Planning is done, content is ready, now we are in the middle of rolling out the XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 training to the support teams worldwide.

By Sept 29th, the date in which XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 will be available for download as mentioned in the Official Press Release, we plan to have a majority of Support engineers trained.

The 2 1/2 day XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 comprehensive training course covers all new features as outlined by Vinny Sosa in his What's new in XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 in plain English blog. A majority of the course is spent "hands on" installing, configuring, break/fixing and troubleshooting the various new features.

Then 3-5 months post release we plan to deliver a follow up "Advanced" session on common issues encountered.
The agenda for the Advanced session will be based on common/troublesome support issue logged in our CRM, Support Forums and Tech Support Twitter accounts, here and here.

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

■Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
■XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
■XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
■XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
■XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
■XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
■Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
■XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

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

Alessandro over at virtualization.info commented that we need to do a better job communicating the value and capabilities of Workflow Studio:
http://www.virtualization.info/2009/09/release-citrix-workflow-studio-20.html

I have to admit, I have been focused on talking about the new version and features (I'm excited about them.) There are lots of places though where we do talk about the capabilities that Workflow Studio enables for our customers:

On the main product page for Workflow Studio we cover the 5 use cases that customers typically use Workflow Studio for:

1. Power management - Reduce power consumption in the datacenter.
2. User provisioning - Automate the process of provisioning users.
3. Dynamic resource allocation - Detect changes in user traffic patterns and automatically re-configure server resources for on-demand access.
4. Disaster recovery - Automate failover and recovery procedures.
5. Product automation - Automate repetitive tasks and ensure best practices are followed.

I am also taking each of the bullets from the original post announcing the availability of Workflow Studio 2.0 and going into more detail. I just posted Automate XenApp with Workflow Studio where I talk about some of the use cases that we based the new XenApp libraries on. I will have some sample workflows posted with video tutorials as well.

I wrote The Three Audiences of Workflow Studio back in February, but it is still just as relevant with the current version of Workflow Studio. 'Scripting guys' and developers will find a lot to like in Workflow Studio, but you don't need to be one to benefit from Workflow Studio. The drag-and-drop interface and standard way of accessing all the Citrix product APIs (as well as PowerShell, Windows, WMI, etc.) opens up access to a much broader range of people.

The Workflow Studio 2.0 Video Tutorial Series provides an introduction, an architectural overview, and an installation/configuration guide for getting started and should help save you time as you consider how to deploy Workflow Studio.

Also, I want to clarify the availability of Workflow Studio as an anonymous comment left there indicates there may be some confusion. Workflow Studio is included as part of ALL editions of the Citrix Delivery Center products - not just Platinum. Workflow Studio comes with all of the below:

• XenApp Advanced, Enterprise, or Platinum edition
• XenDesktop Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, or Platinum edition
• NetScaler Standard, Enterprise, or Platinum edition
• Essentials for XenServer Enterprise and Platinum editions
• Essentials for Hyper-V Enterprise and Platinum editions

As always leave me your feedback in the comments or email me directly...

In a previous post announcing the availability of Workflow Studio 2.0 I listed the new features that are available. Here is a closer look at the first feature mentioned:

Native XenApp activity libraries

With the 2.0 release of Workflow Studio, we now include 18 activities for managing application virtualization scenarios with XenApp. These activities provide access to your XenApp farm, servers, applications, and even sessions.

These 18 activities were designed around two key use cases:

1. Backup/Restore of applications - By providing access to retrieve current published applications as well as publishing new applications, these activities provide the ability to do automated configuration backups, QA to Production migrations, and help automate version upgrades. View sample workflows that address this use case for backup and restore.
2. Manage logons - Many customers expressed the need to be able to automatically manage access to their XenApp servers. We also received feedback that the way customers most often manage logons is through the use of customized load evaluator rules. We included activities that help manage logons for automated maintenance of XenApp servers.

These activities are installed by the activity library installer and leverage the new Commands for PowerShell to interface with XenApp. Everything you need to build a XenApp workflow is included in the installer, but to run the workflow you will need to meet two requirements:

1. You must install either Workflow Studio or a Runtime on a XenApp server in your farm as these commands do not support remote connections. The XenApp server you install it on just needs to be a member of the farm and does not need to be serving applications.
2. These activities only support XenApp 4.5 HRP3 and later. If you need access to prior versions of XenApp, you will need to use MFCOM. More information on how to use Workflow Studio with MFCOM is available in this Workflow Studio SDK MFCOM example.

Keep in mind that we also support native activities that run VBScript and PowerShell scripts. If there is something missing from our activity libraries that you want to automate you may be able to do so through a script and not actually need a native activity for a given task.

The Workflow Studio 2.0 Video Tutorial Series provides an introduction, an architectural overview, and an installation/configuration guide for getting started and should help save you time as you consider how to deploy Workflow Studio.

I'm sure our customers and partners will find other unique use cases. Feel free to leave feedback in comments or email me directly to let me know what you are doing with the product (or what you would like to be able to do.)

Workflow Studio is included with XenApp Feature Pack 2

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

I read this interesting report a few weeks ago regarding Virgina States Telework Day and lessons learned.

I've visited a number of customers since reading this report and it struck me how Telecommuting is so often overlooked or understated as a huge benefit of Desktop Virtualization and Application Virtualization. When I think about the majority of our customer base, who use XenApp. XenApp is often used as a point solution internally, or a remote access solution with our SSL products with access to a subset of applications. Many customers have used our technology as a disaster recovery option also. However when I ask are all your applications available to you? The majority of customers say no for a myriad of reasons some valid some not.

This get's me very excited about Desktop Virtualization. Since for most people that is the user interface you interact with to get to all of your applications, even if it's just access to web apps. Telecommuting all of a sudden becomes much more powerful. Whether you use XenApp or standard enterprise software distribution tools you get to those via your Desktop.

When this light bulb goes off in a customers head an ah-ha moment occurs and a far more interesting dialogue beings. We talk about how to increase work life balance, how to enable a qualified women's workforce who are juggling parental responsibilities and how to access talent wherever they may be. All of a sudden we are talking about what's stopping us getting there. When I look at the study data, it's interesting to note that 78% of people encountered no difficulties. Even more insightful is that 91% of participants say that they are more likely to telework in the future. Such is the power of flexible work lives.

