Citrix Provisioning 7.7 with Support for Windows 10

Citrix Provisioning 7.7 - Poppelgaard - blog about Remote Graphics — Citrix Provisioning 7.7 – Poppelgaard – blog about Remote Graphics

Citrix have released a new version of Citrix Provisioning 7.7 which contains a lot of new improvements including support for Microsoft Windows 10, Yeah!.

The community have also embrased PVS 7.7 and Carl Webster have updated his PVS 7.7 Documentor Script and Sacha Thomet have developed a PVS 7.7 Health Check script that is also GA same day as PVS 7.7

New features in Citrix Provisioning service – PVS 7.7

The folllowing new features are available with Citrix Provisioning Services 7.7:

Support for Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise and Professional editions.
In-place upgrade of target device software. Rather than reverse-imaging, you can install a new version of the target device software without having to manually uninstall the previous version. To do an in-place upgrade from version 7.6 to version 7.7 you must first install version 7.6.1.
Support for UEFI pre-boot environments. This enables you to stream at startup time using gigabit network speeds, so users experience faster startups, and to use disks over 2 TB.
The licensing grace period for Provisioning Services has changed from 96 hours to 30 days, for consistency with XenApp and XenDesktop.
The Citrix Provisioning Services API has been enhanced to provide a standard object-oriented PowerShell interface that enables you to integrate your products and tools easily with Citrix Provisioning Services.
vGPU-enabled XenDesktop machines can be provisioned using the Provisioning Services XenDesktop Setup Wizard, rather than manually or by using the Provisioning Services Streamed Virtual Machine Setup Wizard. You can provision machines on VMware vSphere 6.0 as well as on XenServer 6.2.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager Generation 2 VMs can be provisioned through Citrix Provisioning Services. Generation 2 VMs are optimized for modern workloads: the operating system does not carry the overhead of legacy drivers, devices and x86 architectures.

Note: This feature has received limited testing, may not be present in future product releases and must not be enabled on production systems. Citrix may not respond to support requests regarding this feature.

FIPS support. Citrix Provisioning Services uses a new algorithm that is compliant with Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).
XenApp Session Recording is automatically available by default on all machines: you do not need to use a manual workaround.
Streaming VHDX formatted disks. This feature adds flexibility and efficiency to image and merging operations by letting you stream VHDX files as well as VHD files. Citrix Provisioning Services recognizes and uses the file format .vhdx as the extension for base disks and .avhdx for differencing disks (also known as versions). No configuration of this feature is necessary. You perform all image manipulation functions, such as deleting or merging vDisks, or creating new versions, in the Citrix Provisioning Services console the same way for both formats.

You must use the most recent version of the Citrix License server to get the latest features. When upgrading from an existing version of Provisioning Services to the newest version of Provisioning Services, the most recent version of the license server is usually available with the product software. If you do not upgrade to the latest version of the license server, the product license will enter the 30 day grace period.

Upgrading a Citrix Provisioning Services farm to 7.7

Provisioning Services supports upgrading to the latest product version from versions starting with 5.1 SP1.

Before attempting to upgrade a Citrix Provisioning Services farm:

Select a maintenance window that has the least amount of traffic
Back up the Provisioning Services database
Back up all vDisks

Remember: Mirror if you are in a high-availability scenario; for more information, see Database Mirroring. No special action is required during the upgrade once mirroring is set up.

To upgrade from a previous Citrix Provisioning Services farm, complete the following procedures:

Upgrade the first Citrix Provisioning Server, which upgrades the Citrix Provisioning Services database.
Upgrade Consoles. The Console is a separate executable that can be installed on upgraded servers (PVS_Console.exe or PVS_Console_64.exe). Citrix recommends upgrading Provisioning Services server and console software at the same time for each Provisioning Server system in the farm. Remote Consoles can be upgraded at any time.
Upgrade the remaining Citrix Provisioning Servers within the farm.
Upgrade vDisks.
Caution: If you are upgrading a Provisioning Services vDisk within a XenDesktop deployment, upgrade the Provisioning Services master target device software before upgrading the XenDesktop VDA software.

Upgrade Utilities

The Upgrade Wizard includes the following utilities:

The UpgradeAgent.exe runs on the target device to upgrade previously installed product software.
The UpgradeManager.exe runs on the Citrix Provisioning Server to control the upgrade process on the target device.

