Introduction

How often have you found that there is a lot of "How To" or run-book style documentation out there, but none of them seem to completely address the combination of your requirements? And while you have expertise in one or more product areas, have you found that making the pieces work together seems challenging sometimes?

I ran into such an example not too long ago. I had to configure an Access Gateway SSL VPN to a XenDesktop environment, accelerate the traffic, and support Single Sign On. There was not a comprehensive document out there that I could leave behind with the customer.

So I took a different approach. Rather than create an exhaustive document, I just listed the steps and referenced only the specific sections in existing product documentation, knowledge base documents, and some custom information.

For my specific project needs, (User/AGEE PlugIn/Repeater PlugIn > NetScaler AGEE > Repeater > XenDesktop) I came up with the following set of instructions that I left behind with the customer.

Step One - Create the XenDesktop Environment

I, personally, was OK with setting this up. Otherwise I would have used the Evaluating XenDesktop section (Section 4) of the XenDesktop product documentation available from the Citrix eDocs site. This can be retrieved from http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/index.jsp and selecting XenDesktop.

Step Two - Install the Citrix Repeater

To insert the Citrix Repeater into the data flow, I simply performed the steps outlined in the Citrix Repeater Quick Installation Guide. This document comes with the product, or can be downloaded from the Citrix product download site(http://citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/index.asp in my case.

One note was that on the second page of this guide, the "Gateway" address referred to is the default gateway that is used by the management dialogs - not the default gateway for user traffic.

Then I added the licenses to the Repeater. The licensing process is driven by the "License Host ID" that is shown in the Repeater Management GUI. I found the details of this procedure in the Citrix Branch Repeater Licensing Guide, which was part of the product documentation set I downloaded.

Lastly, I set up the Signaling IP address. This is the Repeater-hosted IP address that the client-based repeater plug-in-in connects to in order to establish acceleration with the repeater appliance. This is discussed on page 7-84 of the Citrix Branch Repeater Family Installation and User's Guide document available from the product download section of the Citrix web site. This IP address is set in the Repeater GUI > Configure Settings > WANScaler Client panel. Note that this Signaling-IP must be enabled in the menu as well.

Step Three - Configure the NetScaler Access Gateway

In this step, I added the configuration elements to the NetScaler Access Gateway such that it would allow the Repeater to optimize the traffic to the XenDesktop infrastructure behind it. I used the instructions in the "Turbocharge Access Gateway" document which is available for download from: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX121035.

Since I was using NetScaler Access Gateway Enterprise Edition, I used only Section 7 for the details of how this is done.

Section 9 of this handy document pertains to customizing the Repeater Client software - used at the remote user's laptop, etc. - in order to pre-populate the signaling IP address. In volumes, this is good to do for ease of distribution. Because mine was a simple, limited-user configuration, I chose to let the user customize the parameter after installing the Repeater Plugin.msi (from the Citrix product download site(http://citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/index.asp in my case) on their own.

Then they simply do the following:

• Open the Receiver and right click the Acceleration Plug-in in the list.
• Selecting Manage Acceleration will present a menu to specify the Signaling-IP address.

Also, since my configuration goes straight to the XenDesktop system and not to a landing page, updating the NavUI home page as discussed on page 25 in the above document, was not required.

Lastly, because the acceleration traffic policy set above breaks the Single Sign On process, I needed another Access Gateway Traffic Policy. This traffic policy causes Repeater-specific optimization to be bypassed for all http traffic sent to the XenDesktop Desktop Delivery Controller.

I simply repeated the steps on pages 18-19, but using SSO-Policy and SSO-Profile. The specific overrides will include:

• Policy -> DestIP == <IP address of DDC> Netmask 255.255.255.255
• Profile-> Protocol = HTTP; WanScaler = OFF

Then I bound the two policies to the Traffic section in the Virtual Server's Policies tab. There I made sure that the exclusion policy is set to a higher priority (lower numeric value) than that of the generalized traffic policy. This causes optimization to be turned OFF for http (the SSO traffic) requests to the Desktop Delivery Controller only.

Acceleration is performed, however for all other (TCP) traffic to the rest of the subnet because this traffic does not match the criteria of the first policy in the list.

Summary

In following the above steps, I quickly created a configuration which authenticated and accelerated user traffic to the XenDesktop virtualized environment.

Furthermore, using the Repeater Plug-in dialogs, the user can see the actual acceleration realized.

There are two interesting trends going on in healthcare at this time (no, I am not talking about the current debate in congress). One is that we will see more and more healthcare providers use electronic medical records - a trend that is fueled by financial incentives through "stimulus money". The other is one of the consumerization of IT - specifically healthcare IT.
We see this trend in other areas as well - like employees using their personal cell phones of choice to access corporate email, or even bringing their personal laptops to work.
In healthcare, doctors are already heavy users of mobile technology - cell phones, smart phones, the ubiquitous pager etc. But today we're at a point where the consumer technology is good enough to be used for clinical purposes and can actually contribute to giving doctors a little bit of their free time and their personal life back.
Case in point: The patient calls their on-call doctor after hours with a rash or burn. In the old days, it would have required the physician to drive a possibly long distance to see the patient in order to recommend treatment. Today, she can simply ask the patient to take a picture of the ailment with a smart phone and simply email it over. In many cases, the image quality is good enough to recommend treatment and help the patient immediately.

This trend is obviously troublesome for healthcare administrators. Many actually recommend against their physicians employing "unapproved" avenues to make remote diagnosis out of fear of litigation and legal compliance violations. The dilemma is that both patients and doctors use technology out of convenience where it makes sense. It is against doctor's nature to hold back care if it is obvious how the patient can be helped right then and there.
However, I stipulate that this is actually nothing new.

• For a long time, doctors have consulted their patients over the phone and gathered enough information to diagnose and make a recommendation for treatment, so the digital information exchange actually reduces risk in many cases.
• The patients are the only rightful owner (note that I am not saying the only legal owner, this would be a different discussion) of their medical data. If they choose to share some of it over less than secure connections with their physician, it's their choice. In the age of social media and Internet-based commerce, people have become accustomed to giving up some privacy and security in exchange for faster and better service online.

