Introduction to Connection Broker Technology

Editor's Notes

• #2: Dana: Hello, and thank you for tuning in today to learn about connection broker technology and how you can use the Leostream Connection Broker to manage desktops and applications that are hosted in the datacenter.
• #3: Dana: By way of introductions, my name is Dana Bull, that’s me on the right side of the slide. I head up the marketing programs here at the company. Today we’re lucky to be joined by our very own CEO, Karen Gondoly. Karen has spent the bulk of her career in high-tech and the last 10 years at Leostream. So, it’s safe to say, she knows just about all there is to know about using a connection broker to deploy and manage hosted resources. Now, before we jump in, I wanted to make a couple of quick public service announcements. The first is that we are recording this session. I’ll be sending out a link to the recording tomorrow, so that you can rewatch or share this webinar with anyone on your team that couldn’t make it to this live event.
• #4: Dana: The second announcement is that we like to keep these webinars as interactive as possible. We’ll be sending information out through the handouts section, and I want to encourage you to ask questions. We have a big group here today, but we’ll do our best to get you the answers you need during this call.
• #5: Dana: So, first things first. Here’s the agenda. It’s pretty straightforward. We’re going to talk about the role of a connection broker and where it fits into the grand scheme of things. Next we’ll talk about why you would opt for a vendor neutral solution. Then we’ll introduce you to our product, the Leostream Connection Broker – which has affectionately been called the swiss army knife of brokers, the connection broker to rule them all, and most recently the “Ultimate Connection Broker”. Karen will be running through a product demonstration in order to highlight some of the latest and greatest features that will be available with our next product launch. So for our current customers on this call, the beginning part of this webinar is likely just a review. Please stick with us through the introductory parts as we will be getting to some product specific information towards the end. Alright, let’s jump right in.
• #6: Dana: To make sure everyone is on the same page, let’s start with a basic background. What is a connection broker?
• #7: Dana: A connection broker is at the heart of any hosted desktop environment. It ties all of the pieces of your data center together, ideally providing a single pane of glass for you to manage all of your hosted resources and it provides end users with a single login to access all of their allocated systems. As you probably know, after you move your desktops to the data center, you have to address the challenge of how users connect to those desktops. You could hard-assign desktops to users and create links or shortcuts that the users click to access their desktop, but that solution will never scale. Plus, hard-assigning desktops to a user doesn’t help you maximize resource usage, and this is especially important if you are trying to share applications and desktops. So when you really break it down, what a connection broker does is it solves all the complex problems associated with how users connect to hosted desktops, and how those desktop connections are managed.
• #8: Dana: Let’s dig into this a bit more. According to Tech Target, in desktop virtualization, a connection broker is a software program that allows the end user to connect to an available desktop.  The connection broker performs tasks that include: Validating the user name and providing a connection for the user. Providing the ability for the user to connect to a specific virtual machine (VM), blade, workstation, or terminal services session. Providing the ability for the user to access multiple VM pools. (If the user is permitted to access a variety of pools, the broker prompts the user to select a pool at login time.) It monitors resources usage and gives you insight into where you’re at with the system’s capacity Handling reassignment of a virtual machine when a user disconnects. A connection broker certainly does all of these things, but can also do a lot more.
• #9: Dana: So how does it work? Using a connection broker, as an administrator you define rules that indicate which resources a user may access, based on the user’s identity and the location of their client device. By the way when I say resources, I’m talking about the whole gammet (virtual machines, RDS, applications, physical workstations). From the end users perspective, to log in, they simply provide their credentials to the connection broker, which then uses your companies authentication servers to verify the user’s identity. The connection broker uses a display protocol to connect the user to their offered resources. The display protocol you instruct the connection broker to use depends on what operating system the user is connecting to and the desired level of performance. Dana: When moving resources into the data center, whether you are looking to host physical systems or build a virtual desktop infrastructure you have a lot of things to think about. Storage, networking, hardware, the list goes on and on. With all the moving pieces you’re juggling, the connection broker is probably the last thing on your mind.
• #10: Dana: And, truthfully, in the big picture, the connection broker is a small piece of the puzzle. But, it happens to also be a very important piece, and waiting until you’ve designed the rest of your data center to consider the connection broker can be detrimental to the overall usability of your system.
• #11: Dana: Most virtualization stacks provide a built-in connection broker – so the big question is why would you ever go elsewhere? The answer is that in many cases, including a third-party connection broker into your design from the start can future-proof and improve your hosted desktop solution. Here’s a a quick snapshot of five good reasons why you should consider an independent or third party broker into your design. Let’s take a few minutes to briefly walk througheach of these points.
