Archive for April, 2012

Citrix Cloud Provider Pack for Citrix XenApp 6.5

Written by Thomas Poppelgaard. Posted in App Orchestration, Citrix, Local App, Mobility Pack, XenApp

About Citrix Cloud Provider Pack

This powerful collection of enabling technologies, available exclusively to certified Citrix Service Providers (CSPs), makes it easy to set up “Windows-as-a-Service” hosting businesses that are simpler to run, less costly and better optimized for mobile devices.

App Orchestration Technology This groundbreaking new capability automates the design, configuration, deployment and lifecycle maintenance of Windows apps and desktops hosted by CSPs for multiple tenants, across multiple farms. App orchestration is a requirement in order to attain cloud-scale and cloud-economics. From a single interface, cloud provider admins can define a workspace, performance characteristics, network configuration, and isolation requirements, and have the orchestration engine complete the deployment – hands-free. When it comes time to update apps or desktop images, the admin simply points to the new image, and the app orchestration engine handles draining servers and migrating subscribers without manual intervention. In addition, a new update to Citrix CloudPortal Services Manager provides out-of-the-box support for App Orchestration, enabling the hosted desktop infrastructure to autonomically respond to account provisioning requests via CloudPortal. For additional information regarding this technology please visit Citrix eDocs. Please be sure to review the Quick Deployment Guide.

Seamless App Technology For decades, Citrix has led the industry in “seamless apps” – making an application that’s running in a remote datacenter integrate with a local desktop environment – where we make it practically impossible for an end user to tell whether an app is running locally on their device or virtually in the datacenter. The Cloud Provider Pack moves this technology forward for the future with new capabilities designed specifically for the cloud. With this latest technology, end users can now have their personal, local apps alongside private-cloud business apps from their employer, all seamlessly presented in a cloud-based desktop with standard productivity suites. This unique ability to stitch together personal, private and public cloud components is unprecedented and not only improves the end user experience, but also simplifies customer on-boarding for cloud providers. It is no longer necessary to migrate every app in the entire customer desktop environment to the cloud prior to rolling out cloud desktops; providers can move the easy ones first, transition more difficult ones later, and even leave some apps local as deemed appropriate by the business owner. Please be sure to review the Local App Access Readme and Local App Access guide.

Mobility Pack With millions of mobile devices and millions more Windows apps and desktops in use, everyone is looking for a way to bridge the gap – and have the experience be intuitive and friendly. While there are many ways to view a Windows desktop from a tablet device, making the experience usable and touch-optimized is another matter altogether.  The Mobility Pack for XenApp 6.5 accomplishes this by transforming the standard Windows PC experience into a more touch-friendly interface, with larger icons, iOS and Android-native menus and options, and auto pop-up keyboard for text entry. There are dozens of clever enhancements in the Mobility Pack, as well as a complete SDK for customizing specific apps for mobility.  These customizations can even extend to allowing hosted apps to interact seamlessly with mobile device features such as GPS, Camera, or SMS. (The Mobility Pack was first introduced in December 2011; the Cloud Provider Pack includes important updates.)

Source

Download Citrix Cloud Provider Pack for Citrix XenApp 6.5 here

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Citrix Receiver 11.5 for Mac

Written by Thomas Poppelgaard. Posted in Citrix, Receiver, VDI-in-a-box, XenApp, XenDesktop

About Receiver for Mac

Citrix Receiver for Mac provides users with self-service access to resources published on XenApp or XenDesktop servers. Receiver combines ease of deployment and use, and offers quick, secure access to hosted applications and desktops.

Citrix Receiver for Mac has been enhanced for on-demand access to Windows, Web, and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. You can use it for web access or configure it for use with Citrix CloudGateway.

What’s New

Citrix Receiver for Mac 11.5 provides the following new features and enhancements for customers:

  • CloudGateway Express Interoperability. Enables existing XenApp and XenDesktop customers to deliver all their Windows apps and desktops to any device using a unified StoreFront with self-service.
  • CloudGateway Enterprise Interoperability. Enables enterprises to aggregate, control, and deliver all of their Windows, web and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to any user on any device.
  • Pass-through authentication to AppController. When used with Receiver Storefront 1.1, once logged on to Citrix Receiver, users can access Web and SaaS applications through AppController without needing to authenticate again. No Receiver-specific administration is needed to use pass-through authentication support.
  • Flexible installation methods. You can install Receiver for Mac from Receiver for Web and Web Interface or you can use Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) tools like Casper Suite.
  • Self-service. Citrix Receiver displays all the resources that you make available to users. Users can browse the list or search for the resources they require and subscribe with a single click. Enabled using one-click configuration and CloudGateway.
  • One-click configuration. Opening a service record after installing Citrix Receiver activates self-service access to CloudGateway-published resources. You can publish a service record on a web site or email it to multiple users.
  • Auto-provisioned applications. Receiver automatically adds administrator-designated applications when users first authenticate. Requires CloudGateway StoreFront.
  • Receiver for all devices. User experience is consistent across Receiver platforms and devices.
  • Follow-me subscriptions. Users’ selected applications follow them across devices. Requires CloudGateway StoreFront.
  • Workspace control. Provides users with the ability to roam. They can disconnect quickly from all running applications and desktops and reconnect to them. Workspace control enables users to move between user devices and gain access to all of their desktops or open applications when they log on.

