10 books I recommend reading – both for inspiration and practical purposes

I’d like to share with you 10 books I have read throughout the last year or so. I do not read dozens of books per year, nor do I read fictional books – I just don’t have the patience. When I read I want to learn something, preferably something I can apply both personally as well as professionally. Here are 10 titles I enjoyed very much and knowing my audience, so to speak, I’m pretty sure you will too, with an exception here and there. Per book I’ve included a short description as well as the accompanying ISBN numbers.

2016 — A personal look in the rearview mirror

And what a year it has been! Personally as well as professionally I have managed to improve and surprise myself on multiple levels. On some occasions I wasn’t even capable of spelling ‘comfort-zone’ correctly, I was so far off. The best thing is, I already have some great prospects for 2017 as well, but I’ll (have to) save that for a future post, not to long from now. 2016, like 2015 before that was again packed with community get-togethers’, mostly in the form of conferences, some small (er) some big/huge, but all fun and it truly never gets tiring, presenting included. Ok, let’s reflect for a minute, shall we…

Inside Citrix – The making of & lessons learned!

Now that my book is out in the open I get a lot of questions about my approach. People are really interested to find out how long it took me to complete, what kind of tools I used, where I found the time, what drove me to write a book in the first place and of course what I’ve learned along the way. And since I like to share… hopefully this post will answer most, if not all of these and other questions you guys might have.

My version of why the pen is mightier than the keyboard!

Little over two years ago I singed up to WordPress.com, bought my own personal domain basvankaam.com and just started writing. The main thought behind all this was to create some sort of online (personal) knowledge base and to learn about new and existing technologies and products as I progressed, primarily focusing on the Citrix portfolio. Over time I’ve learned that sharing what I know, or have learned, with others is probably one of the main reasons I kept, and keep, doing what I do. It’s fun, educational (in many ways) and very rewarding at the same time. Although at first I never expected it to turn out the way it has done today, something for which I can only be thankful. But don’t worry, that’s not what I wanted to talk about throughout this article.

What happens in Vegas… Goes on basvankaam.com Citrix Summit 2015 exposed!

I’m not in Las Vegas and I wasn’t able to catch the Summit Keynote live stream on the partner channel, honestly, I didn’t see a thing. All I could do was keep a close eye on my Twitter feed, which I did (so no NDA for me). Luckily it worked out pretty well. I’m sure I don’t have all the ins and outs and there are probably a few announcements that I’ve missed, those in Vegas will have some more detailed information I’m sure, but that doesn’t stop me from sharing what I did found out. It’s no secret that Citrix published most of the, if not all, major announcements on their website before, during and after the keynote session, although, it wasn’t all on there… read on.

Who needs Citrix Synergy Europe when we have events like E2EVC?!

Don’t get me wrong, I like Citrix, but every now and again companies, since their run by people, make mistakes, it happens. Normally you’d learn from them, but I guess there will always be exceptions. Dear Citrix, please listen to us, the community, and bring back Synergy to where it belongs (as well), Europe! Luckily we have E2EVC, which, even if Synergy would return, is ranked Nr. 1 by many, and since a couple of months I know why. Of course it’s hard to compare these types of events and maybe we shouldn’t, but let’s just say that Citrix leaves us no other choice. Read on please, it’s not all bad.

Citrix Certification, revisited, again! Solution-based certifications.

As you might recall, last year Citrix introduced a few new certification programs which also offered various upgrade paths, existing CCIAs and CCEEs could update to the new equivalent level by passing only one exam. The same applied to current CCA’s and CCAA’s. Eligibility to update required a, at that time, unexpired valid credential and the upgrade paths were available till the first versions of the CCE-AD, CCP-AD and CCA-AD exams were retired. During that time they also announced some ‘still to come’ networking and mobility orientated certification tracks. Just recently they’ve launched their new ‘solution-based’ certification tracks which now also include both mobility and networking, let’s see what they’re about.

It’s been a while!

Hi everybody, it’s been a while, I know. I posted my last article on March the 16^th, and believe me, for someone who is sued to posting once a week and sometimes even more, it feels like an eternity! But it won’t be long now, there is some good stuff coming, I promise :-) I’ve been invited to some sneak preview sessions, been busy with organizing some stuff at work, talked to a few guys and gals at Citrix and I’ve been really busy working on my own (first) book, which is a lot of work! But also very rewarding and fun to do! The book will take me another few months but I’m sure I can find some time in between to share some of my thoughts with you guys. See you all soon!

Regards, Bas.

Citrix Summit 2014… What a ride!

