In a previous post I told you about the hands-on learning lab covering Workflow Studio that I will be hosting at Citrix Synergy 2010. If you want to learn more about Workflow Studio and how you can offer self-service solutions to your users, then make sure you sign up.

Note: The class is already full (thank you!). If you sign up for the session you will be put on a wait-list and we will try to accommodate you. We may not be able to accommodate everyone at Synergy, but are looking to do a repeat session as a webinar after Synergy. Make sure you get on the wait-list so we can inform you about the webinar.

I will be hosting a Hands-on Learning Lab about Workflow Studio at the upcoming Citrix Synergy 2010 event. This session will be a deep dive format where you will have 3 hours of hands-on time to explore Workflow Studio. Come by and hear about what is coming next with Workflow Studio and if you have ideas for things you want covered, post them here or email me.

Here are the details:
Title: Automating your desktop virtualization environment with Workflow Studio
Session Number: SYN415D
Date / Time: May 12, 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Room: San Francisco Marriott - Yerba Buena 10-11

Abstract:
This three-hour session is geared towards administrators who are looking to provide self-service to users, but don't have the resources to manage it. Attendees will get an in-depth look at the latest release of Workflow Studio and hands-on experience using this technology to increase automation of the datacenter. Gain insights into the Workflow Studio architecture and Citrix SDK strategy, and learn how to leverage Workflow Studio to deliver solutions for your users.

Make sure you sign up early as this class is filling up quickly.

We have built a library that allows you to programmatically send keystrokes to the console of a virtual machine in XenServer. This can be useful in the initial setup of some virtual appliances. The source is included and, for the developers out there, demonstrates some interesting integration with the existing XenServer library. This library also includes integration with VNC-Client for .NET by dullmann for handling the VNC protocol.

Download the XenServer VNC Activity Library

Take a look and let us know what you think...

Did you know that Workflow Studio exposes most of its functionality via PowerShell?

Do you want to:

• Run workflows from an external system such as Microsoft's System Center
• Build a self-service portal for your users
• Create an installer for custom activities you have built

If so, you will want to have a look at the Automation Guide posted on the Workflow Studio SDK page

If you build something cool let me know about it...

I'm pleased to announce that Workflow Studio 2.0.1 is now available:

Download Workflow Studio 2.0.1 (MyCitrix login required)

This update only includes new activity libraries and does not contain any changes to the core Workflow Studio engine. Here are some of the key new features:

New Activity Libraries

• Citrix XenDesktop Activity Library
  Activities that create, delete, and retrieve desktop definitions and manage desktop groups.

• Citrix Provisioning Server Activity Library
  Activities that create, delete, and retrieve provisioning server target devices.

Additions to Activity Libraries

• Citrix NetScaler Activity Library
  Now includes activities that enable you to:
  • Change the NetScaler configuration and tune load balancing.
  • Collect custom statistics for NetScaler NSService and global LBVServers.

• Citrix XenServer Activity Library
  Now includes activities that enable you to:
  • Automate the process of taking snapshots, backing up VMs, and backing up VM metadata for site migration and disaster recovery scenarios.
  • Automate the installation and update of tools on guest VMs.

• Networking Activity Library
  Now includes SNMP activities that enable you to write load-management workflows which can listen to SNMP agents for SNMP traps and then take appropriate actions.

• Citrix XenApp Activity Library
  Now includes activities that support automated application streaming packaging and application management.

• Active Directory Activity Library
  Now includes the Create Computer and Delete Computer activities.

More details on this release are available in the ReadMe.

Feel free to leave feedback in comments or email me directly.

Thanks to Ed York and Tom Nikl we now have an activity library with source code for managing Amazon EC2 machines.

This activity library includes the following activities:

• Bundle Instance - bundles an instance within Amazon EC2 (using S3)
• Create Security Group - creates a new security group
• Delete Security Group - deletes a security group
• Get AMIs - returns a list of all the registered AMIs
• Get Instances - returns a list of all the instances currently running
• Launch Instance - launches a new instance (or instances) of the specified AMI
• Terminate Instance - terminates one or more instances

Check it out and let me know if this is useful.

One of our team members posted a new activity library with source code for running SSH scripts. This activity is useful for running native commands on a XenServer host and for interacting with other servers running SSH.

Check it out and let me know if this is useful.

A big thank you to everyone who attended our live Workflow Studio webinar yesterday. During the webinar we demonstrated several workflows that are available on the community site:

1. Provision User in Active Directory
2. Start a VM
3. Publish Applications on XenApp
4. Publish Applications on XenApp from a CSV file

If you weren't able to attend you can view the recording here:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/331741737

If you have questions, please leave a comment or contact me directly .

