We've got a great lineup of events and podcast for you this month on the XenApp 5 Feature Pack. 3 events below.

XenApp 5 Feature Pack explained w/Doug Brown & Vinny Sosa

Date: (Available today) Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Register Here:  DABCC Radio at dabcc.com

Summary: Douglas Brown interviews Vinny Sosa, Senior Technical Marketing Manager at Citrix.   Vinny and Doug will discuss the recently released Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack. Vinny will discuss each new feature along with why this release is so important for you and your business, especially considering the current economic situation. This is a fun, engaging and transparent podcast where we'll also discuss Doug's pet peeves on Single sign-on, what the heck is that EasyCall stuff anyway, Mac and Microsoft preferences, and general techie diversions that always ensue.

Project Virtual Reality Check, a Geek Speak Virtual Webcast

Date: Thursday, March 26, 2009 1:00pm Eastern (DST) /10:00 Pacific

Register Here: wwww.citrix.com/geekspeakvirtual

Summary: With XenServer now a part of XenApp 5 Feature Pack, you'll want to join two renowned virtualization gurus - Ruben Spruijt, Solutions Architect at PQR and Jeroen van de Kamp , CTO at Log-in Consultants, as they discuss the results of Project Virtual Reality Check (VRC) - a joint research venture on optimal configuration for the different available hypervisors (hardware virtualization layers). The project arises from the growing demand for substantiated advice on how to virtualize and scale for Terminal Server and Virtual Desktop (VDI) workloads.  The first phase of Project VRC compares the performance of virtualizing Windows XP and 32-bit Windows 2003 Terminal Services on ESX, XenServer, Hyper-v, and bare-metal hardware.

TechTalk on XenApp 5 Feature Pack

Date: March 31, 2009

Time: 2:00pm Eastern/11:00am Pacific

Register Here: gotomeeting.com/register

Citrix has just released  XenApp 5 Feature Pack.  In this TechTalk session, we'll discuss the technical aspects of the new features, with focus on the following:

• Provisioning services, Load testing services and XenServer virtualization
• Profile Management
• Workflow Studio Orchestration
• Citrix Receiver, including iPhone plugin

As a Citrix consultant , one question that every customer asks me is, "How many users can I get on this server?" This seems like a simple question, but traditionally has had some difficult ways of finding an answer. Thankfully, the latest XenApp5 Feature Pack now includes Load testing services, an easy, efficient and inexpensive way to create a reliable answer to the question.

In the past, there were two main ways of answering this question. One required expensive and complicated software (and a team of experts who can actually program it) while the other required a team of people flying around to remote sites during off-hours so they could simulate user tasks. Needless to say either method was time-consuming, resource consuming and cost way too much money. In addition, when there was a new version of the application or a new remote office, you had to start from scratch and start the process all over again. This process is now far more exact and much easier with load testing services.

There are only two parts to load testing services, the controller and the launcher. The controller is the brains of the operation, and tells the launchers (installed on desktops or workstations in the remote sites) what tests to run. The launchers open a session to XenApp hosted applications, published desktops, a direct connection to the XML Broker, or through Web Interface. Once you give the controller a user account name and password and a target XenApp farm, you hit the record button and record what activities the simulated user should do. If you want the user to open Microsoft Word and copy an image, type a bunch of text or compose a letter, you simply do that while recording and load testing services translates that into instructions. After distributing the launchers to their remote locations, hitting the play button within the controller will instruct them to replay those tests for however long it has been scheduled.

While the tests are running, load testing services can track a myriad of Perfmon counters which can then be used to see when the server is at its limit. By turning on such items as Total Processor Time and Thread Queue Length or Memory consumption and Pages Per Second, one can determine when the server is running out of resources. All of these statistics and many others are presented to the administrator in a simple graph and table which, once viewed, will show when the bottleneck occurs. XenApp Platinum edition customers can also use application performance monitoring to measure performance as well.

Hopefully, I've made load testing services sound really easy to use, because in fact it really is that easy and anyone who can start a session on a XenApp server can use it effectively. Of course there are ways to use variables and wildcards and best practices for more advanced use cases, and more information on those items can be found in whitepapers and recordings available on Citrix.com or the Citrix Knowledge Base.

