Version 7.14 introduces a new licensing option known as ‘multi-type licensing’ allowing you to consume different types of XenDesktop & XenApp license models within the same Site on a per Delivery Group basis. This post is meant to answer one or two questions you might have around this new feature.
VMware Cloud Pod Architecture – what it is and how it helps
When dealing with multiple datacenters, spread over multiple sites or continents even, you are faced with a couple of challenges. For one, you do not want to manage your desktops and/or applications on a per site or datacenter basis. Neither do you want your users in, let’s say New York to connect up to a desktop somewhere in Europe, in most cases anyway. And if you do, you would like to have full control when it comes to assigning desktops and/or applications — or entitlements as VMware likes to call them. Flexibility is key. This is where VMware’s Cloud Pod Architecture can help.
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For your convenience – 100+ Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop FMA facts listed!
I like, no wait, I love lists… there, I’ve said it. But no, really, I think (bulleted) lists are one of the best ways to share facts and knowledge. That’s also why I used multiple lists in my book, dozens of them containing hundreds of bulleted (FMA) facts. Throughout the various chapters I highlight multiple so-called ‘FMA facts’, 116 in total to be exact and I conclude each chapter with a list of key takeaways. This post is meant to share with you most of the FMA Facts that I came up while writing The FlexCast Management Architecture, though I did slightly alter quite a few of them.
Citrix Smart Check — the latest addition to the Smart Tools portfolio. Make sure to take it for a test-ride
A few months ago Citrix renamed their Lifecycle Management Services to Smart Tools. Take a look at this post from fellow CTP Andrew Wood, it explains in-detail what Citrix Lifecycle Management Services is all about, including the name change. Smart Tools consists out of four distinct services each fulfilling their own purpose, for this post I would like to focus on the Smart Check service.
Citrix IMA vs. FMA… XenDesktop components and terminology cheat sheet
This post is meant to provide you with a quick comparison, a cheat sheet if you will, between the two architectures. As you all (should) know by now, with the introduction of XenDesktop 7.x XenApp became part of the Flexcast Management Architecture, or FMA in short, and with this came certain terminology and conceptual changes. Here I would like to show you how each former 6.5 (IMA) XenApp component has its equivalent in the FMA world. Although technically there are some differences, on the functional side of things there is not much between them. To be clear, I’m not focusing on features that are in IMA and (still) not in FMA.
Connection Leasing vs. Local Host Cache. Conclusion? CL doesn’t stand a chance!
When Citrix re-released their XenApp and XenDesktop products not that long ago, things changed. XenApp’s Independent Management Architecture, IMA, was no more and got replaced by XenDesktop’s Flexcast Management Architecture, or FMA. With it some of the functionality and features loved and used by many disappeared as well. Features like Sessions Lingering, Anonymous Users, Pre-Launch and a few more, were missed, and for some this even became one of the main reasons not to migrate at that time. Luckily Citrix has again reinstated some of the most popular features known to XenApp 6.5, again, not all, but some, in its latest XenApp release, version 7.6.