There has been a LOT of activity on the VMware blog since someone took the initiative to ask the VMware community which is the best VDI solution on ESX, View or XenDesktop. I have been fascinated with this discussion! The opinions are coming in from every direction and I thought it was time to put in my own 2 cents, from a my perspective as Citrix employee. I figured the the easiest way to respond was to separate the facts from conjecture.  

Conjecture 1: You can only use Provisioning Server with XenServer.   
Fact 1: Provisioning Server is totally independent of Hypervisor. In fact, it is also independent of Storage type/manufacturer and doesn't even care what operating system is being delivered to the Virtual Machine (or endpoint or server). 

Conjecture 2: XenDesktop is more complex to install and manage than VMware View. 

Fact 2: Make sure you are comparing apples to apples when it comes to the install experience. They are more similar than the folklore seems to represent. XenDesktop is a complete package including hypervisor, single image provisioning, app virtualization, user profile management, delivery controller, etc. However, XenDesktop is totally modular so you only install what you need. If you want to create a little proof of concept just showing user experience - usually the first step for customers - then you could set up View and XenDesktop with the Desktop Delivery Controller very easily in a short amount of time. But if you plan to scale this environment to say a couple hundred users or more, sooner or later you will need the advantages of single image management, application delivery, profile management etc. Obviously it will take more time to implement these features of the product. It will take about the same amount of time to purchase and/or build out an equivalent View environment based on our experiences in our labs. When you look at all the components of View, you find 5+ different install points (see red arrows below) and the same number of management consoles with a lot fewer features overall.

   Fact Con

Conjecture 3: XenDesktop Virtual Desktop uses more RAM than View-based Virtual Desktop

Fact 3: Desktop VMs on ESX will use the same amount RAM whether delivered by XenDesktop or View. When a desktop is configured on a VM, it is assigned a certain amount of RAM. This would be the same whether you are accessing desktop from XD or View. Given the same OS, applications, and users, the RAM usage on the ESX VM will be exactly the same. OS Streaming may actually reduce RAM footprint but, at worst, it would not impact RAM usage. 

Conjecture 4: XenDesktop is more expensive than VMware View.

Fact 4: When it comes to pricing, remember you have to compare APPLES to APPLES and meet the needs of an enterprise deployment. I won't break out the spreadsheet right now but if you add in the price of the ESX licenses and 3^rd party products to make View an equivalent solution with app delivery, profile management, etc., perceived price differences in fact will reverse in our favor quite dramatically. And as always, you get real WAN usability and low LAN bandwidth utilization with XenDesktop - not something you can easily go out and buy as an add-on for View. 

I saw some other comments that were essentially comparing XenServer with ESX. Since the discussion was related to ESX, I won't get into the hypervisor wars (not this time anyway!) Let's be real frank about this: Many of our installs are on ESX and they work great! Some of the guys that posted to this subject can back me up on this. But we've also seen a stunning change in some of the market research - the number of cases where XenServer is being considered for desktops has grown significantly in the last few months, and the number of "ESX only" shops is declining fast. 

Lastly, while I differ with most of what one VMware Community member, Rkelly, posted re View vs. XenDesktop, I have to say I agree with his final point for the IT team in any VMware shop:  "Download the trial versions of both products and see for yourself" .

If you would like to see the discussion in its entirety (including my response), here it is: 

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/206485;jsessionid=AEA74E768250EACA071B6476BB003137?start=0&tstart=0

I came across this issue the other day while preparing for a Lunch & Learn for our support guys on Smart Access with Access Gateway. While I was clearing out some configurations in the AMC, this error popped up while trying to delete a web resourse. Not very informative.

The web resource was of type Citrix Web Interface 4.2 or later.

Running AAC 4.5 AAC450W004 (latest verion/patch), so thought I'd be ok.
After looking at my policies, filters to see if there was any references I found that the resource was still tied to the
XenApp farm at the AAC farm level.

AAC Farm -> Presentation Server Farms -> Web Interface

Once I unassociated the web resource from the XenApp farm I was able to delete it.
Knowledge Center article on the way...

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

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

I will be writing a series of blog entries detailing recently released Citrix Knowledge Center technotes and hotfixes for Citrix products. The technotes are either newly authored or updated articles.

This blog entry will concentrate on Provisioning Server.

Technotes

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

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/

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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

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NetScaler Application Firewall devices are commonly deployed as a cluster of devices behind (hopefully) a NetScaler loadbalancer or Application Delivery Controller (ADC), as we like to call them now. Content Switching or URL based routing decisions are typically done on the load balancer, but some topologies require the flexibility of performing this action from the firewall tier itself. In this case, the firewall is directly connected to the web server tier without a loadbalancer in between.