So, can both groups - doctors and their patients on one side and privacy advocates, regulators, and lawyers on the other side be happy? Yes.
Some electronic medical record system vendors incorporate an internal, secure messaging feature that allows patients to communicate with their doctors and nurses directly, but through the established channels of an existing EMR implementation. In addition (or in lieu) of this capability, healthcare providers can use their smart phones, netbooks, tablets, home computers etc. to securely connect to their employers system to upload data, annotate patient notes in real time etc, check for potentially harmful allergies, etc. If the EMR implementation does not expose a fully functional web based user interface, both desktop and application virtualization technologies can make it so.
Instead of getting into the cold car and driving 50 miles through snow and ice to see a patient, the doctor on call can simply pause the movie on the living room TV, switch the set to the connected PC and securely connect to the patient's medical record, review pertinent information, write a prescription electronically (a must have under the proposed "meaningful use" criteria) and finally go back to being a private person. More personal life for caregivers, faster service for patients - enabled through technology.

Follow me on twitter: @florianbecker

The best representation of this type of license is a service such as mobile phones. For years now consumers have paid for usage when it comes to mobile phone services. Starting with voice, you pay so much per month for each voice "minute" used. The currency can be different but typically the unit of measure is the same... minutes per currency. You don't own the network and you don't own the software that enables the voice traffic to traverse the many repeaters, routers and uplinks, but you still get the service... every month with a similar Service Level Agreement. This is a pay-as-you-go or pay-as-you-consume minutes model. This is a basic definition of Consumption Based Licensing.

The next phase of licensing in the mobile phone market was to set a "term" for usage. The phone company asked the consumer to pay a set amount based on a number of used minutes in a fixed number of months (usually a 12 or 24 month "term"). So the contract was a certain currency per month for a maximum number of voice minutes over a 12 or 24 month term. If the consumer used more than the allocated minutes, the usage reverted back to a pay-as-you-go model. Certainly the currency for usage for this "overage" was a premium because the usage was not a part of the "Term" contract.

Phone companies next introduced data services called "text messaging" which started once again in a pay-as-you-go (or consumption based) model. Each text message cost a certain amount of currency. Once the market became established a new contract was set in place again based on a term. For "n" number of text messages per month a fixed fee was allocated over a certain term (once again usually 12 or 24 months).

This service is a good representation for a consumption licensing model. The business implications of such a licensing model are not as straight forward. For instance a simple calculation of owning an asset versus renting it (or using it as it is consumed) carries some interesting implications. Take for instance the asset we call software. The government allows corporations to depreciate their assets as a portion of their costs. Assets (whether software or hardware) carry with them a schedule of depreciation that spans a term of time (usually between 3 to 5 years... sometimes longer). These assets are considered "capital" and are depreciated because they lose their value over time. The depreciated asset is a part of what most accountants would call the Capital Expense portion of a profit and loss statement.

Assets that are not owned (leased or rented) may not be depreciated because they are typically a monthly expense. These expenses become a part of the Operating costs of a business and are usually represented as an "operational expense". The advantage of purchasing assets versus renting or buying them is that the business can continue to use the asset even after it has been fully depreciated and so there is a tax benefit for the depreciation taken off of the balance sheet but the asset remains valuable all the way through its life even after being "fully" depreciated.

If all of this sounds complex... IT IS! The important thing to understand is that capital assets are fixed costs. They are an asset that is owned and the company that purchases the asset also purchases the liability of that asset (i.e. its depreciated or loss of value). When renting or leasing an asset the cost is variable in that it only hits the balance sheet during the period of use. In most cases this is month by month. Assets that are purchased in this way would be considered pay-as-you-go or consumption based.

Why is all of this accounting so important to running a business when you are considering consumption based licenses? Because the state of your business will often times dictate how you are going to pay for an asset. For instance, if you have a growing business and you are "cash poor" (not a good deal of cash in the bank) you may want to use a consumption model to pay for your assets and use the cash on hand for hiring additional people (expanding your payroll)... something you can't pay over extended periods of time. In this case, cash flow may in fact demand that you use a consumption model.

Another reason to use a consumption based pricing model is to insure your assets are on the Operational Expense side of your balance sheet. This allows you to show the asset as a cost on a monthly basis and not a depreciated cost over several years. You may save additionally on maintenance of that asset because you don't own it. If it becomes worn out or obsolete, you simply rent/lease the newer item.

All of this is to say that simple comparisons for costing capital based assets versus consumption based assets may not be valid unless you take into account all of the elements of the business. Cash flow, cost of currency (inflation), rapid growth and asset depreciation all must be considered when considering consumption versus capital models.

An example of this difference is the Microsoft SPLA program program. Assets (Microsoft software) that were once considered capital can now be relegated to the Operations Expense of a company by having third party hosting companies "rent" the software to you. Hosting companies in the CSP program work the same way CSP program.

Install, stream, host, Oh My!!! 

Many of you have heard me talk about the different ways to deliver applications into a virtual desktop: installing, streaming, hosting and VM-hosting.  As with all options in life, each one of these has their pros/cons.  However, I recently found a way to remove one of the cons out of the equation for installed applications.

Although we like to say "No" to installing applications, for some organizations and applications it might still makes sense. It is easier (because we are used to it), installing supports every application, and it gives the fastest application launch time compared to any other option.  My recommendation has been to install your common applications in your golden desktop image.  If everyone needs the applications, then just install it to give the users the fastest experience possible. 

Makes sense so far. But what about those applications that we want to run on the desktop but do not stream?  We would install them. But unfortunately, when you install an application into a desktop image, everyone who uses that image will see the application - D'oh!  This is probably not something most people will want to happen.  Why am I seeing this application if I don't need it? Most administrators when faced with this situation, would take the most logical course of action... Build a new desktop image for a particular group of users.  Sounds reasonable, but this now requires you to maintain a different image with additional locally installed applications.  The maintenance requirements starts to increase exponentially. 

BUT, what if you could use a single image and put all of your installed applications into that image while still allowing the users to see only what they need to see?  Seems like we could reduce the number of desktop images.  It is possible and it can be summed up in two works: Published Content.