Source

Download Citrix PVS 7.7 here (Require MyCitrix ID)

Download Citrix PVS 7.7 Documentor here

Download Citrix PVS 7.7 health healthcheck script here

Other PVS 7.7 Guides

Citrix Provisioning Services 7.7 MCLI Programmer’s Guide

Citrix Provisioning Services 7.7 SOAP Server Programmer’s Guide

Citrix Provisioning Services 7.7 PowerShell with Objects Programmer’s Guide

Citrix Provisioning Services 7.7 Transition to PowerShell with Objects from PowerShell (Deprecated) Programmer’s Guide

Professional Services

Citrix technology professional – CTP, and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional MVP, Thomas Poppelgaard provides professional services. Write to me on my email thomas@poppelgaard.com or call on my cell +45 53540356

Citrix XenDesktop & XenApp 7.6

Citrix have released a new version of Citrix XenDesktop & XenApp 7.6

This is a major release that contains new version of many new software components.

I have in this article included all new product releases to give you an overview what is released related to XenDesktop & XenApp 7.6 solution.

Citrix XenDesktop 7.1

Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 is now finally released and vGPU is now in the product and build in with MCS, very very cool. You can configure GPU pass-through with any GPU card or vGPU profiles with NVIDIA GRID, the brilliant thing about this its now build in to the product, you only have to choose a GPU profile and XenDesktop takes care of the High Availability with XenServer and find the resources that free and connects the GPU to the Virtual Machine. Microsoft have just released Windows 8.1 and Server 2012R2 and in this release of Citrix XenDesktop 7.1, Citrix are supporting Microsoft newest Operating System Platforms.

One of the things that have been fixed in the XenDesktop 7.1 Virtual Delivery Agent is following:

With HDX 3D Pro enabled, the NVIDIA card might not support certain resolutions. This enhancement introduces support of up to 2560×1600 pixel resolutions.
With HDX 3D Pro enabled, client connections to a XenDesktop 5.6 VDA do not support resolutions beyond 1900×1200 pixels. This enhancement introduces support for a wide range of additional resolution ratios, including:
- 1920×1200
- 2048×1152
- 2560×1440
- 2560×1600

What’s new in XenDesktop 7.1

GPU — The Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) capabilities feature provides graphics virtualization, offering a superior experience for users who use graphic-intensive applications and often manipulate 3-D models. The GPU feature also can improve the graphics experience for a large number of users. Administrators can evaluate workflows for the creation of GPU-capable connections and machine catalogs created with an MCS-provisioned master image. If problems are encountered, then Administrators may need to manually create the machines.

When you install Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 on the Controller, you can now choose a GPU type and group which its getting from XenServer.

If you have NVIDIA GRID with XenServer, XenDesktop 7.1 takes care of creating a GPU type attached to the GPU group.

in above example I am choosing a vGPU type: K140Q. It have 960MB video RAM per VM)

If you have 1 GRID K1 card and choose a K140Q type, you can have maximum 16 virtual machines assigned to this card. If you have 2 GRID K1 and choose K140Q type, then you can have 32 virtual machines assigned to the GROUP K1, and XenDesktop 7.1/XenServer vGPU takes care of the HA of GPU assignment.

Look at below chart to get an understanding of which vGPU types you can choose in XenDesktop 7.1 with NVIDIA GRID K1 & K2.

Read my blogpost about vGPU profiles

The above numbers are from NVIDIA but the vGPU types Citrix have defined in XenDesktop 7.1 are following:

for NVIDIA GRID K1 vGPU options:

GRID K100 (256B video RAM per VM)
GRID K140Q (960MB video RAM per VM)
Passthrough – GK107 GL GRID K1

for NVIDIA GRID K2 vGPU options:

GRID K260Q (1920MB video RAM per VM)
GRID K240Q (960MB video RAM per VM)
GRID K200 (256MB video RAM per VM)
Passthrough – GK104GL

Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 support — Deliver a high-definition user experience on Windows 8.1 virtual desktops and physical machines. HDX 3D Pro has also been upgraded to support Windows 8.1.

Upgrade XenDesktop 7 components to 7.1

When you run the installer AutoSelect, the wizard checks whether certain Site components (such as the Delivery Controllers, Director, and VDAs), need to be upgraded. If you opt not to upgrade some components during this process, when you run Studio, it performs a component check and notifies you when components need to be upgraded. You cannot proceed to manage your Site until you upgrade these components.

