• What's up?
• KB Articles of the Month
• Ask our MVPs!
• Learning Zone
• On the Spot
• Rumors on the SBC Space

1. What's up?

Hi there!

Well this was a very busy month I guess for everyone out there on the TS/Citrix arena! As you all know, Microsoft decided to go on a shopping spree and bought Whale Communications (they make an excellent SSL VPN/Portal solution called e-gap, one of the best - if not the best one - on the market IMHO) and Softricity! Yes, Microsoft fell in love with their streaming/isolation capabilities and bought them. Excellent product for sure and a must have on any medium to large size TS/Citrix deployment. I keep saying this: Softricity is the next big thing out there for sure and we even interviewed Art Matin, their CEO, a couple months ago! Check our newsletter archive.

On the TS side I guess one of the great news is the announcement of RecordTS, an application that allows you to simply record everything your users are doing on your TS for auditing/archiving purposes. It works with RDP only at the moment but we are thinking about having it on ICA as well, if there is enough demand for such thing. :)
If you want to test it, feel free to send me an email.

That is all folks!

Cheers!

2. KB Articles of the Month

Here are some interesting and useful Terminal Services related articles posted by Microsoft in the last month:

• A Terminal Services client computer may make beep sounds after you connect to a Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1-based computer

(901115) - After you connect to a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1-based computer through a Terminal Services session, the Terminal Services client computer may make a beep sound when certain events occur.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/901115/en-us

• Terminal Services Licensing Does Not Accept a Valid License Key Pack

(258045) The Terminal Services Licensing server does not accept the license key pack after being activated. The activation process functions normally, however the installation of license key packs may not work when you configure the License Server with a valid license key, and you may receive the following error message:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/258045/en-us

• SQL Server 2000 is not supported on Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server application server

(327270) - Microsoft SQL Server does not support the installation or use of SQL Server Failover Clustering on Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based server clusters where the Windows Server 2003-based server clusters have Terminal Server installed on the cluster. This configuration was known as Application Mode in Microsoft Windows 2000. However, SQL Server 2000 instance installation is supported as a stand-alone instance for Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services Mode (Application Mode).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/327270/en-us

• Error message when you log off from a Terminal Services session on a Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1-based Terminal Server: "Stop 0x000000AB SESSION_HAS_VALID_POOL_ON_EXIT"

(910362) - When you log off from a Terminal Services session on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1)-based Terminal Server, you receive an error message that resembles the following:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910362/en-us

• Error message when you try to paste data into Excel 2003 during a Terminal Services session: "Cannot empty the clipboard"

(899266) - When you try to paste data into Microsoft Office Excel 2003 during a Terminal Services session on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based or Microsoft Windows XP-based computer, you receive the following error message:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899266/en-us

• Text is slow to appear or to disappear when you type or delete text in a table when you are using Word 2003 on a Terminal Server client

(917056) - The following symptoms may occur when you are using Microsoft Office Word 2003 on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server client computer:

• When you type text in a table, the text is slow to appear.
• When you delete text from a table, the text is slow to disappear.
These symptoms also occur when you are using Word 2003 on a Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Terminal Services client computer.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917056/en-us

3. Ask our MVPs a question

QUESTION: Another question from our secret library as again this month, no one sent us a question! Gee, I think IT consultants are simply way too smart these days to find a problem with TS they cannot solve. Amazing. So here we go.
'Dear TS MVPs. When I discovered what Terminal Services was capable of, it was like a revelation to me. I wanted to use it everywhere so what better place to start than at the office? After some discussion with our IT guys they say I am nuts; that TS is the most unsafe thing on earth after Baghdad. They are saying anyone can hack a TS these days in less than 60 seconds! Is that true???'
Neo,Zeon

ANSWER: Dear Neo. If Tom Cruise is one of your IT guys, yes, that is true. Just watch MI:3 to see what he can do in 10 seconds and you will understand that in 60 seconds you can hack the NSA computers (just watch Swordfish to see what they do in 60 seconds).
Ok, back to earth.
TS, as any other piece of software ever written by Microsoft or anyone else, has vulnerabilities; some documented (and thank God, fixed); some waiting to be documented and worse than that, some waiting to be discovered.
But it is funny to see this did not prevent your IT guys having web servers, SSL VPN servers and any other kind of server running some sort of software that as far as I know was written by human beings and not by machines using alien technology.
My answer to your question is simple: any server, TS or not, if properly patched, configured and maintained, will be rock solid and will resist to pretty much anything out there. Add to that, simple tools to filter incoming connections to your TS (check the 2X SecureRDP, a small utility that as you noticed, I simply love!) and you will have a Fort Knox.
And honestly, in all these years working full time with Terminal Services, I still have not seen one single case (at least on my customers) where a TS, sitting right there on the Internet, was hacked. People are simply way too paranoid these days.
When I was young we would drive for hours with my dad with no seat belts at all (I think cars did not even have them at the time). Every single one, my family and all friends included, survived :)
If you do it properly, it will be the same with your TSs.

