Licensing can be complicated, not only do we need to consider XenApp and/or XenDesktop licenses; we also have to deal with Microsoft licensing, if we like or not. Throughout this chapter I will focus on the different types of Citrix licenses available, how they get applied from a XenApp / XenDesktop perspective and what other types of (Microsoft) licenses we need to take into consideration, like RDS, VDA (and no, this is not the Citrix VDA), CDL etc.
The ultimate Citrix XenMobile survival guide! Download now, no subscription needed.
About two months ago I released my ultimate XenMobile survival guide. It’s packed with over 80 notes, general tips & tricks, best practices, recommendations and lessons learned from the filed with regards to XenMobile implementations. When people subscribed they would immediately receive their own personal copy (they still do by the way), which was sort of a test for me personally. As far as I am concerned my experiment worked out very well, over 200 people subscribed and it was well received throughout the community, thank you all very much! As of today it is available in my download section as well, of course it is still a 100% free and you won’t need to subsribe. It goes without saying that I’ll keep updating my current, as well as new, subscribers with interesting and useful content every now and again, or at least try :-)
Citrix NetScaler (10.5) licensing. What’s new with Access Gateway!
Just a few days ago Citrix announced the NetScaler 10.5, again packed with lots of cool new and useful features, but that’s not all, they also decided it was time to simplify the NetScaler license structure just a tat. And although that sounds wonderful to some, unfortunately, it has a downside as well. I’ll first elaborate a bit more on the licensing structure as we know it today and take it from there.
Planning your next XenDesktop deployment? Have a look at Citrix Project Accelerator
Have you ever used the Citrix project Accelerator? No? You should! At least have a look and see what you make of it, so did I. Currently there are over 12.500 projects (active and closed) known by Project Accelerator, I’ll get to the how and why in a minute. According to the release notes it has been online and available in beta since December 2012, but I assume they’re only referring to the (upgraded) XenDesktop 7.1 version, right?! For those of you unknown with the concept, I’ll try and explain what it’s about and how it’s done.
Citrix XenDesktop 7.5… What’s new?!
You know what’s funny? Last weekend (Saturday the 25th of January 2014 to be exact) when Citrix leaked its introduction video, with regards to the new Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.5 releases, it was all XenApp from there on, not a word, with a small exception here and there, on the new XenDesktop 7.5 release. I guess we were all just flabbergasted (what a cool word) with the re-introduction of XenApp, most of us anyway. Also, due to the rise of mobile computing, and mobility in general, It’s (and going to be) more and more about the applications then anything else, which, when you think about it, makes sense. I found some spare time and I’d like to spend a minute or two looking at some of the new features and functionality introduced with the release of Xendesktop 7.5.
Citrix XenApp 7.5… What’s (really) new?!
Perhaps a bit premature (although they do have an excellent marketing department, I’m just saying) but last Saturday Citrix announced the release, and return, of XenApp version 7.5! When I, accidently, found out I Tweeted: ‘Criticise, be sceptical, surprised, annoyed, amazed, happy or sad but Citrix XenApp 7.5 is, according to Citrix, ‘back by popular demand’ Well, during the past few day’s I’ve seen a lot of sceptical, annoyed, amazed and sad Tweets appearing on my timeline. That’s right, happy is missing! I guess most of us are still in shock! Last updated on 28-01-2014, scroll down.
XenDesktop Single User Server VDI
Using the Server VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) feature in XenDesktop 7 allows you to deliver a desktop from a server Operating System for a single user on a one to one basis. Now if you’re not quite sure what to make of this think back to Amazon’s big DaaS announcement just a few weeks ago. Remember how they got away with true one on one VDI based machines in the cloud? We all know that client based Operating System VDI’s aren’t allowed due to Microsoft’s, still limited, licensing structure, so how did they manage to get around this? Well, using the Server VDI feature is one way of doing it. I’ll try and provide you with, not only information on the Server VDI feature itself, but some general background information as well.
Desktop as a Service a.k.a. DaaS
This article was originally written as a guest blogger for Intense School IT educational services. During the past few weeks I repeatedly talk about virtual desktop infrastructures (XenDesktop, VDI-in-a-Box), some of the technology involved, features and probably the most important one, use cases. Especially with Windows XP coming to an end, see my previous article on this, this might be a good time to rethink your alternatives when it comes to replacing your (fat) client infrastructure and the accompanying back-end systems that come with it. That being said, there’s another concept I’d like to discuss since it’s closely related to VDI and could prove to be a valid solution for a great deal of use cases out there, especially when it comes to small(er) and mid sized companies. I’m referring to DaaS, or, Desktop as a Service in full.
Why you shouldn’t deploy XD7 on Azure just yet.
Both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) are nothing new and have been around for a few years now. Just short of two months ago Citrix, along with Microsoft, announced the availability of XenDesktop 7 on Windows Azure. Finally, full Remote Desktop Services (RDS) availability in the Cloud, or so it seemed. Although I was instantly interested, my (spare) time was scares during that period so I had to postpone my ‘Cloud’ ambitions. About a week ago I came across a random article discussing RDS on Windows Azure, an interesting read. After that I decided to do some research and perhaps open up a temp Azure account so I could experience its look and feel for myself.