Hi all

There are a lot of interesting new developments happening with DaDesktop, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to update you about them. We're also now launching some very useful new features that have been in development for a while.

I will be doing more training sessions at some point soon to demonstrate these new features and to provide more info about the other changes. Additionally, full documentation will also be available shortly.

beta-button.png New Training Room - This has been entirely rewritten inhouse and will provide a simpler, better training room, but without some of the unwanted additional features on the original training room that was used from a separate application. This meant that the integration previously wasn't ideal, ie an extra chat function completely separate to all other chat apps was included.

new-training-room.png

There are views for Trainer, Side by Side and Grid and a new course Recording feature.

beta-button.png Enhanced Desktop view. This uses a more standardised system called QEMU Spice to provide DaDesktop sessions to users.

One major benefit is that Copy and Paste from the user's computer to the DaDesktop machine now 'just works'.

A couple of examples amongst many more :-

When using a MacBook, the clipboard 'just works', previously this relied on a non standard way of doing things compared to Windows and Linux. Unicode characters, e.g. including Polish/Chinese characters, can now be copied and pasted without issue, where previously support was poor or non-existent. This also makes usage of DD4W easier too.

Newly built DD desktops will be supported straightaway, whereas older course machines will still use the older VNC connection method until they are updated.

Please see the docs on how to add this to your existing Windows and Linux FreshStart machines. There are a number of other benefits - please get in touch to find out more.

production.jpeg Optional dates on Courses - To simplify course creation, it's now possible to create Courses without specifying course dates. This additionally helps where a Trainer / or Co-ordinator wants to start working on a FreshStart machine on a course but the actual course dates are not yet known. Course dates can be added when they are finally known.

This new approach will also be particularly useful for more informal training events where dates can be agreed at short notice.

course-dates.png

Please note - the original method of adding dates when creating the course is still of course available.

production.jpeg Expected number of course participants - this new field has also been added on Course entry. It does pretty much as it says. Trainers and Co-ordinators are asked to input the expected number of participants on courses so that better planning of server resources can be made.

This is different to the Max. number of participants field as this value was sometimes inflated to allow latecomers to join a course, and ended up skewing the resources higher than necessary in our DD Planner calculations.

expected-number-of-participants.png

production.jpeg Participant Course Access Simplified - Previously, access to the DaDesktop machines for each user was only allowed after the start time set on the first day of the course. However, to allow additional time for participants to test out using DaDesktop beforehand, often the start time was set earlier than the real course time. This occasionally caused a degree of confusion for participants.

So to improve matters, course access has been greatly simplified.

On course days, course access is now available at any point in the day, ie before and after the course.

Outside of course days, participants now get 15 mins access to try their DaDesktop machines, instead of the previous 5 mins. See Joining a Course section here in the documentation.

production.jpegDeletion of older unused Standalones. Usage of DaDesktop is increasing, which is good, but there are a good number of Standalone Desktops that have not been used for a long while, and possibly may never be used again. In order to make the most of our resources, users will be asked if they haven't used their machines in the last month whether they still want to continue using them, and if no longer required the machines will be deleted in two weeks time. It's easy to stop deletion of any important desktops so that the question will never be asked again. This change is being made to free up disk space on servers, where there had been a few issues recently.

Trainers are requested to update their DaDesktop machines using the latest OS templates to get up to date with new features and security updates. Effectively this means recreating the machines using the latest OS template available, but the benefits include more secure desktops with improved features such as the QEMU Spice support mentioned above.

Almalinux 8 has been added to the default OS choices available which adds support for anyone who prefers using RedHat / CentOS Linux distros. AlmaLinux is a 1:1 binary replacement for CentOS 8 which is no longer supported.

If you need further information about DaDesktop or need any help with any of these new features, please contact me, or a member of the Tech team, and we'll be happy to assist.

To simplify things, course access to DaDesktop machines has now been simplified.

On course days, access to DD machines for participants is now available at any point in the day, ie access is now fully permitted before and after the course for the entire day Outside of course days, participant's now get 15 minutes access instead of 5 minutes to try out their DaDesktop machines.

Originally, there was occasionally some confusion about course start times, if the Course times had been set earlier in DaDesktop compared to the official course start time, to allow participants to get logged in and test their machines.

Further documentation for course participants can be found here

Most applications work absolutely normally when prepared in the Fresh Start machine when using DaDesktop.

But there are one or two applications that due to the cloning process do not work fully as expected, and may need a few extra steps to allow normal operation.

Screenshot from 2022-07-20 17-50-35.png
In this case Oracle Database Server was set up in Fresh Start but when cloned to Trainers and Participant's machines, the Database server could not be contacted. This is because Oracle use the hostname of the server, which in our case gets changed when cloned as the Trainer's or Participant's machines.