That is all folks!

4. Learning Zone

We have a great group of articles in the Learning Zone that will help you get a handle on your most difficult configuration issues. Here are just a few of the newer and more interesting articles:

• Load Balancing Terminal Services: All you wanted to know but were afraid to ask (Part 1)

Date - May 9, 2006; Author - Cláudio Rodrigues; Section - Articles :: Performance

This article will give a better idea of what Load Balancing is, the most common features you should look out for and what your options are. Part 1 of 2.

• Fileserving in Terminal Server Environments (Part 2)

Date - May 25, 2006; Author - Michel Roth; Section - Articles :: Performance

In this second part of the series Michel Roth talks about how you can determine if you have performance issues on your file servers and how you can prevent this from occurring by adhering to best practices.

5. On The Spot

This month we talked to Eric Musgrave. If you do not know him, Eric is one of the guys behind the ScrewDrivers product from triCerat and now, after all these rich and successful years :), he became the CTO over there. I wish I had a CTO job of some fancy company like him. To me he is another great example of great people that work in the background on the TS industry, doing great and innovative stuff and most of the time does not get any recognition at all on the industry. My kudos to all you out there, working in background on the TS industry!

Here you have what we chatted about for a couple good minutes!

Cláudio: Hey Eric! Nice having you 'On the spot'. As you know the idea behind our 'On the Spot' section is to interview people that in some way contributed to the TS/Citrix community and/or market and triCerat have been a player on it for so many years. So how did you get involved with triCerat and when did you start working for them?

Eric: I began working at triCerat as a developer in 2001 after my friend (and now colleague) Andrew Parlette recommended the job to me. Previously I had been working in the video game industry. At one point before I started working at triCerat I considered starting an ASP, and like many administrators I was unaware of the problems that go along with Terminal Server and Metaframe. Suffice it to say I learned quickly when I started at triCerat and heard about the problems direct from administrators in the field. That is one of the reasons it excites me to help out and fix the problems… I know that an entire business could be riding on it.

Cláudio: And just some background information here. Did triCerat start since day one as an ISV focused on TS/Citrix solutions? Or was it actually something else and then you guys decided to focus on the server based computing market?

Eric: triCerat initially began in 1997 with the founder, John Haltmeyer, supplying custom terminal services applications for John Byrne, who was working as the head of IT at a large banking institution. The relationship developed and John Byrne was eventually hired as the President/CEO. triCerat took its first products to market in 2000.

Cláudio: We both know this particular market and/or technology lacked many must have features in the past. Manufacturers in a way realized that (probably after people started complaining) and started changing their products to include more and more features on the base offerings. Of course this in a way makes 3rd party applications less appealing (one single contact point for problems is an example). How do you think this affects the market for ISVs devoted, so far, to TS/Citrix only?

Eric: There is a large market for ISV's because both Terminal Server and Citrix Metaframe are 'platform' solutions. They cannot hope to cover the needs and requirements of all users since they must focus on what is best for the platform as a whole. Just as the base Microsoft Windows operating system has a huge market for utilities and enhancements from ISV's, so does the TS/Citrix market. triCerat feels that it can increase the value of either TS or Citrix as a platform, and we will continue to create more robust utilities that assist administrators and enhance the server based computing environments.

Cláudio: Open Source: I was at BriForum and saw that tool triCerat developed and decided to give away to everyone and as open source. Why open source?

Eric: Creating a set of Open Source utilities has always been debated at triCerat. We decided to release a small utility at BriForum since that event is designed for engineers. Feedback from that will help us determine if there is any real demand in the community for open source projects.

Cláudio: But in such a competitive market (as the TS/Citrix is very competitive as you know), do you think there is a chance for open source offerings? I mean do you think you can actually have an open source product and still be profitable?

Eric: An open source project could be profitable if there is service income tied to it. While we primarily target SIMPLE solutions that are GUI based and don't require much engineering, we also realize there are specific cases where a more complex solution is necessary. It's these complex solutions that can be dealt with through a set of free/open utilities and a good set of engineers that know how to use and modify them.

Cláudio: triCerat is in a way, always remembered by its Screwdrivers product, to address the old and famous printing issues. Then triCerat started working on its profile management/desktop lockdown product. Now with Citrix and Microsoft improving everyday at the core level and providing similar solutions that will probably be good for many customers, although not as polished as yours for example, how do you see that affecting ISVs like triCerat?