Published Content is a little used feature in XenApp. Instead of publishing applications, you essentially publish content which are links, URLs, shortcuts.  If we publish a shortcut link to the installed application, we can determine which users will see icon.  When a user selects the icon, which is pointing to the executable file on the desktop, the application starts immediately.  And with the use of Dazzle, we can allow the users to configure their start menu with the icons as they see fit. 

Of course this doesn't do anything for those users who are smart enough to go searching on the local virtual desktop C: drive and can find the physical executable file.  But you can use Active Directory policies to disable certain users from executing certain applications.  (User Configuration - Administrative Templates - System - Don't run specified Windows applications)

Of course to set this up, you have to get the application installed, publish content, and set an Active Directory security policy. But once it is configured, you have one less desktop image to maintain and adding/removing users to a particular application just involves adding/removing users from a particular Active Directory group membership. 

Now you have another option in your bag of tricks.  Hope it helps

Daniel

Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
Blog for Next-Gen Desktop: Ask The Architect
Questions, then email Ask The Architect
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This is going to be a quick post, but something that have been passionate about for some time so here it goes,

Let's start off this post with a number, 34!. Did you know that is how many SDK's we offer for extending or tieing into Citrix products. Thats a hefty amount of platform SDK's to build upon.

As developer's we are always looking for platforms to build on, enabling better integration into applications, providing a better user experience, etc. Weather it be for IT Administators or for traditional end user's we can use these SDK's as a platform to build on.

As mentioned earlier there are 34 SDK's available so lets break them down by product.

Thats a pretty significant number of SDK's to start to build upon.

So what if you dont have access to a XenApp environment, not everyone has a datacenter and server farm in their backyard, right? Don't fret, there are a few options for you.
1) We offer a developer's version of XenApp along with a Developer license. This will give you access to XenApp free of charge and will let you start to built services/applications on today of the infrastructure.
2) Amazon EC2 - Will this service you can build you XenApp up in the Amazon cloud where you can start developing. This service does cost though, I believe it's aroun 15 cents an hour of uptime, but check with amazon to be sure!

You can download the Developer Edition of XenApp at the following location. Remember, you will need a MyCitrix Account in order to download.

On a final note, you might be saying, well how much stuff can we do, automate publishing an application?

Well, what could be some interesting user experiences where the SDK's could help. How about a single interface for all of your apps no matter what kind they are, Maybe a silverlight alternative to Web Interface (I think there is one like this already, at least there was long time ago), Maybe integrate Web Interface into you windows app (or a subset of it to facilitate some launching mechanism)? Maybe integrate MFCOM/Powershell into your custom provision system to add users to an application when they get access to it or write some Workflow Activities and make them available to the community? All of these things are possible with the use of the SDK's. Let's use these tools to develop some interesting scenario's. As developer's lets start to push the envelope!

Do you have any cool XenApp code that could benefit the community, head on over to the Citrix Community Site and participate.

As always, let me know what you think. You can find me at john dot mcbride at citrix dot com or you can catch my on twitter at @johnmcbride

Hello Mac Enthusiasts,

Have you or your users ever said:

• I really like the Bring Your Own Computer idea and I want to use my Mac, but my company doesn't support Macs
• I wish I could use my Mac to run the same applications my windows PC can run
• I would like to be able to run Outlook on my Mac but Vbox and Parallels are too much work and add too much complexity to an otherwise user friendly OS

Then I have a solution for you...Citrix Receiver for Mac!

With Receiver for Mac, along with Citrix XenApp and Dazzle, you will be able to search for and run all of your favorite Windows apps as if they were locally installed on your Mac. After selecting your apps with Dazzle, our one-stop enterprise app store, you can launch your apps from the Applications folder. You can even drag those windows apps to the doc and run them from there! It's that simple. Coherence Mode...what's that? Virtual Machines...who needs 'em? With Citrix Receiver for Mac you don't have to worry about these things any longer.

Receiver for Mac is downloaded from and configured by the Citrix Merchandising Server. Receiver, as well as the Online and Dazzle plug-ins for Mac install in minutes and are properly configured. Try it today! All you have to do is download the Merchandising Server 1.2 from MyCitrix. Please take a moment to watch our announcement video here on CitrixTV!

As always please let us know your thoughts!

Aaron Videtto
Product Manager
aaron.videtto@citrix.com

Learn more about the XA 6 R2 Release

• Read XenApp 6 Press Release
• Watch XenApp 6 press announcement video
• Register for XenApp Tech Talks
• Learn more about XenApp 6
• Follow XenApp on | | |

Announcing XenApp 6, the best on-demand application delivery solution! You probably have seen Harry's blog on this announcement giving a great overview of the effort involved in bringing this release to market. In addition to all the great features available today, XenApp 6 has the following new features and enhancements:

Citrix Receiver

The new Citrix Receiver for Windows supports eight languages with expanded support for plug-ins including Single sign-on, WAN acceleration, App-V and EasyCall. There is a new Dazzle-enabled Receiver for Mac. And for mobile devices, users can use Receiver on iPhone, Android or Windows Mobile to access applications hosted on XenApp 6

Dazzle

End users now have the freedom to subscribe to XenApp applications (including App-V packages) using Dazzle on their PC or Mac

HDX

Collaboration via Microsoft OCS Video conferencing. This HDX RealTime feature enables customers to host Microsoft Office Communicator on XenApp servers to enable end users to use their web cams for video conferencing. The solution even works for WAN connections and we have seen good results for connections with 200ms latency!

