Reminder - Enter the Synergy self-paced online training giveaway by May 31, 2009!

At Synergy, Citrix Education announced they are giving away one year of unlimited access to all self-paced online training courses and practice labs!* If you are a customer and haven't signed up already, visit www.citrix.com/wintraining to enter by May 31, 2009.

*This offer is for customers only (non-Partners).

New courseware has been released from Citrix Education - Get up to speed on Citrix XenApp 5.0, XenDesktop 3, NetScaler 9 and more! Click on the course/certification title below for more information on these hot releases.

Instructor-led Courses

• CXA-100-1I Providing Help Desk Support for Citrix XenApp
  Prepare to troubleshoot common XenApp issues and identify whether complex issues are related to the XenApp product, the network or directory services.
• CXD-200-1I Implementing Citrix XenDesktop 3
  Learn to install, configure and manage Citrix XenDesktop 3.
• CMB-201-1I Implementing Citrix XenApp Platinum Edition Components
  Learn to properly design, implement, and support Citrix XenApp Platinum Edition components, including EdgeSight 5.0, Access Gateway 9.0 Enterprise Edition, Password Manager 4.5 and WANScaler 4.3. For experienced IT professionals.
  

Self-paced Online Courses

• CNS-200-1W Basic Administration for Citrix NetScaler 9.0
  Gain an understanding of NetScaler features such as load balancing, SSL offload, classic and advanced expressions, compression, auditing and logging and monitoring.
• CPV-200-1W Implementing Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0
  Learn to install, configure and administer Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 farms.
  

Certification

• Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) for Citrix NetScaler 9
  Validate expertise in the implementation and administration of NetScaler 9.
  

The new Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer™ (CCEE) for Virtualization and Citrix Certified Integration Architect™ (CCIA) for Virtualization requirements are now available on www.citrixtraining.ccom. The CCEE and CCIA expand on the administrator-level certifications and provide IT professionals with a clear path for advanced certification in virtualization technologies.

Update paths are available for candidates holding a legacy Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator™ (CCEA) or CCIA certification. With just one or two exams, candidates holding the CCEA or CCIA can easily update to the new CCEE and CCIA for Virtualization.
 
To learn more, click here

Citrix Education is looking for a team of Citrix Engineers to assist in developing questions for the upcoming exam required for Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer™ (CCEE) certification. This is a great opportunity for Citrix Engineers who implement XenApp, XenServer, XenDesktop or Provisioning Server as a virtual solution or for Subject Matter Expert s(SMEs) in Citrix virtualization technologies.

Seven (7) Citrix Engineers will be selected to attend a five-day onsite Item Development Workshop (IDW) at Citrix headquarters in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida from Monday, April 20th through Friday, April 24th. During the IDW, participants will help develop questions and simulations to be included in the upcoming exam. Due to the nature of the workshop, participants must attend in person.

Participants will receive credit as a SME for the developed exam, free copies of related courseware and a voucher for this exam.

Participants in the workshop will:

• Receive training on how to write questions for certification exams

• Work alongside our Exam Developers to develop questions

• Work alongside other field experts to review, modify and finalize questions written by other participants of the workshop

No preparation is necessary; simply bring your expertise! If travel is an issue, Citrix Education is offering a limited number of travel scholarships available on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Criteria for IDW participation
In order to be considered for participation, participants must:

• Have Windows Server 2008 and/or Linux operating system experience

• Have Active Directory knowledge

• Have advanced Citrix XenApp, XenServer, XenDesktop and Provisioning Server knowledge

• Have implemented a POC, pilot, lab or production environment that included XenApp, XenServer, Provisioning Server and/or XenDesktop

• Have advanced virtualization knowledge including in depth understanding of networking concepts such as VLANs and storage concepts surrounding SAN, NFS and LUNs

• Provide a reference to confirm your experience with the Citrix products in the virtualization line of sight (XenApp, XenServer, Provisioning Server and XenDesktop)

• Pass the exam development pre-screening by responding to a short survey
  • To participate in the survey, please follow this link: https://citrix.websurveyor.net/wsb.dll/s/92g629 You must complete the survey by Friday March 27th in order to be considered for the workshop. (The survey is 15 minutes long, but you do not have to complete the survey in one sitting).