When I was working in New York my commute was almost 4 hours a day. I hated it, it was draining. On the extreme end I know, but long commutes are common in New York. Now that I work remotely the majority of the time, it's great to have the hours back to myself. I get to choose to use these reclaimed hours for greater productivity or spend time with family and friends. It's also really cool to collaborate with colleagues all over the world not in our hub offices. We can be anywhere and simply fire up GoToMeeting sessions share ideas, have access to our data securely from our data centers with Desktop and Application virtualization. Sure there is no substitute for face time, but that's just not possible with such a diverse workforce. This flexibility makes connections to a global set of colleagues possible, and simplifies my life. I really am living our vision to work and play from anywhere. Now can I translate that to a raise as the report found? They say the money you keep is what counts. I know my gas prices are lower, car mileage is lower and expensive New York tolls and parking are gone. I'm also greener I guess and even save on dry cleaning How about you?

You can quote me! "Personally I have forgotten how to dial my office phone. And I never slave over SAP entering home phone expenses for expensive business calls. Every EasyCall saves me time and, more often than not, saves Citrix a ton on telephone expenses."

EasyCall is a simple solution from Citrix and, quite frankly, a hidden gem of a feature. Using a client plugin and a Xen-based virtual appliance that brokers calls with your VoIP system, EasyCall makes calls for users with a simple click anywhere on their screen. It even enables conference calls for up to 50 users! Now in EasyCall 3.0, users can even configure the Follow Me feature which tries to find them using a list of numbers they configure. Did I mention that it works with a lot of different telephone systems? And did I mention that users just need a phone that rings? No need to mess with softphones for remote access....though it works with those too. And now, NetScaler users can add click to call numbers to web applications..it's simple with EasyCall. What it all comes down to is that EasyCall is like a softphone, but without any additional cost.

To get EasyCall, just download and install XenServer and add the EasyCall Virtual Appliance to your XenApp, XenDesktop or NetScaler setup. Download it and go.

What's new in EasyCall 3.0? Call forwarding so you can both make and receive calls remotely; authentication supports for BYOC (Bring your own computer) users; a user portal accessible from browsers and even iPhones for managing conferencing, call forwarding, and locations; Win 7 and Snow Leopard support; dial-in access to EasyCall conferences; net call links for EasyCalling specific company telephone numbers; and delivery via Citrix Receiver 1.1! All in five languages!

Congratulations and thank you to all those folks that created this new version! Please check it out and let us know what you think. We welcome any and all feedback!

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

In the spirit of "keepin it simple", so simple that even a caveman can do it, I engaged the help of a few of our best CTPs (Child Technology Protégés),actually technology savvy elementary school kids to help produce a small video showing off some Citrix technology with mobile devices. So those of us that aren't smarter than a 5th grader should still be able to follow along We had a lot of fun making this video, but the interesting part was that the kids actually GOT IT! The video features Citrix Ready products from partners Sprint and Celio. Three use cases are expressed in the video:

• Mobile Health Care Users
• Traveling Road Warriors
• Mobile Field Technicians

Hope the video helps generate some ideas on how you can use Citrix to simplify you mobile deployments.

We will dive deeper into some of these use cases as part of a video series on Citrix TV so you can get a little more familiar with each, and some of the products used. If the kid thing works, we may need to have a sequel

Sometimes we are so focused on what the (technical) media tells us that we can lose perspective on reality and market dynamics that can (and often do) affect our businesses.  Analysts are great and perform a valuable role, but they are not entrepreneurs, inventors or architects.  This being the case, if we put too much stock in what they say or where the market will go, we can mislead ourselves. This could result in a false sense of direction leading us to the wrong conclusions about our roadmaps.  Such is the case with Cloud Computing and mass delivery of Internet Protocol applications and services.

To set the stage let me start with the misconception that Cloud Computing has somehow been isolated to large ISPs such as Google and Amazon.  We could include Microsoft in the mix but they are currently not offering a consumable solution yet.  Why would we believe that these companies are the only focus of the market?  What about the Fortune 100 communications companies that have already been in business for many years providing IP communications and services in mass?  Isn't it possible that these are the "real" contenders in the Cloud Computing space and we keep listening to analysts tell us 'they don't belong' or large service providers are in a different segment and therefore aren't on their radar.

I have to admit I've found this to be the case.  Within the large analyst firms there are specializations of expertise; IT, Virtualization, Infrastructure, Networks, and Communications to name a few.  These analysts often don't communicate or collaborate with each other and as a result we get a very monolithic view of an industry.  Since IT has evolved to be in every sector from Energy to Entertainment, gaining a holistic view of future offerings (Cloud Computing included) is difficult to say the least when confronting "experts" in individual sectors.  All the while huge communications and entertainment companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, and Comcast are building out massive IP networks and services that would dwarf any Enterprise, ISP or Software company.

Note that the convergence of IT services for a "utility" offering is the core definition of Cloud Computing and yet Utility type companies are not usually included as contenders in the space.  I would venture to guess that companies such as AT&T for instance should be considered players in the Cloud Computing business. Wouldn't you? To prove the point, one only has to look at the offerings available in the market today and see that there is a huge potential to fulfill the promise (and demand) of Cloud Computing. 

The diagram below is a depiction of the current AT&T U-verse network.  Note that it is a pure Internet Protocol (IP) network and provides utility based data and communications to a mass population with Service Level Agreements (SLAs) capable of providing High Definition Video Entertainment services, IP Voice services, and Internet Applications services.  AT&T has two major data centers which aggregate traffic from Video Head Ends as well as their own ISP connections and contracts to Internet asset providers such as Yahoo!. The IP traffic flows from the data center via fiber optic cable to Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAM) within a neighborhood or office complex.  These DSLAMs then provide network access to the individual home or office via Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Lines (VHDSL) capable of carrying high bandwidth IP applications such as HDTV or heavily intensive graphics applications.  VHDSL is an asynchronous network technology meaning there is a disparity between upstream and downstream bandwidth.  However, the upstream path is still very capable of providing certain types of real-time communication and high bandwidth IP data/applications paths. 

Further, if we take a look at the AT&T U-verse home/office extension we'll note that Cisco has partnered with AT&T to provide a low cost, high speed (100 GB) combination wireline/wireless router. They have also created an extended end point Set Top Box (STB) which is really a Central Processing Unit (CPU) with both volatile and non volatile memory.  Further, Microsoft is included in this partnership and has written a light version of their Operating System (O/S) called Mediaroom in order to provide a platform for services from the data center.  These include custom applications that can be accessed from any PC/Mac in the world and used to control both Entertainment and Communications applications rendered either on the IPTV or on the local PC.  Mediaroom resides on the STB and communicates to the data center through the Cisco router using IP.  Microsoft has installations of Mediaroom in (25) major service providers around the world in every geography (including China).