New applications, new servers, new users and new offices are being deployed throughout pretty much every organization and figuring out the correct amount of capacity needed quickly and cheaply has been, and will continue to be, a top priority for every IT department. With the inclusion of load testing services in XenApp5 Feature Pack, Citrix has given us the most effective way I have seen to do this. I encourage you to test it out for yourself.

Want to learn more? Also, check out Citrix.com/upgradetoxenapp5. As always, let us know your thoughts, questions and feedback below.

This post is part of a multi-part series on XenApp 5 Feature Pack:

• Part 1: Citrix Releases its own Economic Stimulus Plan with XenApp 5 Feature Pack
• Part 2: Manage your entire server farm from a single image with XenApp 5 Feature Pack
• Part 3: Profile Management, new in XenApp 5 Feature Pack! When does it make sense for your business?
• Part 4: Single Sign-on for any user! New in XenApp 5 Feature Pack! 
• Part 5: XenApp 5 Feature Pack Transforms Server Sizing from an Art to an Exact Science!

You may have noticed that Citrix released its XenApp and XenDesktop feature called Profile Management in late January and we mentioned it again as a part of the XenApp 5 Feature Pack announcement that went out on February 23^rd. As you read through the documentation, you may be asking yourself, "What's in it for me?  How will it benefit my organization?"

First, profiles is a subject area that administrators don't love.  Don't even like.  And, based on my field experience in Citrix Consulting, I'd say that at least 75% of all administrators don't fully understand profiles, although they're a necessary part of a successful IT infrastructure.  If you're looking for some basic information on profiles that's easy to understand, check out CTX120285.

Secondarily, as you consider profile management, ask yourself whether the standard Microsoft solution, i.e. local, mandatory, and roaming profiles, as well as Terminal Service mandatory and roaming profiles, will address your organization adequately. There's no sense in fixing something if it isn't broken, right? When addressing a profile decision, the solutions architect should consider not only the technical factors, but also the business aspects. Can and will the administrators maintain anything other than a standard Microsoft solution?  If you can't answer with a firm yes, then you can bet that the profile solution will become a mess within several months of the implementation.

So, where does XenApp and XenDesktop's Profile Management feature fit?  Basically, where the standard Microsoft solutions don't address your requirements AND where you can get consensus from your teams to stick with a non-Microsoft solution over the long run. If you can satisfy those two key requirements, then Profile management will be a great solution for IT and for your users.  For example, if users access XenApp hosted apps hosted from multiple servers or farms, last-write-wins issues can cause users to become dissatisfied (okay, downright angry).  Some standard options to address this are Terminal Services mandatory profiles and multiple roaming/mandatory profiles. If these solutions have proven unreliable or inconsistent and are just causing problems for you and your users, then Profile management is what you need.  If mandatory profiles work for you, then life is good.  If you've ever looked into how to implement multiple roaming/mandatory profiles, your head may spin - plus it may not definitively address your needs. Now consider the maintenance aspect. Here's where Profile management really shines.

Some use cases for Citrix Profile Management are:

• User accesses multiple XenApp server silos or farms and opens multiple sessions that cause last write wins issues
• User accesses multiple desktops, including XenDesktop where their user settings won't otherwise be carried over to additional desktops, especially where the OS is different
• Roaming profile corruption issues are rampant

Before implementing Profile management, review the following environment considerations:

• Going back to the Microsoft profile solutions, have you considered folder redirection? If you can redirect folders such as AppData and Documents and suffice with mandatory profiles, simple is good.
• Because Citrix Profile Management will take control of the user profiles based on OU, will another administrator attempt to configure Microsoft-based profiles and wonder why they didn't work?  One administrator has to know what the other administrator is doing.
• Although installation and management of Citrix Profile Management isn't difficult, how will maintenance be addressed?  For example, will installation of Citrix Profile Management be incorporated into the base XenApp server build? If not, the Profile Management service won't be available and started on new servers.

