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.