Applications can be on-boarded through this network into the home/office by merely sending the code over the IP network to each individual STB in the home/office.  One has to wonder will it be long before AT&T, partnering with Microsoft and Cisco begins to offer applications for home/office use over this network as well.  All of the elements are already in place, being used and a billing model producing revenues.  This is not the case with Google, Amazon or any other emerging Cloud provider.

Similar types of services are available from other large communications companies around the world but they do not seem to be captured as companies worthy of being on the Cloud Computing radar.  Cloud Computing will evolve that is for sure and many companies will either opt out or be pushed to the side by the real contenders.  However, the convergence of IP technologies and the emergence of utility based computing is much broader than just a few ISPs and the sooner all the players are brought into the mix, the better for those of us who are attempting to set future roadmaps to enable the Cloud to be real.

I posted the first 3 videos for the Workflow Studio 2.0 video tutorial series on CitrixTV:

1. Getting Started with Workflow Studio 2.0
2. Workflow Studio 2.0 Architecture and Components
3. Installing and Configuring Workflow Studio 2.0

You can access the series and watch them all in a playlist format from here:
http://www.citrix.com/tv/series/109

I plan to add some more video tutorials to this series and also plan to do a series that explores the new features in 2.0 specifically. Let me know what you think and what other topics you want me to cover...

One of the new exclusive Windows 7 feature is the use of search connectors. Users have the ability to search remote file repositories on the local network or web using Windows Explorer. I've created a Windows 7 search connector to search content into the Citrix Knowledgebase.

Download the CitrixKB CitrixKB.zip search Connector and add http://support.citrix.com and http://api.bing.com to your trusted sites in your Internet Explorer. (Tools -> Internet Options -> Security)

Now you can start your Windows Explorer, click Citrix on the left favorite pane and enter your search string.

The Citrix Cloud offers users the ability to experience the power of Citrix solutions without having to setup and configure their own environemnt. The Citrix Cloud demo environment utilize a number of key Citrix solutions including Citrix XenServer, Citrix XenApp, Citrix NetScaler and Citrix Access Gateway.

Users can register for a demonstration account good for a 2 hour session, or expires 24 hours from the time of the registration. Currently the Citrix Cloud offers demos for the PC's & Mac's plus Citrix Receiver on iPhone and Citrix Receiver for Windows Mobile Professional devices. You can use the link below to register for a demo account from you PC or your mobile device.

Registration URL http://www.citrixcloud.net

When you're ready to meet your local Citrix Field team let us know and we will set up a time to show you why Citrix has always been and will always be the leader in simplified virtualization!

In order to connect Unified Communications (UC) with Cloud we first need to start from a model for business integration that includes the processes and data models defining how a business operates. The best representation I've found of this is a work by Paul R. Smith as shown in the diagram below (redrawn by Marcel Douwe Dekker). Note that there are two distinct areas that define the Business Model, namely Processes and Data.  Business Process Integration is the sum of converging Data and Processes and results in the requirements that define the total operations of each business. This is important because without the analysis of both sides of the business, critical requirements are often missed and a comprehensive Information Technology approach becomes difficult.
 

In the world of UC, elements of each (processes and data), are merged to "provide a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types", including but not limited to "communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, IP telephony, video conferencing, call control and speech control with non real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax)".  As shown in the diagram (above right) both real-time and non real-time communications flow up into the Business Model Integration schema to round out the entire business operations definition.

Unified Communications has been the 'holy grail' for large service providers looking to bridge the gap between IP and voice services over the past 15 years.  Now, with the emergence of Software as a Service and Platforms as a Service, Cloud Providers have the ability to virtualize a solution to fill the requirements of Business Model Integration, but many are not bridging the gap to communications. As depicted in the diagram below, by delivering VMs, Desktops and Applications as well as real-time and non real-time communications in a PaaS model, a foundation for automation can be built for the next generation of Information Technology and Business Model Integration.  The missing link in a complete service offering has been the integration of UC and SaaS.

                                         
 
Unfortunately, Cloud Providers have not been able to grasp the idea of Holistic Cloud Computing yet and therefore have largely been focused on Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).  Alternatively, Incumbent Service Providers (AT&T, BT, Telefonica, Unicom, etc) are mainly concentrating on the UC portion of the model, and are not providing SaaS but have relegated this offering to companies such as Saleforce.com, WebEx/Cisco and CitrixOnline.  SaaS providers tend to be monolithic in their offerings providing software applications but do not offer IaaS or PaaS.

The demand is growing for a more holistic approach to providing ubiquitous service.  Incumbent Services Providers have the means (cash, network, and brand) but no sense of urgency and a misunderstanding of their role in PaaS.  Cloud Providers have the technology, but not the UC implementations.  Although beginning to move into the collaboration portion of UC, most SaaS providers tend to focus on a silo of applications and are growing so rapidly they have little desire to broaden their offerings. This creates a tremendous opportunity for Tier 2 and Tier 3 Cloud Providers to quickly gain market share as the demand is left unmet by larger players (i.e. Tier 1 Service Providers and Tier 1 Cloud Providers).  The key to capturing this market is to understand the emerging SaaS model that includes both Web and Windows based applications as well as incorporating UC offerings into subscription services.

Citrix enables IaaS/PaaS with our C3 technology. Microsoft enables a UC suite of applications. Once the redefinition of SaaS is embraced (both Web and Windows apps) Service Providers will enable services through the hosted desktop using the Citrix Service Provider program.

Have you ever looked into the App Streaming execution cache and said, "good grief!  What are all those GUIDs!"?  GUIDs are great, for the programmer.  For the administrator, they can be a bit more mysterious. 

I recently wrote a utility to decode the GUID data of the Application Streaming execution cache, displaying the decoded information to the console, but neater than TTY, it also updates the Windows Explorer display of that space so the "secret" information is exposed in permanent fashion and via the GUI, which is good stuff.   The utility is released to the Citrix Developer Network, in source code form so you can tweak it if you'd like. 

Download from here, look for the "Rade Cache Decode" link at the bottom of the page.

For background, I have written about the GUIDs before and how they are key to the streaming system maintaining the separation between "profiles" that you can publish and execution "targets" that the streaming system uses to actually use to run stuff.   There is more on this in this post.