• Participate and pass a phone interview conducted by a member of the Citrix Education team

• Be willing to commit to attending for the duration of the workshop

Once you complete the survey, please contact Kpayah Tamba at Kpayah.Tamba@citrix.com to notify him that you have completed the survey. Please include your phone number, along with the dates and times when it would be convenient for you to be contacted for a phone interview. The phone interview is the final stage of the enrollment process. All interviews must be completed by Wednesday April 1, 2009.

Let the games begin...before you even get to Las Vegas!

Register for Citrix Synergy before April 24 for seven chances to win self-paced online training from Citrix Education valued at $2,000!*  Simply indicate your desire to enter the Lucky 7 drawing under the Options section of your event registration form and qualify when you complete Synergy registration.

This newly-released delivery format allows users to benefit from the cost savings and convenience of training from the comfort of home or office.  Featuring a robust technical curriculum and 30 days of unlimited lab access time, self-paced online training equips learners with the skills and hands-on experience to master their Citrix solution.

Winners will be posted at the Citrix Education booth during tradeshow hours.  Visit the booth to find out if you are one of the Lucky 7!

Register Now

Already registered for Synergy?
Access your My Synergy account to update your event profile and enter to win.

*Please see terms and conditions for eligibility.

Date: February 24, 2009
Time: 12:00 PM -- 1:00 PM EST (9:00 AM -- 10:00 AM PST)

Date: February 26, 2009
Time: 8:00 PM -- 9:00 PM EST (5:00 PM -- 6:00 PM PST)

Citrix Education invites you to attend a webinar on the application networking capabilities of Citrix NetScaler 9.0.
The webinar will include the following topics:

• Lower total cost of ownership
• Application acceleration
• Application security
• Application availability
• Simple manageability
  

In addition, the webinar will highlight the Citrix Education offerings that are available to train and certify IT professionals to install, administer and support NetScaler 9.0.

Who Should Attend?
IT professionals responsible for application networking initiatives. Some familiarity with Citrix NetScaler is recommended.

Highlights Include:

• NetScaler technical overview
• New NetScaler 9.0 features
• Overview of the instructor-led administration course: CNS-200-1I Basic Administration for Citrix NetScaler 9.0
• Benefits of obtaining the Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) for Citrix NetScaler 9.0 technical certification
  

Register Now:  February 24   February 26

A recording of the webinar will be available on the CNS-200-1I course page following the live broadcast.

Cut Costs with Citrix Help Desk Training!

On February 26-27, 2009, Citrix Education will be hosting a live instructor-led beta class focusing on XenApp skills and knowledge for IT help desk professionals. This beta class, held at Citrix headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, FL, is offered for just $500 (a savings of over 50%!) This training class is designed to build the expertise of in-house help desk professionals, thus reducing consulting and support costs.

Course Details

Title: CXA-100-1I Providing Help Desk Support for Citrix XenApp (Beta)
Description: This course includes interactive instructor-led discussion and hands-on labs and exercises that guide students through help desk tasks. Upon completion, students will be prepared to troubleshoot common issues encountered in a XenApp environment.
Cost: $500 (savings of over 50%)
Duration: 2 days
Dates: February 26 - 27, 2009
Location: Citrix Headquarters - Fort Lauderdale, FL
Audience: IT staff supporting Citrix XenApp

Seating is limited, so register today!

Questions? Email americaseducation@citrix.com

Citrix Education just announced the rollout of its redesigned certification program. The new certification structure, developed in collaboration with Citrix customers, offers candidates more choices such as certification tracks by role and specialization, as well as streamlined update paths that make it easier for IT professionals to stay current. The certification changes support IT professionals' need to demonstrate specialized knowledge in key server, desktop and application virtualization technologies.

