT support and consultancy market.

Here’s Paul’s take on the how studying for the CCA helped him:

“I recently studied for and passed the Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) exam for Citrix XenDesktop 4.0.

“I have been testing various scenarios with XenDesktop in ISN’s internal Proof of Concept environment, however my studies for the CCA qualification taught me a lot more about the capabilities of the software. I read the “Citrix XenDesktop Administrators Guide” literally from cover to cover and used all the other online and printed material I could find to learn about all of the deployment methods and configuration scenarios that XenDesktop supports.

“Indeed, during my studies I tuned the configuration of our test environment to make it better suited to our own requirements. As our clients’ requirements vary greatly depending on number of users, bandwidth, applications and performance benchmarks, this sort of thorough study combined with practical experience of the product in production will be extremely beneficial when proposing a tailored implementation.

“The main benefit I found from taking the exam was understanding the emphasis Citrix place on each component of the product and how each integrate with each other. The exam also included a substantial number of questions about troubleshooting XenDesktop, which will be invaluable when supporting our XenDesktop implementations.”

If you need to know about whether virtual desktop is right for your business please call us on 020 7313 8300 for a chat about what’s possible

Windows 7 is the latest desktop and laptop operating system out of the Microsoft stable and it’s a thoroughbred from the start. As one of ISN’s desktop specialists, I have been using it for some time now. I like it a lot.

Better Performance

It’s faster than Windows XP and much faster than the ill-fated Vista, due to smaller resident memory requirements. Windows 7 installs far more quickly than either of its predecessors.

• Faster to startup – the record for booting a quad core PC is 19 seconds
• 64 bit version available – meaning your applications could use up to 192GB of memory
• Faster searches – find files and folders faster and more easily than in Vista or XP
• Back compatibility – run older programs in a virtual Windows XP window
• Better power management – longer battery life: some of the latest laptops can run for 6 hours or more.

Windows 7 is capable of running on existing hardware and so the PC you use today will probably be usable for the next few years: all it will need is the new operating system.

New usability features

With new features and improvements under the hood, people will be impressed with the speed and the improved stability, thus reducing the need to call your helpdesk and making it easier to get stuff done.

• New Taskbar – pin common apps to the taskbar; preview open application windows.
• Left/Right alignment – easily use two applications side by side, each occupying half your screen
• Aero Shake – May be a gimmick rather than a feature, but still handy. Grab and shake any application title bar with the mouse and all other windows minimise!

New enterprise capabilities

When used with Windows Server 2008 R2, you will be able to use new features that link with Windows 7 and provide added value to the software.

• DirectAcess – automatic VPN connection
• BranchCache – data replication and sharing
• VPN Reconnect – seamless reconnection when moving between networks (e.g. wi-fi points)

All in all, it should bring an increase in productivity and a reduction of desktop problems, bringing new life to existing hardware.