• #12: Dana: The first, is that when most people think about a connection broker, they think about VDI. And as I previously mentioned, the different virtualization vendors all provide a built-in connection broker that is more than adequate for managing their single stacks. But what if you’re thinking about hosting resources beyond just virtual desktops. Many times physical desktops present advantageous above and beyond VDI. HPE Moonshot, for example, provides dedicated CPU and storage all in a space and power saving form factor. Some users may require the beefiness of an entire dedicated workstation in the data center. Plus, no matter how many virtual or physical desktops you try to host in the data center, there will always be some users that require a personal laptop or desktop. So, why not wrap that machine into your hosted desktop environment, as well? By brokering even personal desktops, you can provide users with access to their data when they are away from their desks. The key is that you may find you want to broker everything. A vendor neutral connection broker can manage both virtual and physical systems side-by-side, and connect users to each environment using the best display protocol for the job.
• #13: Dana: The second benefit is about reusing existing infrastructure. When moving to a hosted environment, you will be building out enough new systems, already. To save money and your sanity, you’ll want a connection broker that requires you to rebuild as little of the remainder of your infrastructure, as possible. The goal is to leverage your existing investment rather than replace it. Some of the main advantages of a hosted desktop environment are that it allows you to support a mobile workforce. Doing so requires that you understand what those devices may be (iPads, laptops, thin clients, web browsers) and also where they could be located. Will you have remote users that need to access their desktops through your corporate VPN? Do users need to redirect certain USB devices to get their jobs done? Did you find a fleet of laptops that you want to repurpose as client devices? You want to find a connection broker that supports all of the devices your users may have, plus provides you with location-based control to offer the right resources and level of access based on where the user logs in. For authentication, do you have existing Microsoft AD authentication servers, or does your organization use a combination that also includes Novell eDirectory, OpenLDAP (el-dap), or even NIS authentication servers? Are your users accustomed to using a particular smart card or proximity card solution? So these are all the questions you want to be asking. Independent connection brokers often offer support for the widest range of authentication systems, allowing you to take advantage of the setup you already have in place and to keep the user-experience consistent.
• #14: Dana: Another major benefits of an independent connection broker is that it keeps your options open. Sometimes it’s hard to plan ahead or to know what technology you’ll want to integrate down the road. For example, If you already virtualized your servers, it’s likely that you have VMware in your data center, so maybe you’re considering building your virtual desktop infrastructure using VMware Horizon, as well. If you do, will you always want to use that solution? It’s a difficult question to answer. As with any technology, virtualization and hosted desktop solutions are constantly shifting. New players and products hit the market as older less-viable systems fade away. How can you protect your investment against these changes? The simplest way is to start with a design that isn’t tied into a particular stack. Again, Independent brokers typically support the widest range of hosting solutions, both virtual and physical. And, because they are provided by companies that focus only on the brokering aspect of a hosted desktop solution, they’re better at keeping up-to-date with new technologies in the data center. To summarize this point, if you do decide to transition to a new technology, having a vendor neutral connection broker will help to bridge the gap.
• #15: Dana: Here at Leostream, we like to say that hosted desktop solutions are not like T-shirts. By that I mean there is no “one size fits all” solution. You may need to support a wide variety of use cases. For instance, within a large company, it’s likely you’ll find task workers, knowledge workers, and power users. Some employees only need a simple desktop solution and others may require a high performance workstation. Independent connection brokers are designed to integrate different levels of solutions into a single management layer, from Remote Desktop Services, to VDI, to virtualized workstations, to high-power dedicated workstations. In addition, an independent broker provides the level of access control needed to ensure that all resources are used to their maximum potential, which ultimately lets you build the best, least expensive solution for each of them.
• #16: Dana: And then our last point is all about avoiding vendor lock-in. We’ve all heard of vendor lock-in, which can happen when you sign on with a full VDI stack. Once you’re locked in, it can become very difficult or expensive to switch to a new vendor. While vendor lock-in isn’t always intentional, once you’re tied to a particular stack, you become married to a provider’s proprietary technology, as well as licensing fees, and costs related to support and maintenance. A vendor neutral broker gives you the flexibility to break free from those lock-in strategies. As we mentioned earlier, you can mix and match a variety of technology like hypervisors, hosting platforms and protocols and minimize the risk of getting “trapped”.