Upgrade Site with components deployed on different machines

The following figure shows the high-level processes involved when upgrading a XenDesktop 7 to XenDesktop 7.1 in which Studio components are deployed on different machines.

Perform the upgrade procedures in the following order.

Check the licenses

Make sure that your Subscription Advantage date for licenses is no earlier than 2013.0522.

Upgrade StoreFront

If StoreFront is deployed on a separate machine, follow the steps described in Upgrade core components from eDocs

Upgrade Director

If Director is deployed on a separate machine, follow the steps described in Upgrade core components from eDocs

Upgrade Provisioning Services

If you are using Provisioning Services, follow the procedures described in Upgrading Provisioning Services from eDocs

Upgrade the Virtual Delivery Agent

For Remote PC Access deployments, Citrix recommends that you upgrade a VDA in a remote PC using a command-line method. For detailed information, see Install using the command line.

Log on to the server using a local administrator account and run the installer by inserting the media or mounting the ISO drive for this release, and double-clickingAutoSelect.
On the Welcome page, click Start. The wizard detects what components need to be upgraded and displays the Upgrade options page, activating the components you can upgrade.
On the Upgrade options page, select:
- Virtual Delivery Agent for Windows Desktop OS for Desktop OS, and earlier XenDesktop versions
- Virtual Delivery Agent for Windows Server OS for Server OS
On the Firewall page review the default ports and configure firewall rules.
On the Summary review the prerequisites to be installed and the components to be upgraded then click Upgrade.
On the Finish Upgrade page one of the following messages appears upon completion:
- Success — Upgrade successful appears when the upgrade completes without errors.
- Failed — The Upgrade failed appears with a list of failed components. Click Why did this fail to review what you must do to fix the problem. Other components that installed successfully are retained; you do not need to reinstall them.
Click Finish to complete the upgrade.

Upgrade Delivery Controllers

Citrix recommends that you upgrade Delivery Controllers as follows:

Upgrade half of your Site’s Delivery Controllers.
Use the upgraded version of Studio to perform the Site upgrade as described in Upgrade core components.
Upgrade your remaining Delivery Controllers.

Upgrade Databases using Studio

Use Studio to upgrade the Database.

Automatically upgrade Databases

Start Studio. The wizard detects what components need to be upgraded and displays the Mandatory upgrade page.
Select Start the Site upgrade automatically.
At the prompt, select I am ready to upgrade.The wizard displays the upgrade progress. After the upgrade completes, the wizard performs tests. This takes several minutes.
At the Site Upgrade Complete window, you can optionally view a data migration report and then click Finish.
At the Upgrade successful page, click Finish upgrade and return to the Site overview.

Manually upgrade Databases

To minimize Site down time when performing a manual upgrade, it is important that the XenDesktop Administrator closely coordinates with the Database Administrator. This process requires that you run a script that temporarily disables Xendesktop Services while the manual upgrade scripts are run by the Database Administrator using a preferred tool (for example, SQL Server Management Studio). Ideally, immediately after these scripts complete, the XenDesktop Administrator should enable XenDesktop Services and complete the upgrade using Studio.

Manual upgrade requires:

Backing up the databases
Running the generated scripts in the following order:

DisableServices.ps1 — PowerShell script to be run by the XenDesktop administrator on an XenDesktop Controller.
UpgradeSiteDatabase.sql — SQL script run where the Site databases resides
UpgradeMonitorDatabase.sql — SQL script run where the Monitor databases resides.
UpgradeLoggingDatabase.sql — SQL script run where the Logging database resides.
Note: You should only run this script if the Logging database changes. For example, run it after applying a hotfix.
EnableServices.ps1 — PowerShell script to be run by the XenDesktop administrator on an XenDesktop Controller.

To upgrade manually

Start Studio. The wizard detects what components need to be upgraded and displays the Mandatory upgrade page.
Select Manually upgrade this site.
The wizard checks for License Server compatibility. Make sure your License Server and license files are compatible with XenDesktop 7.1. Select the confirmation check box and click Continue.
The wizard prompts you to backup the Database. When you have done so, select the confirmation check box and click Continue.
- The wizard generates the manual upgrade scripts that you must run and displays them in a window
- The Mandatory Upgrade page changes to display a checklist of the manual upgrade steps
Make sure you have completed the checklist tasks and click Finish upgrade and return to Common Tasks.

Upgrade core components

The installer automatically upgrades core components such as Delivery Controllers, Studio, and Director if they were previously installed.

