All things End User Computing

What is ControlUp? I asked myself that same exact question when I was first introduced to it 5 years ago. ControlUp is a tool of choice for many End User Compute professionals. It encompasses Citrix, VMWare, and Microsoft solutions. From the back end core infrastructure services, to the end users laptop/desktop and everything in between, it has monitoring and reporting capabilities.

A few weeks ago ControlUp announced that they will be providing a free 50 pack of Edge DX user licenses, for monitoring endpoints (laptops/desktops). For me it was a no brainer to go ahead and sign up in order to utilize it in my home lab. These licenses cover one portion of the ControlUp solution which is focused on endpoints (Windows, Mac, Linux).

This blog will cover how to sign up and implement Edge DX in your home lab.

Signing up for ControlUp Edge DX free 50 user pack is pretty straight forward, point your browser to Edge DX VIP Pack - ControlUp and sign up using your business email address. Upon sign up you will be prompted for an organization name and an MFA option, use your home lab alias and your cell phone to complete the registration process. Note, you can fully integrate with your SAML based authentication provider, I will cover this later on. Once complete you will be redirected to your own ControlUp Edge DX management URL: https://app.controlup.com/(org_name)/home

Browse to Settings > Downloads page and grab the installers for your home lab, note that they have clients available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Thin Clients for the DEX solution.

In my case, I downloaded the client for Windows. You can deploy the client using MECM, JAMF, Microsoft Intune, etc, utilizing the instructions provided on the downloads page to deploy.

You can follow the steps below to deploy the DEX Windows Client via Microsoft Intune. Login to Microsoft Intune at https://intune.microsoft.com. Browse to Apps > Windows > Add. Choose line of business application.

Select line-of-business app and upload the MSI that you downloaded in the previous steps. Line of business should be sufficient for this particular deployment. However if you wanted to further customize the deployment you could utilize the win32 app packaging tool, and utilize the win32 format option. More details about the win32 app packaging tool can be found on the Microsoft Learn site at Prepare a Win32 app to be uploaded to Microsoft Intune. In my experience, Win32 is more customizable allowing you to create custom detection or requirements to be met before the application get installed. It also allows you to integrate with the PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit, which can allow custom deferrals or other user interactive prompts before the application installs.

Customize your deployment with the command line arguments provided on the ControlUp download page, these arguments assure that devices which receive in the installer will register with your ControlUp tenant. Click next to continue the to the deployment options page.

On the deployment options page, decide whether you want to make the deployment available or required by adding a group to one of the two sections. In my case I want the DEX agent to be required on all of my devices, so I selected an include group for required. Select Next, then select create. The next time the devices in the selected group check in, the DEX agent will install and appear in the ControlUp management console. Note that my device group contains Azure Virtual Desktops, Physical Workstations, Windows 365 Devices, etc, all running the Microsoft Windows Operating System.

Shortly after making the application required, machines will start to populate into your management console at https://app.controlup.com/(org_name)/home.

So what's the big deal? What's so great about this solution that sets it apart from other solutions? Well for starters, for anyone that has used Microsoft Intune or Microsoft SCCM for reporting, knows that there are time delays for the client to check in and upload information that is reportable, and it can take up to 24 hours to get an accurate report. ControlUp inventories the device when it joins, and continues to gather statistics about the device routinely. For my two devices that joined, it has already gathered an inventory of the software and hardware within a few minutes, and its done so all without my device being on the corporate network or VPN. Click a device on the devices page to view more information.

You will start to see trend data about the devices almost instantly, related to CPU, Disk, Memory, and Network utilization. In addition, you can see real time data about the devices active processes in the active processes tab. Ok big deal right? But this solution allows you to interact and kill the active processes, or research the process name with a click. Imagine how helpful this would be for your help desk troubleshooting a remote machine.

Continuing to navigate across the top menu there are several additional options for the device including installed applications, missing patches, devices events, stopped processes, services, sessions, top applications. All of these options add value to the tool in their own way.

Ok great, we have lots of data. But what can we actually do with all the data? Well, ControlUp has a reporting, which includes several very useful reports across all of your endpoints.

You can start to build useful trend data across all of your endpoints that will allow you to make decisions about your environment.

In the next post about ControlUp Edge DX I will review the remote support options that are included with the solution, as well as how to integrate ControlUp EdgeDX with Entra ID for authentication.

All things End User Computing

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Key resources to consider

Monday, September 25, 2023

Adding ControlUp EdgeDX to my Home Lab

Building a Home Lab Part 1

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