FMA – Page 2 – basvankaam.com

An in-depth look at the Citrix FMA Server VDA… The one that (almost) got away!

Average time to read: 5 minutes

Ever since the introduction of XenDesktop 7, where the FMA took over and XenApp was integrated, a lot has been written with regards to its components, services, agents and so on. What surprises me though, is that the Server VDA is (almost) never mentioned, while this is, or at least was a brand new component. Never before was it optional to install a (relatively) lightweight agent onto a XenApp server, it was basically all or nothing.

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Citrix FMA Internals… Power Management – Presentation video + slides!

Average time to read: < 1 minute

A few moths ago, back in June, Mick Glover and I gave a presentation at the E2EVC in Berlin. Our topic was FMA Power Management. We talked about what it is, how it works, where to configure it, some specifics you need to be aware of before considering or implementing Power Management, what some of the advantages are, some of the things still missing and we gave a few examples on some more advanced Power Management features using PowerShell including a brief look into the future of Power Management.

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@XDtipster – Linux VDA setup on CentOS 6.6 Pt.3

Average time to read: 5 minutes

Welcome to the third and final part of my Linux VDA on CentOS 6.6 Blog series… (Nearly there!!!) If you have just stumbled across this post and would like to go back and review what has come before just click on these links: Part 1 – Installing and preparing the Linux OS and Part 2 – Installing and configuring the Linux VDA. Once again, I hope you enjoy the final part in the series and, as always, please sound off in the comments if you have any questions or feedback.

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@XDtipster – Linux VDA setup on CentOS 6.6 Pt.2

Average time to read: 4 minutes

Now that we have our Linux OS installed and prepared as per part 1 of this guide. It’s time to move onto part 2 and install and configure the Linux VDA for registration with a Site Controller… Once again, I hope you enjoy the read and please sound off in the comments if you have any questions or feedback :-)

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@XDtipster – Linux VDA setup on CentOS 6.6 Pt.1

Average time to read: 10 minutes

Mick1 With the Linux VDA set to drop very shortly as part of the XenApp & XenDesktop 7.6 FP2 release. It seems like a good time to share the high level, yet detailed, set-up process I followed when successfully carrying out internal testing. Taken from various sources including the tech preview RHEL install guide, my colleague Lee Bushen’s detailed SLED based lab set-up guide and a tonne of Google searches and read-through’s, I hope this collection of posts can save people some time and be used and referenced as one of the definitive Linux VDA setup guides for CentOS 6.6.

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E2EVC… The one in Berlin. Presenting on FMA Power Management!

Average time to read: 3 minutes

Today (13-06-2015) Mick (Glover) and I will present on FMA Power management here at the E2EVC conference in Berlin. If you are in the audience, we would like to thank you very much for attending and hopefully you’ll like what we have to tell and show you. On a more personal note I’d like to thank my co-presenter Mick for taking the time, not only here in Berlin, but also leading up to the event while preparing our slides and content, I know how crazy busy you guys are over at Citrix, thanks Mick. We also have a small community announcement coming up, the FMA Internals Co-op. Read on to learn more.

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Introducing the FMA Internals Co-op

Average time to read: 2 minutes

As of today, Saturday the 13^th of June 2015, Mick Glover and I are proud to present the FMA Internals Co-op. A co-operation between a seasoned Citrix veteran and an established community blogger and Citrix enthusiast. Which is sort of a unique combination as far as we know.

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Citrix IMA vs. FMA… XenDesktop components and terminology cheat sheet

Average time to read: 2 minutes

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.

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The glass is half full… 50+ reasons why I think it might be time to move to XenApp 7.6!

Average time to read: 7 minutes

In this post I’ll list a whole bunch of reasons why I think it might be time to move your current XenApp IMA setup onto the new and enhanced FMA, which, depending on your license, could be either XenApp and/or XenDesktop. I’m sure you’ll find some of my arguments a bit to far-fetched or perhaps plain stupid even, and that’s fine. Feel free to comment. As the title implies I’m trying to take a positive approach here, so I won’t focus on any of the features (still) left out. Eventually we will all migrate, it’s only a question of when. Note that the below comments are in a random order.

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12 services that make up the Citrix XenDesktop Flex Management Architecture!

Average time to read: 6 minutes

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.

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