Enhanced audio through new audio codec technology. With the new "Optimized for speech" codec, HDX RealTime delivers clear audio quality to softphone and voice chat users with very modest bandwidth consumption (less than 20 Kbps). Any server rendered video will also benefit from the new "High definition" codec which provides CD quality audio using 90% less bandwidth

Enhancements for delivery of VoIP soft phones. Customers can deploy softphones (Avaya, etc.) on XenApp servers where the voice traffic can leverage the new HDX audio codecs and new client-side features like echo cancellation

True Multi-monitor support. The new solution expands our current Multi-monitor support by improving application compatibility when using Multiple monitors with better performance and quality

Support for Windows Portable USB Devices. This feature enables end users to plug in their USB devices (cameras, scanners, point of sale devices etc.) and seamlessly access them from their hosted XenApp 6 desktops and apps

AppCenter (Management)

Single management console. Administrators can now use a single management console to administer their entire XenApp farm. The management console has been completely redesigned for simplicity and performance

Active Directory Group Policy integration. XenApp policies and server/farm settings have now been added to Active Directory group policies enabling administrators to manage XenApp policies using their AD infrastructure. This simplifies customer environments and enables administrators to leverage all the Group Policy features when administering Citrix policies. For more details check out Juliano's blog series

Publish applications and load balance across worker groups. Administrators can now create "Worker groups" with one or more servers and publish applications and create load balancing policies across these worker groups. This simplifies application workload/silo management and ensures that all the servers in a worker group have the same applications and policies, thus eliminating 'configuration drift'

Simplified install. We have completely redesigned the install from ground up to make it simple, fast and intuitive. You can now install XenApp Platinum with all its features in a few clicks. Also, by separating the install from configuration we simplified XenApp deployments using Provisioning services or other image management solutions

Enhanced scalability and performance. Compared to XenApp 5, you will see about 15-20% more users increasing single server scalability and hence reducing the TCO of XenApp delivered applications and desktops

PowerShell SDK. Administrators can now use the power of PowerShell to automate XenApp management tasks. We have completely rebuilt the XenApp SDK using PowerShell

Windows service isolation for streamed applications. Applications like Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office 2010 (which is in Beta) install a windows service and can now be profiled and streamed using the new service isolation technology

Microsoft App-V support. Customers can now distribute App-V plug-in to end point devices using Citrix Receiver, publish App-V packages using XenApp and let their end users subscribe to App-V packaged applications using Dazzle

New Citrix license usage and trending reports. Customers can now obtain rich reports on Citrix license usage and trends. We integrated our license reports into EdgeSight and are making these reports available to all XenApp edition customers

Multi-lingual User Interface. XenApp now supports MUI enabling customers to deploy one XenApp server to serve a diverse group of user population who need access to their applications in their local language

In addition to these major features and enhancements, XenApp 6 is packed with other features like 32-bit color support, Graphics acceleration for WPF applications, Windows 7 smart card support, Web Interface, Single sign-on and SmartAuditor enhancements, etc. And we will release XenApp 6 to web on March 24th.

Learn more

• Read Press Release
• Watch announcement video
• Register for XenApp Tech Talks
• Learn more about XenApp6
• Follow XenApp on | | |

Today we announced XenApp 6 to continue building upon our vision of delivering on-demand applications and desktops to both virtual and physical hosts. XenApp 6 raises the bar for TCO and performance, and is also an integrated feature of our desktop virtualization solution, XenDesktop 4.

We don't usually talk about what it takes internally to develop a product. However, in this case it's worth knowing that this has in effect been a complete rewrite of the XenApp code base for the x64 platform. This clean slate effort really provided a fantastic opportunity to optimize the code base for performance and scalability and provides a solid new base on which we can continue to innovate. While this massive change is transparent to customers, I am very proud of our teams for accomplishing this with the additional pressure to innovate new features for our customers. Here are some of the highlights.

Yes we heard, make the management simpler! AppCenter is a new single management console and is something that our customers have been asking us to do for years, and we've added Powershell 2.0 support. A brand new code base provided us with an optimal opportunity to start fresh, I hope you like it and would love to hear feedback so we can continue to make it better.

Installation just got simpler by adding roles to the installation process. This means your Farm member servers can be installed in a way so they just focus on delivering desktops and applications and your Farm infrastructure servers can be installed to focus on all the Farm management and operational tasks. This improves reliability, scalability and performance with a rethink of our core architecture and a ton of smart code changes! Our goal at Citrix is to continue to simplify our products.

Policy management also just got simpler with Active Directory group policy support. Here's a good external blog from Nicholas Dille that gives some detail. I'd also encourage you to check out Juliano Maldaner's blog who is our lead XenApp architect.

XenApp 6 is a move to x64 and runs on top of Windows 2008 Server R2. We spent a ton of time optimizing for scalability to take advantage of x64. In our internal testing, we've really been pleased with the improvements. We've managed to run server farms with over 1000 member servers and 100,000 concurrent sessions. Whether you are an Enterprise customer or Service Provider your TCO for delivering desktops or applications just got better.

In the context of desktops use cases, I really believe that for structured task workers this makes a lot of sense. Not everybody needs or requires VDI and now with XenApp 6 you can build a much more compelling TCO business case as part of your desktop virtualization strategy. It's really important to understand that XenApp remains strategic to us as a core component of delivering desktops and applications with a fantastic TCO.

We've added isolation of services to our product line, that will increase the number of applications that you can support with XenApp. At the same time our partnership with Microsoft continues to get stronger and[ App-V integration|http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2009/07/13/Citrix+and+Microsoft+Expand+Desktop+Virtualization+Partnership+to+Simplify+Desktop+Management] is available. This let's XenApp focus on on-demand applications and user self service. App-V managed apps can now be delivered via Citrix Dazzle which empowers the end user to pick the apps they want. I really believe that these are the kinds of services that users want vs. IT trying to serve just basic needs and predicting what users will want. The world is moving to a consumer mindset and this is just the beginning.

We also spent a lot of time adding additional capabilities to HDX to enable better multimedia and peripheral support. I really like the improvements in audio quality to enable me to use VoIP softphones and the fact that I can now use OCS video due to broader USB device support. HDX for our entire product line is an area that we will continue to invest in and raise the bar. I look forward to sharing more in the future.

One question I often get asked is how can Citrix help us with application migrations? I want to point out App-DNA and that we are working very closely with them to help customers. I would encourage everybody to talk to them as your consider application migrations. They have a really good product that makes life simpler.

So there you have it folks. A brand spanking new XenApp that takes it to the next level for on-demand delivery of applications and desktops. It will be available for download on March 24th. I hope you like it, and as always Citrix is happy to listen to your feedback to help us make things even better.

There have been a number of predictions that say that the Internet address space is going to run out either this year or next. And if you look at the numbers, then it looks like this might well happen soon. We all expect the Internet to see world wide adoption, with the biggest growth in Asia and Africa in the next 10 years. If we assume that "wide adoption" means that 20% of the world population have a device that they can use to connect to the internet, then we would need more than twice the number of /8 subnets than can be accommodated under the currently prevailing IPv4 addressing scheme (some say we'd need over 700 vs. the 256 available).

