Citrix AppDNA 6.3

Citrix have released a new version of Citrix AppDNA 6.3. The cool thing about this release is that its a feature of XenDesktop 7 and XenApp 6.5 Feature Pack 2 Platinum licenses. Now automatically give you the right to use the AppDNA Server Based Computing (SBC) module (unlimited applications) and Production Manager. This means that you can download and install AppDNA 6.3 and use it to analyze all your applications for basic suitability for deployment as shared applications hosted on a server. THIS IS AWESOME… long waited feature for Platinum customers i have talked on multiple meetings with Citrix about this, and they finally listen to the market and made the Platinum suite shine again.

About Citrix AppDNA 6.3

The AppDNA 6.3 release provides improvements and extensions to Forward Path, Install Capture support for Microsoft Hyper-V, a new automated installer click-through mechanism in Install Capture, integration with XenDesktop 7 and XenApp 6.5 Feature Pack 2 Platinum licensing, and improvements to some algorithm descriptions, and manifestation and remediation texts.

What’s New in AppDNA 6.3

Install Capture improvements

Support for Hyper-V – You can now use a Hyper-V virtual machine for Install Capture (and for Forward Path tasks that automate the Install Capture process). Install Capture supports Hyper-V Server 2012, Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, and Windows 8 Hyper-V Client. When using this technology, Install Capture requires a virtual machine for its exclusive use and a Hyper-V user account that provides administrative permissions. The guest operating system must be configured to allow remote desktop connections. Under some configurations, the virtual machine needs the Hyper-V Integration Services to be installed (these are supported on Windows XP SP2 and later). See Setting up a Hyper-V VM for Install Capture for more information.

Note: When using Windows 8 Hyper-V Client, the AppDNA client must be installed on the same machine as the Hyper-V Client.

Auto-clicker – Install Capture has a new optional auto-clicker feature that improves the automation of the capture process. This means that you can leave a batch of captures or conversions running unattended. Previously, you always had to manually click through the installation steps – unless a silent installation switch was available.

When you use the new auto-clicker option, Install Capture automates the installation as much as possible by automatically clicking through the installation steps. Install Capture takes a screenshot of each installation step that it clicks through so that you have a concrete record of the options chosen. However, sometimes auto-clicker is not able to click through all of the steps – for example, if the installer requires you to enter information, such as a license code. When this happens, Install Capture reports the failure and you need to run the capture again and manually click through the installation steps. See Using Auto-Clicker for more information.

Note: There has been a minor change to the Snapshot and Snapshot Extended execution profiles. By default, Install Capture will now fail when using these execution profiles if the installer returns a non-zero exit code. As a result you may occasionally find that some captures that previously succeeded with an amber status now fail. Typically this is what you would expect and brings these execution profiles in line with the App-V ones. If you want to revert to the old behavior, select the Fail on unexpected exit code check box on the Launch Command in the Edit Execution Profile Dialog Box. You can also configure the exit code for installers that have a non-standard exit code.

Forward Path improvements

Forward Path has been extended as follows:

You can now create Forward Path reports that enable the user to browse from the application name to the application’s remediation report view for a single report (such as Windows 7) or merged reports (for example, Windows 7, 64-bit, and App-V). See Creating Links to the Remediation Report Views for more information.
You can now access the Effort Calculator variables and algorithm action information in your Forward Path scenarios. This means that you can calculate estimated remediation costs for each application based on the cost of remediating the issues detected by the algorithms during analysis and the Effort Calculator variables that store information such as how much a remediator or a tester costs per day. See Using the Effort Calculator Variables for more information.
You can now create advanced Forward Path reports that group applications by categories defined in the scenario or by the AppDNA application group to which the applications belong. You can also aggregate values at the group level and create report totals. This means, for example, that if application groups represent business units, you can create a Forward Path report that groups the applications by business unit and shows subtotals (of the estimated remediation costs, for example) for each one. See Grouped Forward Path Reports for more information.
You can now specify the report sort order at the application level and at the group level. Other enhancements make it easier to control the formatting – for example, to specify the currency symbol you want to use. See Sorting and Formatting for more information.

Your existing Forward Path reports will continue to work without changes.

Integration with XenDesktop 7 and XenApp 6.5 Feature Pack 2 Platinum licensing

XenDesktop 7 and XenApp 6.5 Feature Pack 2 Platinum licenses now automatically give you the right to use the AppDNA Server Based Computing (SBC) module (unlimited applications) and Production Manager. This means that you can download and install AppDNA 6.3 and use it to analyze all your applications for basic suitability for deployment as shared applications hosted on a server.

If you are new to AppDNA, download AppDNA 6.3, and follow the standard installation instructions. During the configuration phase, you will have an opportunity to activate AppDNA using your XenDesktop 7 or XenApp 6.5 Feature Pack 2 Platinum license. See Install AppDNA for step-by-step instructions.
If you already have AppDNA, you can activate your XenDesktop 7 or XenApp 6.5 Feature Pack 2 Platinum license in the normal way after upgrading to AppDNA 6.3. If you have multiple AppDNA databases, you can activate your XenDesktop 7 or XenApp 6.5 Feature Pack 2 Platinum license on each one, if required. See Activate a License file for step-by-step instructions.

Note: This feature requires a full XenDesktop 7 or XenApp 6.5 Feature Pack 2 Platinum license – it is not available with an evaluation Platinum license.

Algorithm manifestation and remediation improvements

AppDNA 6.3 provides improvements to the Windows 7 algorithm descriptions, and manifestation and remediation texts. This means that it is now easier to understand the issues that the algorithms detect and the remediation advice is clearer and more complete. Similar changes have been made to the equivalent algorithms in the Windows 8 report. In addition, some minor changes have been made to the XenApp Hosted report’s algorithm texts.

Documentation

Both the Help documentation and the documentation on the Citrix eDocs website (http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/) have been updated for this release. In addition to the changes for the new and updated features, the following are new in this release:

Upgrading to Citrix AppDNA 6.3

See Upgrading to AppDNA 6.3 for information about upgrading.
See System Requirements for information about the supported operating systems and essential pre-requisites.

Future changes

In the next version of AppDNA, Citrix intends to change the required version of the Microsoft .NET Framework to Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 for both the AppDNA server and desktop client. This means that you may need to install this framework before upgrading (depending on which version of Windows you are running).

Source

Download Citrix AppDNA 6.3 here (Requires MyCitrix ID)