Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with the support of our products. One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues for finding answers and resolving problems. A key area that the Support teams focus on is development a series of How To videos covering the most common questions asked in support.

To date there are over 40 How To videos covering 11 products available from Citrix TV. Over the coming weeks and months lots more will be added.

If you have a How To video suggestion or feedback on the current videos, contact us via one of the following channels:

• email AskSupport@citrix.com
• Tweet us @citrixsupport and @citrixreadiness
• Leave a message on our Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/CitrixSupport

Current video series available on Citrix TV are:

• Citrix XenServer - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/137
• Citrix XenApp - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/131
• Citrix XenDesktop - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/135
• Citrix NetScaler - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/133
• Citrix Provisioning Services - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/136
• Citrix Web Interface - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/129
• Citrix Merchandising Server - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/124
• Citrix Password Manager - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/126
• Citrix EdgeSight - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/132
• Citrix Workflow Studio - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/130
• Citrix Access Gateway Standard Edition - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/134

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

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

Hi folks! Today being the official launch party for Windows 7, I thought it would be a good time to give everyone an update on where we stand with client OS support for Access Gateway (AG).

Let me start off by saying that we were hoping to support 64-bit operating systems much sooner, but we had some unanticipated challenges that expanded the scope of effort required. Getting all of our Access Gateway plug-ins to support 64-bit Vista, as well as Windows 7 and MacOS, has been and continues to be a top priority for us this year. It's also critically important that we fit into the Citrix Receiver framework for delivering all the various Citrix plug-ins to the end user. We're nearly there.

I'm pleased to announce that we are releasing today version 4.6.1 of Access Gateway, Standard Edition which offers full support for 64-bit Windows Vista, Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit, and MacOS. You can get the clients and appliance firmware now from the Citrix.com downloads area: http://www.citrix.com/download/

As you know, we have three distinct variants of Access Gateway: Standard, Advanced and Enterprise, each of which has a separate lineage and uses different client protocols & endpoint analysis features. We are planning to deliver Win7, 64-bit and MacOS support for all three editions.

Vista 64-bit, Windows 7 & IE8

• AG Standard supports 64-bit Vista and Windows 7 today, using version 4.6.1.
• AG Advanced Edition users can log on from 64-bit machines if the appliance is upgraded to 4.6.1, but full support for endpoint analysis and IE8 is not available until AAC Hotfix 5, due out in early January.
• AG Enterprise Edition is expected to include a new 64-bit capable client in version 9.1.100, ETA is December.

Macintosh

Last month, we announced the availability of our first Access Gateway Plug-in for MacOS, which now connects to AG Standard Edition (4.6 or later) and Enterprise Edition (9.1.98 or later). Support for Advanced Edition is expected by January with AAC Hotfix 5. As we were closing down the release, Apple released their "Snow Leopard" (10.6) version ahead of schedule. We were planning not to offer 10.6 support until a few months later, because we were expecting this to be another large effort pertaining to 64-bit support. However, Apple did not enable 64-bit kernel mode by default in client machines, only on their XServe platform. This is good news for us, because the MacOS client seems to be working fine on 10.6 with the default 32-bit kernel mode.

One thing that makes 64-bit support on MacOS different from 64-bit Windows: with MacOS users can run 64-bit applications even if the kernel is running in 32-bit mode. Nevertheless, we do plan on supporting 64-bit kernel mode on the Mac with our next release of the Mac plug-in in Q1 of next year.

Not supported

To avoid prolonging our release schedules any longer, we made a couple of tough trade-offs regarding older operating systems. We decided that we will not be able to provide official support for:

• Windows XP 64-bit
• MacOS 10.4 ("Tiger")

(I've heard anecdotally that the 64-bit Vista client actually does work on XP 64-bit, but we have not fully tested it and we are not officially supporting it.)

Access Gateway Client OS Support

To summarize, the supportability matrix that we are filling in over the next few months looks like this:

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let me know.