Traditionally, we have dealt with the shortage in IP addresses by creating private subnets (such as a company or home network) and arranging network address translation (NAT) at the edge. The level of separation between subnets and between each subnet and the wider Internet also provides an opportunity for inserting a firewall to provide more security. So, we have a way of putting off the event of running out of addresses and are doing it with a nice security advantage.

But we are using ever more devices that require a direct connection to the Internet. For example, the number of mobile phones with browsers has exploded. Consumer devices such as games consoles are expected to communicate with others across the globe and from anywhere. A number of innovations in industry, retail, and transport sectors involve devices that can interact with others, and thus require an IP address.

The only solution to the problem is to substantially increase the address space, and IPv6 [RFC 1752] is the way to do this. IPv6 was developed into a standard between 1995 and 2006. In 2007, the OECD produced a ministerial background report on the economic considerations of a switch from IPv4 to IPv6. It identified the need for government action, and acknowledged that there would be a significant costs associated with a switch of this kind. And the benefit from the switch: the Internet keeps working ... without brown-outs ... but without any new features that can be sold to customers to help pay for the huge necessary investment. No wonder that Internet Service Providers are dragging their feet.  And enterprise network managers are equally worried, because renumbering a network is about the most frightening thing for them to undertake: it will break all sorts of things that cannot be predicted. In a period of economic slowdown, such jobs get put off. This state of affairs makes government action and legislation the most likely drivers for IPv6 adoption.

There are also many rumours and stories abound on the differences between IPv4 and IPv6 . I found chapter 2 in "Global IPv6 Strategies: From Business Analysis to Operational Planning" very well written. And it is available for you to read online here. If you are interested in the history of IPv6, the drivers for the change from IPv4 and a clear explanation of how IPv6 will deal with routing, multi-homing, plug and play autoconfiguration, quality of service, mobility, security, and renumbering, then I would thoroughly recommend you take a look at chapter 2 in this book.

 OECD report: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/7/1/40605942.pdf

RF 1752   http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1752.txt

"Global IPv6 Strategies: From Business Analysis to Operational Planning", chapter 2 "IPv4 or IPv6 - Myths and Realities": http://media.techtarget.com/searchNetworking/downloads/IPv4_or_IPv6.pdf

Are you using Windows 7 yet? Has your organization migrated yet?  Have you been reading all there is to know about Windows 7 migrations?  Then I must ask why you didn't attend the Ask the Architect TechTalk on February 25th.  Not only did we talk about the expected challenges most will face during the migration, but we also focused on how we can overcome these like we've never been able to do before, thanks to advances in technology like desktop virtualization and application virtualization. 

First, if you want to hear what was discussed, it's not too late. You can watch the Windows 7 Migration recording.  The great thing about the recording is that you can repeat sections over and over again. To get an idea of the topics covered, the following is the Q&A from the live event:

Q: How do you suggest we migrate from physical profile to virtual profile as we have no virtual desktops yet

A: You can' migrate from Win XP to Win 7 profiles. You have to pull sections from the old profile and import them into the new profile via with tools like Citrix Profile Management or AppSense.  Of course, you have to test as some of the locations might change between OS versions. If you want a lot more information regarding profiles, then I suggest you attend this upcoming Ask the Architect TechTalk about Profiles.

Q: How does USMT tool fit into migrating with XenDesktop?

A: The User State Migration Tool would be difficult to use in this scenario.  As I've seen it used, it essentially snapshots your Windows XP image and then has Windows 7 link into the old image.  This means we would have to store all of the Windows XP items from all of your users, this could be a lot of space.  Also, I always prefer to start users with a clean slate when moving to a new operating system to help optimize their environment.  Of course, we would pull a few important items over, but it is still more optimized than if you would try to reuse the entire environment. 

Q: In my company (tele-marketing) we are using an application which requires the use of audio-resources, will it work fine with virtual desktops ?

A: Sound does work with XenDesktop virtual desktops. You can even use microphones and have 2-way conversations within the virtual desktop. However, not knowing the applications/audio requirements you will really need to test the application to make sure it performs as expected.

Q: What about IE6 to IE8 app incompatibility when you move to Win7.  We find lots of apps not compatible with IE8.  Same for vendor apps.

A: Unfortunately, you will need to find a way to run IE6. Since Windows 7 already has IE8 installed, you really can't move backwards.  You have two other options:

Option 1: Use a hosted IE6 from a Windows 2003 XenApp server.

Option 2: Use published IE6 from a Windows XP desktop that is delivered as a VM Hosted Application via XenApp.

Q: what are the software options for streaming apps?

A: The two most common application streaming options are to use XenApp Application Streaming or Microsoft App-V.  Both can easily be integrated within the XenDesktop images.

These were just a few of the questions discussed during the Ask the Architect TechTalk.  If you want to hear more, then feel free to listen to the recorded webinar.

Daniel

Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
Blog for Next-Gen Desktop: Ask The Architect
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Last week, when we launched Access Gateway VPX and Branch Repeater VPX, I blogged about the feedback customers gave us. In this blog, I want to discuss the feedback from channel partners from a few focus groups and meetings over the past few quarters.

Traditionally, vendors talk about competitive dynamics when discussing customers. That is normal because new product launches often don't fundamentally change partners' practices of or decisions about any given vendor. Such product launches don't really sway the partners to favor one product over others or switch from one vendor to another.