• #17: Dana: There you have it, 5 reasons to choose an independent broker solution.
• #18: Dana: If you feel like you didn’t catch all the information, don’t worry, you are in luck. We recently published an eBook which covers many of the topics in more detail. You should be able to pull that eBook down from the handouts section and it’s also on our website. Now let’s take a short break here, because I saw a few questions come into the queue. Is it better to start with a vendor neutral solution or the option that comes with the stack? What types or size companies do you see leaving their stack?
• #19: Dana: At this point, we’ve talked briefly about the role of a connection broker in a hosted environment and we’ve also touched on what a vendor neutral solution can do. For this next section, Karen is going to briefly introduce you to Leostream and then walk you through a product demo.
• #20: Karen: Thanks, Dana, and hello everyone! So, the story of Leostream goes back to the very beginning of VDI. Early on, we recognized there was the need for a flexible tool to manage connections to hosted desktop in an enterprise-scale environment. Years later, our product is the most widely deployed vendor-independent connection broker on the market.
• #21: Karen: How many years later, you ask? Well, we’ve been at this for close to 15 years and, over that that time, we’ve partnered with the biggest names in the industry. Here you see just a small subset of them. Now, why have we built up all these strong partnerships? Well, as a connection broker, we sit smack in the middle of your hosted desktop environment, connecting and managing all of the end points. So, we need to partner with companies that produce a wide range of technologies, from virtualization vendors, to thin client manufacturers, and more recently with companies distributing OpenStack clouds and building HyperConverged Systems. Through our partnerships, we’re able to offer a broker with unparalleled flexibility, and the scalability required to meet the needs of our enterprise customers. So, who are those customers? Well, maybe you’re one of them!
• #22: Karen: Because, Leostream has hundreds of customers around the world from financial services, where we manage large trading floor environments - to hospital, where we allow doctors and nurses with a proximity card to log on and off of desktops when they enter and leave a room. Outside of finance and healthcare, we support engineers in the oil and gas field, connecting them to their workstations with pixel-perfect display protocols that allows them to find exactly where to investigate and where to drill. But, oil and gas isn’t the only high-tech field we’re in. You’ll find Leostream users in the aerospace and automotive industries, in semi-conductor design, and in the universities that train those engineers.
• #23: Karen: So, now you’re asking, if all of the virtualization platforms on the market provide a built-in connection broker, why are all of these people coming to Leostream? Well, the reason falls into one, or both, of two categories. Either they have something in their infrastructure that no one else supports (or, at least, supports well). Or, they have workflows that those built-in connection brokers just can’t handle. If you think in terms of infrastructure, typically, our customers use a mixture of technologies, maybe both on premises and in the cloud. They have more complex authentication needs, such as using multiple un-trusted Active Directory domains, or even authenticating users with something other than AD, and they may be using a specific type of smart card or proximity cards. And, they may even want to use different display protocols for different users, based on the user’s performance needs. All that just starts to touch on the different infrastructure pieces Leostream can integrate with. Next, you need to look at how your users actually need, and want, to work. Are they sharing a workstation that runs a complex (and probably expense to license) application? Do they need to collaborate on the same session? Who needs a persistent desktop vs a single-use desktop? Over all these years, Leostream has developed a tool with the flexibility to model these workflows and many, many more, because we stay focused purely on that task of connection management. And, so, we see people come to Leostream because their hosted environment requires functionality and flexibility that only we provide. They then become loyal Leostream customers because, from a business perspective, we allow IT to morph their environment as technologies change, without reinvesting in a Connection Broker.
• #24: Karen: Because, enterprises typically deal with very different environments than the SMBs of the world, and Leostream focuses on satisfying those enterprise needs. An enterprise typically builds a complex hosted desktop systems that can include a mixture of virtual and physical systems. They may even mix technologies within those two broad categories, using a blend of virtualization platforms along with cloud environments and, as Dana pointed out, investing in different types of hardware, such as HPE Moonshot Systems or blades. And one thing we see in nearly every enterprise, is a mixture of Windows and Linux operating systems on the remote side, not to mention a host of different operating systems and device types on the client side. Unlike some of the other players on the market, we’ve been managing Linux virtual and physical machines since day one, which allows IT to use a single pane to manage Windows and Linux and provides functionality on par for both operating systems. The last important note on what enterprise deployment needs is scale. Obviously, enterprises are large and they need connection broker technology that can handle login storms (you know, that 9am rush when everyone gets to the office). We’ll talk next about Leostream’s architecture, and how it is uniquely suited to handling scale at the enterprise level.
