Test Drive ControlUp (Without Having to Install It)

Last month, VMware announced the long-awaited general availability of Horizon 8 with an aim toward “modernizing virtual workspace delivery and management with an agile, lightweight approach that spans the hybrid cloud.” The release is chock full of updates that will make the lives of VMware admins much simpler, but for us, we’re pretty excited about all of the ways ControlUp makes Horizon better.

ControlUp integrates with Horizon in myriad ways, so it’s a good idea to start using the Console and get familiar with its features. If you haven’t installed ControlUp in your environment yet, you can use VMware’s TestDrive to get some hands-on time with V4H, including the opportunity to walk through various scenarios. These scenarios range from showing how real-time metrics can be used for troubleshooting to using script actions that can be implemented to make the ControlUp platform self-healing.

TestDrive is a sandbox-style platform where you can work with VMware’s (and its partners’) products—such as ControlUp—without having to install or configure the product in your environment. I like to think of TestDrive as a light version of VMware’s Hands-on Labs.

There are a couple of different ways that you can get access to TestDrive. If you’re a VMUG Advantage member, you can sign up at portal.vmtestdrive.com, using your VMUG membership email address. Alternatively, you could reach out to your VMware or VMware partner sales rep, or send an email to sales@controlup.com and we’ll hook you up with access.

One of the great things about using TestDrive to learn the ins and outs of ControlUp is that we have over a dozen different walkthroughs to demonstrate its power. If you want to see first-hand how easy it is to troubleshoot logon duration problems, we have a scenario set up for you. If you want to use ControlUp to right-size your VDI environment, there’s a walkthrough for that. Heck, using ControlUp, you can even dynamically tune your user’s experience. Because TestDrive is NOT a series of canned scripts, you’ll be working with a live VDI environment and will be able to explore many of ControlUp’s features on your own.

How easy is it to use TestDrive with ControlUp? Just this easy!

After you get access to TestDrive, go to https://portal.vmtestdrive.com/login and enter your username and password.

In the right-hand column, under Help & Support, click Walkthroughs.

This will open a new tab in your browser; enter ControlUp in the search box and click Search.

This will bring up a list of ControlUp walkthroughs. I suggest starting with ControlUp Advanced Monitoring for Horizon – Introduction to the ControlUp Console; it’s a solid  introduction to ControlUp.

In each of our walkthroughs, the first section includes a link to Launching ControlUp Advanced Monitoring for Horizon as a Remote App. This will show you how to connect to—and access—the ControlUp Console via TestDrive. In the right-hand column of the TestDrive Portal, select Digital Workspace and then VMware Horizon.

In this panel, select America Region – Standard and vGPU Demo under either the Horizon Client or Web Access lists. 

Under the Horizon Client section, select ControlUp Console.

To help you navigate the Console, I’ve taken the liberty of labeling its different parts.

At this point, proceed with the instructions listed in the walkthrough. Although not needed, you might find it handy to have a copy of the ControlUp User Guide. Although TestDrive is designed to introduce users to new products, I also see it as a great tool to demonstrate some of the more powerful capabilities of ControlUp that users may not be familiar with.

We are delighted that ControlUp is partnering with VMware to bring power to your Horizon monitoring and management. Learning how to use the platform is a snap, and with TestDrive, you’ll be up and running in no time. So dive in and start exploring ControlUp and see how you can use it in your Horizon environment. 

If you want to see how ControlUp works in your environment, all you have to do is install a single executable file on a Windows machine. You can download ControlUp from www.controlup.com, and it can usually be set up in less than five minutes.