When I first heard that my request to go Citrix Summit in Orlando Florida, about three and a half months ago, got approved I couldn’t be happier. I mean going to a three day conference with non stop, back to back high quality, technical and pre-sales / partner orientated sessions is awesome on its own (it really is). But when it’s organized by Citrix, celebrating their 25th anniversary, you know you’re in for something special! As the event date got closer my expectations began to rise, and when the time finally came I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, I can honestly say that looking back the whole experience was even better than I hoped it would be!

2013 was awesome… A big thank you to all!

First and foremost I’d like to wish everybody a very successful and happy 2014! Just over 12 months ago I started this Blog with the idea to build up some sort of personal ‘online’ knowledge base and to perhaps share some of my knowledge with those who might be interested. And although I promoted (and still do) my writing using the various social media channels to try and attract new readers, I never imagined it would turn out the way it did. I mean, having a couple of readers every now and again is awesome on it’s own, but having a constant stream of hundreds or thousands of unique and returning readers is beyond words!

What to do at Citrix Summit 2014?! Here’s my agenda.

Citrix Summit 2014 in Orlando Florida is approaching fast. Just a few more weeks before the Welcome Reception, including the Solutions Expo, at the Hyatt Regency (Regency Ballroom) officially kicks off next years Summit event. Since I don’t like last minute arrangements I took some time to figure out what I need to take with me, MacBook, paper notebook, clothing (I’m counting on 80F, around 26 celsius, average :-) hotel voucher, tickets, passport etc… stuff like that. About a month ago I also figured out my conference schedule, the opening key-note, multiple break-out sessions, the Expo, perhaps a walk-in hands-on session and I also scheduled the 1Y0-400 exam to, hopefully, earn my CCE-AD certification. See my full schedule further on, I fine tuned it last week.

VDI, storage and the IOPS that come with it. Part 1 & 2.

This article was originally written as a guest blogger for intense School IT educational services. One of the topics I’d like to discuss throughout this article is VDI and some of the  common issues we (might) run into when it comes to storage, IOPS and image management. At the same time I’d also like to point out some possibilities, or better said, technologies, we have at our disposal in addressing these issues and talk a bit more on IOPS, block vs file level storage and image management. During part one I’ll primarily focus on VDI in general, describing its use and some of the common pitfalls we might encounter with part two primarily focusing on some real world solutions.

Citrix Summit… Just the tip of the iceberg

Last week I got some great news, next year I will attend Citrix Summit in Orlando Florida! I just found out a few days ago but I already made all arrangements, I bought my plane tickets, booked my hotel en registered for the event itself, in short, I’m ready to go… Just another 109 days to go from here. I will be there the whole week, 8 days in total to be exact, so I can also do some, not much though, sight seeing. I’ve never been to the ‘Sates’ before so I’m really looking forward to the experience. A special thank you to Qwise.nl for making this possible.

BYOD… Beyond the hype

This article was originally written as a guest blogger for Intense School IT educational services. When I started out in the IT business just short of 15 years ago, mobile phones were a big deal, a privilege to have and use, and if you were allowed to use it privately, that basically meant you were the man! Nowadays it’s all about mobility, smart phones, tablets, net and notebooks, and the list goes on. Internet is cheap, wireless, and it’s everywhere, for most people today, it’s hard to imagine going even one day without their mobile device, whether it’s an iPhone, an Android phone, or some sort of tablet device. In this post, I’d like to focus on some of the challenges we as IT admins face when it comes to managing and securing, not only these (mobile) devices, but the accompanying corporate applications and data as well.

Get Citrix certified!

Shortly after Citrix released XenDesktop 7 they also announced their new Citrix Certification Program. Although still in beta back then, they were quite clear on what to expect in the months to come. Their new solutions-focused certification program, introduced a few months ago, has just gone live and offers us three brand new certification and upgrade paths which we will have a closer look at during this Blog. The accompanying exams, three in total, are now officially open for registration at Pearson VUE. Registration for the beta exams has been closed for a while. Individuals who registered before registration closed were eligible to take the beta exams through August 6^th 2013. It’s the real deal from now on.

Excalibur Courses Roadmap

With all the Summit & Synergy madness going on you might have overlooked or missed the latest education / training news from Citrix (www.citrix.com/tv). Yesterday Citrix revealed their new Excalibur training roadmap or the ‘Excalibur Learning Journey’ as they like to call it, see below. It includes two introduction level courses (among others) of two hours each. The first one explains what Excalibur is all about and walks you through some of its new and improved features, the other one points out some useful tips and tricks to work with right from the get go. Both are here to help you decide to go with Excalibur right away or to wait another month or two :-) There might be a small fee to pay, not a 100% sure yet.