Please join us next Monday for a webinar on Workflow Studio where you will learn how Workflow Studio can help you transform your data center into a Delivery Center. In this 90 minute webinar you will learn:

● Why automation is critical for your organization
● How easy Workflow Studio is to deploy
● How to integrate Workflow Studio with existing Citrix products and 3rd party products
● How to engage with other members of the community to share and benefit from what others have done
● What is coming next with Workflow Studio

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/331741737

Date: Monday, December 14, 2009
Time: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PST (1:00 PM - 2:30 PM EST)

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

This webinar will be recorded and posted for review, so even if you aren't sure if you can make it please sign up and you will be emailed a link to the recording when it is posted.

The Citrix Workflow Studio Evaluation Virtual Appliance (EVA) is now available. This EVA provides you with 30 days to evaluate a pre-configured virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 that has Workflow Studio 2.0 already installed and configured with all activity libraries and the sample workflows from CDN. Download the EVA and review the Getting Started guide .

If you have any questions leave a comment or contact me directly

I started a video series on CitrixTV for tips & tricks for working with Workflow Studio. The first video is an explanation of how to use the If/Else activity and conditional logic in your workflows. I'll be posting more videos to the series over time, so if there is something you would like to know how to do then leave feedback in comments or email me directly and I will try to address it.

There are some new articles posted on the Workflow Studio section of CDN. These will probably only be of interest to the developers and advanced workflow gurus out there, but I found them interesting and wanted to share (yes, I am a geek )

• Configuring Workflow Studio to use SQL Server for Tracking and Persistence
• Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices

Keep in mind that most of the CDN sections for Workflow Studio are open to the general public to post and edit (be sure to share your workflows and activity libraries). The tips and tricks article was intentionally left open to all to edit - come on in and share. Make sure you bookmark the articles section, add it to your RSS reader, or just click on the Community tab from within Workflow Studio every time you open it.

We have posted some initial XenApp workflows that demonstrate the capabilities in the new XenApp activity library. You can use these workflows to backup applications on your farm and then restore them to specific servers in your farm. These workflows are useful for backup purposes and also can aid in migrating applications between farms (e.g. QA to production).

XenApp-Backup Applications
XenApp-Restore Applications to Server

As always feel free to leave feedback in comments or email me directly.

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

With Workflow Studio 2.0 we officially support 8 different OS platforms (all on the latest service pack only):

• Windows XP x86
• Windows XP x64
• Windows Vista x86
• Windows Vista x64
• Windows Server 2003 R2 x86
• Windows Server 2003 R2 x64
• Windows Server 2008 x86
• Windows Server 2008 x64

We don't stop you from installing on unsupported platforms and the chances are pretty good that everything will work just fine. However, we know that everyone wants to use their product in a fully supported environment. As we plan for the next release, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be available. To make sure we make the right decisions on which platforms we officially support I would like to get your feedback.

Please take the polls below to let us know which platform(s) you want to be able to use Workflow Studio with and whether you need 32-bit support only, 64-bit support only, or both:

If you would like to install Workflow Studio in an unattended fashion or if you just want to learn more about the installation process, there is now an article available on the community site:

http://community.citrix.com/display/wf/Workflow+Studio+2.0+Installation+Overview

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

Alessandro over at virtualization.info commented that we need to do a better job communicating the value and capabilities of Workflow Studio:
http://www.virtualization.info/2009/09/release-citrix-workflow-studio-20.html

I have to admit, I have been focused on talking about the new version and features (I'm excited about them.) There are lots of places though where we do talk about the capabilities that Workflow Studio enables for our customers:

On the main product page for Workflow Studio we cover the 5 use cases that customers typically use Workflow Studio for:

1. Power management - Reduce power consumption in the datacenter.
2. User provisioning - Automate the process of provisioning users.
3. Dynamic resource allocation - Detect changes in user traffic patterns and automatically re-configure server resources for on-demand access.
4. Disaster recovery - Automate failover and recovery procedures.
5. Product automation - Automate repetitive tasks and ensure best practices are followed.

I am also taking each of the bullets from the original post announcing the availability of Workflow Studio 2.0 and going into more detail. I just posted Automate XenApp with Workflow Studio where I talk about some of the use cases that we based the new XenApp libraries on. I will have some sample workflows posted with video tutorials as well.

I wrote The Three Audiences of Workflow Studio back in February, but it is still just as relevant with the current version of Workflow Studio. 'Scripting guys' and developers will find a lot to like in Workflow Studio, but you don't need to be one to benefit from Workflow Studio. The drag-and-drop interface and standard way of accessing all the Citrix product APIs (as well as PowerShell, Windows, WMI, etc.) opens up access to a much broader range of people.

The Workflow Studio 2.0 Video Tutorial Series provides an introduction, an architectural overview, and an installation/configuration guide for getting started and should help save you time as you consider how to deploy Workflow Studio.