Public credit

The idea for this tool actually came from very smart people at Sepago, Sascha Juch and Helge Klein, who I work with on Citrix Profile Management (the artist formerly known as Sepago Profile).   They also clarified for me that despite MSDN documentation claiming "system" attribute is necessary for this explorer magic to work, marking the directories read-only gets the job done.  Tested and true!  Thank you guys.

Update: Dieter Schmitz at Sepago is the gentleman who came up with the idea.  Thank you Dieter.

What does RadeCacheDecode do?

Application Streaming can store one or more execution Targets for each App Streaming profile. This level of indirection allows a single set of "Applications" and icons to be published even if more than one execution image is required.  This is common for a profile that supports both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. While the application is profiled twice to create two targets, there is only ONE profile to publish and only one set of "applications" from an Access Management Console perspective.  

A necessary consequence of this is that the execution targets have names that don't necessarily have any resemblance to the name of the profile from which they came.   Targets can be associated with execution systems for a variety of configurable options and these can change from version to version of the profile. 

That is, just because a specific target was right for Windows XP German yesterday doesn't mean that it won't also be right for English AND German tomorrow.   Even ignoring "one to many" advantages of execution targets to profiles, the streaming system STILL would use some abstract term to keep track of the execution targets. 

If you're editing a profile in the Streaming Profiler and you SAVE, all the identifiers of the execution units remain unchanged.  BUT - If you Save-As, you'll get new identifiers.   "By spec", the thing that was "saved as" is a New profile and will mature separately from the original - even if the before and after profiles have the same name.  Putting it a bit differently: Two profiles with the same name are not necessarily the same profile, the unique identifiers in the profile define the uniqueness of the execution units and in theory, or the profile itself.  The studious reader will see below where at least parts of this break down.The short version: Thanks to the use of GUIDs, the streaming cache manager will never confuse two execution targets, even if they come from different profiles that have the same name.

*What about the administrator?*GUIDs are there just to make the RadeCache space hard to digest.  After enough time looking at the Citrix internal showcase farm, you get used to the idea that the execution Target that starts with "1B3" is the MS Office 2007 profile execution target that is used for Windows Vista and Windows 7.  Type 1b3, hit tab and you get the right one.  Not ideal.  Here's what it looks like in the Windows explorer.

Okay, we know that 1B3* is the MS Office 2007 execution target for Windows Vista and Windows 7.  What are the other 5 execution targets? 

What you need is something to look up each GUID and to TELL YOU which profile it came from.  Yes, it would be BETTER if the streaming client itself had left you a clue, but it doesn't.  Notice that when the streaming client created these directories it KNEW what profile it came from and there can be at most ONE profile in the entire globe that has that GUID.  Did it leave you a hint, a small hint?  NOPE!.

Ahh, the fun life of being a XenApp adminstrator. 

HELP IS ON THE WAY!

The location of the application hub is generally "known" to the admin, but to know which GUID is associated with which profile, takes some work.  Once the running application terminates, not even the streaming client knows where the GUID came from.  It's just a directory that exists in the right place, but the link that says that the "1b3" target is somehow related to MS Office is gone, there's nothing there.  

Making it easier

For offline execution, the streaming system stores information that provides the secret decoder information required to convert GUIDs to profiles.  The Deploy space holds a copy of the Application Hub content and stores it in a place that has a fixed location (registry configurable and readable from the utility).  The RadeCacheDecode utility looks at the Deploy space, sees what execution targets exist for which profiles and uses this information to "decode" the GUID entries in the RadeCache.  This should make more sense by example.

Command line execution (readonly)

If RadeCacheDecode is run with the -r (readonly) switch, the utility processes the subdirectories of the RadeCache space, and for each tries to figure out what Deployed profile goes with that execution target.

Example output:RadeCacheDecode -r092b3450-e543-4541-837a-c374cc4e73cc_1 (GoView1067)

1b345768-25fd-45d4-b689-f3984f9221ee_5 (Office20071067)

274bd686-a305-45d9-a479-a127338586b1_1 (project20071067)

4d971270-cbac-4366-8c4a-b11f6f867a58_1 (AdditionalOffice1067)

76dc5736-0c5d-4600-a7e9-a3a41c3b5c51_6 (-not-deployed-)

a9984581-0e41-44b6-861f-b6d748dacb93_1 (Visio20071067)

Okay, we have now decoded the 4 of the 5 remaining execution Targets on my notebook.

Making it really useful!

Consider the technique that the Windows Explorer uses change each user's "Documents" directory into "My Documents".  This same activity can be used to permanently improve the readability of the RadeCache space. 

When thinking this was a good idea, I tried it out by manually creating files and while I was initially intrigued, my first conclusion was that it had negatives that outweighed the positives.  If you read the MSDN docs on the desktop.ini, it leads you to believe that the directories have to be marked "System" for this Desktop.ini stuff to work.  It isn't so.  Marking the directory readonly will do the job and with that, we have a solution!  Why is "system" bad?  Answer: it makes directories disappear from normal directory searches 

"readonly" works, so we have a solution.

This time, run the utility without the -r (readonly) switch and it will WRITE to the RadeCache space to mark all of it's subdirectories with "decoded" versions of the GUIDs.  The directories are marked readonly so the desktop.ini stuff comes into play with Windows Explorer and a file named "desktop.ini" is added to each execution Target's directory to create a "friendly name" to go with the mysterious true GUID_ver name.

The end result is that the next time the Windows Explorer browses to this space, you will see a nice version of the GUIDs - with the name of the profile placed in parens after the GUID. Sometimes it is necessary to force a refresh in Windows explorer to get it to reload the friendly names.

Here's a picture of the output

We're making good progress.  It is much easier to see these profile hinting entries than just plain GUIDs.

How does it work?

The entry above that says "not deployed" is the hint.  Since the Deploy space is at a known location, the decoder utility KNOWS where to look up the execution target GUIDs.  While the streaming client doesn't know what guid goes with what once the applications terminate, the DEPLOY space knows!  The Application Hub also knows, but unfortunately, the decoder utility doesn't know where THE (think plural) Application Hubs are located.  The Deploy space is fixed and given large offline streaming usage, this becomes pretty easy to inspect.

The utility loops through the subdirectory space of RadeCache.  For all directories that look like a GUID_v entry, it considers them an execution target and then goes looking for GUID_v content in the Deploy space.  When it finds a hit, the name of the containing directory in the Deploy space tells the decoder utility the name of the profile from which the GUID_v came.

