As of today, Saturday the 13th 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.
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.
Continue reading Citrix IMA vs. FMA… XenDesktop components and terminology cheat sheet
Next week I will be in Orlando attending my first ever Citrix Synergy and as you can imagine there’s a lot to be excited about and look forward to. To name a few… there will be dozens of technical deep dive and Geek Speak sessions, meeting up with community friends, getting to know new people, the Keynote, new and (hopefully) surprising product announcements, dinner parties, other parties :) the welcome reception, TechEdge, the closing appreciation party in the Universal Studio’s etc. And besides all that I also have my very own Match.Geek sessions to look forward to (exiting stuff). Yes, I think it’s safe to say that we will all have a great time in Orlando, once again. Like many others, I have my expectations and hopes on what will be announced at Synergy this year, so without further ado I’ll list them here.
Continue reading Citrix Synergy 2015, here’s what to expect. Or not.
About two weeks ago I wrote (slides included) about my talk at the Dutch Citrix User Group (DuCUG) where I presented about troubleshooting the FMA. I also mentioned that when we do have to deal with CTX Support, and note that I’m not trying to sound negative here, we need to understand what to do when we are asked to inventory our Sites or to (CDF) trace certain components / modules for example. I also went into a bit more detail regarding CDF traces and the accompanying modules and trace messages that come with it, including some of the steps we can take to interpreted the collected data ourselves. That’s what I’d like to discuss in this (short) two part series as well, let’s have a closer look at Scout, CDF tracing / control, some of the FMA services (PortICA) etc… I’ll start out with some of the basics and take it from there.
Continue reading Troubleshooting the XenDesktop FMA… Citrix Scout deep dive – Part one!
If, by skimming the title, you’re not sure what I am talking about here, which I doubt to be honest, than you need to check out this website first before continuing. Just a few hours ago I received the final results of this years Project VRC and I can tell that there are some interesting and useful facts in there. The beauty of it though, at least that’s how feel, is that it’s all a 100% authentic. With that I mean that all information recorded in the survey is provided by you, the all-round, real deal, no nonsense, hard core, customer focused, he (or she) who only sees solutions and eats problems for breakfast – IT professional! Does it get any better then this? No Really? But wait, let’s stay focussed here, I am allowed to publish two results, so without further ado…
Continue reading The (final) results are in! Project Virtual Reality Check 2015.
Ever wondered what happens after a user fills in his or her username and password? What the difference is between internal and external user authentication, resource enumeration and the accompanying launch process? Or what about Web-Interface and StoreFront, do they both have the same authentication mechanism? What are the differences between the server and desktop VDA’s? What about the VDA and XenDesktop internals, what happens inside a VDA when a resource is launched? How does a connection get brokered? Read about this and more during the next 8 (mini) chapters.
Continue reading The ultimate Citrix XenDesktop 7.x internals cheat sheet!Average time to read: 15 minutes
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.
Continue reading Troubleshooting Citrix XenDesktop & XenApp 7.x ? Read this !
Average time to read: 7 minutes
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.
Continue reading Connection Leasing vs. Local Host Cache. Conclusion? CL doesn’t stand a chance!
Average time to read: 4 minutes
Hi everybody, as you might have heard by now Citrix announced XenApp and XenDesktop version 7.6 build on top of the their new and improved Flexcast Management Architecture. I took the liberty to summarize some, if not all, of the newly announced features and enhancements that both products will bring to the table, sparing you the marketing propaganda surrounding it. If you feel I left anything out, drop me a line and I’ll include it, and of course this goes for the Citrix employees as well :-) Here goes:
Continue reading Presenting Citrix XenApp 7.6 & Citrix XenDesktop 7.6… What’s new?!
Average time to read: 6 minutes
If you recall, and I think you do, last week I published an article / guide, named: The ultimate IOPS cheat sheet, which, I’m glad to report, was an instant success! For those of you who might have missed it you’ll find it here. Throughout the article / guide I talk about what IOPS are, how and why they impact overall performance, how they can be measured and (a lot) more. However, as you’re probable well aware, there is more to it then ‘just’ IOPS and the underlying disk subsystem when it comes to measuring or validating (benchmarking) overall performance with regards to our VDI and or HSD orientated architectures. Although they (IOPS) do make up a large piece of the puzzle, we also have to deal with CPU, memory, networking and more.
Continue reading LoginVSI advanced performance & scalability testing. What’s new with version 4.1?!