The next generation of Citrix certifications deliver:

1. Certification by job level
Three levels of IT professional certification are offered, which allow candidates to match their certification path to their job role:

• Administrator Series - Consists of the Citrix Certified Administrator™ (CCA), which has been expanded to include tracks supporting Platinum product editions. Also offered is the new Citrix Certified Advanced Administrator™ (CCAA) certification, which takes the CCA one step further with in-depth product specialization.
• Engineer Series - Consists of the new Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer™ (CCEE), which offers seasoned IT professionals the opportunity to validate their ability to combine the coordination of operational planning efforts with 'tactical design' expertise and integration know-how.
• Architect Series - Consists of a re-vamped Citrix Certified Integration Architect™ (CCIA) certification, which allows IT professionals to hone real world skills with a range of technologies to design strategic approaches to application and workload delivery.

2. Certification by solution
Various paths, including Application Virtualization, Desktop Virtualization, Server Virtualization and Application Networking, are available, so that IT professionals can align their certifications to the technology solutions most relevant to their job role.

3. Certification by product specialization
IT professionals can achieve specific designations for the latest Citrix products, such as Citrix XenApp™, Citrix® NetScaler®, Citrix XenDesktop™, Citrix XenServer™, and others, to prove their competency and skills on the latest enterprise products.

4. Simplified certification update paths
With the release of the next generation certification programs, update paths to the newest CCEE and CCIA certifications will be available for current advanced certification holders. These update paths will significantly reduce requirements by focusing on the domains, features and technologies that are most required to advance to the next generation CCEE and CCIA certifications.

For more information on the next generation certification structure, visit www.citrixeducation.com > Certifications.

Offer available through 10/19/08

The Citrix XenApp 5 beta exam, A05 Implementing Citrix XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2008, is currently offered at NO COST to all candidates through 10/19/08. Candidates have the opportunity to show their expertise and get ahead of the crowd on the next XenApp certification.

Because this exam is in beta, exam takers will have the chance to provide feedback and shape the final version. Candidates who pass the beta exam will earn the new Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) for Citrix XenApp 5 on Windows Server 2008 at no cost.

Find XenApp training

*The last da to take the beta exam is 10/19/08. To register for the exam, visit http://www.vue.com/

Citrix Online is going to host a series of three training webinars on GoToAssist Express, register to attend one of the following:

Tuesday, July 15 at 11 AM PDT
Click here to register

Wednesday, July 23 at 4 PM PDT
Click here to register

Thursday, July 31 at 9 AM PDT
Click here to register

During each of these Webinars, they will hold a drawing for a pocket camcorder, here are the details:
- 5.0 Megapixel Video Pocket Camcorder Value: $175
- DXG-567V HD
- 1280 x 720 Video Pocket Camcorder
- Flip USB Connector

I took a netscaler basic training a while ago. The class is very informative. And I would recommend it if you have an opportunity to take it.

For more information about this product, see

http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=21681

You can find more information about this training class at

http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=21768

Note that the course is being updated for 8.0 release.

Netscaler is great for network, application administrators and most articles have focused on this audience. Not much has been said about Netscaler benefits to application developers and its impact to application designs (particularly web applications). As a developer, I will try to give some examples from a developer perspective based on what I learned from the class.

Load balancing:

Netscaler offers powerful load balancing capabilities. In a multiple web server deployment scenarios, you will probably need a load balancer to load balance web servers. If your web server requires all requests associated with a session to remain on one server, Netscaler can be configured to do so easily and there are multiple methods to choose from. So a simple web application may simplify its design by maintaining its session state on the local server.

Some more complex applications use a separate group of application servers to run business logics. One example of such application is the MSAM product I worked on. (MSAM is an enterprise portal product for those who don know). Making sure the requests from web server to these application servers are load balanced efficiently was a challenge for us. And we spent lots of efforts on it. With netscaler, I now wonder if it makes more sense to eliminate application servers. Instead, host business logics on web servers as well and use netscaler to load balance web servers. It would simplify the design quite a lot and would have more flexible deployment options since the load balancing is separated from the application itself. Such design would be easier to debug, easier to scale up and perform better (less network traffic, simpler code)

For example, Netscaler has a slow start feature to avoid a newly added server to be overloaded. Many of the applications I seen don have this load balancing feature.