Awesome!  Works good.

What's wrong with this picture

The studious reader will notice that the Deploy space is named based on the NAME of the profile that is deployed.  The Decode utility leverages this fact to figure out what profile a given GUID came from.

This naming in the Deploy space violates the premise that two profiles with the same name, but with different GUIDs are different profiles!  Dig into the internals of a .profile file (it is XML) and you will see that the profile also has a GUID.  GUIDs aren't just for guaranteeing uniqueness of the execution targets, they also guarantee the uniqueness of the profile layer.

Good news: the caching system is correctly using GUIDs and will "never" get confused.

The Deploy space SHOULD be done based on the GUID of the profile and all the sub-directories below the Deploy space SHOULD be GUIDs (with no version).  They SHOULD be, but they AREN'T and this means that the premise of two profiles with the same name, but different GUIDs are different is somewhat not precisely correct when considering offline content. 

In reality, this doesn't come up because admins tend to stick all of their profiles onto a single Application Hub and this means that the name of the profile is a unique key.  Still, know that this isn't right and know that I've been chasing a "fix" for this for over 2 years - so far, with no fruit.  The App Hub side is fine based on name.  The Deploy space should be GUID based.  Okay, I'm off my soapbox.

Enhancements

Good enhancements to RadeCacheDecode would expand the profile search to go beyond the Deploy space and also consult the network Application Hub.   The utility should also use the COM based SDK whose webpage it is posted in.  That is, the utility looks in subdirectories of the Deploy space to figure out which profile holds a file with the right name.  This breaks the separation of the profile as a programatic thing from looking behind the curtain.  I could have coded it that way, but it just seemed like a lot of work to open up a bunch of XML files to peek for GUIDs, when all I wanted to know was presence (is it there, or not?).

The "ultimate" enhancement to RadeCacheDecode is to change the streaming service itself so that when it creates RadeCache directories, it creates the desktop.ini file directly.  As of Streming Client version 5.2 (XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2), this does not happen - but now we know how...

To achieve almost the same thing, you could run RadeCacheDecode on a timer via some automated means.  It needs to be run with power so it can see and write to the RadeCache space, but if you do this, your desktop.ini entries should always be pretty much correct.  I coded the utility to WRITE only if the existing stuff is not "correct", so you can run it repeatably and the desktop.ini files will only be written occasionally.  This was probably overkill.

If you find it useful, let me know...

Joe Nord

Citrix Systems Product Architect - Application Streaming

If you haven't noticed, XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 has been announced and with it comes the new Power and Capacity Management feature. By now I hope you downloaded the Tech Preview release or at least had a chance to watch these videos which explain the feature in detail (How it works, Tech Talk recording, my interview on it, our architect Juliano's interview on it).

The following are the enhancements we made to Power and Capacity Management since we released the Tech Preview version.

• High availability for concentrator
• We now support both physical and virtual servers in the same workload group
• In determining the maximum session capacity of a server, the system now takes the lowest of what the administrator has set or what the load evaluator computes based on the current load
• In addition to SQL Server 2005, we now "officially" support SQL Server 2008
• Minor visual enhancements

Juliano and I will be blogging further on these to clarify what these enhancements are and to offer up other deployment considerations. Stay tuned to the XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 blog roll for more information beginning next week Monday.

And thanks to all of those who participated in the technology preview and provided feedback. We can't tell you how critical it is to us. Speaking of which, we invite you to pre-register for the Windows Server 2008 R2 Technology Preview coming sometime next quarter

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

In case you missed it, on September 16, 2009, Citrix announced our much anticipated release of XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2. My colleague, Vinny Sosa, did an awesome job detailing the three categories of focus for the release in his blog post. Over the next few days, I will be sharing more of my thoughts about the HDX (High Definition Experience) features that will lay to rest any fears you have about performance and user experience with regards to hosted application delivery! I'll talk about the why these features are important to our customers, and more importantly, what you need to enable and configure these features for your XenApp infrastructure.

The first topic I want to cover is HDX MediaStream for Flash. So, what is it and why is it important? Well, instead of using your XenApp server to process and render the Flash application or video (impacts your server scalability - bad), HDX MediaStream for Flash leverages resources available on the user's Windows device. Thus, resulting in two key benefits: 1) users are happy (good) because they have a local like experience with the Flash content (no more A/V sync issues or video jitter), and 2) administrators can free up server resources to do more important things or accommodate more users. Needless to say, I'm very excited about this feature in Feature Pack 2. And hopefully by now, I've piqued your interest as well.

Ok, so... here is the even more exciting part - enabling HDX MediaStream for Flash for XenApp.

First, let's look at the system requirements:

On your XenApp server,

• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003
• Internet Explorer (7 & 8) with ActiveX support

On the user's Windows client device, you'll need:

• Adobe Flash Player 10 installed
• Citrix online plug-in 11.2

Second: enabling HDX MediaStream for Flash.

Well, once you've install XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2, HDX MediaStream for Flash is enabled on your XenApp server by default. That's it - very simple! Now, if you need to disable this feature, you can do so through the Group Policy Object Editor.

And what happens if the user doesn't have sufficient resources to render the Flash content locally? In that case, XenApp will intelligently fall-back to the server-side rendering that exists in XenApp prior to Feature Pack 2.

See? Short, sweet and simple. My next blog will cover HDX Plug-n-Play for USB storage, and a bit of an Easter-egg feature called Secure Clipboard control! So, stay tuned!

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp feature matrix by platform, version and edition - http://citrix.com/xenapp/comparativematrix
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

You may already know about this feature as it was previously called User Profile Manager. Profile management is the new name for User Profile Manager. This technology is a feature of both XenApp (Enterprise and Platinum Editions) and XenDesktop (Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum Editions). For a more detailed overview of what Profile management is and how it works to improve application virtualization, please read this article. For this article I will focus on the improvements in this updated feature that will first be available in XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2.

The improvements added into this release have focused around improved logging, Citrix product line integrations and Windows 7 support (really just testing and validation as the profile mechanism did not significantly change in this release from Vista and Windows Server 2008). And of course we have fixed many of the known issues and support concerns.