Now that seems to be changing. Rather than seeking just industry-leading technologies that address customers' problems, channel partners are seeking solutions that will help transform their sales and services productivity and profitability. With physical appliances, partners often faced the following challenges:

1. How many NFR (not-for-resale) units of physical appliances should a partner purchase? This is the classic dilemma a partner faces when forecasting their sales and POC (proof-of-concept) pipeline. Purchase too many physical NFR units and they are faced with the possibility of idling - and depreciating - NFR units after the spike in sales or POC pipeline gives way to normal baseline sales trends. Purchase too few physical NFR units and they are faced with the possibility of missed sales opportunities, especially considering that any order of physical NFR units will at best take a few days -  weeks if you are internationally located - to ship. Either way, partners are forced to take on additional risks - CAPEX budget or lost revenues - something they would like to take out of their productivity and profitability equation.
2. What should a partner do if the customer asks them to leave behind the POC equipment for a few more days so they can kick the tires and play around with the POC? This is another dilemma a partner faces: damned they are if they oblige the customer because that ties up their limited equipment, which can't be used in other sales or POCs; damned they are if they don't oblige the customer because that is not the brightest approach to building customer relationship, satisfaction and loyalty.
3. Should a partner really have to stock each of their vendor's physical NFR units? When a partner practices selling WAN optimization or secure access SSL VPNs from multiple vendors, they often would like to be able to use the same server hardware for demonstrating any vendor's WAN optimization or SSL VPN solution. Why? Because using standardized commodity server hardware truly transforms the cost-benefit-risk equation, and in doing so their productivity and profitability.This is where virtual appliances come in to the picture. A partner forecasts their baseline POC pipeline and budgets for physical NFR units to meet part or whole of the baseline demand. For any spikes or variability in demand, the partner leverages virtual appliances to build flexibility and agility in their POC delivery model - all without adding risk to their business or operational model. No more paying for NFR units and then writing them off as depreciation later. 

Virtual appliances do change the operating model for partners by allowing them to leverage commodity server hardware for running any network virtual appliance from any vendor.

With virtual appliances, partners now can have customers spare their server hardware, deploy virtual appliances on that server hardware for their POCs, and let the customers play with the POCs as long as they want; all while the partner moves on to their next sale and POC!

After listening to partners feedback, we are offering free NFR instances of Access Gateway VPX and Branch Repeater VPX to our channel partners. This goes a long way to help partners realize the efficiencies and profitability discussed above.

If you are a partner, let us know how you are planning to leverage virtual appliances to transform your business and operating model.

Finally, don't mistake 'virtualized platforms' with 'virtual appliances'; not all so-called 'virtual appliances' are created equal; more on that in my next blog!

Sai Allavarpu

In my previous two posts, I've described how XenApp for 2008 R2 configuration can be defined as XenApp Template-based Management, and how it can be defined as Group Policy integration in XenApp for 2008 R2. Today I will cover some common questions I get when explaining this new configuration model. Please feel free to add yours in the comments sessions below, if I didn't cover here.

Why XenApp has two ways to configure settings?

The Group Policy and the IMA policy system are in fact the same - settings coming from either will merge in a single, predictable Resulting Setting of Policies.

One way to think about it is that IMA has an additional GPO associated with the farm itself, and stored in the IMA data store. This GPO is what you edit when you change Policies in Delivery Services Console.

In case of setting conflicts, which policy document will take precedence?

Group Policy takes precedence over IMA; and IMA takes precedence over Local Group Policies. If you configure a GPO setting "SecureICA minimum encryption level" to RC5 128 bits, then you cannot override this configuration at the farm GPO or LGPO level.

How can I track from where settings are coming from?

The best way to track applied settings of a computer or session is to run a Resulting Set of Policies Logging report from GPMC. This report will show all Citrix settings configured via policy, and which Group Policy object - including the IMA GPO and filters - has actually won the merging calculation.

The policy report doesn't show the value I'm looking for!

RSoP doesn't display settings that policies have not configured. If you are looking for a specific setting, and it doesn't show on reports, then the value being enforced is "default". You can read the setting description in the policy editor to find what the default value for each setting is.

How does it work exactly?

When you edit a Group Policy object using GP Editor, we store your configuration in a file called \\<domain>\SYSVOL\<domain>\Policies\<guid>\<Machine or User>\Citrix\GroupPolicy\Policies.GPF. When you edit Policies in the Delivery Services Console, we store this same GPF structure in the IMA data store.

Every time Group Policies are evaluated on a XenApp server - server reboot; user logon; and randomized refresh intervals - we will retrieve these GPF files from SYSVOL and the datastore. Our Client-side Extension then evaluates filters and merges the results into a single RSoP, in the system registry (HKLM\Software\Policies\Citrix). Various software components then read the registry values and enforce the settings.

This diagram shows the conceptual model behind XenApp for 2008 R2 policy system.

What is the "Unfiltered" policy, how filtering works?

You will always find a Policy named "Unfiltered" when you edit any GPO. There's nothing special to it - it's just a default policy rule that applies to all machines and users in scope of that policy.

What is the "scope of the policy"? Group Policy Objects are linked to one or more Organizational Units in GPMC. GPOs may also have WMI filters. Only servers and users that are under OUs linked by that policy, and that match the optional WMI filters will process the policy. Other computers and users will ignore it. This is standard GPO processing.

The IMA Policy scope is the farm itself - i.e., settings added to the "Unfiltered" IMA policy will apply to all servers and users in that farm.

We've added an additional filtering system, allowing you to create additional settings and rules within each GPO. When you select "New..." in our policy editor, you will enter a set of configuration, and rules to apply that configuration. For example, you may set Bandwidth limits for end-point devices of a certain IP range; or restrict clipboard access for users of a specific AD security group.

We've created this extra filtering system for two reasons: first, we have additional filters related to the endpoint itself - AAC, endpoint IP, endpoint name - that are not available in WMI; second, some of our customers have very large number of policies (over 1000), and Group Policies wouldn't scale to those levels.

If you have a very large number of rules based on endpoint IP or name, then you should use the Citrix filtering rules - for example, setting a different Default Printer per endpoint name. Other than that, either way works fine. As a rule of thumb, you should minimize the overall number of Group Policy Objects, as a large number of GPOs may impact logon times.

Should I use Group Policies or configure settings in the DSC?

You should use Group Policies if you can. If you have some control over the server OU structure, and has the necessary delegation to Group Policies, GPO integration will give you the best user experience. You can leverage GPMC and AGPM functionality, and perform server management actions exclusively in Active Directory consoles.

However, if you have no delegated access to AD, then you can still fully manage your farm through the IMA policy.