Thanks,
Jay Tomlin
Sr. Product Manager
Citrix Access Gateway
jay (dot) tomlin (at) citrix (dot) com

I am pleased to announce that Access Gateway 4.6.1, Standard Edition was released today. This release of Access Gateway Standard Edition supports the following:

• Access Gateway Plug-in support for Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Access Gateway Plug-in support for Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit
• Access Gateway Plug-in for Mac OS X
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 8

The following new features are included in 4.6.1:

Access Gateway Plug-in and Citrix Receiver Integraton
Access Gateway Standard Edition supports Citrix Receiver, Citrix Merchandising Server, and Dazzle, which are components of the Citrix Delivery Center. Citrix Receiver, Citrix Merchandising Server, and Dazzle streamline the installation and management of application delivery to user desktops. For more information, see Integrating the Access Gateway Plug-in with Citrix Receiver.

Secure Ticket Authority redundancy
You can configure multiple redundant Secure Ticket Authorities (STAs) for users accessing their resources through the Access Gateway. This enables you to mitigate against the possibility of the STA becoming unavailable midway through a user's session, preventing reconnection to the session. When redundancy is enabled, the Web Interface attempts to obtain and deliver to the Access Gateway two tickets from two different STAs. If one of the STAs cannot be contacted during a user session, the session continues uninterrupted using the second STA. To configure the STA for redundancy, you must be using Web Interface 5.2 and Access Gateway Standard Edition, Version 4.6.1. For more information about configuring the Web Interface, see Configuring Access Gateway Settings in Web Interface 5.2.

A list of fixed issues is available from this article.

Installation
In Access Gateway 4.6, Standard Edition, the operating system on the Access Gateway is updated. With this update, upgrading from earlier versions of the Access Gateway is not supported. You must perform a clean installation of Version 4.6 or 4.6.1 on the Access Gateway appliance if it is running an earlier version of the software. If Version 4.6 is installed on the appliance, you can upgrade to Version 4.6.1.

For more information about installing 4.6.1, see this helpful article.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Award nominations for Citrix

Citrix wanted to let you know that some of our products have been nominated for the SYS-CON Virtualization Reader's Choice Award and the Cloud Computing Readers' Choice Awards. These awards recognize excellence in the virtualization and cloud-based software, solutions or services provided by the industry's top vendors.

We wanted to let community members know about this nomination, since the final award winners will be determined through a public voting process. The voting period for these awards is now open and will end on Oct. 23 .

If you feel inclined to vote for a Citrix product for one of these awards, we would appreciate your support! To vote, please visit the Virtualization Readers' Choice Awards and the Cloud Computing Readers' Choice Awards voting pages. You will need to include your e-mail address and select one product in each category. Then, place your vote by clicking "vote now" on the bottom of the Web page. Award winners will be announced the week of Nov. 2.

Thank you for your consideration!

Don't miss this webcast as our Systems Engineers discuss the new technical features and benefits of XenDesktop 4. Find out why XenDesktop is the most flexible way to centralise and deliver your desktops.

In this webinar you will learn:

• What's new in the latest version of XenDesktop 4
• Best practices for upgrading to the latest release

Click below to learn more:
http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/events/event.asp?eventID=1857244

In this session you will learn about the key improvements in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and new license bundles from Microsoft in addition to how Citrix and Microsoft continue to innovate together to further develop and enhance desktop virtualisation.

In this webinar you will learn:

• What's new in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
• About new virtual desktop licensing bundles from Microsoft
• How Microsoft and Citrix work together to deliver virtual desktops

Click below to learn more:
http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/events/event.asp?eventID=1857900

You are invited to the next meeting of the New York Metro Citrix Users Group.

The User Group provides members with an opportunity to share and learn about common issues and utilization of Citrix® technology. Additional discussions include technology design and infrastructure, enterprise solutions and ideas, trends, and upcoming activities of interest.