• #25: Karen: And, here it is. My architecture diagram is a bit of a Visio nightmare, I admit, so, where is Leostream in this picture? Well, we’re that blue bubble right in the center. What you see in pictorial form, there, is what we call a cluster. It’s three Connection Brokers, acting as a unit, all attached to a common external database that stores the Connection Broker configuration and hosts the shared work queue. Leostream is the brains of your hosted desktop deployment, and provides end users with a common location to access all of the resources hosted in your datacenter or in the cloud from whatever client device the user wants. Leostream also ties into the other pieces of your infrastructure, including your authentication servers, load balancers, SSL VPNs, and more. Again, we want you to continue to utilize the investments you’ve already made, without requiring modifications. In general, our Connection Broker is designed to interact with all of your systems without the addition of schemas, plug-ins, or any other new components. But, architecture diagram aside, the key to this slide is the last point, Leostream manages the end-points, not the network. We inventory resources, power control desktops, connect users to resources, etc., but the Connection Broker is not a proxy; It never lies in the data path of your user’s connection, and this is a differentiating aspect of our architecture. Let me tell you why. First, by staying out of the data path, the Connection Broker doesn’t constitute a point-of-failure in your user’s connection. Next, the Connection Broker does not influence the performance of the user’s connection. If you invest in a high-performance protocol, you get the native performance and features available with the protocol when Leostream establishes the connection. Our design of staying out of the data path also changes the scalability story for Leostream. In a Leostream environment, scalability matters only in login-per-second, not on how many users are actively connected. That means Leostream environments can easily scale to tens of thousands of desktops, hundreds of logins per minute and even thousands of logins per hour. And, finally, staying out of the data path is key to our ability to easily add support for new technologies, such as display protocols.
• #26: Karen: OK, on to more exciting things! Very soon, we’re releasing version 8.2 of our software, and we’re launching some highly anticipated and requested features. First, we’re expanding our cloud efforts by adding support for Microsoft Azure clouds. I personally find this exciting, because we’ve made it easier to manage VDI capacity in Azure using our Connection Broker than it is using the Azure portal. Also new and exciting, and something I’ll demo, is our new HTML5 RDP viewer and gateway. Yes, the Connection Broker will remain out of the data path, but the Gateway is getting squarely into it in order to provide the convenience of a client-less in-browser viewing experience. The Gateway is also a fabulous addition for cloud and OpenStack environments. With the Gateway, you can isolate your virtual machines in a private network, and use the Gateway to tunnel the user into the network without getting into the business of installing a VPN. And, it’s worth mentioning that we’re expanded our support for HP RGS environments, with new features that make it easier for end-users to collaborate, as well as use a web browser or a Mac client to establish their RGS session. There are a host of other features in this release, which will be detailed in the release notes that our documentation team is putting the final touches on. So, just be sure to check our website when the release notes become available and learn about everything in the 8.2 release.
• #27: Karen: Now, in a moment, I’m going to pull back the curtain to show you how all of this works, and to highlight some of the new features.
• #28: Karen: But, first, I want to put up this slide as a visual of what’s inside the connection broker. Between the architecture diagram and this box, you get a pretty good idea of the extent of my drawing ability. But, the diagram makes it point. This box shows the core concepts in the Leostream Connection Broker, including how they relate to one another. In general, I tell new users that you configure Leostream by filling in the box. You start with the concepts on the bottom and you move your way up. During the demonstration, I’ll dig into each of these concepts and explain how the Leostream approach differs from other vendors. More importantly, I’ll try to point out why you should care. In a number of cases, terms you learned working with Horizon View or Citrix XenDesktop don’t exactly translate to Leostream. Our concepts are purposefully different, to support a wider range of business use cases. On that note, let me switch away from this slide deck and over to my Connection Broker.
• #29: Dana: So that covers it! I see we have a bunch of questions in the queue? Before we jump into those, I want to leave everyone with a few parting thoughts, just to wrap it all up. What are the key takeaways: A connection broker lies at the heart of your hosted desktop environment and plays an important role in the overall usability of its design Choosing a vendor neutral connection broker can help to support a wide variety of users and use cases The Leostream Connection Broker is the most widely deployed vendor independent solution on the market and can help you to future proof and optimize your environment
• #30: Dana: The best way to test drive the connection broker is to get started with a free trial. So if you liked what you saw today, I want to invite you take advantage of that through our website.
• #31: Dana: Alright, first question…