This whitepaper recently released by out guys in consulting covers the design considerations on how policies can impact your XenApp (Presentation Server) 4.5 environment...

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There are numerous ways to apply a configuration or security setting onto a group of servers within a Citrix Presentation Server environment. Because policies are so unique, diverse and customizable, there is no single, correct method toward policy design. However, this document will give the key areas to consider when deciding on the appropriate approach to implementing a setting using a policy.  
This design consideration will look at the following types of policies and the comm on practices associated with them:

• Citrix Presentation Server policies: These policies are defined within the management console on Presentation Server and only apply to connections using the Citrix ICA protocol but not the Microsoft RDP protocol. Presentation Server policies also allow for the configuration of Presentation Server-specific options like Session Printers and Progressive Display. The power of these policies is that they have the ability to be filtered based on users, location and even the method for launching the published applications. Many of these filters are only available within Presentation Server.
  
  
• Active Directory Policies: These policies are configured within Active Directory. They are applied to organizational units (folders), domains, sites, etc. within the Active Directory structure. A single Active Director y policy can consist of a computer policy and a user policy. A computer policy consists of settings that affect the physical computer and impact all users logging onto the computer while a user policy affects the user and is applied on all systems the user logs on to. Local server policies and custom policies are types of Active Director y policies and are described as:
  
  
  • Local Server Policies and Settings: Local Server policies are similar to Active Directory policies, except they are managed on a server-by-server basis and configured locally on that specific server, where Active Directory policies are managed centrally and can impact hundreds or thousands of users or computers with a single application of a policy.
    
    
  • Custom Active Directory Policy Templates: Custom ADM templates, like the Citrix icaclient.adm template, are Active Directory or Local Server policies used to make configuration settings. They can be custom registry settings or simply standard policies re-organized as two examples. The concept of custom templates is supported, but depending on the author of the custom template, supportability by either Citrix or Microsoft might not be available. Organizations will have to verify the supportability of custom ADM templates. Also, any custom template used might already have settings configured, potentially causing issues with the environment. It is highly recommended to test custom policies in a test environment before implementing in production.

The following five areas are the basis f or the design decisions for an enterprise deployment of Presentation Server. These types of policies will be impacted by the following design areas:

• Policy Type
• Policy Integration
• Policy Filters
• Policy Prioritization
• Policy Precedence
  
  

Application developers are leveraging Ajax to deliver the next generation of Web applications. In this white paper learn:

• What Ajax is (and isn't)
• How Ajax applications differ from traditional web applications
• How Citrix NetScaler can increase the performance of Ajax applications while reduce the cost of hosting Ajax applications
  
  
  
  

Helge pointed me out to his blog just recently, and you know what - he has really userful content there. He just recently blogged about a neat little app that allows you to manipulate REG_LINKs. Very useful for your XenApp environments when configuring your remote apps and streaming profiles.

Here's a snippet of hos post:

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Recently I got into a very interesting discussion with my colleague Nicholas Dille on various aspects of Windows x64. One question he brought up was especially intriguing: Knowing about registry redirection, it is not astonishing to find that the 32-bit version of the registry key HKLM\Software\Classes (aka HKCR) gets to be HKLM\Software\Classes\Wow6432Node. But there is also HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Classes!? How can there be two different Wow6432Node 32-bit keys for one 64-bit key?

It soon dawned on us that one of those two Wow6432Node keys must be a registry link to the other, meaning that the 32-bit data is actually stored in only one place as common sense dictates. But which is the original and which is the link? And what is a registry link anyway?

What Are REG_LINKs?

Registry links (internal type name: REG_LINK) seem to be one of the last great mysteries of Windows NT-based operating systems although they have been around since NT4 at least. Microsoft uses them to point the CurrentControlSet registry key to one of the actual ControlSets (typically 001 or 002). A registry link essentially is a symbolic link in the registry - one registry key pointing to another. The nice thing is that this whole pointing stuff happens completely opaquely to applications: if key A points to key B, and an application tries to access key A, it will actually see the contents of key B. The concept is simple, easy and powerful.

