Liquidware Labs, the leader in desktop transformation software solutions, today announced the general availability of version 5.7 of its Stratusphere FIT and Stratusphere UX solutions.

This release provides a number of enhancements aimed at supporting next-generation application and desktop platforms, such as VMware View and RDSH, as well as Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop. Specifically, this release provides greater diagnostics and deeper visibility into the end-point, the capability to peer into the browser, and a new application programming interface (API) that significantly extends the usefulness and applicability of user experience data.

"More than ever, the design, monitoring and diagnostics of next generation desktop and application delivery platforms requires a level of visibility and access to in-guest metrics to ensure an optimal user experience," said Jason Mattox, CTO, Liquidware Labs. "The platforms and infrastructure to support services such as virtual desktop and application publishing are often heterogeneous and shared amongst several services. Gaining access to a composite metric-like the one we offer in Stratusphere-to quantify the user experience is the only way to meet end users' expectations."

Deeper Visibility Means Faster Remediation

With the release of Stratusphere 5.7, operations teams, next-generation desktop and applications architects now have an easier path to determining root causality with visibility that extends from the data center down to the end-point; including the ICA/HDX, RDP/RFX and PCoIP display protocols. "User experience is a term that gets talked about often," said Kevin Cooke, Product Director for Stratusphere Solutions, Liquidware Labs. "But few solutions actually quantify this experience and provide a user-centric view of important trending information." Stratusphere UX now offers a visual alerting, diagnostics and monitoring overview of user, application and other contributing infrastructure components via a new Sparkline and mini-table Overview dashboard. These views provide for faster remediation allowing IT staff to keep users online and productive.

Browsers have become a pervasive desktop application, supporting everything from local access to business-critical applications to those hosted in the cloud. Stratusphere 5.7 now provides visibility into the browser, with metrics and information to support domains, hosts and URLs being accessed by users. "It is not sufficient to simply point a finger at the web browser as a constrained application. IT needs to know if that user is having a bad experience when accessing Salesforce.com versus Facebook," said Cooke. This release of Stratusphere will support Google Chrome, with other notable browser support being added over the next few months.

Extending Data to Focus on the User Experience

This release also greatly extends visibility through the Stratusphere API. Now customers with existing network operations center monitoring tools can feed the granular user, machine and application metrics from Stratusphere into the framework of their choice via a simple API. "The addition of this API is powerful as it allows customers to minimize operational workflow disruption without sacrificing user experience detail," said Mattox. "Users do not have to give up the Stratusphere UX metrics they depend on; and now have the additional benefit of being able to integrate and consolidate the visibility data within their existing operational monitoring toolset."

The Stratusphere API is also a significant benefit for Liquidware Labs partners and other organizations who count on the metrics and information gathered by the Stratusphere architecture in their services practices. In addition to integration with other operations and management tools, the API allows for the seamless exporting of Stratusphere data into a host of formats including Microsoft Excel, CSV, HTML and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). To date, partners have created rapid prototyping tools to support the creation of a bill of materials; based upon real-world Stratusphere FIT assessment data.

Related, existing customers are leveraging the API to generate ad hoc reporting of inventory, performance metrics and other data generated by Stratusphere UX in an easy to manipulate Excel format, saving countless hours compiling reporting and detail to support IT operations and reporting.

Stratusphere 5.7 is available immediately from Liquidware Labs global partner network.