Log on to the server using a local administrator account and run the installer by inserting the media or mounting the ISO drive for this release, and double-clickingAutoSelect.
On the Welcome page, click Start. The wizard detects what components need to be upgraded and displays the Upgrade options page, activating the components you can upgrade.
Click Delivery Controller.
Accept the license agreement.
Review the upgrade steps, click I’m ready to continue and click Next.
On the Core Components page review the components available for upgrade.
On the Firewall page review the default ports and configure firewall rules.
On the Upgrade page review the prerequisites to be installed and the components to be upgraded and then click Upgrade.
On the Finish Upgrade page one of the following messages appears upon completion:
- Success — Upgrade successful appears when the upgrade completes without errors.
- Failed — The Upgrade failed appears with a list of failed components. Click Why did this fail to review what you must do to fix the problem. Other components that installed successfully are retained; you do not need to reinstall them.
Click Finish to complete the upgrade.

Upgrade a Site with components deployed on the same machine

The following figure shows the high-level processes involved when upgrading a Site in which all components are deployed on the same machine.

Perform the upgrade procedures in the following order:

Make sure that your Subscription Advantage date for licenses is no earlier than 2013.0522.
Back up the Controller databases.
Optionally back up templates and upgrade Hypervisor.
Upgrade PVS servers and agents as described in Upgrade Provisioning Services from eDocs
Upgrade the core components as described in Upgrade core components from eDocs
Upgrade Virtual Desktop Agents as described in Upgrade the Virtual Delivery Agent from eDocs
Upgrade the Database using Studio as described in Upgrade Databases using Studio from eDocs
Upgrade the remaining Delivery Controllers.

Post upgrade processes

After the upgrade and data migration is complete, you can run environment and configuration tests to make sure that the Site is in functional order.

To test the upgraded site, select Test Site n the Site Configuration pane of the Studio Common Tasks page.

Source

If you want to upgrade your current Citrix XenDesktop 7 environment to XenDesktop 7.1. environment look here

fixes in XenDesktop 7.1 – Virtual Delivery Agent

fixes in XenDesktop 7.1 – Controller

Download Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 here (Require MyCitrix ID)

Citrix XenDesktop 7

At Citrix Synergy 2013, Anaheim, CA, May. Citrix announced the availability of Citrix XenDesktop 7, the software is now available for download.

In this article i will cover whats new and how “XenApp” & “XenDesktop” merges into 1 product, XenApp is now using the Architecture XenDesktop was build around, and now Applications/Desktop gets delivered either from a Client operating system (Windows 7 or 8) or a Server operating system (Windows Server 2008R2 or Windows Server 2012)
Read more “components in XenDesktop 7”

I have been waiting for this release to be available. Now XenApp in XenDesktop have all the cool new features such as deep compression codec “HDX 3D Pro” and higher frame rates, so your virtualized 2D/3D applications can run over strict bandwidth with high latency, before this was possible with XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro now XenApp can deliver the same, and the cool thing is XenApp is included in the delivery mechanism of XenDesktop 7. Merchandising and Provisioning Services are still alive and strong and released in a new software version. AppDNA is now included in the XenDesktop Platinum edition with a limited edition Hosted App P2V Analysis.

Components in XenDesktop 7

If you already have experience with a XenDesktop or XenApp environment, it will be helpful to you to identify the components introduced in this release and learn how they work and communicate with each other. Under the new architecture, XenDesktop and XenApp are unified, including management and delivery components, to give administrators a unified management experience.

This figure shows the key components in a typical deployment.

The core components of this release are:

Director — Director is a web-based tool that enables IT support and help desk teams to monitor an environment, troubleshoot issues before they become system-critical, and perform support tasks for end users. You can also view and interact with a user’s sessions using Microsoft Remote Assistance.

Receiver — Installed on user devices, Citrix Receiver provides users with quick, secure, self-service access to documents, applications, and desktops from any of the user’s devices including smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Receiver provides on-demand access to Windows, Web, and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications.

StoreFront — StoreFront authenticates users to sites hosting resources and manages stores of desktops and applications that users access.

Studio — Studio is the management console that enables you to configure and manage your deployment, eliminating the need for separate management consoles for managing delivery of applications and desktops. Studio provides various wizards to guide you through the process of setting up your environment, creating your workloads to host applications and desktops, and assigning applications and desktops to users.