Agenda:
4:00 Opening Remarks - Mediator
4:05 Citrix Announcements - Citrix
• Product Updates
• Beta Announcements
• Tech Releases
4:30 Application Virtualization - Streaming
• Citrix
• Symantec
• Microsoft
4:45 Citrix VPX - Citrix
5:15 Open Discussion - ALL
• Feature Requests
6:00 Next Meeting - Agenda Requests

This event will be hosted by Ivan Carrasco, Corporate Network, Depository Trust Clearing Company and supported by Citrix Systems.

Click below to learn more:
http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/events/event.asp?eventID=1857032

You are invited to the next meeting of the New York Metro Citrix Users Group.

The User Group provides members with an opportunity to share and learn about common issues and utilization of Citrix® technology. Additional discussions include technology design and infrastructure, enterprise solutions and ideas, trends, and upcoming activities of interest.

Agenda:
4:00 Opening Remarks - Mediator
4:05 Citrix Announcements - Citrix
• Product Updates
• Beta Announcements
• Tech Releases
4:30 Application Virtualization - Streaming
• Citrix
• Symantec
• Microsoft
4:45 Citrix VPX - Citrix
5:15 Open Discussion - ALL
• Feature Requests
6:00 Next Meeting - Agenda Requests

This event will be hosted by Ivan Carrasco, Corporate Network, Depository Trust Clearing Company and supported by Citrix Systems.

Click below to learn more:
http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/events/event.asp?eventID=1857031

You are invited to the next meeting of the New Jersey Citrix User Group

Twitter: http://twitter.com/nycctxusrgroup

The User Group provides members with an opportunity to share and learn about common issues and utilization of CITRIX technology. Additional discussions include technology design and infrastructure, enterprise solutions and ideas, trends, and upcoming activities of interest.

Agenda

• 9:00AM Opening Remarks - Mediator 9:15AM Citrix Announcements - Citrix Product Updates
• Beta Announcements
• Tech Releases 9:45AM Scheduled Presentation - TBD
• Feature Requests 10:30AM Open Discussion - ALL

Click below to learn more:
http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/events/event.asp?eventID=1858386

NetScaler has long had the ability to take network traces and analyze it in tools like WireShark. Network traces can be captured in standard tcpdump format or a NetScaler specific format. The NetScaler specific format has additional connection information that makes it easier to troubleshoot issues. For a long while, NetScaler engineers used a modified WireShark version (previously called Ethereal) to view and analyze NetScaler traces.

Recently, our developers contributed this patch to the open source Wireshark development and the next version (1.3.0) of Wireshark will include the ability to understand NetScaler format packet traces. In the interim, the modified Wireshark version is available for download at CTX122313. This version will work on Windows. The article also shows how you can use the NetScaler traces to use the additional data.

To capture a network trace on the NetScaler, you need to log in to the command line interface and get into the shell (by typing shell).
To capture a trace in the NetScaler format, type in
#nstrace.sh -sz 0

-sz 0 captures the full packet. With no argument (default), only the first 164 bytes of the packet are captured.

You can also use the GUI to capture traces (under System/ Diagnostics).
#nstrace.sh -help
details the other options available.

Upload the file to using ftp, scp etc and analyze using the modified Wireshark.

To capture traces in the tcpdump format,
#nstcpdump.sh
(Most standard tcpdump options are supported)

Recently, I have heard many talk about how to deliver better application experience over WAN to branch users with flat or shrinking IT budgets?

Is delivering a better IT experience to branch or mobile users truly "priceless"? Or do you really need to demonstrate ROI?

It usually takes a lot longer than a year for something to become a 'cliche'. But the current global economic recession has created one of the quickest 'cliches' - 'Flat is the new Growth!' - flat revenues, and flat IT budgets alike.

