Citrix Systems (CTXS) sees the VDI market as a potential goldmine and has bet much of its future on XenDesktop, a product that is well positioned to capture the VDI space. This post describes five tips for getting the most out of your XenDesktop 5.5 deployment.

Infrastructure Planning and Architecture

As companies move towards VDI, they almost immediately realize that virtual desktops require resources in the data center, many more resources and infrastructure then a traditional desktop environment. In order to get the most out of XenDesktop they will need to answer the question of how to size this infrastructure. Network, Processing, and Storage are all part of the discussion, but how do you scale the environment? How much is required to support the number of VDIs you plan to deploy?

The answers to many of these questions will be unique for each organization, depending on user requirements, applications, and existing infrastructure. For example, most organizations underestimate or miscalculate the network requirements of virtual desktops. This is especially true of organizations that are familiar with XenApp.

Profile Management

No desktop management solution is complete without a good Profile Management design plan. Many customers believe they can take their existing desktop deployment model and just migrate that to a virtual infrastructure. In a traditional desktop/server model, the user’s profile settings and files are stored on the user’s desktop.

Although this might work fine in a physical desktop, in a virtual desktop it becomes problematic. Most virtual desktop deployments leverage a pool of desktops, and a user might be connected to the first available desktop in the pool. Without a Profile Management strategy, the user is presented with a “vanilla desktop” with none of the customizations or files the user needs to do his or her job.

Application Integration

To really get the most out of your XenDesktop Deployment you need to consider the applications. Without applications, all we have is a Start Menu, and we can’t get much work done with that. Corporate applications drive business, and they also drive virtualization projects. The mistake many companies make is to think that they will use traditional methods to deploy applications in their virtual desktops.

Optimize the Operating System for VDI

Once you have built your Master Image, the temptation is to install the required applications and immediately roll it out to your users. In a VDI deployment, there is still more to be done. Specifically, the desktop should be optimized for mass deployment. Optimized is a fairly general term and means different things to different people. In this case, we are talking about the fact that there are certain settings that are appropriate in a traditional desktop environment but which might not be in a VDI deployment. For example, we generally recommend turning off Auto Updates of the desktop and Antivirus since the image is usually in a pooled state and will reset back to its default upon reboot.

Defining Suitable Use Cases

To get the most out of a XenDesktop deployment a full understanding of the Citrix Flex Cast model is essential. VDI is only one option for deploying desktops and applications to end users. It is not necessarily the best option for all users.

A common mistake when deploying XenDesktop is to assume that all users require dedicated VDI desktops. VDI is the most expensive and resource-intensive in the Flexcast delivery model. Dedicated VDI is even more expensive than Pooled or Streamed Virtual Desktops. Other options such as Hosted Shared Desktops or Local Streamed Desktops might be a more cost-effective solution and a better choice for certain users groups.

By following the tips outlined above, your company can make the most of your XenDesktop 5.5 investment. Avoiding common pitfalls and leveraging all aspects of the technology will enable users to leverage the benefits of virtual desktops while keeping costs down and preserving the security requirements of the organization.

Related Courses
Citrix XenDesktop 5 Administration
Citrix Desktop Virtualization Fast Track

Excerpted from Global Knowledge white paper: Five Tips for Getting the Most Out of Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 by Paul Kushlan

Simplified Installation

Beginning with XenApp 6 and continuing with XenApp 6.5, Citrix introduced a number of enhancements to the installation wizard. Before we discuss the roles wizard, let’s look at a typical Citrix Farm Architecture.

Small Citrix farms typically have the following roles:

1. Web Interface Server
2. License Server
3. XenApp Server

Although the Farm Data Store is an essential part of the Farm, it is not technically a “role.” It is a database server, typically SQL, that contains critical Farm Data. During the configuration wizard for XenApp, the administrator designates where the Data Store will be located. If a server is designated as a controller during installation, then it can become a Zone Data Collector (ZDC). If it is designated as a worker, then it will never attempt to become a ZDC and is, therefore, a member server.

Larger Citrix XenApp Farms are much more complex. They include components like Provisioning Services, EdgeSight monitoring, Dedicated Data Collectors, Remote Access Devices and increased redundancy with all essential servers.

Another change to the install process is that there is no configuration required during installation. This makes the install of each of the roles very simple. Once the installation is completed, the administrator is prompted to configure each of the roles.