The NetScaler Application Firewall can do content switching using the AppExpert policy engine based on any incoming request parameters to direct traffic to backend servers. Upgrading to the Platinum edition will make all NetScaler features available in an integrated platform enabling consolidation of server tiers. This feature is available in NetScaler 9.0 Build 69.x onwards as well as the 9.1 release.

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 Citrix Web Services team has been hard at work updating Citrix TV to incorporate some great new features and functionality. The latest version of Citrix TV was released last night and I think you will be very pleased with this update. 

The first thing you will notice is the new Home page. This page highlights featured videos along with the latest and most watched videos. At the top of the page is the option to browse by channel, video series or tags. Within each of those areas you can change the sort order of the display or search within that group of videos.

There are some new options for viewing a video series. From the Home page you can see the most watched series and the Browse by Series page displays all to the series within Citrix TV. Clicking on a series title takes you to a page where you see all of the videos in that series and there is the option to "Watch All" of the videos in the series without clicking on each video. You can subscribe to a series RSS feed and you can share a series on other sites.

Be sure to check out the updated site to see all of the changes. We are very interested to get your feedback so please let us know what you think.

http://www.citrix.com/tv

In the previous Provisioning Services High Availability Considerations blog, I briefly spoke about using Provisioning Services 5.1 with read-only shared access to a SAN LUN(s). Now I will provide a step-by-step overview of how to implement this feature.

Let's start with pre-requisites that I mentioned in my last blog:

• You need to install Microsoft iSCSI initiator on all Provisioning Services servers that access the SAN.
• Private Image mode is not supported.
• If cache is located on server disk, a separate shared storage location that has read-write access is needed for write cache files.

Steps on the SAN:

You will need to create a volume on the SAN interface front end and then set access type for the volume to read/write, later you will make the volume read-only through NTFS attributes. In my example, I will use NetApp, your case might be different. The storage devices are called iSCSI targets and the clients are called iSCSI initiators.
 
Make sure it is online:

Now we move to the Provisioning Services server:

Initially, you will need to use iSCSI Initiator to login to the SAN volume on only one of the Provisioning Services server while in read/write mode. If you are using Windows Server 2008 the iSCSI software Initiator and components are built into the OS, if using Windows Server 2003 iSCSI software Initiator is available as a download package from the Microsoft website. In my example I am using Windows Server 2008, so I just enabled the service from the Admin tools.

 
Depending on your settings you may get a UAC warning, go ahead and approve. The iSCSI Initiator is our Provisioning Services server; under the general tab you will see the Initiator Name that you will need to provide as "Initiator" to your SAN. 

Go back to your SAN and add the "Initiator Name" to Initiator group:

Back to your Provisioning Services server, from the iSCSI Initiator Properties you need to go to the Discovery tab and add the portal by specifying the IP address to the iSCSI target:
When the LUN first appears on Windows you will have an uninitialized volume, therefore you have to switch it Online and let it get initialized. Next step you need to do is format the volume:Once you formatted the volume and assigned a drive letter/mount point, next step you will copy all the vDisk image files (.vhd) and associated properties files (.pvp) to the volume, no need to copy the Lock files. Before you copy the files, make sure all properties for the vDisks that will reside on the volume are set correctly (including High Availability).
Next step is to make the volume read-only. You can use diskpart.exe, verify the volume number, select it and then set the attribute to read-only. In case you want to verify if it was set correctly you can type "detail volume" and verify that "Read-only" is set to "Yes".

Now you will log off from the volume on that one Provisioning Services server, from the iSCSI Initiator click on "Details" and then" Log off..."

In case you get an error message about the volume being in use, go to Disk Manager and switch that disk Offline.You will log on to the target again and make the volume a persistent target.  You must log off and then re-login to the volume to get NTFS on the server to re-read the volume attributes, so that it will recognize the volume as read-only. Making the volume a persistent target will ensure the volume is accessible when the server reboots: 

Just mount the iSCSI volume on all the other Provisioning Services servers; it is now safe since the volume is set to read-only. Also, in order to facilitate your job, have all servers to mount the volume using the same drive letter or mount point; if not you will need to adjust that from the Provisioning Services Console. You should be all set after creating a store and pointing the Path to the SAN volume and adding the vDisk to the pool. Don't forget if you are using Difference disk mode you must enter a default write cache path for the store that does not point to the read-only SAN volume, this also applies if you are going to use write cache on the PVS server (cache on server disk).

You might be thinking, what if I am using a NetApp array as the back-end storage attached via Fibre Channel? There is no reason why this should not work since the LUN appears as a drive to Windows, so Provisioning Services should have no problem using it. When using Fibre Channel the iSCSI initiator is not required, so vendor specific software for the FC device should be used.

