Desired State Configuration (DSC)… Ring any bells? No? It should by now. Although it isn’t a technology or concept thought up by Citrix, it is still very much applicable to Citrix components and infrastructures. DCS is a (still relatively) new management platform for Windows PowerShell allowing you to configure, apply and maintain a certain desired state (duh) on a single or multiple machine(s). A desired state can be anything related to software installation and configuration, the management of files and folders, registry entries, local group and account management, adding and removing server roles and the list goes on. Best thing is, as soon as something changes DSC will step in and correct it for you, preserving the desired state. DSC is a PowerShell extension and ships with Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1. Let’s have a closer look at what is needed.
Citrix XenApp & Microsoft (online) Lync… Things to be aware of. My findings!
Just recently I was in the process of researching to use Lync online (Office 365) in a XenApp HSD environment for one of our customers. To be honest I expected this to be a relatively straightforward process, install the software, configure, perhaps adjust my sizing numbers somewhat, test and take it from there. But what I found was that using Lync online combined with XenApp has its limitations. Of course some of these limitations can be dealt with, others however, we just have to except or take another route completely.
12 services that make up the Citrix XenDesktop Flex Management Architecture!
The Flex Management Architecture is a service-orientated architecture, it consists out of ten, or twelve depending on your point of view, primary services in total. Let me explain, when administering a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) for example, the Broker Service, a.k.a. the Desktop service, and the PortICA service both live on your desktop OS based VM’s, which are then part of the FMA as well, making it twelve services in total. Here I’ll provide you with a rundown of all services that make up the FMA including their responsibilities and some background information. I’ve included some artwork as well.
XenDesktop 7.x internals continued… The Server VDA in more detail.
Although the new FMA based Server VDA has been built from the ground up it still has a lot of similarities when compared to the ‘old’ ICA protocol stack deployed with XenApp 6.5 and earlier versions. However, unlike XenApp, the VDA (Virtual Delivery Agent) directly communicates with the Delivery Controller, it does this through the Broker Agent, basically the same way as we are used to with the desktop VDA (PortICA).
Troubleshooting Citrix XenDesktop & XenApp 7.x ? Read this !
When I was thinking about what to write next I thought it might be a good idea to use something ‘from the field’, an issue that I’ve been involved in personally during the past two weeks or so. Then I figured, why just discuss one specific use case when there is so much more to tell. So I won’t, instead I’ll focus on troubleshooting in general and use my ‘real world’ example as a reference throughout this article.
How to: Rebooting your XenDesktop 7.x application servers.
Sounds easy enough right? Rebooting your XenDesktop Site’s application servers. When your Site isn’t that big and you don’t have a few hundred machines running or you have to deal with 24/7 shifts and so on, it can be fairly straightforward. I don’t want to spend to much time on why we would want, or need, to reboot our machines on a weekly or perhaps daily basis etc. a lot of factors come into play and there’s really no ‘one size fits all’. You could be using App-V or Citrix provisioning Services for example, both caching data which you would like to clear from time to time. Or perhaps the underlying Windows OS, when physically installed, might need a refresh every once in awhile, which we all know it does! Fact of the matter is, reboots are a given and need to be thought trough to keep operations running as smooth as possible. Make sure to finish the article, there is a question on the Citrix build-in reboot tooling, maybe you can help me out!
Installing and configuring Citrix StoreFront, the web.config file!
Not to long ago StoreFront replaced WebInterface (yes, it’s still officially supported till June 2015) and with it came a bunch of cool new and (very) useful features like Receiver for web and StoreFront multi site configurations for example, offering load balancing and HA capabilities, user mapping, application subscription synchronisation, optimal NetScaler Gateway routing and a few more. Also, we are no longer bound to an external database, this is now taken care of by the build-in Windows Extensible Storage Engine. The downside, at least for me, is that most, but not all, of these features need to be configured and or modified in the web.config file, comparable to the WebInterface.conf file we have with WebInterface.
Installing and configuring Citrix XenDesktop on the Nutanix computing platform!
Have you checked out the ‘Citrix XenDesktop on Nutanix’ reference architecture solution design document?! No? You should! The Citrix Validated Solution (CVS) provides prescriptive guidance for these components including design, configuration and deployment settings thereby allowing customers to quickly deploy a desktop virtualization solution using Citrix XenDesktop. Validation was performed by extensive testing using Login VSI to simulate real-world workloads and determine optimal configuration for the integration of components that make up the overall solution. Everything in the solution document has been installed, configured, tested and verified by the Citrix Consulting APAC team. Can’t wait? Scroll down!
Configuring Citrix XenDesktop 7.x Desktop publishing and Limited Visibility!
With the merge of XenApp into XenDesktop’s Flex Management Architecture (FMA) a lot changed, for most XenApp admins it meant they had to rethink their designs and as a result it was back to the drawing board. Take application, or resource, publishing for example, we now have to deal Delivery Groups and Machine Catalogs, nothing new if you’re used to working with XenDesktop, but if it’s ‘just’ XenApp you know, well… Even now where XenApp 7.5 is a product on it’s own, again, it’s still based on the Flex Management Architecture meaning it also still uses the same wizards and configuration options as in XenDesktop 7.x a few months ago, for the most part anyway.
How to integrate StoreFront into XenMobile… And than what?!
As most of you probably know, one of the main components that makes up Citrix XenMobile App edition is the App Controller. It provides us with our Mobile, Web and SaaS applications including any HTML5 based applications and web links. Applications first need to be signed, than wrapped, adding in the MDX binaries, before being uploaded to App Controller and assigned to your users. A process I’ll describe in more detail in one of my upcoming articles. During this blog I’d like to zoom in on the integration of StoreFront and highlight some of the options we have when it comes to using Worx Home and/or Citrix Receiver in contacting either StoreFront, App Controller or both. I’ll show you how we can launch, not only our Mobile, Web and SaaS apps, but Windows based desktops and applications as well, without using both platforms individually.