Single Management Console

One challenge for Citrix administrators over the years has been the need for different consoles for many of the Citrix management tasks. In XenApp 6.0, Citrix has consolidated almost all administrative tasks in one console called the Delivery Services Console. In XenApp 6.5, Citrix has enhanced this console and changed the name to AppCenter.

With the AppCenter Console, an administrator can use one console to perform things like Publishing Applications, Creating Policies, Managing Worker Groups and Zones, along with many other tasks. With one console, you can now manage hundreds of servers and applications in a Citrix Server Farm.

Worker Groups

Worker Groups allow you to manage all servers within an App Silo as one object. This allows you to publish applications and set policies with a Worker Group rather than individual servers, making managing complex real-world Citrix environments much easier.

Another benefit of Worker Groups is the ability to perform Load Balancing between geographical locations or direct users to the XenApp servers closest to their current location.

Policies and GPO Integration

Citrix Administrators can now use GPOs and Organizational Units to manage their Citrix Policies, just like they do their Microsoft Policies, giving Administrators one tool to manage user rights. If you do not have rights at an Active Directory level, Citrix does still allow for IMA-Based Polices that are stored in the Citrix Data Store. These policies are created using the Delivery Services Console; however, they are superseded if GPO Based Citrix Policies exist.

New in XenApp 6.5 is the ability to filter policies in the XenApp Policy Editor. For example, you can look at XenApp 6.0 polices only, or vice versa, only look at what is new in XenApp 6.5.

Merchandizing Server and Windows Receiver

Merchandising Server allows administrators to centrally deploy and update Citrix clients. Merchandising Server is a virtual appliance that is free to download and import within XenServer.

HDX

Many of you have probably heard of HDX. It is short for High Definition Experience and represents a host of technologies (more than 60) that allow the user experience to be the best ever when connecting to hosted desktops or applications. See http://hdx.citrix.com for a list of some of the HDX Technologies included in XenApp.

Provisioning Server

Provisioning Server is a technology that allows Citrix administrators to create a single master virtual disk (vDisk) and then connect multiple desktops or servers to that vDisk, all of which boot simultaneously.

With XenApp, we can leverage this technology to keep all of the Application Servers in a Citrix Farm consistent with the same applications, hotfixes, and patches. This ensures that users receive the same experience regardless of which server they are load-balanced to. With this technology, administrators can now update many servers by updating a single vDisk, making administering large server farms much simpler.

MultiStream ICA

MultiStream ICA is a new feature introduced with XenApp 6.5. In previous versions of Citrix, QoS (Quality of Service) was difficult with the ICA protocol because the various channels all flowed within the port 1494 or 2598 when using session reliability. If QoS were enabled, it would prioritize all types of ICA traffic (graphics, keyboard, mouse, audio, printing, clipboard, drive mapping, etc.). MultiStream ICA Protocol splits virtual desktop traffic into 5 streams – real time, interactive, background, bulk, and RTP Voice – to enable network administrators to prioritize traffic by type and maintain QoS with existing network tools.

Integration with Desktop Director

In previous versions of XenApp, if you wanted to give the Help Desk and other associates within your company administrative access to Citrix, you only had the option of giving them access to the same consoles you, as an Administrator, use. These consoles were notorious for being somewhat complex, and they required some training for new associates. With the introduction of XenApp 6.5, Citrix has given Desktop Director the ability to connect to XenApp. Desktop Director is a web-based dashboard and console that allows Help Desk and other support staff to manage and monitor XenApp sessions.

Pre-launch, Session Linger, and Fast Reconnect

This collection of features improves the user experience by eliminating delays when launching and maintaining sessions. First, with the use of Session Pre-launch policy settings, a session can be started automatically when a user logs on to the farm. By implementing Session Linger policy settings, sessions remain alive for a configurable period before termination, rather than terminating when users close applications. Finally, Fast Reconnect, built into XenApp and requiring no configuration, helps minimize delays when users reconnect to existing sessions.

Related Courses
Citrix XenApp 6.5 Basic Administration
Citrix XenApp 6.5 Advanced Administration

Excerpted from Global Knowledge: XenApp 6.5: New Features and Benefits by Paul Kushlan

Citrix and Microsoft represent two other major virtualization players. Although VMware controls a majority of the market, Citrix and Microsoft continue to gain in market share. Citrix has made strides in application and desktop virtualization using its Xen product. In the case of Microsoft, the company has recognized the importance of virtualization and gradually produced a number of diverse resources, even including virtualization tools in the latest version of Windows 7. In addition, Hyper-V, its non-Linux, hypervisor-based platform, remains one of the core functions of Windows Server 2008.