Delivery Controller — Installed on servers in the data center, the Delivery Controller consists of services that communicate with the hypervisor to distribute applications and desktops, authenticate and manage user access, and broker connections between users and their virtual desktops and applications. The Controller manages the state of the desktops, starting and stopping them based on demand and administrative configuration. In some editions, the Controller allows you to install Profile management to manage user personalization settings in virtualized or physical Windows environments. Each site has one or more Delivery Controllers.

XenServer — XenServer is an enterprise-class virtual machine infrastructure solution that creates the foundation for delivering virtual desktops and offers advanced management features. Multiple VMs can run on XenServer, which takes advantage of the advanced virtualization features of the latest virtualization-enabled processors from Intel and AMD. For more information about XenServer, see the XenServer documentation in eDocs.

Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) — Installed on server or workstation operating systems, the VDA enables connections for desktops and apps. For Remote PC Access, install the VDA on the office PC.

Machine Creation Services (MCS) — A collection of services that work together to create virtual servers and desktops from a master image on demand, optimizing storage utilization and providing a pristine virtual machine to users every time they log on. Machine Creation Services is fully integrated and administrated in Citrix Studio.

Windows Server OS machines — VMs or physical machines based on Windows Server operating system used for delivering applications or hosted shared desktops to users.

Desktop OS machines — VMs or physical machines based on Windows Desktop operating system used for delivering personalized desktops to users, or applications from desktop operating systems.

Remote PC Access — User devices that are included on a whitelist, enabling users to access resources on their office PCs remotely, from any device running Citrix Receiver.

Additional components provide the following features:

Secure delivery — When users connect from outside the corporate firewall, this release can use Citrix NetScaler Gateway (formerly Access Gateway) technology to secure these connections with SSL. NetScaler Gateway or NetScaler VPX virtual appliance is an SSL VPN appliance that is deployed in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to provide a single secure point of access through the corporate firewall.

WAN optimization — In deployments where virtual desktops are delivered to users at remote locations such as branch offices, Citrix CloudBridge (formerly Citrix Branch Repeater or WANScaler) technology can be employed to optimize performance. Repeaters accelerate performance across wide-area networks, so with Repeaters in the network, users in the branch office experience LAN-like performance over the WAN. CloudBridge can prioritize different parts of the user experience so that, for example, the user experience does not degrade in the branch location when a large file or print job is sent over the network. HDX WAN Optimization with CloudBridge provides tokenized compression and data deduplication, dramatically reducing bandwidth requirements and improving performance. For more information, see the Citrix CloudBridge documentation.

License versions available in XenDesktop 7

The version comes in Evaluation, VDI edition, App Edition, Enterprise Edition and Platinum Edition.

In this topic i will cover which software editions you can download, and which software components are included you can use for each XenDesktop edition.

XenDesktop 7 – Evaluation Edition

Citrix XenDesktop evaluation edition have 99 licenses included and works for 90 days.
This release includes the core components Citrix XenDesktop 7 Core and Components + Receiver + XenServer

XenDesktop 7 – VDI Edition

This release includes the core components Citrix XenDesktop 7 Core and Components + Receiver + Provisioning Services 7 + XenServer + Merchandising Server

XenDesktop 7 – App Edition

This release includes the core components Citrix XenDesktop 7 Core and Components + Receiver + Provisioning Services 7 + XenServer + Merchandising Server

XenDesktop 7 – Enterprise Edition

This release includes the core components Citrix XenDesktop 7 Core and Components + Receiver + XenClient Enterprise + Provisioning Services 7 + XenServer + Merchandising Server

XenDesktop 7 – Platinum Edition

This release includes the core components Citrix XenDesktop 7 Core and Components + Receiver + Hosted App P2V Analysis (AppDNA) + CloudBridge (Branch Repeater) VPX + XenClient Enterprise + Provisioning Services 7 + XenServer + Merchandising Server