How to Manipulate REG_LINKs

There is only one problem: There is no officially documented way to list, create or delete REG_LINKs. The registry API simply does not have any functions for manipulating them. This makes things more difficult, but not impossible. Searching the net, I quickly found the excellent tool regln which comes with full source code and compiled both as 32-bit and 64-bit binaries. The source code of regln gave me the hints I needed: the internal NT API (not too well documented and hidden in ntdll.dll) contains the functions required for REG_LINK manipulation. With that information and some further research I put together a small command line program that scans the registry for REG_LINKs and lists those found along with their target: ListRegistryLinks.exe. The tool is available both in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

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Continue at source: Helge's Blog

Download: ListRegistryLinks.exe 1.0 for Windows x86 (32-bit)
Download: ListRegistryLinks.exe 1.0 for Windows x64 (64-bit)

If you have been following some of the recent blog posts about Nirvana Devices and Nirvana Phones, you can get a better idea of what we are talking about in this video clip. Conceptually the Nirvana Phone takes the Smartphone to the next level by solving the existing limitations of small screens and keyboards. There are now some new devices that are close to making this possible, especially in combination with a Virtualized Desktops and applications like XenDesktop and XenApp.

Stay tuned for more videos and demos of the state of the art in Nirvana Phones , or better yet register for Citrix Synergy and try them for yourself, you may even win one !

The voting is now open for this years Citrix Innovation Award -

The Citrix Innovation Award is for Citrix customers who innovate in utilizing technology to make a significant impact on their business. Ultimately, information technology is about delivering applications to end users so they can perform business transactions. These three nominees have innovated in their use of Citrix technology to cut costs, reduce time to revenue for projects, and to mitigate risk.

Here is the video from Betchel Corporation -

Next up is Cocamar Cooperativa Agroindustrial-

And finally the video for Mutual of Omaha (yes, the Wild Kingdom guys for those who remember that show) -

The judges for this years Citrix Innovation Award are listed below -

How to Vote
You can vote now for the Citrix Innovation award online at http://www.citrix.com/innovationaward. The winner will be named during the keynote session at Citrix Synergy 2008 on Wednesday, May 21st. Citrix Synergy will be held on May 20th to May 23rd at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.

If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy..

You still have time to get your vote in for the XenDesktop Video Tips Contest here. As of this posting, there have been almost 200 votes. Currently "VDI Made as EASY as Pie" by Gareth James maintains a slight lead.

The creators of the top three video tips as voted by you will receive prizes including an Apple iPod Touch 16 G, an Apple iPod Touch 8 GB, and a Apple iPod Nano.

Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenApp now offer customers two different computing models for centralizing their client computing. I have had about a dozen or so customer conversations regarding where the best use of each technology is. I want to share that with everyone.

People ask me whether the IT and business problems to centralize have changed. The answer is - they have not. Costs, compliance/security and flexibility for access remain to be IT challenges that centralization can solve. If you think about the culprit that keeps the TCO of desktops high, it is application deployment and management.

The two problems that customers have been able to successfully address with XenApp are:

1. Delivering appa to users anywhere - typically customers start with virtualizing problem apps and grow their XenApp usage overtime.
2. Virtualizing the full desktop with all the apps - it has worked great for task based workers who use standardized locked down environments with few apps.

Overtime, XenApp has addressed several key challenges in addressing those requirements including scalability (via 64-bit), app compatibility (via app isolation environments any app can be made compatible with XenApp), graphics (via SpeedScreen), performance monitoring (via EdgeSight) and offline support (via portable app virtualization/streaming). This has enabled an even broader use of XenApp for virtualizing more apps within existing XenApp customer base.

Now, XenDesktop enables our customers to expand desktop virtualization to not just task workers (served via XenApp shared desktops) but also office workers (VM/Blade based dedicated desktop). However, dedicated desktops always come at a cost. The cost is reflected in the user density per server. Where as a dual core XenApp server can serve 100 shared desktops, XenDesktop can serve about 10-12 users per dual core server. So, the cost of hardware required per user goes up from $25-$50 for XenApp to about $250-$350 per user on XenDesktop. Hence, the XenApp based shared desktops will always be the most cost effective way to deliver virtual desktops.