Faced with flat or shrinking IT budgets, many organizations are clearly and rigorously prioritizing the highest ROI projects, focusing on doing more with less. Increasingly, the following lexicon has taken on a new level of significance and has become part of the IT budgeting process - time-to-ROI, payback time, hard or direct ROI, soft or indirect ROI and so on.

WAN Optimization is one of the very few technologies where IT spend is actually growing while spend on many other technologies is shrinking. In earlier blogs, I blogged about how good the user experience can be with the right WAN optimization solution. But if you are an IT decision maker, you are looking for hard dollar ROI to justify those investments.

We recently published a web-based ROI calculator, designed to show our customers the great savings opportunities available with Citrix Branch Repeater for XenApp and XenDesktop customers. Why don't you try out the calculator and let us know your feedback? We are looking to updating this tool soon based on your feedback.

You may cut and paste the URL in your browser: http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=1858204.

I look forward to your comments or feedback.

Happy ROI!,

Sai

We are proud to announce that several Citrix virtualization solutions have been nominated for both the SYS-CON Virtualization Reader's Choice Award and the Cloud Computing Readers' Choice Awards. We have been nominated in many categories and we are honored to be nominated for these awards. Citrix XenDesktop and XenServer have been nominated for two awards each. Thus, proving that Citrix has the best-in-class end-to-end solution for the enterprise (but you already knew that).

Casting your vote and voicing your opinion is easy, simply click on the links below and cast your vote for Citrix!

Virtualization Readers' Choice Awards

-Best Application Virtualization - Citrix XenApp
-Best Desktop Virtualization Platforms - Citrix XenDesktop
-Best Device Virtualization - Citrix Receiver
-Best Network Virtualization - Citrix NetScaler
-Best Server Virtualization Platforms - Citrix XenServer
-Best VDI - Virtual Desktop Infrastructure - Citrix XenDesktop
-Best Virtualization Management Tools - Citrix Essentials

Cloud Computing Readers' Choice Awards

-Best Cloud Infrastructure Solution - Citrix XenServer
-Best Cloud Services - Citrix C3 Product Line

About the SYS-CON Virtualization Reader's Choice Award:

SYS-CON Virtualization Readers' Choice Awards and Cloud Computing Readers' Choice Awards recognize excellence in the virtualization and cloud-based software, solutions or services provided by the industry's top vendors. To determine these top vendors and products, SYS-CON is asking readers to vote on nominated products.
The voting period for these awards is now open and will end on Oct. 23. To vote, please visit the Virtualization Readers' Choice Awards and the http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/general/rcawardsvote.htm voting pages. You will need to include your e-mail address and select one product in each category. Then, place your vote by clicking "vote now" on the bottom of the Web page. Award winners will be announced the week of Nov. 2.

( Citrix employees our vote --@Citrix.com has already been counted )

Thank you for your support!

Citrix Geek Speak is an event format that allows Citrix, Citrix partners, other IT resellers and customers to exchange their know-how in free discussions following a defined subject around the main subject "Desktop Virtualization".

Date: 11/12/2009
Time: 14.30 CET - 21.00 CET
Location:
Europaplatz 1
CH-6005 Luzern
Switzerland
Hosted by: Citrix Central Europe
Venue: KKL Luzern / Kultur- und Kongresszentrum

Click below to learn more:
http://www.citrix-eventservice.de/geek-speak/termine-und-orte/#2009-11-12

Citrix Geek Speak is an event format that allows Citrix, Citrix partners, other IT resellers and customers to exchange their know-how in free discussions following a defined subject around the main subject "Desktop Virtualization".

Date: 11/2/2009
Time: 14.30 CET - 21.00 CET
Location:
Karlsplatz 13/011
A-1040 Wien
Austria
Hosted by: Citrix Central Europe
Venue: Technische Universität Wien / Hörsaal 6

Click below to learn more:
http://www.citrix-eventservice.de/geek-speak/termine-und-orte/#2009-11-02

Citrix Geek Speak is an event format that allows Citrix, Citrix partners, other IT resellers and customers to exchange their know-how in free discussions following a defined subject around the main subject "Desktop Virtualization".