What’s new in XenDesktop 7

Machine Catalog Desktops and Applications
- Desktops — Deliver managed desktops to multiple, simultaneously connected remote users. Server OS machine and Desktop OS machine desktops provide features such as SmoothRoaming, session reliability, license consumption, Receiver and Delivery Services authentication, and Desktop Viewer. This release introduces Windows Server OS machine catalogs and desktops as a cost-effective virtualization delivery solution because they provide a significant number of remote users per server and storage resource. This release also provides Remote PC desktops that let users access resources on their office PCs remotely, from any device running Citrix Receiver.
- Applications — Integrate XenApp publishing capabilities within a deployment. Use this feature to deliver shared hosted applications to multiple, simultaneously-connected remote users.
HDX enhancements
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 support — Deliver a high-definition user experience on Windows 8 virtual desktops and physical machines. HDX 3D Pro has also been upgraded to support Windows 8.
- Desktop Composition Redirection — Extend the Aero Redirection feature introduced in XenDesktop 5.5 to provide users with a more fluid Windows 7 Aero or Windows 8 desktop experience by leveraging the graphics processing unit (GPU) or integrated graphics processor (IGP) on supported Windows user devices for local DirectX graphics rendering. This feature delivers rich multimedia applications to user devices, while maintaining high scalability on the server.
- Windows Media client-side content fetching — Enable a user device to stream multimedia files directly from the source provider on the Internet or Intranet to improve network utilization and server scalability.
- Multicast support — Reduce bandwidth consumption when streaming live video to branch offices. Multicast support enables a single Windows Media source transmission to support multiple users.
- Real-time multimedia transcoding — Enable audio and video streaming to mobile devices, improving the way that Windows Media content is delivered. Host-based transcoding provides a seamless user experience, even in extreme network conditions. To improve server scalability, if the Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) has a supported graphics processing unit (GPU) for hardware acceleration, transcoding is done in the GPU.
- User Datagram Protocol (UDP) audio for Server OS machines — Extend support for audio delivery over UDP/RTP to Server OS machines. This feature delivers superior audio quality for real-time applications like video conferencing and streaming media, even in environments when there is packet loss or congestion.
- Webcam video compression — Reduce bandwidth consumption to improve performance when using supported video conferencing applications.
- HDX 3D Pro — Deliver applications with graphics processing units (GPUs) for hardware acceleration to the desktop. This includes 3D professional graphics applications based on OpenGL and DirectX.
- Server-rendered Rich Graphics and Video — Deliver rich graphics (including Windows 8 or Windows Aero) to virtual desktop users on any client, platform, and bandwidth condition by rendering the content on the server. When users have the latest Citrix Receiver, they will also notice improved performance for server-rendered video.
- Improved Flash Redirection — Determine when to redirect Adobe Flash content to the user device for local rendering based on the user’s network type and environment. Flash Redirection helps reduce server and network load, resulting in greater scalability while ensuring a high-definition user experience.
New installer — Use a single, streamlined installer to guide you through installing the core components (Delivery Controller, Studio, Director, StoreFront, and License Server) and VDAs.
Profile management — By default, Citrix Profile management 5.0 is installed silently on master images when you install the Virtual Delivery Agent, but you do not have to use Profile management as a profile solution.
Configuration Logging — Capture Site configuration changes and administrative activities to a Configuration Logging Database. You can view the log in Studio using a variety of filters and generate HTML and CSV reports.
Director — Monitor and troubleshoot deployments using Director’s redesigned user interface with integrated EdgeSight features:
- A new help desk view offers an improved troubleshooting experience for help desk administrators, allowing user, machine, and application issues to be resolved quickly.
- Full administrators have access to other views, including a newly designed Dashboard to provide a graphical summary of your deployment in a central location, and a Trends page to provide improved, in-depth, graphical monitoring and troubleshooting of the entire deployment with various time ranges.
- EdgeSight performance management provides the historical retention and trend reporting. With historical retention of data versus the real-time assessment, administrators are able to create Trend reports, including capacity and health trending.
- EdgeSight network analysis leverages HDX Insight to provide an application and desktop contextual view of the network. With this feature, Director provides advanced analytics of ICA traffic in their XenDesktop deployment.
Delegated Administration — Group objects into administrative scopes. This feature provides an enterprise-class administration model with role-based access control, custom roles with configurable permissions, and fine-grained, object-based control.
StoreFront replaces Web Interface — Create centralized enterprise stores to deliver desktops, applications, and other resources to users on any device. This feature provides authentication and resource delivery services for Citrix Receiver.
Delivery Controller auto-update — Automatically notify Virtual Delivery Agents (VDAs) when Controllers are added to and removed from the Site. This feature helps prevent VDA rejection of sessions that are launched by unknown Controllers, and VDA startup delays or errors caused by invalid Controller information. For information about how to preserve the CNAME functionality, see CTX137960.
Client Folder Redirection — Change the way client-side files are accessible on the host-side session. When you enable only client drive mapping on the server, client-side full volumes are automatically mapped to host drive letters. When you enable client folder redirection on the server and then the user configures it on the user device, only the portion of the local volume that is specified by the user is redirected.
Improved Virtual Desktop Access Control Settings – Control user access to both Server OS Machines and Desktop OS Machines in a simple and unified way with a new, streamlined group of security settings.
Improved and integrated error reporting — Studio error reporting links directly to the Citrix Support website. When users encounter an error situation, choosing the Get Advice option submits information about the error to the Citrix website. The information is analyzed and the user is redirected to a Website containing remedial advice.
StoreFront enhancements
- Desktop Appliance sites — Access Desktop Appliance sites through a website on the StoreFront store. The site is created automatically when a store is created. If, for example, the store has a path of path/Citrix/Store, the Desktop Appliance site path ispath/Citrix/StoreDesktopAppliance. Users can restart their virtual machine-hosted desktops on Desktop Appliance sites.
- Database as a service — Write user subscription data for each store to the local disk on the StoreFront server by using the new subscription store service. The data is then propagated across the server group.
IPv6 support — Connect to clients and core components on IPv4, IPv6, or dual-stack (IPv4/IPv6) environments.
Personal vDisk — Personalize your virtual desktops. In addition, a dedicated storage disk is created, before logon, so that users can store their data on the desktop, including any applications they install.
Machine Creation Services (MCS) support for Microsoft Key Management System (KMS) activation — Each virtual machine (VM) created with MCS provides a unique activation for the Windows operating system and Office 2010, which enables the KMS system to record each VM as a separate machine.
Support for group policies configured in Citrix Mobility Pack — These policies for Citrix Receiver for mobile devices include Start menu redirection and removing common programs from the Start menu. For details, see Configure policies for mobility features.
Multi-touch support — Touch functionality is supported on multi-touch computers, including Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows 8 workstations and Windows Server 2012 for VDAs.
Remote PC Access — Automated administration of Remote PC Access is fully integrated into the core functionality of the XenDesktop Delivery Controller and Studio. One Remote PC machine catalog and one Remote PC Delivery Group are created automatically when you set up a Remote PC deployment; you can add more machine catalogs or Delivery Groups later using Studio. This process replaces the XML configuration file and PowerShell scripts used by Remote PC Access in XenDesktop 5.6 FP1. The current release also adds the ability to remotely access office PCs running Windows 8.
Support for Fast User Switching using RDP connections — This Microsoft Windows feature makes it possible for multiple users to share a desktop without closing programs or logging off existing users. Administrators can take advantage of this feature to troubleshoot problems and install updates, without interrupting tasks or programs in use by the logged on user, by initiating an RDP connection to the VDA.
Compatibility with AhnLab keyboard encryption used in Korea — This release is compatible with keyboard encryption that is installed on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) hosts.

