Release Summary 2021

Keep current with 2021 WorkAnywhere releases (everything from fixes to features)

Craig Medland avatar
Written by Craig Medland
Updated over a week ago

Release 12/2/2021

  • Since WorkAnywhere customers can access the Admin Portal from anywhere, plus our CAS automation means less hands-on, itopia will be deprecating support for WorkAnywhere's Mobile App for the Admin Portal in early-January 2021.

Release 11/18/2021

Release 8/27/2021

  • itopia continues to make Collection Pools both easier to use and more customizable. By enabling 'Regional Ratios', CAS Admins can automatically size each GCP Region according to a fraction of the users in the Collection. Documentation to follow shortly.

  • itopia enables customers to scale their business post-deployment by giving admins the ability to add new GCP Regions post-deployment or deploy Collections to new GCP Regions anytime. Documentation to follow shortly.

Release 7/9/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere introduces a new Process Viewer to provide Administrators with visibility into the image re-deploy automation process. More automations will be added to the process viewer in coming months. Learn more here.

  • itopia WorkAnywhere now allows any VM to be placed in 'maintenance mode' in the CAS Portal. Learn more here.

  • The itopia CloudVDI Portal now includes end-user diagnostics to help identify and troubleshoot issues with end-user connectivity with their Cloud Workspaces. To learn more about troubleshooting end-user experience over RDP, click here.

  • WorkAnywhere's Insights Module now includes a tab to review a VM Instances Report. A table displays key data such as: Instance Name, IP Address (Private and Public), Instance Type, GCP Region/Zone and source image family (i.e. Windows 2018).. Documentation to follow shortly.

Release 6/24/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere introduces a new, SCIM 2.0-compliant API endpoint to coexist alongside our robust RESTful API. The System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) is a standardized API for provisioning and managing user and group objects across different platforms. Learn more about SCIM here.

Release 6/8/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere now gives administrators even more end-user session settings, configurable for each RDS Collection. This includes the ability for CAS Administrators to define their own settings for end-user connection (RDP) files. Since these settings will be configured natively in the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) deployment (rather than using Group Policy Objects), allowing even more granular control over specific settings. Learn more about end-user session settings here.

Release 6/7/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere administrators are now able to map AD Groups to Desktops Collections. User membership will be automatically synced and assigned to the desired Collection based on the schedule set by the CAS administrator. Learn more about auto-import from Active Directory here.

  • WorkAnywhere administrators can now manually import an unlimited number of users and assign users to individual groups. Learn more about user management here.

Release 5/14/2021

  • In the Collection Pool Module, clicking on the name of a Collection Pool launches the view mode. Now included in this view is a tab listing all the Session Hosts in that Collection Pool. Learn more about Collection Pools here.

Release 4/14/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere now makes it easier to scale your existing CAS deployment by support post-deployment provisioning of infrastructure servers. Now, CAS administrators can add infrastructure servers to their deployment at any time via the CAS Portal. This is useful if, for example, a customer created a small CAS deployment as a pilot program and then later expanded the same deployment to a production environment for a larger user base. Learn more here.

Release 4/12/2021

  • To greatly reduce the amount of time required to assign new users to a Dedicated Collection Pools, WorkAnywhere administrators can now specify a number of pre-created "unassigned session servers". These servers only need to be powered on, rather than created from scratch, when new users are added to this pool. Learn more here.

  • If WorkAnywhere administrators need to assign a user to a new dedicated session server (or host), they can now do so easily in the CAS portal. If the user's assigned host crashes and cannot be recovered, CAS administrators will be able to assign the user to a different session server (host). Learn more here.

Release 3/29/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere Application module redesigned to make it easier to use and more intuitive.

  • The publishing of an application now depends on the type of Collection Pool to which the user is assigned.

  • Applications are published to Collection Pools, and Collection Pools can be configured to allow access to RemoteApps only or to both RemoteApps and the full Windows desktop.

  • Learn more about the new Application Module and publishing applications here.

Release 3/4/2021

  • WorkAnywhere administrators can now assign users to multiple Collections Pools so they can access resources (Cloud Desktops and RemoteApps) in different Collection Pools simultaneously. Users can be assigned and unassigned from Collection Pools as needed (when created/imported or at any point in time) but they must always belong to at least one Collection Pool.

  • The Collection Pool creation/settings view is now divided into three tabs to make configuration even easier: Host Configuration, Session Configuration and User List (not visible in the creation view).

  • Learn more about assigning users to multiple Collection Pools here.

Release 2/23/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere continues to reduce complexity and help customers adopt managed services to reduce burden on IT & Operations. CAS' new OS Patching module provides a simplified interface for managing automated OS patching for Windows VM instances. The module allows Cloud Desktop administrators to configure one or more patching profiles for VMs managed by CAS; each profile specifies a schedule and the category of patches to apply to VMs. Learn more here.

Release 2/8/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere continues to improve -- today, this set of enhancements are available for all customers.

  • WorkAnywhere Admins can now shadow a user's session for visual troubleshooting. Learn more here.

  • WorkAnywhere Collection pools are persistent by default, meaning that Session Hosts are not regularly deleted and re-created. CAS administrators can now trigger a redeployment of the Session Hosts in two ways. Learn more here.

  • User Activity Reports have been upgraded with more filters and emailing of the report. Learn more about the Insights Module here.

  • WorkAnywhere now provides the ability to remove Users, Groups, and VMs from CAS without deleting the underlying AD account or VM instance. Learn more here.

  • WorkAnywhere API Keys can now be assigned more granular permissions by enabling CAS Admin roles. Learn more here.

Release 2/1/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere now provides CAS admins with the ability to re-deploy an individual Collection Pool User Session Server (USS). If a USS is experiencing issues, this new feature is simpler than restoring from a snapshot or re-deploying an entire Collection of User Session Servers. To learn more about USS in Collection Pools, click here.

Release 1/22/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere constantly looks for ways to improve performance of the core infrastructure in each deployment. When CAS deploys redundant RD Gateways in multiple GCP Regions, we now create separate Gateway farms for each GCP region. To learn more about the components of a CAS environment, click here.

Release 1/14/2021

  • itopia WorkAnywhere deploys and configures a number of default Group Policy Objects (GPOs). These GPOs are now prefixed with "itopia-" to clearly identify those required by CAS to perform various functions and features, as well as enforce security and privacy. To learn more about these default GPOs and how you can add your own GPOs, click here.

Did this answer your question?