Date: 10/27/2009
Time: 14.30 CET - 21.00 CET
Location:
Kurfürsten-Anlage 52-60
69115 Heidelberg
Germany
Hosted by: Citrix Central Europe
Venue: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG / Print Media Academy

Click below to learn more:
http://www.citrix-eventservice.de/geek-speak/termine-und-orte/#2009-10-27

Prepare your calendar for another one of those great meeting of the minds events that brings together the best presenters and attendees for collaboration on all things Citrix. The next bi-annual DocForum event is going to be held on December 5, 2009 at seines highs in Courbevoie, France. I've included information about the event below in both English and French

About DocForum

The meetings at DocForum are non-commercial and all about technologies around Citrix, Terminal Server and SBC in general.
The goal of these meetings is to bring together the best in the French IT sector together to exchange experiences and know-how.
DocForum meetings are held bi-annually in June and December, with free registration.
The next DocForum event is on December 5, 2009

À propos de DocForum

Les DocForum sont des rencontres non commerciales autour des technologies Citrix, Terminal server et SBC en général.
Le but de ces journées est de réunir les meilleurs IT Francais du secteur, pour échanger leurs expériences et leurs savoir-faire.
Nos rencontres sont bi-annuelles, en Juin et Décembre, libre d'inscription.
Prochain DocForum le 5 Décembre

About the Event

The second bi-annual DocForum event registrations are open. As for the first opus, this happen a Saturday, December 5 at Courbevoie in seines highs.

For the second DocForum we will have a true Hall with 40 seats with all the equipment due to this day. This will always be a day without sponsor, so of technical presentations without trade.

Given the number of registered persons, first DocForum that do are not come (unfortunately without warning). We will ask you a symbolic contribution from 5 € per person*. Such participation will be used to validate your subscription, so it is best that you use the same e-mail between PayPal and the form below.

A propos de l'événement

Les inscriptions au deuxième DocForum sont ouvertes. Comme pour le premier opus, cela se passera un samedi, le 5 décembre à Courbevoie dans les hauts de seines.

Pour le deuxième DocForum nous aurons une vraie salle de 40 places, avec tout l'équipement dû à cette journée. Ce sera toujours une journée sans Sponsor, donc que des présentations techniques sans commerce.

Vu le nombre de personnes inscrites, au premier DocForum, qui ne sont pas venu (malheureusement sans prévenir). Nous allons vous demander une participation symbolique de 5€ par personne*. Cette participation servira à valider votre inscription, il est donc préférable que vous utilisiez la même adresse email entre Paypal et le formulaire ci-dessous.

For more information about the event click below:
http://www.docforum.fr/

I just returned home from attending this year's CUGtech Autumn 2009 event in Geilo, Norway hosted by Citrix User Group Norway. It was my first time attending this event, and even with hearing all the great things about this event, I don't think I was even remotely prepared to experience at how truly impressive of an event our friends in Norway put together.

One has to keep in mind that this is a Citrix User Group run event, but this is no ordinary users group, they are at the top their game in every respect. Yes they hold regular users group meetings in the traditional sense of what one would expect to be a users group, but they also hold bi-annual CUGtech events, which one could say are on par with or one could say even compete with some of the other corporate run industry events. I think that it is great to see a users group evolve from being a local community to become a global community that attracts people from all over the world.
To get a better understanding of why I was really impressed by this event and Citrix User Group Norway, I guess I have to start off with talking about what they put into the making of this event happen from the planning to the execution.

We all need an identity and or something to represent. Having a logo is a good start, and I've got to say that Citrix User Group Norway has got to have one the snazziest logo's yet for a users group. Being one who loves visuals I think that a visual identity is very important aspect of any group or organization.

They have also taken this identity and applied it to documentation, banners, singage, and swag for the event, like any major industry would do.