Supported hypervisor

XenServer.
- XenServer 6.2
- XenServer 6.1
- XenServer 6.0.2
VMware vSphere. No support is provided for vSphere vCenter Linked Mode operation.
- VMware vSphere 5.1 Update 1
- VMware vSphere 5.0 Update 2
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1, plus any version of Hyper-V that can register with those System Center Virtual Machine Manager versions.

Source

Download Citrix XenDesktop 7 here (require MyCitrix ID)

Admin Guide for Citrix XenDesktop 7

Install Guide for Citrix XenDesktop 7

Tech Talk: Virtual Desktops for Designers and Engineers

Hi all

I have had some amazing days at NVIDIA GTC 2013 where i did my presentation on how business adapt remote graphics solutions from Citrix.

The same week I did a Tech Talk webinar together with Yvonne Dresser, Sr Marketing Product Manager at Citrix HQ in Santa Clara. The topic we discussed Virtualizing 3D Professional Graphics Apps and. In this webinar you will learn how Citrix XenDesktop & XenApp can deliver remote graphics with 3D applications and how they can be virtualized in multiple layers from Servers to Desktops to Apps and how they can be delivered to any device from a PC to a tablet, phone or even a thin client.You will learn which graphic solutions from NVIDIA thats available and how the new NVIDIA GRID K1/K2 fits into these solutions from Citrix.

I covered the best practice part from the field i have experience in the years since 2008 and share this with the audience and we got 30 questions that we cover, so for me it was amazing having such a big audience attending and asking for very technical questions how to build these solutions and what the requirements are, whats available whats possible.

Source

Watch the recorded webinar here

Download the presentation here PDF format

Download the presentation here PPS format