Is Profile management a great solution? Yes. Is it a silver bullet for every situation? Quite honestly, no. There are some considerations and maintenance aspects of Citrix Profile Management but where it fits these niche requirements and environment, it totally rocks! 

Want to learn more? Check out information regarding implementing Citrix Profile Management (CTX118943) or Best Practices for Profile Management (CTX119036). Also, take a look at Citrix.com/upgradetoxenapp5. Stay tuned for weekly blogs on XenApp 5 Feature Pack. As always, let us know your thoughts, questions and feedback below.

This post is part of a multi-part series on XenApp 5 Feature Pack:

• Part 1: Citrix Releases its own Economic Stimulus Plan with XenApp 5 Feature Pack
• Part 2: Manage your entire server farm from a single image with XenApp 5 Feature Pack
• Part 3: Profile Management, new in XenApp 5 Feature Pack! When does it make sense for your business?
• Part 4: Single Sign-on for any user! New in XenApp 5 Feature Pack!

By: Vinny Sosa with contributions from Pete Downing

On Monday, February 23rd, Citrix announced the release of XenApp 5 Feature Pack. This release includes a whole slew of features designed to save customers money. In total, XenApp 5 Feature Pack adds over $340 dollars of combined license and subscription advantage value. But one of the most beneficial things we added to our Platinum edition is Provisioning services.

Single Image Server Management

Prior to XenApp 5 Feature Pack, many customers scripted their installs or created multiple server images to help them manage their XenApp hosting server implementation. Scripted installs can be cumbersome to create and they're definitely not for everyone. Plus, they typically do not reduce implementation time, they just automate the process. Now, if you've got application silo's, scripting application installs can also add another layer of complexity on top of the server install automation process. Of course you could also use an ESD solution to get the apps on the server as well, but you get the point - layers of complication that don't really save time or effort.

Creating standardized server images helps address some of the server management issues by giving admins a standardized image to build XenApp servers from. If you're technical, you understand the process of generalizing a server image using such command line tools as "sysprep". This is a great solution for small implementations but with larger environments, application silo's tend to lead to multiple server images that need to be managed. With multiple server images come multiple updates and points of management when anything needs to be changed. This can include something as simple as tweaking an application setting or hotfixing a server. It's these small tweaks and changes that also make it difficult to maintain a scripted install type of solution over the long-term.

Enter XenApp Provisioning services.

Long awaited as a component of XenApp since as far back as I can remember, Provisioning services enables you to PXE-boot your servers from a single, generalized XenApp server image. It's cuts server implementation time because you can bring up a new XenApp server in the time it takes to boot up - no need for an install, no need for additional configuration. If you need to update your server configuration, no problem, and no need to modify an install script. Simply open your standard image, install the Hotfix and reboot your servers - it's that simple.As if that weren't enough, something really cool happens when you bring together the four key technologies included in XenApp 5 Feature Pack - the XenServer virtualization platform, Provisioning services, Load testing and Application streaming. I like to call it just-in-time server provisioning. You might also have heard it referred to as build-to-order server provisioning. Here's how it comes together:

• Create Physical and Virtual Images - Use vDisks to create physical server images and use XenServer to create virtual images for later provisioning. XenServer, now free, lets you virtualize your XenApp hosting servers (workloads). With this you can convert a single physical server with lots of idle capacity into two or more virtual servers that are running at full capacity. Hence, you can always give idle capacity to the users, apps or lines of business that need it most. This is very helpful in cases where server silos might still be necessary, since idle capacity is rampant in these kinds of deployments.
• Benchmark Your Images - Test the performance of your standard server image, both as a virtual server and as a physical server, using Load testing services. This will tell you how many users you can support so that you know exactly how much capacity you are adding or taking away every time you provision or deprovision servers.
• Provision Your Servers - Use Provisioning services to start-up new physical or virtual servers using your standardized server image(s) (the one(s) you already benchmarked with Load testing services).
• Stream Applications - Streaming applications to virtual servers means that you no longer have to maintain multiple server images for your server silos. In fact, it means that server silos are likely a thing of the past in your environment. Let's say you have a user trying to access SAP. You've added new servers because it's quarter-end and you need more capacity. The user get's load balanced to one of your new servers and SAP is automatically streamed to the new server the first time it is accessed. Every subsequent user that accesses SAP on that server will no longer have to stream it again. You've just completely bypassed the need to install applications all together.
• Self-heal Your Environment - Application self-healing is an automated benefit of streamed applications. Basically, if an application is corrupted or starts to misbehave, the next user to access it will start a repair request and it will be fixed for all users on the same server. If you continue to have problems with any of your servers, simply reboot them and Provisioning services delivers a squeaky-clean image in the time it takes to boot up.
• Fail-over Seamlessly and Gracefully - If you need to move your XenApp implementation to a DR site or you need to perform hardware maintenance, you now have two options. You can use XenMotion, included with XenServer for free, to seamlessly move your virtual servers between different physical servers without even shutting them down. You can also use Provisioning services to move physical or virtual servers to a new location or physical server as well.