If you want more details about this subject, I encourage you to watch this TechTalk session called:  "Simplifying Implementation of Provisioning Services"

"Elisabeth Teixeira - Principal Engineer - Worldwide Technical Readiness

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lizteixeira

Follow me in the Blogs: http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/elisabetht

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/

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Check out this recorded tech talk for coverage and information on the latest features of
Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2.

Learn more about 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/

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XenApp Expert Series - Informational, News, Interviews (2009) The show where we interview the experts to get you the latest research and technology news on XenApp application virtualization. Host Vinny Sosa (@vinnysosa) interviews Citrix Readiness Architect Stacy Scott on enhancements coming in XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2. Episode 8, Season 1.

View this Episode and Subscribe to the XenApp Expert Series

Listen to this episode Listen to archived episodes: Episode 7: Application Streaming with Joe Nord Episode 6: VMHosted Apps with Modesto Tabares Episode 5: Power and Capacity Management with Juliano Maldaner Episode 4: HDX MediaStream for Flash with Juan Rivera Episode 3: An Overview of HDX with Derek Thorslund Episode 2: Profile Management with David Wagner Episode 1: Power Management with Sridhar Mullapudi

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 2Executive 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'm pleased to announce that Workflow Studio 2.0 is now available:

Download Workflow Studio 2.0 (MyCitrix login required)

This release has a number of great new features and is a seamless upgrade from version 1.x. Here are some of the key new features:

• Native XenApp activity libraries (and many other additional activities)
• Remote runtimes
• Simplified management interface
• Enhanced security features
• Simplified installation and configuration
• Improved SDK
• Simplified workflow Designer
• Globalization support

I will post some more blogs over the next few days with more details on the above features and will also be updating the CDN site with many new articles, so subscribe to the Workflow Studio blog and head over to the Workflow Studio CDN site and subscribe for updates on CDN as well.

Feel free to leave feedback in comments or email me directly.

Workflow Studio will be 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 | | |

Since announcing Project Independence with Intel at the start of the year and announcing our XenClient local virtual desktop solution at our Synergy show in May, we have been absolutely bombarded with questions and interest in plans for this amazing new bare metal Local Virtual Desktop platform. So we built XenClient Central, a Citrix Community site dedicated to keeping you informed on the latest news, happenings, and developments around Citrix XenClient, our Local Virtual Desktop platform.  Come check it out!

XenClient Central

•             Subscribe to the XenClient Interest list

•             View the latest XenClient demos

•             Register for beta programs

•             Subscribe to feeds for news articles, blogs, and more

•             Join the XenClient Army twitter feed

Right now we're sharing code with a very limited set of close development partners and customers. But not to worry, later this year we plan to open up our beta program to a much broader audience so you can see firsthand the benefits of XenClient and how it connects into Citrix XenDesktop our virtual desktop delivery solution.  Be sure to visit XenClient Central and register with our XenClient Interest list and we'll make sure you're always in the know with the latest news and happenings.

You might have seen my blog post on application virtualization with VM hosted apps and that of Harry Labana on the same topic. With this new technology planned for Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2, In previous versions on XenApp we've said we have "complete application compatibility" or the "broadest application compatibility" but as applications continue to evolve and change we need to introduce technology that continues to deliver on that promise. VM hosted apps lets us do that. If you haven't seen it, VM hosted apps let's you deliver virtual applications from centrally hosted Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 virtual machines.

What's interesting is that this feature makes XenApp the solution with the broadest number of options for delivering applications to users on any device in a seamless and high performance way. Check it out...

• Way 1 & 2 - Deliver server-hosted apps from XenApp running on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.
• Way 3 - Deliver apps from XenApp directly to the user device via application streaming. This works great for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 desktops.
• Way 4, 5 & 6 - Deliver VM hosted apps from XenApp as hosted on centralized Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 desktops
• Way 7 - Deliver server-hosted apps from XenApp running on Sun Solaris, IBM AIX and HP UX

Now you can certainly argue that we actually have 9 ways if you count the UNIX as 3 platforms. You can also argue that we have 4 or 3 depending on how you group them. But there is no arguing that XenApp gives you the most options for delivering applications to any user on any device in the most seamless and high performance way while ensuring the highest level of application compatibility. What's more if you consider the fact that we've already announced we're working on integrating App-V support into XenApp and the inevitable support for Windows Server 2008 R2, you can add 2 more ways to this stack. You might even say that since we also support the use of the RDP client as a fallback option for applications delivered via XenApp Web interface that adds another one. So, all in all I've mentioned 12 different ways of delivering apps via XenApp.

Now, you can argue that 100% application compatibility is a nice round number to use for marketing but you've at least got to agree that XenApp continues to remain pretty darned close. What's your opinion?