Also, I want to clarify the availability of Workflow Studio as an anonymous comment left there indicates there may be some confusion. Workflow Studio is included as part of ALL editions of the Citrix Delivery Center products - not just Platinum. Workflow Studio comes with all of the below:

• XenApp Advanced, Enterprise, or Platinum edition
• XenDesktop Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, or Platinum edition
• NetScaler Standard, Enterprise, or Platinum edition
• Essentials for XenServer Enterprise and Platinum editions
• Essentials for Hyper-V Enterprise and Platinum editions

As always leave me your feedback in the comments or email me directly...

In a previous post announcing the availability of Workflow Studio 2.0 I listed the new features that are available. Here is a closer look at the first feature mentioned:

Native XenApp activity libraries

With the 2.0 release of Workflow Studio, we now include 18 activities for managing application virtualization scenarios with XenApp. These activities provide access to your XenApp farm, servers, applications, and even sessions.

These 18 activities were designed around two key use cases:

1. Backup/Restore of applications - By providing access to retrieve current published applications as well as publishing new applications, these activities provide the ability to do automated configuration backups, QA to Production migrations, and help automate version upgrades. View sample workflows that address this use case for backup and restore.
2. Manage logons - Many customers expressed the need to be able to automatically manage access to their XenApp servers. We also received feedback that the way customers most often manage logons is through the use of customized load evaluator rules. We included activities that help manage logons for automated maintenance of XenApp servers.

These activities are installed by the activity library installer and leverage the new Commands for PowerShell to interface with XenApp. Everything you need to build a XenApp workflow is included in the installer, but to run the workflow you will need to meet two requirements:

1. You must install either Workflow Studio or a Runtime on a XenApp server in your farm as these commands do not support remote connections. The XenApp server you install it on just needs to be a member of the farm and does not need to be serving applications.
2. These activities only support XenApp 4.5 HRP3 and later. If you need access to prior versions of XenApp, you will need to use MFCOM. More information on how to use Workflow Studio with MFCOM is available in this Workflow Studio SDK MFCOM example.

Keep in mind that we also support native activities that run VBScript and PowerShell scripts. If there is something missing from our activity libraries that you want to automate you may be able to do so through a script and not actually need a native activity for a given task.

The Workflow Studio 2.0 Video Tutorial Series provides an introduction, an architectural overview, and an installation/configuration guide for getting started and should help save you time as you consider how to deploy Workflow Studio.

I'm sure our customers and partners will find other unique use cases. Feel free to leave feedback in comments or email me directly to let me know what you are doing with the product (or what you would like to be able to do.)

Workflow Studio is included with XenApp Feature Pack 2

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

I posted the first 3 videos for the Workflow Studio 2.0 video tutorial series on CitrixTV:

1. Getting Started with Workflow Studio 2.0
2. Workflow Studio 2.0 Architecture and Components
3. Installing and Configuring Workflow Studio 2.0

You can access the series and watch them all in a playlist format from here:
http://www.citrix.com/tv/series/109

I plan to add some more video tutorials to this series and also plan to do a series that explores the new features in 2.0 specifically. Let me know what you think and what other topics you want me to cover...

I'm pleased to announce that Workflow Studio 2.0 is now available:

Download Workflow Studio 2.0 (MyCitrix login required)

This release has a number of great new features and is a seamless upgrade from version 1.x. Here are some of the key new features:

• Native XenApp activity libraries (and many other additional activities)
• Remote runtimes
• Simplified management interface
• Enhanced security features
• Simplified installation and configuration
• Improved SDK
• Simplified workflow Designer
• Globalization support

I will post some more blogs over the next few days with more details on the above features and will also be updating the CDN site with many new articles, so subscribe to the Workflow Studio blog and head over to the Workflow Studio CDN site and subscribe for updates on CDN as well.

Feel free to leave feedback in comments or email me directly.

Workflow Studio will be included with XenApp Feature Pack 2

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

The Workflow Studio community site is the place to find information on all things Workflow Studio. Did you know that most of the site is also open for community contributions as well? Here is a brief overview of the sections of the site that are open for the community:

• Articles This section of the site is where you will find articles provided by the Workflow Studio product team as well as community contributed articles. Articles will typically be overviews, technical tips/tricks, how-to guides, etc.
• Activity Libraries This is where you will find all the activity libraries provided by the community. There are already some interesting ones out there from other internal groups at Citrix like the SQL Server one that Ed posted (along with the source code if you want to extend it) and the AG Standard Edition library provided by Audra.
• Workflows Here you will find workflows created by the community. Make sure you check the activity library requirements for a workflow and download the activity libraries first if required.
• Forums The forums section is for general conversation about the product, workflow development, activity library development, feature requests, etc. If you have a support question there is a dedicated support forum as well.

The main community page is also available inside Workflow Studio on the Community tab. You will also find a built-in reader for the Blogs, Workflows, and Activity Libraries sections of the site that allows you to easily search and download workflows and activity libraries right in the product.

Make sure you check each of these areas to see what is available, but I also encourage you to post your own articles, activity libraries, workflows, and questions. Don't be shy...

If anyone has any comments on the community site please post them below...

Pete