Essentially, this all adds up to the most dynamic application delivery system on the market today. Want to learn more?. Download the XenAppPrep tool for Provisioning services,at CTX116063. Also, check out Citrix.com/upgradetoxenapp5. Stay tuned for weekly blogs on XenApp 5 Feature Pack. As always, let us know your thoughts, questions and feedback below.

• Part 1: Citrix Releases its own Economic Stimulus Plan with XenApp 5 Feature Pack
• Part 2: Manage your entire server farm from a single image with XenApp 5 Feature Pack
• Part 3: Profile Management, new in XenApp 5 Feature Pack! When does it make sense for your business?
• Part 4: Single Sign-on for any user! New in XenApp 5 Feature Pack! 
• Part 5: XenApp 5 Feature Pack Transforms Server Sizing from an Art to an Exact Science!

===========================
By: Sridhar Mullapudi and Vinny Sosa

Everyone is downsizing and in the middle of some pretty big cost cutting initiatives focused on "doing more with less". Chances are you're involved in this kind of project at your own company. Your team might have gotten smaller, your workload larger and to top it all off, your CTO has asked you to go back to your vendors and get some leverage, try to work out a way to reduce costs or even get more value for the same dollars. They might even be contemplating dropping yearly maintenance program renewals to help save cash. In keeping with the theme of large economic stimulus packages, Citrix is announcing a XenApp 5 Feature Pack which will be made available in mid-March. The primary goal of this release is basically to give you more value with much less in the way of resources, budget and time. Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack gives customers a huge chunk of value on top of what they already have. Plus, if you're planning on buying XenApp soon, we just sweetened the deal for you. Here's what's included:

• XenServer for XenApp... Free? -- Yup, you read that right. You may have seen our announcement earlier today and learned that we're now giving you XenServer virtualization technology at no additional charge. You'll be able to virtualize your entire XenApp deployment from web interface to IMA. No need to virtualize Citrix XenApp with those other guys (err... vMwhat?). Plus, you can virtualize anything in your data center. Have at it. You can use XenServer for free with all editions of XenApp so you save big.
  