Source

Download Citrix Receiver 11.5 for Mac here

Read all issues that have been fixed in this release here

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Citrix Receiver 3.2 for Windows

Written by Thomas Poppelgaard. Posted in Citrix, Receiver, VDI-in-a-box, XenApp, XenDesktop

What’s New in this Release

When used with Citrix Storefront 1.1, this release of Receiver for Windows (standard, CitrixReceiver.exe) supports single authentication to Receiver and the browser for Web and SaaS apps published through AppController 1.1. Receiver users will now authenticate with those apps as they have for published Windows apps. No Receiver-specific administration is needed to use the additional single authentication support.

The Receiver Enterprise package did not change for this release. It is required only to support applications that use Smart Card authentication.

Source

Download Citrix Receiver 3.2 for Windows here

Read full overview what has been fixed

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How to configure Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 with CloudGateway (Receiver Storefront) and NetScaler(Access Gateway Enterprise)

Written by Thomas Poppelgaard. Posted in Access Gateway, Citrix, CloudGateway, Netscaler, Receiver, XenDesktop

Introduction

This article describes how to set up an (Netscaler) Access Gateway Enterprise Edition VPX and (CloudGateway) Receiver Storefront for use with XenDesktop 5.6.

The purpose of this document is to record the configuration of the Citrix Access Gateway Enterprise Edition appliance and Receiver Storefront for use with Citrix XenDesktop 5.6.

This article only attempts to record a single configuration. However, it is expected that this environment can also act as a stepping stone for creating alternative or more advanced configurations if required.

The following are the various sections in this article:

Source

See the entire guide here. Howto configure Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 with Citrix Cloudgateway (Storefront) with NetScaler Access Gateway Enterprise
Enjoy /Poppelgaard

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Known Hardware-Related Citrix Provisioning Services Issues

Written by Thomas Poppelgaard. Posted in Dell, Hyper-V, IBM, Provisioning, VMware, Windows Server 2008R2

Summary

This article contains a list of known hardware-related issues encountered when using Provisioning Services. Virtual hardware issues are also included in this article. Each individual article contains specific information about the issue encountered.

Issues List

CTX131570 - TSBBDM.BIN File Failed to Download in a Hyper-V Environment

CTX131156 - HP Proliant BL 460G7/465G7 Unable to Boot from Boot Device Manager Start Imaging Process

CTX130458 - Teamed NICs Used for Non-Provisioning Services Traffic Fails

CTX129999 - Unable to Download ARDBP32.bin when Using XenServer or Hyper-V with HP Flex-10/Flex Fabric Module

CTX128923 - No Operating System Found when Attempt to PXE Boot an HP DL180G6 as a Provisioning Services Target

CTX128834 - HP Proliant BL 460G7 Unable to PXE Boot to Start Imaging Process

CTX128750 - Hyper-V Synthetic Network Interface Card Reinitializes on New Provisioning Services Target

CTX128647 - nVidia ION Based Devices Cannot Boot from Provisioning Services 5.x

CTX128074 - Unable to Stream to Cisco USC Based Servers

CTX128071 - Provisioning Services Support for UEFI on IBM System X

CTX125361 - Target Device Fails to Start with VMXnet3 Drivers

CTX125317 - Unable to Stream to Non-Master Target Dell Physical Hosts

CTX124757 - Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Based Target Devices Do Not Boot

CTX123639 - Teaming Network Interface Cards with NC532i Adapters

CTX123591 - Unable to PXE Boot using HP NC532i Dual Port 10GbE Network Interface Cards

CTX122365 - Provisioning Target Device hangs on Windows Splash Screen

CTX122297 - Windows 2008 Server vDisk on an HP BL465c Target Machine Fails to Boot

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Blogs i read

Recent Comments

Dan

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Hi Thomas,
Some features in your screenshots (eg create appointments and contacts) seem to be missing from the iOS version of @WorkMail that got released in April, do you know if these features are still coming in a future release? The Android client is far more functional by comparison.
Regards
Dan

Christian Eilskov

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You can see the DHCP options here:

http://www.wyse.com/kb and search for 21501

You can transfer a image using Wyse Device Manager(WDM), the same goes for smaller updates like new ICA client and so.

Thomas Poppelgaard

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Thank you Barry =)
The deep compression codec for Citrix XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro will be intergrated for Citrix XenApp in Excalibur so there is a big difference with bandwidth consumption. This means that XenApp in Excalibur will be the best platform for user density and works great over WAN with high latency as HDX 3D Pro have been known to deliver for several years. Yes i know of cases with WAN optimization, I will gather these and share them.

Best regards
Thomas

Barry Schiffer

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Hi Thomas,

Nice work! Awesome to see these results on XenApp! Is there any noticable difference between XA 6.5 and Excalibur that you are aware of? Do you have experience with WAN Optimization and how this helps to reduce bandwidth further?

Kind regards,

Barry

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