In a recent comment on www.brianmadden.com, Jason Smith, VP of Product Marketing at Liquidware Labs said "we do not claim to be agent-less but we did use that term at one time by us to describe our self dissolving agent." Jason has been at Liquidware Labs since August 2009. In May 2010, Liquidware Labs made a press release and used a handful of terms to describe its "agent-less" monitoring in Stratusphere:

Agent-less design
Agent-less approach
Agent-less desktop monitoring design
Agent-less desktop design (Quote from David Bieneman, CEO)

While this marketing is "creative" we do not believe it is an accurate reflection of reality. We are glad that after our blog post and one by Alessandro Perilli, Liquidware Labs actually re-wrote its press release and started to use more conservative terms like:

Self-dissolving agent
Streamlined agent desktop design
Zero-touch agent

The title of this press release page and several other pages on the Liquidware Labs website still say "Agent-less VDI assessments" but this was probably an oversight or an SEO tactic.

We look forward to seeing more creative marketing from Liquidware Labs in 2011.

Update (December 24, 2010)

Based on another comment from Jason Smith, the zero-touch agent is actually "a kernel driver." According to Microsoft, "85 percent of unexpected system stops were caused by drivers and not by core Windows kernel components." If the agent is indeed a "kernel driver" it may not only cause system crashes but may actually interfere with running applications.The same agent is also most likely used in Quest VDI Assessment.

Why would any company want to take on such a risk with all of their users and applications when truly agent-less data collection can be performed by leading virtualization solution providers using products such as Lanamark Suite?

Lanamark is sponsoring the VMware Partner Exchange in Orlando, Florida. If you are an existing partner, we would be delighted to see you there. If you work for a consultancy, a system integrator or a VAR delivering application virtualization, desktop virtualization and server virtualization solutions, we would be glad to show you how our software can help you accelerate, differentiate and de-risk your desktop and data center transformation and optimization services.

Booth: 109

Dates: February 8-11, 2011

Location: Disney's Coronado Springs Resort

As part of its OEM agreement with Liquidware Labs, Quest Software has decided to make Stratusphere available for free to end customers for up to 45 days for VDI assessments. Unlike Liquidware Labs, which claimed to use an agent-less approach, Quest is completely upfront about the agent-based nature of Stratusphere. Furthermore, Quest is even more upfront about the privacy (or lack of it) that comes with the VDI assessment. Here is a screenshot of the login screen from the Quest VDI Assessment Setup Guide:

While explicit, the claim that "...all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected and disclosed to...government, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of government agencies, both domestic and foreign." in our opinion sounds simply draconian. Add the fact that now there is an agent sitting on every single machine under this privacy policy, the question is, how will this fly by any company's legal department?

The good news is that if no one reads this screen, cares about privacy or worries about security risks created by agents on every single endpoint, then the software can be used for free to perform a VDI assessment for up to 45 days.

Update (December 21, 2010)

After this blog post went live, Quest promptly responded by saying that this "is the same verbiage you get in the Liquidware Stratusphere product on which Quest VDI Assessment is based" and promised to remove it. Hugh McEnvoy, Product Manager for Quest VDI Assessment, goes further by saying "there is nothing 'secret' in this stuff", referring to the data collected.

At Lanamark, we beg to differ. All data collected within a customer's environment, especially about users, is secret and allowing a statement such as the one above to fly under the radar raises another question: how confident is Quest about what is happening in Stratusphere "under the hood"?

Update 2 (December 21, 2010)

And now Liquidware Labs responded to Alessandro's blog post, saying "any commercial product that goes as in-depth for assessment and user experience monitoring should carry a disclaimer warning about how the data is gathered." Let's set the record straight:

1. Lanamark Suite doesn't use agents
Instead, it leverages standard OS instrumentation to collect all the necessary data. Stratusphere requires agents because it is a Linux-based virtual appliance that cannot otherwise interface with standard Windows operating system instrumentation.

2. Lanamark Suite doesn't touch the data on target systems
There is no interception, inspection, copying of data on / from target systems or packets to / from these systems. Based on the original disclaimer from Liquidware Labs, it is probably fair to assume that this is not the case with Stratusphere.

3. Lanamark doesn't disclose the data
Only the Lanamark partner delivering desktop transformation services to end customers can access the data collected by Lanamark. There is no disclosure of data to "government, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of government agencies, both domestic or foreign." Also, the product name "Stratusphere" seems to imply that the data is going outside the "Troposphere" of client environments into the "Stratosphere" (and beyond perhaps).

Source: Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America