We've heard it loud and clear that most XenDesktop implementations are based on either:
•Totally new Citrix implementation based on XenDesktop only
•Existing XenApp environments that are adding XenDesktop, whether based on XenDesktop for a distinct
group of pilot users or presenting XenApp hosted apps through XenDesktop

For the latter, administrators are faced with determining if/how to reuse the existing infrastructure to make the transition smooth. If you've already seen the Adding XenDesktop to an Existing XenApp Environment white paper or Adding XenDesktop to Existing XenApp Environments TechTalk, you already know how to transition the Citrix features and components, but how should you transition the user profiles?

As you may have noticed, Citrix is encouraging a much more open architecture than we have in the past. We want you to successfully implement XenDesktop, and if Microsoft profiles or Citrix Profile management enable you to do that, great. If a third-party profile solution such as AppSense facilitates XenDesktop, so be it.

Many environments use Terminal Services roaming or mandatory profiles to support XenApp, which is a fine solution. But, that same profile configuration can't be used as is for XenDesktop because a Terminal Services profile is loaded only by computers that have Terminal Services installed; XenDesktop VDAs don't incorporate Terminal Services.

What does that mean? For example, for Terminal Services roaming profiles, that means that user settings, such as folder views, stored in the user profile can't be applied to other computers, such as the local computer or XenDesktop VDAs, unless . . . some configuration adjustments are made. Could you point a network roaming profile to the same location as the existing Terminal Services roaming profile? Technically, yes. But do you want to do that? Maybe, maybe not.

If your users will be accessing multiple resources, i.e., XenApp and XenDesktop VDAs, at the same time, then calling the same roaming profile can create last writer wins issues. Because this type of profile saves everything, not just deltas, during each logoff, only the changes incorporated during the last session that closes down are retained; interim profile writes are overwritten. Users don't like it when settings are "mysteriously" overwritten.

There may be operating system differences. For example, settings within a profile used to support XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2003 differ slightly when compared to Windows 7. And how GPOs are applied. And . . . well you get it. All the more reason that choosing the right profile solution is extremely important to ensure the best user experience!

Yikes, this is getting complicated!

If you're spending too much time in Profile-ville, mark your calendar for the User Profiles for XenApp and/or XenDesktop TechTalk Solving User Profile Challenges for XenApp and/or XenDesktop TechTalk to be held on April 6th. See you there!

My earlier blog focuses on finished applications. What if you want to write a DocFinder like application yourself. I've written a complete sample application that can get you started.

The sample application includes reusable styles that you can use in your web based or WPF based applications.

Please visit Citrix CDN code share site to download the sample application with complete source code and see more details.

Ray (Ruiguo) Yang
Check out my other blogs
Subscribe to my blog RSS feed
twitter me @rayyangcitrix
email me at ray dot yang at citrix dot com

Thousands of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are asking this question.  The hosting business is burgeoning, but if there is only one degree of separation, what is the value from one MSP to another.  At a recent conference I attended Lance Crosby, the CEO of SoftLayer said it plain and simple, "We are focused on the Infrastructure as a Service model.  Making money off of hosting Exchange is not our business model.  We are the Cloud Data Center that hosting providers should be using."  In other words, do what you do best, and let someone else spend the money to capitalize for growth.

So if focus is the key to success... and SoftLayer has become a $100 million business in just 4 short years by applying this principle... then how does a MSP get better focus?  Well let's start with what customers are asking for.  In a recent report published by Microsoft, SMBs are focused on how to get more from their business by spending less on their IT.  Hosted Exchange is about getting more professional and going to a business grade email system.  These same SMBs are smart enough to realize that there is an opportunity cost to doing IT themselves, even if it is just to set up and maintain an Exchange server.  So they outsource this drudgery to a local hosting provider and spend the savings in headcount on another sales person or engineer or manufacturing guy.  That's not a hard sell and so many SMBs are doing this it has actually created a herd mentality to move in this direction.  Why not use this as the spring board for other services.  Take for instance DR?

Most SMBs carry some kind of property and casualty insurance on their business, but don't think twice about backing up their own mission critical data on CDs or an external drive sitting in a broom closet somewhere.  And so as the old adage goes, you don't need life insurance unless you die.  Well you don't need a disaster recovery plan until your building burns down with your back ups inside with all of your other equipment.  This is a great place to start for hosting providers who are looking for the next thing. 

Why not be your customer's DR plan?  You already have a trusted relationship with the subscribing customer and it makes sense that you'd help him address the problem he does not know he has.... doesn't it?

But don't stop there!  If you are truly a "trusted advisor" then you need to talk to your customer about a bundle of services that includes a business productivity suite like Microsoft Office - an extension of Exchange and a total Disaster Recovery plan that enables him to have a peace of mind every time he walks away from the building.  Why is it important to have this discussion at the same time you ask?  Because if you offer a bundle that includes Office through single instance management, you will be able to back up the customer's data as an extension of your datacenter.  If you're going to capitalize with servers and RAID drives (or better yet let someone like SoftLayer do it for you)  why wouldn't you offer a virtual Office suite and charge for subscription based applications along with the DR? The two go hand-in-hand and you will add more value to your customer with a higher margin for yourself.

To do this you have to develop a plan to sell the bundle first.  Talk to your customers about how valuable their data is and what it would cost to replace it.  Then have a discussion about how easy it would be to bundle a service so that they can get access to any of their applications on-demand and have a source for backing up all of the data at the same time.  If you do the calculations correctly, your customer will thank you for providing a plan to recovery in the event of a disaster and a way to access applications and information from anywhere... including remote locations like a home office or even on the road.

Those margins are out there waiting for you.  All you have to do is match the demand with your solution.

In the spirit of the Golden Gate, Citrix Education wants to help bridge the gap between you and the industry's only conference focused on the convergence of the hottest technologies of the day. The first 25 partners to purchase 2 Citrix Training Passes for re-sell will receive a full conference pass to both Summit and Synergy San Francisco - for free! Learn more

Citrix customers are also eligible to participate. The first 25 customers to purchase 2 CTPs will get a free pass to Synergy - find out how

In the spirit of the Golden Gate, Citrix Education wants to help bridge the gap between you and the industry's only conference focused on the convergence of the hottest technologies of the day - virtualization, networking and cloud computing. Synergy San Francisco, May 12-14 2010, will deliver the focused and in-depth information about today's technologies needed to radically simplify computing and deliver IT as an on-demand service. Be one of the first 25 customers to purchase 2 Citrix Training Passes (CTP) and receive a full conference pass to Synergy San Francisco - for free! Learn More

Citrix Partners are also eligible to participate. The first 25 partners to purchase 2 CTPs for re-sell will get a free pass to both Summit and Synergy San Francisco. Find out how 

As mentioned in Sai's post last week, Access Gateway is now available as a virtual appliance. This brings all the benefits of server virtualization to the network appliance space: rapid deployment, high availability, and quick recovery in response to hardware problems.