We've introduced EdgeSight counters to add visibility into the logon process and activities. Here is a summary of the counters that are provided:

• Logon Duration - this is the total logon time.
• Local Profile Setup Duration - aka the time to set up the user's local profile. Basically this compromises of the following steps:
  • Does the user have a local profile - if not create one
  • Is a profile migration required? If so migrate the profile
  • The time to copy down files from the user store to the local profile location
  • Synchronize with user store. This is only needed at logon for a new profile. While a Microsoft roaming profile copies a new roaming profile back to the network at logoff, Profile management performs this activity during that first logon.
  • At this point Profile management gets notified that this profile is ready to be managed
• Time to Start Monitoring - this is the gap from the last step of notifying Profile management that a profile is ready to be monitored and until monitoring actually starts (meaning the user is allowed to start their session). This consists of processing the NTFS change journal entries (basically a start point for monitoring file changes). The purpose of this counter is to help narrow the area causing longer than expected logon times. This should be fairly short time period and if not, you know something is happening out of the ordinary here. How short should it be - defining your baseline will provide you that measurement.
• Logoff Duration - this is the total logoff time
• Stop monitoring profile - NTFS change journal processing. This time should be very short
• Logon Bytes - total bytes in the user's profile copied down at logon
• Logoff Bytes - total bytes from the user's profile copied to user store at logoff
• Processed Logon Files - total number of files in the user's profile copied down at logon. How many files and their respective size grouping.
• Processed Logoff Files - total number of files from the user's profile copied to user store at logoff. How many files and their respective size grouping.

We also focused and extended on XenDesktop and Provisioning Server testing and validation. A key aspect of this was the new log file redirection capability. Now administrators can configure the log file to any local drive instead of the default %WINDIR%/system32/LogFiles/ location. This addressed the critical issue of capturing a log file from a local drive that is reset at logoff. The log file being just another changed file from the session is thus lost when system is reset at logoff.

I also would like to add clarification around the extended synchronization capability. Extended Synchronization was introduced in the User Profile Manager v2.0 release. It become apparent we were not clear enough in the context of its purpose and often it was being leveraged beyond its scope and ability. It was designed to enable personalization settings that are not properly stored in the user's profile location to be captured as part of the user profile. So-called "bad applications", for example, store settings in non-standard locations. However, the capability was not documented clearly in the Version 2.0 administrator's guide, which resulted in attempts to use the feature in ways for which it was not designed. We have clarified the supported scenarios in this release.

Extended synchronization is not intended to manage multi-user access to these files or folders (for example, we are not compensating for an application that is not multi-user aware). Nor is it intended to become a file and folder synchronization mechanism (for example, one that allows you to synchronize the entire contents of c:\docs across machines). It is intended purely to extend personalization settings that exist outside the default user profile location and thus provide a consistent experience across all resources accessed by the user.

This latest version (2.1) will be available for download on September 29th 2009 via MyCitrix. So now that you know a little more about Profile management, I recommend you check back on the 29th to MyCitrix and grab a copy (logon required) to evaluate and consider for your environment. Please note that it is important to review the current profile technologies available and ensure a good match with your business needs. There are a broad range of solutions and ensuring a good match is critical in order to properly balance the administrative needs with user personalization needs. You should review this best practices guide covering profile options such as mandatory, roaming and of course Profile management.

Finally, if you would like to learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 here are some useful links:

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

 
Actually, 201,745 to be exact. That's the number of downloads we've had for the Citrix Receiver for iPhone since we launched on March 30th. That's the day Citrix started down the path of re-defining Mobility not as a singular device but as a strategy. I'm so excited to be at the center of it all. Around here, most folks call me Pete so please don't hold back. I'm the Product Manager for Mobility... one of a handful of folks here at Citrix that is driving our mobile strategy.

I remember back to late December in 2008 when my Director reached out to me and asked if I would take the lead on the Citrix Receiver for the iPhone. Like many of you my first response was "... why would someone run a session on a screen that's 320x480?" I accepted for the sake of the challenge and intrigue. Then I bought myself an iPhone. The light bulbs went off immediately and I saw the possibilities unfold before me. Then Blackberry Storm and Google Android devices started gaining headway and I was hooked. The development from the Engineers at Citrix Labs enabled me to see this was much bigger than the iPhone and "an app for that...". We needed a strategy and the technology that could let customers use these powerful devices to access virtual applications and virtual desktops. With the right software and peripherals, these "tech toys" could be more powerful than a full-featured PC when accessing applications and desktops hosted on ample servers in the data center.

Since then, we've adopted a fast prototyping and engineering model that utilizes short and multiple iterations. This allowed us to speed up delivery of Receiver for iPhone. Now, over 200,000 downloads later, we begin to see the fruit of our labor. Using this same successful model established just over a year ago we are realizing the benefits again with the Receiver for Windows Mobile devices which will be released this week. The end goal is to release Receivers for mobile devices that exhibit much of the same usability features and functionality as the Receiver for iPhone. In the coming months I look forward towards introducing new Citrix Receiver platforms. Stay tuned to my blog and that of Vinny Sosa for more information as the strategy unfolds. Here's to 200,000 and beyond!

Follow me on Twitter @PeteYaguno

Follow XenApp on | | |

Citrix is sponsoring Oracle OpenWorld! Starting on October 11th at San Francisco's Moscone Center, Citrix will showcase our desktop virtualization solutions and promote recent Oracle application validations with Citrix NetScaler and Citrix XenApp. At the event we'll also feature Citrix Receiver for the iPhone running Oracle applications.
Don't miss your chance to learn about our desktop virtualization vision and how our solutions work alongside Oracle solutions.

The following are the Citrix speaking sessions at Oracle OpenWorld:

Delivering Oracle Applications with Citrix Desktop Virtualization Solutions
Different users have different computing needs. Learn how desktop delivery solutions from Citrix can provide cost-effective application and desktop management solutions for all users.
@ October 12th - 11:30am (Booth #2137)

Desktop Virtualization - Five Years Forward
Desktop virtualization will have a pivotal impact over the next five years. Learn how your organization can use these solutions today and to plan for the future.
@ October 13th - 3:30pm (Booth #2137)

If you're planning to be at Oracle OpenWorld, attend our speaking sessions or stop by the Citrix booth (#229) to meet with the team and learn how we're working with Oracle to improve application delivery and user experience. Learn more about Oracle OpenWorld or register to attend here.

And...drum roll please...here's your chance to attend the event at no cost! If you're a Citrix customer and are interested in attending Oracle OpenWorld, we are offering 50 "Discover" passes to the event. These are available on a first come, first served basis. Contact the Oracle Alliance Team today to secure your pass and take advantage of this offer!
 