Workaround steps to prepare the Oracle server application in a way that works correctly after Cloning are shown in detail, with screenshots for each step in the guide below:-

https://www.dadesktop.com/doc/oracle-server-issuesfixes-during-fresh-start-cloning

Guides for other applications that require small changes to run normally will also be added to the DaDesktop Documentation.

Please get in touch for further details

A few times now we've had Course participants who have asked if we could keep/restore access to their Desktop after a course.

Primarily, this is done now via Spool, but for occasions when users have not set up Spool, or are not offered it (Spool is not offered worldwide at present AFAIK) we should save one copy of the Trainer's or Participant's Desktop for reference.

This would require further discussion, ie

We would need a config to ask if a Desktop is required to be kept. How long would it need keeping for ? There are also space considerations in keeping Desktops.

For a private server, there are other considerations to take into account.

I've recently made a major upgrade to this forum website.

Although, a number of tests have been made and everything appears to be working well after the upgrade, please get in touch with any issues that might have arisen from this work.

Add all NP users to forum, this way all staff who use DaDesktop can be alerted more easily to new features as they are announced on the forum.

Remote Replica is a very useful new feature designed to replicate, or clone your Fresh Start Desktop to another server often in a different geographical location. Any changes to your machine will be silently and automatically copied in the background to the replica without requiring any further user input. Thus the Remote Replica is always ready if you need it.

New Documentation explaining useful ways how this feature can be used is now available as below :-

https://www.dadesktop.com/doc/remote-replica-1

Please let us know in the comments how you find this feature.

The ability to make publically available course recordings should be available on DaDesktop. This was previously possibly, but no longer appears to be possible currently.

We need to make sure that permission is given for this by the trainer and with the consent of participants first.

Course Recordings should be available on the DaDesktop site https://www.dadesktop.com/videos-catalog

Explanation

For certain errors / warnings we should use more specific or different wording according to the user role type. Examples below but there may be others required:-

Error not relevant to user

Here the user is a participant, so doesnt know/care what a FreshStart is , and can't control a Fresh Start machine anyway1 So this error message to a participant is very confusing and not helpful.
fresh-start-error.png

An error is shown that is not an error

A trainer who had issues with cloning FS to Trainer Desktop, getting 403 errors as the trainer desktop already existed.

403-error-not-an-error.png

here it should really say error, it should just be an Informational alert warning that trainer Desktop already exists

Another message that should only be shown to certain user roles

course-outside-hours.png

Here the trainer was confused, thinking that this message was for him and that he was only going to have 5 minutes to work on his material. But this message should only be for Participants, not Trainers who have full time access when creating a FreshStart

@tanvi

We've recently introduced improvements so that if you need to resize your Fresh Start machines, you no longer need to make manual changes to extend the partition within the VM itself. This greatly simplifies the process and saves time.

This is the case for any standard NobleProg OS Templates, using either Windows or Linux. Custom templates may still need manual disk resizing which is detailed in the guide below.

An updated guide to resize Fresh Start desktops can be found here https://www.dadesktop.com/doc/resize-disk-of-fresh-start-desktop-in-course

We will be releasing daily billing on 9th of May! It means you will have real time access to your next bill amount and breakdown!

I'm very pleased to announce that we have released a Debian 11 (codenamed Bullseye) OS template for DaDesktop today.
This new template is being distributed to all DD nodes so will be available to every DaDesktop region shortly.

DaDesktop Templates
As a note we support Windows, Ubuntu, CentOS and Debian officially but we're happy to provide custom templates for other operating systems such as Fedora if required.

Please get in contact with us if you require assistance https://www.dadesktop.com/contact-us

When using DD nodes that use fully cloud based infrastructure such as AWS, we should add an option to :-

'Click to extend memory' link on DD to change the amount of memory allocated to this server to permit high DaDesktop memory usage for DD Desktops.

Depending on config this may be done 'on the fly' or may require a VM reboot.

If a participant have high latency, detect whether they are using VPN, and notify them and advise them to do something about it.

I recently provided some training on the DaDesktop platform to NobleProg staff to explain more about DD, and to provide a run through of how it works and a quick look at some of the newer features too.

The video can be found below:-

https://www.dadesktop.com/doc/dadesktop-basic-level-training-video

NB The video is just over 30mins long.

Topics Covered

Training courses

General layout of DaDesktop

DaDesktop For Work (DD4W) - Flexible Virtual desktop machines that can be spun up in seconds to work from.

FreshStart - What is the purpose of the FreshStart Machine?