There are quite a few niche companies in the area of virtualization, and their numbers continue to expand as adoption becomes increasingly widespread. Some of the more well-known are Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and Parallels, as well as Amazon, Google, and Cisco. For Red Hat, open source virtualization represents a model in which the no-cost underlying source code can be used and re-engineered by anyone.

The hypervisor from Sun Microsystems, xVM, incorporates Xen and Solaris technology so it can work seamlessly with other Sun architectures. xVM allows the virtualization of servers based either on Solaris, Windows, or Linux OSs, and this is a key differentiator. Oracle has also entered the virtualization market with its Oracle VM product. This Xen hypervisor-based tool is robust enough for larger enterprises or smaller companies. In the effort to create a useful niche, the company Parallels offers the Virtuozzo Container. This container-based server virtualization technology and software can virtualize Microsoft Windows environments on Macintosh platforms.

Finally, Google and Amazon represent heavy hitters who incorporated virtualization capabilities. Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is the industry standard virtualization platform. It offers users the ability to quickly provision server resources on an as-need basis. Google’s cloud resources, such as Google Apps, App Engine, etc., represent virtualization in the broadest sense of the term. Google covers all the key areas, from access, application, and processing virtualization to storage.

Conclusion

Virtualization continues to have an enormous impact and promises further breakthroughs as adoptions continue and cross-platform performance becomes the norm for both small SMBs and large enterprises. In general, virtualization not only reduces data center expenses, it also offers companies a compelling number of benefits: increased processing agility, better resource management, and streamlined implementation, to name a few. In addition to improving key data center processes, such as Business Continuity (BC) and High Availability (HA), virtualization provides companies both large and small, with disaster recovery options critical to their success.

Today, companies can access a range of virtualization options (desktop, server, storage, etc.) to achieve a high-level of processing functionality, accommodate diverse end-users, and support IT administrators. Research has shown that regardless of the industry, virtualization has permeated every aspect of today’s global economy and continues to fulfill the promise that was first suggested during the early mainframe era.

Excerpted from Global Knowledge: Virtualization 101 by Kerry Doyle

What is Virtualization?

Simply put, server virtualization consists of running multiple operating systems and applications on the same server at the same time. The current process of partitioning one physical server into several operating systems, or virtual machines (VMs), lets you simultaneously deploy, operate, and manage these multiple operating system instances on that single physical server.

The concept of virtualization originated back in the era of mainframes. Today’s advances, especially the introduction of Intel x86 architecture and inexpensive PCs, finally made virtualization technology possible. This innovation enabled companies of all sizes to flexibly accommodate a multitude of users, extend the life of their datacenters, and save on hardware purchases and utility costs, in addition to streamlining server administration.

Moreover, virtualization substantially leveled the economic playing field, enabling small to medium businesses (SMBs) to compete and reach parity with much larger enterprises, something that was impossible a few years ago.

For SMBs, virtualization increases application availability and can dramatically shorten disaster recovery time to significantly improve business continuity preparedness.

For enterprises, virtualization offers levels of efficiency in security, management, automation, and VM deployment as well as the ability to provide increased resources to more users.

Advantages of Virtualization

There are a number of key areas in which virtualization offers companies important benefits:

Energy efficiency

By stacking multiple applications on a single server and sharing resources among them, virtualization optimizes server utilization and cuts waste. Lessening the physical size of datacenters also results in energy efficiency, decreased hardware costs, and maintenance savings.

Improved server utilization

Removing the physical relationship between an OS and its native hardware with virtualization greatly expands server capacity and avoids under-utilization where, in some instances, single servers use less than 30 percent of their processing power.

Architecture control

Virtualization enables companies of all sizes to simplify datacenter architecture. Virtualization not only provides built-in redundancy by spreading the computing power across multiple inexpensive machines, it also ensures a server resource pool.

Automation

The role of automation means that VMs can be copied, administered, and restored easily. Single-console management of VMs adds another layer of efficiency and increases response times during emergencies. The ability to shift VMs or other resources to a different server is another key feature. Administrators can conduct maintenance without interrupting service, disabling a system, or having to work off-hours.

