Configuring the Linktrophy. This is the third video in the four part series of configuring a Wanscaler environment for FTP demonstrations. The first in this series is Configuring the W2K3 machine. The second is configuring the XPclient, third is configuring the Linktropy Wan simulator, and fourth is monitoring the Wanscaler

Configuring the XPclient. This is the second video in the four part series of configuring a Wanscaler environment for FTP demonstrations. The first in this series is Configuring the W2K3 machine. The second is configuring the XPclient, third is configuring the Linktropy Wan simulator, and fourth is monitoring the Wanscaler

Configuring the W2K3 server for FTP transfer. This is the first video in the four part series of configuring a WanScaler environment for FTP demonstrations. The first in this series is Configuring the W2K3 machine. The second is configuring the XPclient, third is configuring the Linktropy Wan simulator, and fourth is monitoring the Wanscaler.

This is the second video in a two part series showing CIFS acceleration over a WAN link using Wanscaler. This video will demonstrate the amount of CIFS optimization that occurs in a Wanscaler environment. 

 Here is a video demonstration of Microsoft CIFS acceleration over WanScaler. Equipment used for this demo were Microsoft W2K3 server, an XP client, and a Linktrophy Apposite WAN simulator.

Although, the demonstration seems very simplistic CIFS acceleration represents a milestone in WAN acceleration and data networking, in general. CIFS is the protocol that is used by Microsoft Servers and clients to exchange information. The protocol was originally designed to function over a LAN environment with a minimum of 10 Mbps throughput, half-duplex. As enterprises began expanding their data services to remote offices CIFS, designed for a LAN was being used over low bandwidth, high latency WAN's. Performance and end-user experience vary greatly in this enviornment, and the protocol provides a very high, inefficient overhead. With an accelerator between the remote and central office, TCP transmissions are optimized and thus the protocol is streamlined. Users can now experience LAN like performance while being thousand's of miles away from HQ.

h.1 Watch this videotip

In the last part of Choosing an Automated Deployment Strategy for XenApp I will discuss installing XenApp via images.

In Part 2 of the Choosing an Automated Deployment Strategy for XenApp series I will talk about installing XenApp with the UnattendedInstall.exe tool from the server CD.

In the next few days at Shannon Ma VirtualizedI'll be blogging about the different ways you can install XenApp in an automated fashion. Part 1 is online, Part 2 will be coming tomorrow, and the whole series will be online by Wednesday. Check it out and if you have any questions or feedback don't hesitate to drop me a comment.

One of my side projects these past couple of months has been XenAppPrep - a tool that will help you clone XenApp servers. This tool plays a key role in rolling out XenApp via Provisioning Server, XenServer, and other image-based deployment technologies. I've written a blog about this and recommend checking it out if you're interested in cloning XenApp servers. If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!

ClearType (aka Font Smoothing) is a software technology developed by Microsoft that improves the readability of text on existing LCDs, such as laptop screens, Pocket PC screens and flat panel monitors. With ClearType font technology, the words on your computer screen look almost as sharp and clear as those printed on a piece of paper.

For the longest time Microsoft ClearType has been working properly inside an ICA session with Citrix Presentation Server running on Windows 2000 Server, but it did not work with XenApp 4.5 running on Windows Server 2003.

As previously mentioned Citrix was working on an update to XenApp 4.5 for Windows Server 2003 to utilize this new Microsoft Update for Terminal Services to provide ICA users with ClearType support.

Well, on July 7th (yesterday) Citrix released a hotfix for XenApp 4.5 on Windows Server 2003 that enables ClearType on its XenApp 4.5 Servers.

Note: This patch also rectifies several other issues in XenApp 4.5. You can find the list of fixes by clicking here.

If you want to learn more about ClearType, I can suggest two great articles on this subject:

• Jeff Muir on ClearType and Terminal Services.
• Helge Klein has written an excellent article on ClearType Bandwidth requirements on Terminal Services.

Cheers,
Gus

Today I have received two new applications to play with; that's exactly what I did.

After installing and playing with both apps, I can say they do exactly what their respective developers advertised. Each can be very useful to deployments and day-to-day admin tasks.

Kudos to both developers. I hope you guys find these apps usefull, if not, let them know where and how they can improve.

I just came back from BriForum in Chicago and besides the awesome event that was, one more thing came to attention, half of the Notebooks being carried around by attendees and speakers were Macs.

Carried away by the energy of the event I decided build something for our Citrix Community. A dashboard app that makes easier for our visitors to read the latest posts and collaborate with their comments.

 Meet the Citrix Blogs Widget

 With version 1.0 you get:

• The latest 30 Citrix Blog posts
• Adjust view from Full to Summary
• Collaborate with your comments
• Open posts on Safari or Firefox
• Spotlight Search (Instant search)
• Push updates (no refresh required)
• Watch blogged videos
• Check for updates
• Send feedback

Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.4 or greater

Download via CDN:

Citrix Blogs Widget

—

Special thanks to Chris Anthony's group for designing our dashboard logo! Thank you guys so much!!!

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.-- Today, Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, announced it has won the 2008 Microsoft Partner of the Year Global ISV - Infrastructure Special Recognition award. This award recognizes the global independent software vendor (ISV) for superior technology, delivering innovative infrastructure solutions based on Microsoft platforms.