Virtualizing Access Gateway also dramatically lowers the cost of an Access Gateway solution, enabling more customers to afford the value it brings to any Citrix deployment: strong authentication, network-layer tunneling, endpoint interrogation, and adaptive access control just to name a few. But, as I have heard from many of you since the initial launch of Access Gateway several years ago, requiring a per-CCU license for ICA connections still made Access Gateway comparatively expensive, given that the Windows-based Secure Gateway component allowed unlimited connections to XenApp for free. The per-user license cost prevented many of you from deploying Access Gateway.

That's why when we launched Access Gateway VPX, we also fundamentally changed the pricing and packaging for the Access Gateway product line. All Access Gateway appliances now include free, unlimited secure access to XenApp hosted applications and XenDesktop hosted desktops.

Previously, all connections through Access Gateway required an Access Gateway CCU license, even if the connection was just a simple SSL relay of the ICA traffic between a client and XenApp or XenDesktop. Now when you buy any Access Gateway appliance (physical or virtual), you receive an Access Gateway Platform License that unlocks the full capacity of the underlying hardware to be used for SSL encapsulation of XenApp or XenDesktop (ICA/HDX) connections.

If you already own an Access Gateway that's covered by Warranty or Maintenance, you're also entitled to get a free platform license using the Upgrades/Fulfillment toolbox on MyCitrix. The platform license works on Access Gateway appliances running firmware version 4.6 or later, and will also work on NetScaler appliances starting with version 9.2, which is expected later this month.

You'll still need an Access Gateway CCU license if you're going to make use of the more advanced features like VPN tunneling, Endpoint Analysis, SmartAccess, HTML rewrite, or File Type Association. But there's good news here as well: the price of the Access Gateway Universal CCU license has dropped from a starting price of $170 down to $100, and if you own Access Gateway Standard Edition CCUs, you can upgrade them to AG Universal licenses for free.

So, if you ever passed up the opportunity to try out Access Gateway in the past because it was too expensive, it's time to take another look. Want to see Access Gateway VPX in action? The video demo below shows how Access Gateway VPX offers a convenient and economical way to deliver secure remote access to hosted applications or virtual desktops using off-the-shelf hardware.

Jay

I often get the question about support for Windows 7 in Citrix Single Sign-On (previously known as Password Manager). So, I figured I could use this short post to let you know that the upcoming version of Single Sign-On, to be released as part of Citrix XenApp for Windows Server 2008 R2 will include support for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

If you were one of those asking that question, it is likely because you have not had a chance yet to download the Tech Preview of XenApp on Windows Server 2008 R2. Do so, and you will be able to experience a better Single Single-On that now also works in both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

You can follow me on Twitter at @aurelianolopez

Learn more about XenApp for R2 and other XenApp happenings:

• Download the tech preview for XenApp for Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Register for the TechTalk hosted by Sridhar Mullapudi.
• XenApp Technology Previews
• XenApp blogs
• XenApp Videos and TV
  
• Follow XenApp on | | |
  
  

３月になり各種シトリックスのクライアントモジュールがアップデートされました。

シトリックスのクライントモジュールは現在Citrix Receiverという総称になっています。Receiverに対してplug-inという形で各種機能が提供されます。過去シトリックスのクライアントといえばICAクライアントといわれていましたが、こちらは現在online plug-inという名前になりました。そのほかにアプリケーションストリーミングのためのoffline plug-inやSSL VPN(Access Gateway)plug-inなどがあります。plug-inに関してはReceiverを使わなくても単独でのインストールも可能です。ただReceiverを使えば、Marchandising Serverという仮想アプライアンスを利用してplug-inのサーバーでの集中管理を行うことができます。

またReceiverに関しては、Windowsだけでなく各種プラットフォーム向けにも提供されておりWindows/Mac版以外はReceiverに各機能がセットになって提供されます。そして今回のリリースでReceiver for Windowsが日本語環境で正式サポートされるようになりました。またMac版に対しても新しくReceiver for Macが提供されWindows版と同様にMarchandising Serverによるplug-inの集中管理が可能になりました。ただし、Receiver for Mac自体はまだ日本語環境ではサポートされていません。

Mac版のonline plug-inは11.1にアップデートされ、Mac OS 10.6(snow leopard)にも正式対応しました。こちらは過去の平田さんのblogにあるように日本語環境でもサポートされます。（設定メニューは英語です）

http://community.citrix.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=94437446

なお、Mac版にて日本語入力を行う場合は今回のバージョンより、ローカルのMacの日本語入力プログラム（ことえりなど）からのみのサポートになりました。リモートのIMEによる入力はサポートされません。日本語入力する場合は一回Macの別の横の長方形のWindowsに表示されて確定後にリモートのデスクトップ・アプリケーションに送信されます。

ちなみにReceiver for MacはIntel Macのみサポートですが、

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/receiver-mac-12/rec-mac-12-sys-reqs.html

Mac用online plug-inはPowerPC Macもサポートされています。

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/plugin-mac/mac-sys-reqs.html

以下ダウンロードリンクです。

Citrix Receiver for Windows - Version 1.2

http://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=1862706

Citrix Merchandising Server - Version 1.2

http://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=1862705&productId=1689163

Citrix Online Plug-in for Mac - Version 11.1

http://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=1862769&productId=186&c1=sot2755

Citrix Receiver for Mac - Version 1.2

http://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=1862707&productId=1689163

Dazzleもアップデートされ日本語環境サポートになりました。Dazzleは自分でXenApp/XenDesktopの公開アプリケーションやデスクトップを管理する（セルフサービス）ためのフロントエンドGUIです。Dazzleを利用するために既存のXenApp/XenDesktopのシステムの変更や追加のサーバーは必要ありません。

Dazzle 1.1.1
http://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=1862768