Announcing ControlUp Real-Time DX v8.8 with Azure Virtual Desktop and FSLogix Support

We’re excited to announce the next release of ControlUp’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop as a Service (DaaS) offerings, which include many new features with Real-Time DX v8.8, and Remote DX. A major part of this release consists of both FSLogix integration and full support for Azure Virtual Desktop with over 190 monitoring and cost break-down metrics. That’s not all – read on to learn more about all of the exciting new capabilities coming your way!

Support for Azure Virtual Desktop

With over 190 new metrics for Azure and Azure Virtual Desktop, customers can now monitor Azure Virtual Desktop machines, users, applications, workspaces, application groups, and hostpools straight from the Real-Time DX console. Customers can also break-down cost by service, location and resource group, to optimize their Azure Virtual Desktop resources and have more control over the cost of Azure.

Additionally, ControlUp now provides visibility into Azure Stack HCI machines, an emerging and attractive hyperconverged infrastructure option for customers constrained by data regulations. By providing ControlUp’s monitoring capabilities for Azure Stack HCI, we’re complementing our existing Azure landscape for a full operational view.

Figure 1: Screenshot of Azure Virtual Desktop performance metrics in the Real-Time DX console.

FSLogix Integration

IT Administrators have long awaited the ability to monitor and manage FSLogix containers and, in this release, ControlUp now provides new FSLogix performance metrics and dashboards. Some capabilities possible with the FSLogix integration in ControlUp are the ability to monitor the performance of individual profiles, provide support for profile containers, office containers and app masking, and users can view the amount of disk space consumed by user profiles.

Figure 2: Screenshot of the FSLogix dashboard and metrics in the Real-Time DX console.

Advanced Remote DX Metrics

Since its introduction, our Remote DX technology has been a hit with EUC administrators to help peel back the curtain and identify issues for users working from anywhere, whether that issue is with the user’s internet in their environment or their client device. With that, and for Windows plug-ins, this release includes the following new metrics:

• ISP latency 
• ISP name
• Client CPU
• Client location
• Remote DX plug-in version

Figure 3: Screenshot displaying new client and Remote DX version metrics in Remote DX.

Windows Service Monitoring

ControlUp can detect when Windows services are non-functional (stopped or not installed) and use advanced and scheduled triggers as well as script actions to proactively notify IT teams. While ControlUp can monitor any Windows service, here are just a few examples: 

• Citrix Broker service
• Horizon Connection Broker service
• Azure Virtual Desktop Agent Broker service
• Azure Active Directory Connect service
• Azure Cloud Sync service
• Citrix Windows Environment Manager service
• Citrix PVS services

Figure 6: Screenshot of the customization of a Windows service to monitor in the Real-Time DX console.

New Solve Actions

In our last release, we announced the addition of Solve Actions in Real-Time DX. In v8.8, we are including new Solve Actions to our actions repository, including those for Citrix, VMware Horizon, Azure Virtual Desktop, NetScaler, and Group Policy. Additionally, you can now add, share, update, remove and view your Script Actions directly from Solve! Here are some of the Solve Actions included in this release:

• Universal EUC Sync: This script lets you synchronize your VMware Horizon, CVAD or Citrix Cloud environment with ControlUp so that you can view your VDI machines or connection servers as managed machines.
• Check Profile Sizes: This script examines user profiles for all or selected user accounts on a target machine, grouping the results by file type that are using the extension.
• ProcMon – Trace System Activity: This script starts the Microsoft Sysinternals tool, Process Monitor, which captures all events within a specified duration.

Figure 7: Screenshot of new ProcMon Solve Action in Solve.

Troubleshooting why FSLogix profiles are large can be difficult. ControlUp’s script action capability provides unprecedented visibility and information that can assist troubleshooting. With ControlUp’s new script actions, like “Check Profile Sizes,” which provides a textual report of the largest files and folders in your user profile, IT Administrators can quickly and easily determine whether data can be removed and reduce profile container sizes.

Figure 8: Screenshot of the Check Profile Sizes script action in Solve.

Running Actions in Real Time Using PowerShell

Last year we introduced new PowerShell CMDLETs to help IT Administrators get the relevant data as quickly as possible in order to be notified about and troubleshoot IT issues. In Real-Time DX v8.8 we are introducing additional CMDLETs that extend that functionality. Read more about the additional CMDLETs available in v8.8 in our documentation.

Multi-tenancy Support

Support for multi-tenancy is a vital part of the world’s journey to the cloud. The evolution of service-based consumption models (i.e. SaaS, IaaS and PaaS), the progress that’s being made in the field, and the need to maintain high standards of enhanced, regulatory security and privacy (i.e. GDPR), have paved the way for the development of multi-tenancy as a necessity to provide a secure and private solution for multiple organizations and service level agreements (SLAs). 

Most organizations contain multiple AD domain controllers and domains, and managing them can be tricky. ControlUp now makes it easier to monitor and support multiple networks through multi-tenancy support by doing the following:

• Removing the dependency between tenant monitors and the domain controller
• Each tenant user can log into Solve and access data that is only relevant to them.
• Limiting sensitive data synchronization to site boundaries

The availability of multi-tenancy in ControlUp Real-Time DX is great news for managed service providers (MSPs) as it allows them to manage multiple tenants under the same organization, which drastically simplifies how MSPs monitor their customers.

Figure 4: Screenshot displaying the ability to set up multi-tenancy in the Real-Time DX console.

Figure 5: Screenshot displaying the ability to select an organization to join in the Real-Time DX console.

Bonus functionality: Proactive Trigger Packs

As proven by our customers that use them more than 2.7 million times each week, ControlUp triggers have long been a favorite of IT Administrators who want to proactively monitor and troubleshoot their EUC environment. Whether for proactive notification and alerting, to optimize their environment with built-in community triggers, or to build more advanced automations using our trigger mechanism, this functionality is saving our customers a lot of time and money. What’s more, we are introducing “Proactive Trigger Packs” to help customers improve their troubleshooting and remediation prowess. While trigger packs are available for download for Citrix, VMware and Microsoft environments, we will continue to add more functionality in the future. Check out our documentation on trigger packs to learn more.

Getting started

We’re excited to offer customers this next release of ControlUp Real-Time DX, which supports all major VDI and DaaS platforms, including Azure Virtual Desktop, Citrix, and VMware Horizon. Want a deeper dive into what’s included in ControlUp’s Real-Time DX v8.8? Sit tight for a series of technical blogs coming your way that cover what’s included in v8.8 in more detail. You can also register and tune in to our upcoming webinar for a deep dive into the new features of this release and watch live demos given by our product experts.

Get started with ControlUp Real-Time DX v8.8 and see for yourself why ControlUp is the perfect SaaS tool for your network and resource optimization goals! 

• Available in ControlUp Download Center
• Release notes
• Watch the latest Real-Time DX v8.8 Release webinar