Eric: triCerat actually started out in the market with its Desktop and PMP (native printer driver management) products. We created ScrewDrivers to meet the needs of customers who experienced system instability and too many management headaches when dealing with native printer drivers. All the while we have continued to sell our other products, and last year we created a unified management console for them (the Simplify Console). Many of our solutions do not duplicate features already present in Terminal Server or Presentation Server. For instance, our Simplify Lockdown solution provides a replacement shell which is much more secure and manageable than the Explorer shell. Administrators who want to provide a full desktop to users and not use published apps come to us. Our Simplify Profiles solution also solves problems at the core of the Microsoft Windows platform, and neither Microsoft nor Citrix are doing anything to solve these problems. Our ScrewDrivers product has seen some competition from the new universal driver in PS4, however the approach is totally different. ScrewDrivers is a set-and-forget solution, whereas the UPD is a fallback for auto-creation failures. Additionally, the EMF-based technology in the latest UPD is something that triCerat abandoned 3 years ago in favor of a more robust solution. There are too many gotcha's with the way EMF-based solutions work, and we learned that the hard way and have worked for years to improve our solution and get it where it is today.

The net effect on ISV's when Microsoft or Citrix duplicates functionality is that it makes us work harder to enhance our solutions and prove to the customer that there is a need. Luckily we've been able to continue to do that so far, as the recent additions to the Citrix solution have lacked a lot of features and Microsoft hasn't done much to RDP since Windows 2000.

Cláudio: And now, with Longhorn server, many things will change at the OS level and these changes will have a huge impact on terminal services, fixing and improving many of the issues that plagued TS/Citrix in the past. Again, another big challenge for ISVs. How do you see that from the ISV perspective? Do you think Longhorn will actually help ISVs out there or may hurt them, like Citrix in a way has been doing to their own partners? Or you think Citrix has actually helped everyone out there?

Eric: The new features coming in Longhorn are exciting as Microsoft has been able to address a few of the major limitations of the RDP protocol. Anytime a new operating system comes out, there are new opportunities for ISV's. Just consider the new set of problems that will be created when running a mixed environment of Windows 2000, 2003, and Longhorn. As major players in the Terminal Server and Citrix market, it's easy to forget that there are still a lot of people that do not know about server based computing. Windows XP Remote Desktop has started to increase the knowledge of the typical computer user, and Longhorn/Vista will continue that trend. Also since Citrix has traditionally gone after large businesses, there is a huge market for customers who are looking to implement small environments where an additional platform like Presentation Server is cost prohibitive. These customers can therefore utilize the RDP protocol, and throw a few utilities on top from ISV's to help them manage it better. For these reasons I believe Longhorn will actually increase the market size and make it even more lucrative for ISV's.

Citrix, on the other hand, has been buying a lot of ISV's and incorporating their features directly into the Presentation Server platform. This is great for their current customers who have maintenance subscriptions, but at the same time it eats away at the ISV market. The issue is that if the ISV's don't survive the consolidation then there will be no competition, and when there's no competition the customers and the market will suffer. So far the solutions that Citrix has incorporated directly into Presentation Server have not eliminated the ISV's, and Citrix customers are still pursuing other independent solutions to solve problems and enhance their environments.

triCerat is embracing Longhorn and is working with Microsoft to make sure our solutions are ready for the new technology. We are also continuing to expand our solutions and offer new features and functionality. Every solution we currently offer will run on the Terminal Server or Presentation Server platform, and the majority of our customers are running Presentation Server and still have reasons to own our utilities!

Cláudio: Well I guess that is all from my end Eric. Again, many thanks for your time this month. I think this was a great opportunity to show another great example of someone that has been working hard on this industry and that in many ways contributed a lot to it but keeping a low profile!

Eric: Thanks for the opportunity Cláudio!

6. Rumors on the SBC Space

Some really cool things going on… 2X seems to be in non-stop mode and has been updating/upgrading/fixing their full line of products. Some cool stuff seems to be coming out like fully supported Linux AND Mac OS X Clients with Seamless Windows capabilities for their ApplicationServer! Keep an eye on them!

The major rumors this month were for sure the Microsoft/Softricity get together and every single TS guru out there wrote something about it. I will spare you my readers. :)
Check all about that at http://www.brianmadden.com and http://www.dabcc.com.

And for the very near future expect some very cool stuff coming out from my end. :) We are now moving full steam ahead with two new and exciting companies and all their products/offerings should be out soon. I am sure many will love what is coming out there!

See you next month!