Content redirection:

Netscaler has this feature of redirecting requests to different backend servers based on flexible policies. For example, you can configure it to redirect HTTP traffic to a mobile web site if the request headers indicate the client device is a small form factor device. A use case for example can be as follows:

Web interface users can type the same URL they are familiar with from either small form factor devices such as blackberry (we have a blackberry ICA client now!http://citrixcommunity.com/blogs/cdn/archive/2007/03/26/Idokorro-Launches-new-Citrix-ICA-Client-for-BlackBerry.aspx) or a regular PC. A Netscaler can be put in front of web interface servers and redirect requests to different web interface sites that are designed to serve appropriate published applications.

Sure, the applications can do similar things themselves. But it not only require additional code but also difficult to make it as flexible as netscaler can do. Plus it is easier to reconfigure netscaler than changing the applications. Netscaler has a nice GUI to help with this task. Not to mention some applications such as web interfaces currently don have such capabilities yet.

Integrated caching:

For example, Netscaler can cache even dynamic content for specified period of time. Thus it can reduce the load to application server. For certain applications, it means, application developers can focus more on solving business problem and leaving the hard job of caching to NS.

It can be a challenge to design a high performance application. In MSAM and later AAC (advanced access control) products I worked on, we spent tons of development and testing effort to improve the web applications performance. It difficult because tasks such as converting word documents to PDFs do take relatively long time. We improved performance by caching the conversation result. But it is difficult to do and is application specific. If we could rely on Netscaler, we could have delivered the products much quicker.

There are many other benefits to developers. The above are just some examples. We love to hear your experience with netscaler.

I recently tried the new XenServer on line technical training. It's great. Not everyone has the hardware to install XenServer. The on line training will get you started with XenServer quickly.  I heard the training is available for free to XenServer partners. For more details and to sign up please see Citrix education web site

You will even be able to experience with the "10 minutes to Xen" joy by installing XenServer from scratch.

One thing I found most valuable in this training is that it allows me to try XenMotion myself. XenMotion which requires shared storage which I currently don't have in my lab. I've seen demos of XenMotion. But it's really cool to be able to try it myself.

In general the step by step instructions are very good although I did find the following that may require some clarification. It seems you will need to install xen tool into the vm first to enable xenmotion. Also you may need to remove network0 and replace it with the vlan created in the first step.  Neither seems to be in the instruction.  I could have missed something.

Did you run into the same issue?	Choose
Yes
No

Anyway I thought I should share my experience.

If you are new to XenServer, it may work best if you follow the lab orders. However if you would like to repeat labs or jump to the labs you are interested, you can do so too. Each lab will independently have everything you need to complete the lab.

Performance is generally good because it uses ICA. RDP also seems to be used to allow connection to XP desktops. When XenDesktop becomes ready, I am sure the performance will be even better. The virtual machine console portion seems to be a little bit sluggish. But it is probably because VNC is involved on top of ICA and RDP. You can experience yourself the performance difference between ICA and other display protocols.

You can click the "Ask an Expert" button from within the course or labs and get a real live person to chat with.  It's essentially a GoToAssist session. I didn't notice this feature when I took the class though.

The training seems to be very popular. I had to try hard to get into the class although I work for Citrix. The citrix partners have priorities. The training is active only for 5 days. So be prepared.  

I wish more people could have access to such a training/demo. Citrix has a test drive program http://www.citrixtestdrive.com/testdrive/where  you can try the XenApp (formerly known as Presentation Server) over Internet. It would be nice to extend that program to XenServer. What do you think?

Enjoy your Xen experience if you can. Please let us know what you think. Survey:

Have you tried the XenServer on line technical training?	Choose
yes
no

Would you like to take the training?	Choose
yes
no

Don't miss out on the great new Presentation Server Platinum training opportunity just announced at Summit this week!  See details below.....

StayCurrent, a promotion offering accelerated, in-depth technical training on Citrix Presentation Server(TM) Platinum Edition. Intended to encourage partners to update their skills, the promotion features an accelerated training course that combines several courses adding up to 11 days of training in five days. The course is offered at the promotional rate of $2,500, which is 55 percent off current pricing. This offer is also valid through the next Citrix Summit partner event (October 2008).

Partners may access further information on this training program and others by going to www.citrix.com/partnertraining and logging in with a valid My Citrix account. 

Go for it!!!!