The first releases of Citrix Application Streaming had isolation on the brain.  If you don't know what else to do, ISOLATE!  Don't let the app hit anything that might be important.  If you don't know if it's important or not, then it's important!  Protect it! 

This over protective behavior is being relaxed, the first step was in the XenApp XenApp 5.0 (Delaware) release where streaming client 1.2 was released which changed file system isolation to auto-ignore non-boot disk drives and soon, in the XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release where the version 5.2 streaming profiler and client change the default file system rule from "isolate" to "ignore".

Isolation rules review

When a user stores documents to disk under Application Streaming, the isolation system inspects the file operation to decide whether that operation should be isolated, ignored or redirected.  Details on each of these can be found here in the Citrix documentation library and here in my previous blogs.  All rules are named from the perspective of the streaming system, so "ignore" means don't change it - let it go to the file system without modification.

What isn't obvious, is what the isolation system does with disk volumes beyond the boot volume.  This behavior changed in streaming profiler version 1.2 (XenApp Delaware) so that the over paranoid behavior of the original Tarpon technology would instead leave users data alone.  Notice that I'm assuming users put data on drive D: while the OS is on drive C:.  This change has been beneficial to most customers and really helps engage the desktop, though I have seen a few that needed this to not occur and this oversight will soon be corrected to be backwardly consistent - for profiles created at the 1.1 level. 

To be clear, space beneath the user profile is and always has been "ignored", which means the normal places for users to store documents have no isolation collisions.  It's the non-normal places that require attention.

In App Streaming 5.2 which isn't out yet, the isolation will be further relaxed.

In addition to ignoring non-boot disk volumes, the isolation system will change it's default rule from "isolate" to "ignore".  Notice that this will happen only for NEW profiles.  If you have existing profiles, their behavior is already defined.  

Example user of Citrix showcase internal farm

Consider an example user, we will call him "Nabeel", because - well, that is his real name.  Nabeel is a Citrix executive and he travels a lot.  When he travels, he does lots of presentations and ... uses Citrix Application Streaming to run MS Office 2007.

In the example case, he was on a 3 week trip to Asia where he visited lots of Citrix sites and lots of customers.  With the magic of Application Streaming, he was able to use MS PowerPoint "offline" on the airplane to refine his presentations and also update the PPTs throughout the journey.  All of this worked super! 

Presentations updated all over the world, presented all over the world.  Everything was well received, and then he came home....

When he returned to Fort Lauderdale, he used Windows explorer to zip up all the files from the 3 weeks of presentations and e-mailed them out to the people he had met.  The receiving people noted that the presentations were mere skeletons.  CONTENT FREE if you will.  Everything worked on for many weeks was "as it was" 5 weeks earlier before he put Application Streaming onto the notebook.  OOOPS!

My phone rings...

What happened?  Answer: the files were all stored to the \Citrix2007 directory and since this is not a space that is "known safe", the isolation system isolated it.  From the view of the powerpoint application under isolation, it saw the correct and current version of the document.  But look at the real disk and the files were their original selves.   BAD.

Step 1: Where did the good files go?

That one is easy:

Consider the layers of glass.  The answer is that the file is in the top layer of the layers of isolation.  Find it in  %APPDATA%\Citrix\RadeCache\GUID\Device\C\Citrix2007

Step 2: How to make this not happen again...

Harder.  Insufficient answer is to add an ignore rule for Citrix2007 to the profile.  No good.

Not a problem for stream to server

Before going deeper, it should be said that this problem never comes up for stream to server.  In a server environment, "users" do not have the power to create directories off of the ROOT.  Users can store documents to %USERPROFILE% and that's about it.  Server side, this problem doesn't exist.

Stream to desktop

Client side, "users" tend to be "administrators" and this creates new problems.  "Users" like storing stuff to folders off of the root.  This makes it really easy to know what you need to backup.  

The isolation system not knowing how to handle the \Citrix2007 directory isolated the operations and this is far too over protective.

App Streaming 5.2 (Yellowtail)

In the upcoming release, the default file system rule for new profiles is changed from "isolate" to "ignore".  The default rule set then includes \Windows, \Program files and similar "important" directories as places that should be isolated at runtime.  I'll add that the profiling time rules and the execution time rules have to vary a bit to make this occur.  The streaming system takes care of this automatically.  Profiling time remains paranoid by default, isolating most everything.  Runtime becomes much more relaxed - making the isolated application execution more consistent in behavior with locally installed, while maintaining "protection" of spaces that the application should not be allowed to write per the layers of glass.

File system permissions still apply

If the user tries to write to a space that they aren't allowed, the file system permissions remain in place.  A user will only be able to write to or read from the real \Citrix2007 if they have DACLs in place that make this permissible.  This is a file system statement, not a isolation system.  In the "ignore" case, what happens is that the isolation system sends the I/O operation down to the file system without change and the file system will then decide if the user is allowed to access those files. 

This change greatly improves the offline streaming experience.

Joe Nord - Citrix Systems Product Architect - Application Streaming

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp feature matrix by platform, version and edition - http://citrix.com/xenapp/comparativematrix
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

You may have seen our announcement today on XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 and Vinny Sosa's blog post. One of the things that Vinny mentioned is that we have opened up pre-registration for the tech preview of XenApp on Windows Server 2008 R2. You should definitely check it out and provide us feedback. I am the Product Manager for this release and I wanted to reach out to you, the members of our community and invite you to give me your feedback directly. After you sign-up you will receive confirmation of your registration and when the release is available we will notify you via e-mail to let you know where to get it, how to report issues and how to provide input to the team directly. I look forward to hearing from you all.

Also, check out Orestes's post and let us know your Windows Server 2008 R2 adoption plans.

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp feature matrix by platform, version and edition - http://citrix.com/xenapp/comparativematrix
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |

• VM hosted apps - Lets you deliver Windows applications from centrally hosted virtual machines running Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The name is a bit misleading in that you can even use physical machines or blade PC's to host the applications in question. This feature is great for regulated applications and those which have performance bottlenecks, peripheral compatibility and general compatibility issues on Terminal Services. It's also great for applications where your ISV won't support them on Terminal Services. So far, everyone agrees that hosting applications on XenApp servers is still the most cost-effective way of delivering apps and that they'd rather stream applications to the users device before going VM hosted apps. But if you go the VM hosted apps route, you'll still get better TCO than native application deployment with remote installation. One thing is, for VM hosted apps, you'll need Microsoft VECD licenses, not Terminal Services CALS. Most environments will have a mix though so just keep this in mind as you consider it. Plus, we've announced pre-registration for the tech preview of XenApp on Windows Server 2008 R2. Available to Enterprise and Platinum customers. You'll want to check familiarize yourself with VECD using the licensing guide which I found helpful.
  