Both models have their merits and limitations. As stated XenApp serves desktops in the most cost effective manner and is best suitable for task based workers. The limitation for XenApp is around personalization capabilities - end users cannot fully personalize their environment, which is a need for mainstream office users. XenDesktop, on the other hand, is best suited for virtual desktop delivery for mainstream office worker. The real limitation lies in offline access requirements, or advanced peripheral support.

LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST - delivering applications using XenApp radically lowers TCO of BOTH physical and virtual desktops by enabling IT to centralize the apps and never install them with the desktop. There are different benefits for physical PCs and virtual desktops.

With physical PCs, benefits of using XenApp are:

1. Increases the life of PCs
2. Enhances application and data security
3. Enables app delivery anywhere using any device
4. Lowers the cost of application management

With XenDesktop (virtual desktops), benefits of using XenApp are:

1. Dynamic provisioning of virtual desktop implies that a user's desktop always stays pristine with no apps installed - all apps are delivered (using streaming or hosting technologies) enabling an on demand assembly of personalized desktop at the time when a user logs on.
2. Predictability and Capacity planning on VDI - Separating all LOB apps that have unpredictable (problematic) resource requirements, and running them on separate XenApp servers, prevents over-provisioning the VDI server architecture and can reduce the number of servers required for virtual desktops, improving the TCO of virtual desktops.
3. Application and license management - each app can be controlled granularly. You have complete visibility into who has access to the applications and who accessed which application when.

In summary, IT now has two excellent options (XenApp and XenDesktop) for building their virtualization infrastructure to meet the needs across all their use cases:

Task workers - use thin clients with shared desktops delivered via XenApp
Mainstream office workers - use desktop appliances with dedicated desktops delivered via XenDesktop
Mobile users - use XenApp to deliver all streamed or hosted apps for both connected and offline access

At Synergy (http://www.citrix.com/synergy), this topic will be discussed at length. Come visit us!

Gareth James a blogger at DABCC.com did an amazing job of walking us through how to install and configure Citrix Provisioning Server.


                         Watch Video

To see more articles from Gareth please visit his blog here: Gareth's Blog



Cheers,

Gus Pinto
Microsoft MVP - Virtualization
Twitter/GusPinto

If you are attending IT professionals TechMentor event this week in Orlando then I would recommend you go and check out Bradon Shell's session on "Automating Citrix Server Administration with Windows PowerShell"

"In this session you'll learn how to use Powershell to make Citrix server management easier. We'll also walk through the Citrix road map and how Powershell fits in. We will cover several different common administrative tasks and show how Powershell can make these tasks faster and easier to perform, including publishing applications, unpublishing applications, getting application information, and getting servers online. We'll look at using the PowerShell pipeline, and see how to make your scripts output information that can be piped to other scripts. Finally, you'll learn how to use MFCOM, get information from it, and look at some of the gotchas you'll need to be aware of when dealing with it"

Brandon and I have recently done a webinar on PowerShell and Citrix MFCOM. You can view the Webinar at this URL
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/114744868

UPDATE:
I have got several emails asking me if there will be any session on PowerShell and MFCOM during Citrix Synergy event . There is no specific session on PowerShell and MFCOM but we have speakers giving advance classes on MFCOM SDK and Hands on training with MFCOM SDK during Synergy. If you still have questions regarding PowerShell and MFCOM then come by during my Geek Speak session and I will try my best to answer them

At Synergy, Citrix Education will host a technical breakout session, "The IT Talent You Need Today and Tomorrow," which explores different job roles/activities related to application delivery, and examines the future of IT professionals.

At this session, attendees will learn:

• Methods for training and developing individuals to be application delivery-fluent
• How Citrix is working to fulfill market demand for qualified application delivery IT professionals
• About customers that are developing and transforming their staff and IT organization to support application delivery

 The best part is, breakout session attendees will be entered to win one FREE seat in XenServer course CTX-2400BW Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition 4.1: Administration.

"The IT Talent You Need Today and Tomorrow" (session ID 110) breakout session will be held on May 20th at 3:30pm. For more info, Click here to preview the Synergy technical breakout session list and access session 110.