Not necessarily a new topic, though, I might be able to provide a different angle. I won’t go into the details of what WVD is, how it works and why it is a good fit for a ton of companies world-wide. What I will do is give you an example of how to use the Azure calculator for WVD in a slightly different way.
Continue ReadingCitrix XenApp single machine setup – Cheap, fast and supported!
Average time to read: 8 minutesWe all know that Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop are both well established within larger enterprises. Smaller companies however, also often rely on Citrix (using XenApp mostly) to securely deliver their applications and/or desktops to their end-users. Today I would like to focus on how to deliver XenApp hosted applications and desktops while minimizing costs and maximizing both performance and manageability. Note that this is not going to be a Microsoft RDSH vs. Citrix debate, instead I will assume that XenApp licenses are already in-place.
How to configure zones in XenDesktop and XenApp 7.7 plus some extra’s!
Average time to read: 8 minutesYes, Zones are back! This seems to be a very popular quote on Twitter and Linked-In ever since Citrix released XenApp/XenDesktop 7.7 last week. And to honest, I’m exited as well. Are these the zones we were, or are used to in XenApp 6.5? No. But they’re close. After I installed XenDesktop 7.7 the morning after its release, I had 3 zones up and running within 5 minutes, and that’s only because I didn’t read the ‘manual’ up front. Let’s have a look and see what we come up with along the way. I took the bullet approach on this one. Scroll down for some screenshots on how to configure XenDesktop / XenApp zones.
An in-depth look at the Citrix FMA Server VDA… The one that (almost) got away!
Average time to read: 5 minutesEver 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.
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 minutesIn 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.
XenDesktop SQL High Availability… What to use?!
Average time to read: 7 minutes
The XenDesktop Site Configuration Database is an important part of your infrastructure, when it’s is down, users won’t be able to connect and IT won’t be able to make any configuration changes. Because of this you’ll probably want to implement some kind of high availability mechanism keeping your database up and running at all times, or at least to try and keep downtime at a minimum. During one of my recent presentations in which I talked about XD7 including it’s database dependency, a discussion around which type of (SQL) HA mechanism we should implement quickly formed… What options do we have?
XenDesktop 7 Site Configuration Database… What about it?
Average time to read: 8 minutes
XenDesktop 7, and some of the earlier XD editions as well, is based on the FlexCast Management Architecture or FMA in short. Simply put you could state that the FMA is primarily made up out of Delivery Controllers and Agents, of-course there’s more to it but for now lets just leave it at that. Have a look here for a complete overview on FMA. Delivery Agents are installed on all virtual and or physical machines provisioned by XenDesktop 7, they communicate (and register themselves) with the Delivery Controller(s) which on their turn contact the license server and communicate with the central Site configuration database, lets have a closer look.