  
• Windows 7 and Windows Mobile support - In this release, we now support access from Windows 7 devices to server and VM hosted apps (we call these online apps), as well as streamed applications running on the users desktop (we call them offline apps). We've also released an updated profiler which includes Windows 7 as an option. Plus, we'll be releasing an updated Windows Mobile client shortly. Keep an eye on Pedro Llaguno's blog for more information on this one. Available to all customers or any edition.
  
  
• Streamed application performance - I interviewed Joe Nord a few weeks ago on this and he mentioned that the engineering team has really focused on performance improvements and bug fixes for this release rather than adding a ton of new features. In fact, when I pressed him on the topic of performance after the show, he told me about some internal tests where we saw improvements ranging from 22% to 33% faster initial launch times and 50% to 65% improvements for subsequent launch times. Definitely worth a look whether you're using it or not. Available for Advanced, Enterprise or Platinum Customers.
  
  

Enterprise Class Management - Better management of your application virtualization solution

• Power and Capacity Management - My personal favorite feature in this release. If you didn't get the chance to play with the technology preview, this feature will certainly shock you. It has the potential to save you a bunch of money on electrical expenses. You install an agent on your XenApp servers (whether virtual or physical) and Power and Capacity Management turns them on and off when capacity is needed based on rules you create. You tell it how much capacity you always want available on standby and it just keeps turning on servers as users log into your farm to maintain that buffer capacity. Plus, you can manage multiple farms from a single implementation. But Power management is only half of this feature. The other half is capacity management. This feature will help to keep sessions consolidated on fewer servers while maintaining adequate user performance. This is awesome for when you need to perform server maintenance - now you don't have to wait for users to log off or bump them. You can even tell capacity management to drain sessions on servers for you so you can come back later and perform your maintenance. You can even configure capacity management to drain old server images and replace them with new server images (say one with a new application or hotfix configured). Simply amazing. It's the only XenApp-aware power management solution available to my knowledge. Available to Enterprise and Platinum customers running XenApp on Windows Server 2003.
  
  * Provisioning Services - some key enhancements which you might already be aware of but certainly worth mentioning are multi-partition and dual NIC support for provisioning images. Plus there are some wonderful new fault tolerance improvements that have been made such as server maintenance mode which let's you transfer image management between multiple provisioning servers in the event you need to bring one down for maintenance. And of course, Provisioning services can be used to manage VM hosted applications. Enterprise edition customers can use Provisioning services to manage VM hosted apps only. Platinum customers can use Provisioning services to manage VM hosted or server hosted apps.

  
  * Service Monitoring - New server metrics make Service monitoring in XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 a must have. Service monitoring now measures the performance of XenApp servers running on XenServer by giving you visibility into the performance of the hypervisor. This will help you better determine the right mix of physical and virtual servers in your environment. In addition, you can now measure application start up time for streamed applications - a nifty feature for testing those new performance improvements we've made with your own apps. Service monitoring is available to Platinum customers.

  
  
• Workflow Studio 2.0 - This latest release is what you XenApp administrators have really been waiting for. We've finally got the API's you need to expose custom workflows that include XenApp. So as an example, you can now simplify the process of adding users or even publishing new resources. One of my favorite examples is creating a provisioning app that let's HR add the users they want to the apps they need based on the department they need to be added into. I haven't seen this done but it is possible with Workflow studio and a little elbow grease. You can even expose specific functions like session management features so that they can easily be accessed from your Windows Mobile or iPhone. This is only going to continue to get better as time goes on. And if you haven't heard, we have PowerShell Commandlets for XenApp in tech preview as well. You can learn more about Workflow Studio 2.0 from Pete Schulz, Product Manager and a good friend of mine to boot. He just posted a blog post last night on this very topic. Workflow studio is available to Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum edition customers.
  
  

High Definition Experience - Ensuring best performance and usability

• HDX MediaStream for Flash - This technology was available as a tech preview and Juan Rivera has blogged about it extensively. He also recorded a XenApp Expert Series video for us on the topic. Basically, it leverages the processing power on the users Windows device to render Flash content and applications. This offloads the server and also improves performance and fluidity for the user. Nobody else has this kind of technology. What's more, if the users device isn't capable of rendering the content, it will automatically fall back to server-side rendering. We call that Adaptive orchestration (nobody else gives you that either). It's available in Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum Edition and for XenApp running on Windows Server 2003.
  
  
• HDX Plug and Play for USB storage devices - We've supported USB drive mapping before. This is just a bit different in that users can plug in their USB drive even if they are already in a session and it will be mapped automatically without their having to restart their session. It's a great usability feature and is available to Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum customers and for XenApp running on Windows Server 2003.
  
  
• Profile management - Profile management has seen some bug fixes and platform support enhancements. Plus we've added a number of counters to Service monitoring that expose the performance of user profiles within your environment to give you a better idea of how performance bottlenecks in user profiles can be affecting the performance of your applications. Stay tuned to Dave Wagners blog for more on this feature. Profile management is available in Enterprise and Platinum Edition.
  
  
• EasyCall voice services - EasyCall is probably one of my favorite features that hasn't caught on yet but I know it will cause it has the potential to save customers money and make life easier for users. In the previous XenApp release, we introduced this as a Xen-based virtual appliance available to Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum edition customers. Basically, EasyCall let's users hover their mouse over any phone number on their screen and then click to call that number. This is accomplished using a plugin on the users device. The plugin communicates call requests to the EasyCall virtual appliance and then the appliance tells the VoIP system to call the user at their current location and then to call their destination number. It's not just a cool feature though. It saves money by using your corporate rate to let users make business related calls rather than using their residential long distance rates. It's also great for customer service and sales people to reduce the amount of first minute charges for misdialed calls. In this release, we added a feature called Find Me which lets users configure phone numbers that EasyCall will use to redirect their calls to if they are not available, trying each one in order. Basically, you can do away with the softphone using EasyCall. EasyCall is available to Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum edition customers.
  
  Let me know if you have any questions. Check out other Feature Pack 2 Blogs or you can also check out the resources below.
  
  

  Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

  
  

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp feature matrix by platform, version and edition - http://citrix.com/xenapp/comparativematrix
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Follow XenApp on | | |