But where would we be if everything was just dressing, we need a little substance to that eye candy right. Well, it was very interesting to see how much substance there was at this event. The planners of this event like so many others these days have also had to come to terms with the fact that we can no longer have a single track event. There are just so many products and technologies to talk about, and not to mention the focus, such as being technical or operational in perspective, that it is not possible to hold an event these days without running dual tracks to cover it all. If you have ever had the pleasure of trying to organize any type of event you can certainly appreciate all the planning of that goes into making a schedule like this.

CUG Agenda

Choosing where to hold an event is always an interesting challenge. One has to try and choose a location that is something more than a place to hold and event, as we all want a venue that has a little something more to offer than just a conference hall, or is a place that is easy to travel to while keeping cost to a minimum. I think that at first glance some people, and I could be wrong about this, would view traveling into the mountains of Norway as not being the easy part to travel to. But you have to remember that this is Europe, and they have the whole train thing down very well. The event was held in Geilo, Norway which is one the major Ski resort areas in Norway, and is only about a three hour train ride from Oslo.

For me the train ride was part of the whole event, as we traveled there with many of the attendees of the event, and it gave all of us an opportunity to get know each other a little better, Oh and did I mention there was bar on this train.

Usually most events are held in places rich in night life, but don't let the location fool you, as I soon learned that this played into the events favor, as it didn't suffer from the usual disbursement of attendees being side-tracked to other attractions. If you take a look at the schedule you notice that this event goes very far into making sure it is a great time for all, the actual schedule for the first day's events go from 8:00 AM until 2:00AM, and let me tell you what a day that was, the first word that come to mind is WOW! The event planners really outdid themselves, as we went from a day of sessions to having a grand dinner together, to having a Ski party where everyone dressed up in the favorite Ski gear, to having a Geek Speak session at 1AM. They even had a kicking band playing for pretty much the entire night, to along with the pinball machines, and arcade skiing machines.

The Citrix User Group Norway would not be possible if weren't for the dedication of its members, leaders, and sponsors that over the years have grown this community to where it is today.
I would like to thank Kenneth Beck, Bjørn Uddal, and all of the many great people from Citrix User Group Norway for putting together such a great event. It was great to be a part of it all, and to meet so many people who are truly passionate about Citrix Technologies.

I would also like to thank the many sponsors that have also given their support like Atea, Commaxx, Logica, RES Software, and Steria.

Well its time to catch a plane, but I hope I have given you enough of a slice of what CUGtech is all about, and if you ever get the opportunity to attend one, I wouldn't hesitate on doing so.

Mac users out there have long been asking for and waiting for a rich and secure remote access experience with Access Gateway solutions. Now the wait is over. Mac users can now download the Access Gateway plug-in for Mac from MyCitrix.

Access Gateway team has made available Mac OX X plug-in for Access Gateway 4.6 Standard Edition and Access Gateway 9.1 Enterprise Edition:

- The user experience of the plug-in conforms to the native Mac experience, providing rich user experience.

- Mac users can securely connect to their remote applications, leveraging pre- and post-authentication endpoint scans to confirm to their corporate security policies. For stronger security, when the remote Mac user logs off,  the plug-in also destroys any session data (cache, cookies, etc) on the client.

- With globalization features, the plug-in brings this new experience to English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese users.

If you are a Mac user, I encourage you to go to the downloads section on MyCitrix and select Citrix Access Gateway from the drop-down menu of 'Search Downloads by Product", then find "Access Gateway Plug-in for Mac OS X, Version 1.0.2.23" under the Clients section.

If you are using this new plug-in, please share your experience with me and what you would like to see next.

Sai

Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with our products.
One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues via our Knowledge Center.

Our Licensing team in Citrix Support receive lots of questions everyday around How to retrieve licenses for XenApp Platinum or How to license XenServer, etc...

The most common questions asked are documented in the Citrix Knowledge Center.

Below you will find a list of the most common questions asked.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport