Fun and adventure facilitated via the PWA is well within your reach on the Nutanix Frame platform. Whether you are attempting to make a frequent task more accessible, or simply reducing the complexity of your environment, PWA is an excellent candidate for your needs.
Traditionally, to start a Fame instance you would open your web browser, navigate to the Launchpad page, authenticate, then launch the desktop instance which would reside in your web-browser. We are going to make this a bit simpler.
What is PWA anyway? A “PWA” is a Progressive Web Application; that is, a website or web application which looks and feels like a locally installed application. They are cross-platform and portable! PWAs even allow you to run Windows applications on a Chromebook!
The following is a brief introduction to PWA in the form of application-izing a desktop instance from the Nutanix Frame platform. Please bear in mind, application-based Launchpads are probably the more traditional candidate chosen for PWA deployment, I just wanted to deliver a Frame desktop.
First things first, as a Frame Administrator, you want to go to the Launchpads tab of your Dashboard. We have a single desktop-based Launchpad for our example.
Simply click the 3 dots at the top right of that screen, then choose “Advanced Integrations” from the menu.
This will open a small selection of options related to that launchpad, in our case we want to choose “Advanced Integrations.”
You are now looking at the Advanced Integrations menu. You select your identity provider and the type of instance you wish to use. Then choose between a link to launch the PWA installer or simply a launch link. (The launch link does not provide the option to install.)
Copy the PWA link into your browser and, after authenticating, you will see what looks like a Frame Instance, you aren’t crazy, it is a Frame instance! Sometimes you will need to wait a little while for the instance to stand up, hang in there!
Click the “Install Desktop – Frame” button in the browser; This will vary by browser, but it will roughly resemble a plus sign and is almost always located on the far right edge of the address bar.
Clicking the install button to make your other computer a cloud!
Congratulations! You now have a PWA of a Frame desktop instance, which has a conveniently located button in your Start Menu, just like any trditional application would.
Click that new button! Isn’t that fun? It’s your application, you can launch it and close it as much as you like! Have fun with it! I told you it would be simple, didn’t I?
If you ever grow bored with the application, simply click the 3 dots at the top right of the application window and choose “Uninstall Desktop – Frame” to remove it from your computer.
There are countless applications for PWAs and with a little experience and imagination they can be leveraged to do some truly wonderful things.