FMA – Page 2 – basvankaam.com

2015! My year in review, and what a year it has been!

Average time to read: 4 minutes

2015, where do I start? It was an amazing year to say the least, personally as well as professionally. For one, it was another year full of events and get togethers, which, as always I enjoyed very much. In fact, 2015 marked the year of my first ever Citrix Synergy, and what a ride it turned out to be. I’ll definitely be back for seconds! Looking back from 2013 up till now I can only say that I am privileged to have met so many great and fun community folks over the last couple of years and hopefully it doesn’t stop here.

Continue reading 2015! My year in review, and what a year it has been!

Citrix… What they’re missing or might need to work on. Just thinking out loud here.

Average time to read: 10 minutes

During the last year or so I had couple of interesting discussions (trough CUGC, Twitter, real life etc.) on what Citrix might need to do from a business and application development perspective. Perhaps sell some of their products, reinvent, recode or reinvest in existing technology, innovate (which they’re doing) perhaps buy another company and so on and so forth. Of course it’s always easy to judge or come up with comments like these being a so-called sideline critic, but it’s not my intention to be the ‘wise guy’ here, I’m just thinking out loud, that is all.

Continue reading Citrix… What they’re missing or might need to work on. Just thinking out loud here.

@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.

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

@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 :-)

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

@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.

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

Citrix Synergy 2015, here’s what to expect. Or not.

Average time to read: 7 minutes

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.

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.

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

Troubleshooting the XenDesktop FMA… Citrix Scout deep dive – Part one!

Average time to read: 18 minutes

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!

XenDesktop 7.x internals continued… The Server VDA in more detail.

Average time to read: 3 minutes

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).

Continue reading XenDesktop 7.x internals continued… The Server VDA in more detail.

The ultimate Citrix XenDesktop 7.x internals cheat sheet!

Average time to read: 31 minutes

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.