Training Room

Recordings - Room recordings or Trainer Desktop Recordings

Snapshots

Remote Replica - Available for Standalone and dd4w machines, not for FreshStart nor course desktops currently

Chat

Multi-trainer capability - With example

Users in different geographical locations - For trainer, freshstart desktop and participants

Spool - Ability to keep course desktop after the course finishes

Port forwarding allows exposing a port or ports of a desktop to the local network or the internet. It is commonly used with Remote Desktop Protocol.

This feature can be used for both DaDesktop Course machines (Super admin and own permissions required), DaDesktop For Work or Standalone machines. Please note, the interface may appear slightly differently for the different types of machines.

This feature has been improved by the addition of auto allocation of ports both TCP and UDP as well the maintaining the manual port forwards feature as originally introduced.

Screenshot_from_2022-04-13_16-25-34_1.png

For further details please see the DaDesktop Port Forward Documentation

Sometimes, we only find our about course issues using DaDesktop after the course is finished.

Although the Technical Support Chat icon is always shown on screen, it may be that users aren't aware that live technical help is close by.

A suggestion is to have the ability to send a helpful preset message (or newly written one even), that can be quickly and easily sent to all members of a course using the chat introducing the Tech support agent available at the beginning of the course in a semi automated manner.

This needs thinking through more for best effect but would be a big help I think ..

@tanvi

When we see 'Error 1006 in DD connection logs' this usually indicates an issue caused by the participants' network access, possibly restrictions on websockets.

For example something like Akamai CDN WAF could restrict access as it does packet inspection eg WebApplicationProtector-CS.pdf

"with Layer 3/Layer 4 Protections inspect packets and network connections to determine which requests to automatically block."

In this case there is little we can do so we should warn users with a message such as :-

'There is a problem with your network , please either change your network configuration or contact your network administration team for advice.'

Hi all

There's been a lot of improvements and new features added to DaDesktop recently so I thought it was a good time to update you with the latest goings on with DaDesktop.

New Forum : forum.dadesktop.com

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Firstly, the new DaDesktop Forum, https://forum.dadesktop.com has been launched. The plan is that DaDesktop announcements, feature requests, bug fixes etc, will be presented and tracked in the open from now on.

The Tickets & Feature Requests category will include bug reports and new feature suggestions from Franchisees and the other users.

One example added this week, to give you an idea :- Accessibility - Pre Course readonly test should have audio test.

Franchisees will be able to login with their staff login as usual. Franchisees will also be subscribed to receive any new items added to the 'Announcements' category in the forum.
The forum is also open to course delegates and the public via their DaDesktop login.

The site has been recently redeveloped to improve the SEO of the forum content available.

Any feedback for the forum is welcomed.

New and Improved DaDesktop Features

Multi Trainers

A newly requested feature is the use of 'Multi Trainers'. This means that DaDesktop now allows one or more trainers on all its courses.
The trainers will each have their own login to DD, and can control the ‘Trainer Desktop’ as if it were their own.
The idea is that both trainers will be on the Audio conference, swapping over at intervals as appropriate, but can take control of the Trainer Desktop as required. This will be especially useful on longer courses, or courses that just work better with input from two experts in their field to the course participants.

vGPU - can now offer 3D graphics capability* on Windows and Linux machines on DaDesktop
A new Production DD node with this capability, hs2fi.npg.io has been set up, located in Europe.

This enables NobleProg to host courses for applications such as CAD packages such as SketchUp which were not previously possible because a full graphics stack could not be configured. This server allows SketchUp or other graphic applications to be used or installed.

Please get in touch for further info.

Removal of CentOS8 DD Templates, as this OS is now End of Life. A drop in replacement such as AlmaLinux or RockyLinux will be added in its place suitable for Redhat Linux RHEL clone OS course requirements.

Seafile - A new storage system, Seafile on the NobleProg network has been set up. This allows you to upload files, even full virtual machines from your own laptop or desktop that can now be easily accessed inside the Trainer's desktop machine.

Improved Clipboard - you might remember that we much improved the clipboard functionality at the end of last year. This has been since been further improved.
Although it may appear to be a small feature, the ability to simply copy and paste from a machine into the DD Desktop was one of our most requested features to improve upon. It's particularly useful on courses where delegates require a lot of copying and pasting commands etc as part of their course.

Likewise, ongoing updates are being made to the DaDesktop Documentation site to refine, update and improve the information held there.

There are many more smaller improvements coming through and also a number of wider improvements to the User Interface, some of which you may have seen already.
Full details of these will be posted on the next newsletter.

If you have any queries about any of these new features or the new Forum, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me.

Many thanks

--
Julian Robbins
Cloud Support Manager / Troubleshooter

CentOS 8 DaDesktop Templates have been removed due to a change in business model by CentOS.

A drop in replacement such as AlmaLinux or RockyLinux will be added in its place shortly, suitable for Redhat Linux RHEL clone course requirements.

Please note CentOS7 is still supported and will still be offered as a DD template.