Articles by 'Hank Smith'

By Hank Smith, Posted in Security

I wanted to share a personal experience about how artificial intelligence (AI) was almost used to exploit the elderly. I recently received a troubling call from my father, inquiring if my partner had been involved in a car accident and placed in jail. Knowing this wasn't true, I probed for more details. It turned out my father had received a call from somebody claiming to be my partner with a voice that sounded exactly like hers. The caller, impersonating my partner, said she caused an accident that harmed... read more.

• June 12, 2024

By Hank Smith, Posted in Security

In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity threats, phishing and ransomware emails remain persistent challenges for organizations. While technology plays a crucial role in minimizing the impact of such threats, user-based training is equally essential. Many corporations have adopted mandatory training programs that aim to educate employees and test their ability to identify and respond to suspicious emails. In this blog post, we will explore the effectiveness of user training and how Microsoft Attack S... read more.

• October 25, 2023

By Hank Smith, Posted in Uncategorized

Gotham partnered with Nerdio last year as we saw an increase in our customer base, both existing and new, looking at alternative EUC solutions specifically for Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and Windows 365 Cloud PC. Nerdio makes the administration of those workloads much easier as compared to the native tools (PowerShell scripts, etc.) that Microsoft provides. With Nerdio, administrators can take advantage of the various auto-scaling features, image management, and overall easy to use GUI. Nerdio is really in... read more.

• March 21, 2023

By Hank Smith, Posted in Infrastructure

That question came up recently for a customer when all of their vSphere hosts (8 in total) were pegged at 100% CPU. Customer Environment The environment consists of eight Nutanix nodes (servers) within a cluster running VMware vSphere 6.7 U3. The Nutanix clusters host core services (AD, SQL, File & Print, etc.) along with a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7.15 LTSR environment. Users access the environment via a pair of Citrix ADC VPX 200s. The user load is split between Virtual App sessions and Wind... read more.

• January 25, 2021

By Hank Smith, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), was released in September 2019, and is seen as the next step in the evolution of Microsoft’s OS. Microsoft Azure really doesn’t offer native management of WVD, and that is where Citrix, VMware, NetApp VDS (formerly CloudJumper), and Nerdio come in. CitrixAnyone familiar with Citrix Cloud can easily create WVD desktops as it is just another target. Citrix supports a variety of features with the use of WVD, specifically the HDX protocol, integration with other target... read more.

• June 29, 2020

By Hank Smith, Posted in Virtualization

In a paradoxical way, giving workers more applications to aid in productivity has made them less productive. Inundated by too many apps with too many features, workers are stuck switching between various full-scale enterprise applications to get their day to day tasks accomplished. Citrix is attempting to bring productivity back with the new, intelligent Citrix Workspace. Citrix Workspace has existed as a cloud-only product for over a year, providing access to virtual apps, virtual desktops, and files. Ci... read more.

• June 19, 2019

By Hank Smith, Posted in Infrastructure

Many companies are moving a variety of workloads to the cloud. This blog covers the tools available for managing Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) instance costs in AWS. The goal is to understand what is available and other technologies that are available to control EC2 costs. EC2 is the function that allows customers to create various instances of virtual machines within AWS. Why move workloads to the cloud (AWS in this case)? There are a variety of reasons why companies are choosing to move to the cloud incl... read more.

• May 30, 2019

By Hank Smith, Posted in Infrastructure, Virtualization

Citrix Cloud is a cloud-based platform, residing in Microsoft Azure, used to deploy and manage Citrix products, desktops, and applications. It manages public, private, and hybrid cloud-based Citrix environments, as well as on-premises implementations. Here are just a few of the numerous reasons to consider moving to a cloud-based management solution for your Citrix environment. Stay up-to-date on the latest version of Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp seamlessly. Upgrades can be costly, time consuming, and disru... read more.

• June 28, 2018

By Hank Smith, Posted in Infrastructure, Security, Support

Throughout my years of IT consulting, patching servers and desktops has been a sore subject with customers. It’s always been something that is required, but in many cases not performed. The benefits of patching in a timely manner include feature enhancements, bug fixes, and of course security updates. But for many of our customers, patching is time-consuming and resource-intensive, and gets in the way of IT teams focusing on more strategic and tactical matters. As a result, patches aren’t maint... read more.

• December 21, 2017

By Hank Smith, Posted in Virtualization

Last week I had the privilege to attend Citrix Synergy 2015 down in Orlando, FL. In this blog I wanted to review some the key announcements Citrix made during the keynote. XenApp 6.5 Lifecycle Citrix loves XenApp, so much so that they extended the lifecycle for XenApp 6.5 to December 31, 2017. However, there is a catch; the extended date is only for customers that remain current in the Software Maintenance or Subscription Advantage and Technical Support programs. Otherwise the end of maintenance (EOM)... read more.

• May 18, 2015