• Manage your whole farm from a single image with provisioning services -- as if server virtualization were not enough, we've also added in server provisioning which lets you manage all of your XenApp hosting servers using a single image. You can spin-up and repurpose physical or virtual XenApp servers on the fly. You can even reboot to get a squeaky-clean image - again, no need for third party software. Plus, you reduce your overall effort for managing your XenApp farm. This is included in XenApp Platinum edition.
• Right-size your servers with load testing services -- Server provisioning and virtualization wouldn't be complete without knowing exactly how much capacity you're managing. Load testing services is a toolset for creating realistic simulation scripts that help you benchmark your XenApp hosting servers. You can create scripts easily (no coding, no kidding, unless that's your thing) and then run those scripts as real sessions on XenApp servers. Since it's included with XenApp Enterprise and Platinum editions, there's no need for third party benchmarking software, or the additional 3^rd party training, maintenance, and support. Plus, by knowing your true capacity, you have less idle capacity sitting around so you save money, not to mention, being able to address business requests faster.
• Offline licensing for application streaming and single sign-on at no additional charge -- Application streaming for desktops and servers has been available for Enterprise and Platinum customers since our 4.5 release. However, customers had to buy licenses to help them support offline usage of applications. Not anymore. In XenApp 5 Feature Pack, we've made application streaming available to Advanced edition customers. Even better, there's no need to buy separate licenses to enable offline application access. Now all XenApp users can take their applications offline. For Platinum edition customers, we've also added the offline/desktop use license for Single sign-on at no additional charge. This could save you a ton of money in help desk support costs. Plus, if you haven't been using the self-service password reset feature then you've been missing out on additional costs savings. These licensing changes save a ton of cash and give you a complete application delivery solution for all of your users and all of your applications. Why pay separate maintenance and support fees or manage solutions from multiple vendors when it's so easy with Citrix XenApp?
• Eliminate profile reconciliation issues with profile management -- this is a pretty handy addition. Profile management maintains and consolidates a user's roaming profile so that you don't get any first write/overwrite issues. Additionally, it gives users a faster logon and seamless experience when accessing their applications from any device or location. This is going to reduce your support costs. Profile management is included in XenApp Enterprise and Platinum editions.
• Reduce telco costs with EasyCall voice services and click-to-conference features -- You can reduce data center costs if you're using EasyCall by migrating from the physical appliance to the new virtual appliance included with XenApp 5 Feature Pack. If you haven't been using EasyCall, it's a great way to reduce your telco costs by letting users leverage your low cost corporate long distance contract to make calls when they are working remotely or on-the road. Citrix has also added a click-to-conference feature that allows you to start a conference call from your computer with up to 50 people. That could help you save money from those conferencing services that you pay for by the minute. In XenApp 5 Feature Pack, it'll be available in all editions of XenApp. Again, no additional charge.
• Workflow studio orchestration - Citrix is also releasing Workflow Studio orchestration, an automation tool designed to help tie together multiple Citrix products and automate common IT tasks. It's a v1 but keep your eyes on this one as it will simplify your life as the library of Citrix API's grow with future versions.

Mind you, this list is in addition to all of the great technologies that are already a part of XenApp today like secure application access, application performance monitoring, SmartAuditor session recording, preferential load balancing, branch optimization, Citrix HDX and printer management. All of the new features will be available mid-march 2009 and can be accessed by anyone with active subscription advantage as of March 9, 2009 (this includes anyone who bought XenApp after March 9, 2008). As a quick reference, here's a table of the new features that shows availability by edition:

Compared to purchasing XenApp and all of these solutions separately, whether from Citrix or some 3^rd party, you'd be paying upwards of $900 per user and over $100 per year in maintenance fees, not to mention support contracts, training and other costs. In addition, you still need to factor in the overall line of business cost savings you get from increased efficiency and the like. To top it all off, XenServer can be used for any number of servers you wish and we haven't counted that ether. Obviously there's substantial value that's been added to XenApp in this feature pack – over $300 of value per license and over $40 of subscription advantage value per license per year.

Are you a loyal customer that renews subscription advantage like it's an unshakable New Year's resolution? Well, if you've been trying to justify subscription advantage, I think the justification is clear. If you've been waiting for a reason to move to XenApp 5 then wait no longer. And if you aren't a Citrix customer yet, then take note of how important our customers are to us and let us be your partner in 2009 and beyond.

Learn more at Citrix.com/upgradetoxenapp5. Stay tuned for weekly blogs on XenApp 5 Feature Pack. As always, let us know your thoughts, questions and feedback below.

This post is part of a multi-part series on XenApp 5 Feature Pack:

• Part 1: Citrix Releases its own Economic Stimulus Plan with XenApp 5 Feature Pack
• Part 2: Manage your entire server farm from a single image with XenApp 5 Feature Pack
• Part 3: Profile Management, new in XenApp 5 Feature Pack! When does it make sense for your business?
• Part 4: Single Sign-on for any user! New in XenApp 5 Feature Pack! 
• Part 5: XenApp 5 Feature Pack Transforms Server Sizing from an Art to an Exact Science!

=========================