Check out the XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 blog series

Follow XenApp on | | |

Download XenApp technology previews

As more and more ISVs, IT organizations, resellers, integrators and consultants of all flavors become more aware and familiar with the new virtual appliance packaging capabilities in the DMTF VMAN initiative and the OVF capabilities Citrix is adding to its products, it is useful to identify some of the advanced capabilities of the Project Kensho OVF Tool.

New in the Project Kensho OVF Tool v1.3 is a variety of options aimed at making virtual appliance packages more feature rich.  As a packaged entity, the attributes of the virtual appliance are important. 

Attributes like encryption, compressing files, digitally signing and validating or verifying the content prior to import add tremendous value. 

For example, if an ISV wanted to offer his XenServer based virtual appliance as an OVF, and had concerns about tampering with the OVF xml, the ISV has the option to digitally sign the OVF file.  On import, the user can verify the signature, if the verification fails, this indicates a change to the file from what the ISV produced. ISVs also need to attach end user license agreement (EULA) information.  During import, EULA text is presented to the user to accept or reject.  The ISV has the ability to incorporate whatever text necessary to fulfill the EULA display requirement.

Another example is if an IT administrator must move a VM from one physical location to another and requires an export of the VM to do so.  The contents (virtual disks) of the VM are sensitive and the administrator must secure them.  The administrator can choose to create an OVF and encrypt the contents.  As part of the process, she would like the appliance in a single file format (OVA).  Using the Project Kensho OVF Tool, she has the flexibility to do this. 

On import, there are also a number of options for the end user.  Many are verification and validation whereas others enable the user with mapping the OVF's VM resources requirements (NIC, storage) to the resources available from the XenServer host.

Summing this up, we've produced an Advanced Features video to describe some of these options.

As we can see from these features, the world of advanced virtual appliance creation and consumption is quickly becoming very feature rich and enabling for all parties involved.   

Are you planning to attend Intel Developer Forum 2009 next week? If so, you will see Citrix in every corner of the event!

Stop by the Citrix booth (#501) next week at San Francisco's Moscone Center to see demos of our Citrix Delivery Center solutions. We will also showcase demos of Citrix XenClient, our joint collaboration with Intel to develop a local desktop virtualization platform.

In addition, Citrix will be featured in the Intel Virtualization Pavilion and Intel vPro Zone Communities. Within the Communities we'll showcase XenClient and also how Citrix XenServer leverages the benefits of Intel Xeon processors for Citrix XenApp and Citrix XenDesktop workloads. And as if that weren't enough, we will also have a demo of SR-IOV with Citrix XenServer at Intel's booth.

Citrix will also be featured within several breakout sessions at the event. Stop by the session "Hosted, Streamed, and Local Bare Metal Desktop Virtualization with Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenClient" on September 22^nd from 3-3:50pm to hear Peter Blum introduce our desktop virtualization vision and discuss Citrix XenClient.

Also, Simon Crosby is participating in a cloud virtualization panel discussion alongside other industry-leading companies. This session is scheduled for September 22^nd from 5-5:50pm.

In short...or maybe not that short...if you plan on attending the event, you'll have a lot of opportunities to meet with Citrix and learn how Citrix is working with Intel.

We look forward to seeing you there and we guarantee you won't be able to miss us! Learn more about Intel Developer Forum or register to attend here.

Some of the questions I've received lately is how to design a large-scale, enterprise XenDesktop architecture.  We all can attest that most systems put into place become much more difficult to architect as the number of users increases.  I'm not talking about Citrix products, I'm talking about any product.  Which one do you think would be more difficult to design:

• A 100 user (insert your own product here) environment
• A 10,000 user (insert your own product here) environment
• A 50,000 user (insert your own product here) environment
  

Most of you will probably agree that it gets quite a bit more difficult as the number of users increases.  And if we do a typical type of design, I would tend to agree, but I'm thinking we can simplify this so even the 10,000 and 50,000 user XenDesktop environment can be as easy as a 100 user deployment. 

Many of you are probably thinking, this guy is full of it, he is too pie-in-the-sky for me.  And when I first started thinking about this simplified architecture, I tended to agree. But as I've continued looking into this and discussing with other architects, I've come to the realization that I might be on to something here.  See for yourself in the following video.  I plan on posting additional videos around this concept in the future to show/demonstrate how it would work.  But for now, I bring to you the Pod concept (and don't forget to leave your comments) 

Daniel - Lead Architect

Follow my Blogs: http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/danielf

Follow me on Twitter: @djfeller

Send Desktop Virtualization questions to: AskTheArchitect@Citrix.com

Watch previous Ask The Architect Videos at: http://www.citrix.com/tv/#video/1063