Microsoft also honored Citrix with its Partner of the Year award for Citizenship for the company's collaborative work on behalf of the Traditional Area of Ashanti-Agogo, Ghana, Africa to provide an infrastructure and training, allowing local residents access to applications and the Internet for the first time.

Building on an almost 20-year relationship, the 2008 Microsoft Partner of the Year Global ISV - Infrastructure award is a testament to the strength and commitment the two companies have in bringing solutions to market that benefit their mutual and respective customers. Over the past year, Citrix and Microsoft have reinvented their already broad relationship in application virtualization to include server and desktop virtualization, creating a complete end-to-end virtualization solution from the datacenter to the desktop that leverages technology from both companies.

"It is a privilege to be honored by Microsoft with these prestigious awards. It is clear evidence that the strength of our relationship and joint go-to-market strategies are benefiting our mutual customers across an increasingly broad set of product lines," said Mark Templeton, president and chief executive officer of Citrix Systems. "After almost 20 years of building and nurturing our relationship with Microsoft, we remain more committed than ever to creating IT infrastructure solutions that leverage Microsoft technologies as platforms for innovation."

Continue at Source: Citrix.com

If you are interested in running ICA client on Linux, I've created two short videos showing the step by step instructions. Unlike windows ICA client, installing Linux version of ICA client requires more steps although it is relatively straight forward after you watch the video I hope. I used Ubuntu Linux as an example. Other Linux distributions may work slightly differently.

How to install ICA client

How to use ICA client

Click here to see all of my videos.

Here is my earlier blog that is related to installing ICA client on Ubuntu. 

I hope you find the videos useful. Love to hear your feedbacks. For example, your experience with other Linux distributions will be interesting.

Acknowledgment:

I found many articles on the Internet about installing ICA client on Linux. Here are some good examples I referenced

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CitrixICAClientHowTo 

http://bin-false.org/?p=13

http://www.hanckmann.net/?q=node/13 

Ray Yang

Deployment and installation of AutoCAD Map 3D 2009 on Citrix XenApp 4.5 requires careful planning and execution.

This step-by-step document will guide you through AutoCAD Map 3D installation, setup and tweaks in order to successfully run Autodesk's product on a Citrix XenApp environment.



You can download the document here:

Installing AutoCAD Map 3D on Citrix XenApp

Hundreds of Thousands of Web Servers have been getting hacked, including several at the United Nations. The appearance is that the hack exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft IIS because of a Microsoft SQL Specific injection payload, however the attack is capable of infecting any type of web server open to SQL Injection and Cross Site Scriting (XSS) attacks.

Microsoft released some security bulletins (951306, MS08-006) stating vulnerabilities in their IIS web server,  alluding to the vulnerabilities recently brought to light. A script homed at nihaorr1.com based in China was found to be infecting many servers, and spreading quickly. Further research into the problem indicates that non-Microsoft types of servers may also be affected by the attack.

As of May 12, 2008, Google's Index had 1,700,000 infected pages.  The domains currently being injected that contain the malicious Javascript are:

• nihaorr1.com
• 2117966.net
• aspder.com
• haoliuliang.net
• nmidahena.com
• free.hostpinoy.info
• xprmn4u.info
• winzipices.cn
• wowgm1.cn
• killwow1.cn
• wowyeye.cn
• wowgm1.cn
• winzipices.cn

This vulnerability and others like it can easily be stopped with a Citrix Web Application Firewall using default policies to block SQL injection and Cross Site Scripting. We setup a demo in our lab, to show how easy it is to configure and block this type of threat.

See the mailicious script in action:

Watch how Citrix Web App Firewall blocks the malicious script:

See how easy it is to configure the Citrix Web App Firewall:

Read about the Citrix Application Firewall here.

Buy the Citrix Application Firewall here.

Tap into the power of AppExpert

You've probably heard that sepagoPROFILE has been acquired by Citrix, I've previously posted some first hand information about it on my blog, you can read more by visiting here, and here...

User Profile Manager download is currently available here

And now Citrix has made available a general FAQ that can be downloaded here.

Cheers,
Gus Pinto

Right after closing keynote the gang got together with Mark Templeton @ backstage and we had a blast sharing classic computing stories and Mark delivered a special message to our Underground viewers.

The Gang: Charles Aunger, Brian Madden, Rick Dehlinger, James Rabey, John Fanelli, Alex Danilychev, Rich Crusco and I was the guy behind the camera!

I hope you guys enjoyed the event and all content posted on Synergy Underground.

cheers,
Gus Pinto

Joe - Streaming Product Architect @ Citrix - expains what's new with Application Streaming on the next release of XenApp for Windows Server 2008.

If you think I missed something in this interview, let me know (gus.pinto@citrix.com) and I will hunt down Joe to cover more topics you guys want to know about.

cheers,
Gus Pinto

During Citrix Synergy, Sepago announced that the sepagoPROFILE software was sold to Citrix.

The agreement includes the complete takeover of the product, which will form the future core technology for profile management within the Citrix Delivery Center (Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenApp and Citrix Provisioning Server). In addition, the development division of sepago will continue development of the product for the virtualization of application provisioning in cooperation with Citrix over the next 18 months.

For more info:

Visit: Citrix.com/UPM

Download: UPM Whitepaper

Download: UPM Technology Preview