Types of Virtualization

A common aspect of server virtualization renders each operating system instance independent of the other OSs on the same server. In this way, VMs are typically full implementations of a standard OS, such as Windows 7, running side by side with many other instances, for example, versions of Windows Vista or RedHat Enterprise Linux. Each OS then runs its own applications that are accessible to an almost unlimited number of users.

In the case of desktop virtualization, the client OS runs on a server in the datacenter and is delivered virtually to a user. It offers greater workplace efficiency, lower costs, and increased scalability for IT managers. Virtualized desktop users have the ease of mobility — they can access their desktop from anywhere by logging in as a unique user.

Essentially, there are four types of desktop virtualization:

• Thick client: This is a standard desktop supplied with a virtual desktop image delivered from the datacenter.
• Thin client: This employs a stripped-down OS and supports the user interface functionality (video, audio, printer, mouse, keyboard).
• Net client: This can be a mobile device, such as an iPhone running a specific OS.
• Zero client: All of the operating system runs on a server in the datacenter and is sent out to the client, nothing at desktop.

User virtualization provides the ability to maintain a fully personalized virtual desktop when not on the company network. For example, users can log into a workplace desktop from anywhere with all the settings and applications in place using a smart phone, tablet, or laptop.

For IT, user virtualization provides the ability to manage desktop components independently and apply them to a workspace as needed without scripting or group policies. IT administrators can perform:

• settings management
• workplace configuration
• application lock-downs
• streamlined management

In terms of application virtualization, formerly referred to as ‘thin client,’ applications are not installed locally on a workstation. Personal information and unique application characteristics are all stored on, managed, and delivered via a remote service. The local device provides the CPU and RAM required to run the software. Thus, the virtual applications run locally, but the management and application logic run remotely.

Next week will wrap this series up with a look at the top Virtualization players.

Excerpted from Global Knowledge: Virtualization 101 by Kerry Doyle

Since it’s hard to decide which candidates are the best qualified without third-party validation (i.e., certification exams), IT workers view these titles as essential for moving ahead and gaining skill competency. Historically, it’s always been commonplace for individuals in IT to earn additional certifications in order to move up the IT ladder and obtain pay increases. Of course, the more technically knowledgeable and experienced one is, the harder the exams are. It comes down to not only knowing the content but also setting aside the time and preparation involved to successfully pass the test. With that in mind, we look at a range of IT exams that are considered the most demanding and downright scary:

The Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) exam is legendary for intimidating test-takers the most. The CCIE is Cisco’s highest level of certification and well-known in the IT field for being one of the hardest certifications to achieve. The test includes both a written exam (one hundred questions completed in two hours) as well as an 8-hour hands-on lab practicum. To say that the lab exam is a kind of torture test might be considered hyperbole. Yet many administrators can attest to its reputation as the ultimate brain challenge and skills assessment. Test-takers must be competent enough to configure a series of networks as well as diagnose and troubleshoot a range of simple and complex problems. The CCNA exam, Cisco’s associate-level certification, is a little less daunting yet equally challenging because it represents the next level of expertise after entry-level. Divided into a number of separate technologies, the CCNA Routing and Switching exam is a particularly tough nut to crack with problems that test installation, configuration, operation, and troubleshooting of switched networks. The test has been described as more of a marathon than a sprint. It presents a thorough assessment of networking knowledge: VLANs and Trunks? Subnetting? Frame Relays? Be prepared. Be very prepared.

Continued enterprise investment in virtualization emphasizes the importance of knowledge and experience in this area. VMware, Citrix, Red Hat, and Microsoft represent the key industry virtualization players. That said, the Citrix Certified Integration Architect (CCIA) exam may be the most daunting assessment and represents the highest level of technical proficiency that Citrix offers. The exam consists of three separate written tests, a Microsoft design exam, and a 6-hour hands-on lab. Focus on the Citrix test is not meant to downplay the rigor of the VCP-510 (vSphere5) exam offered by VMware. Few actual testing details are available due to exam rules. However, the consensus on the VCP5 test is that active skill in setup and upgrades is essential in addition to administration ability, and past vSphere exams are legendary for their level of difficulty.

The important area of security has equally challenging certifications to make sure that responsible administrators truly have expertise. The Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP) exam places strong emphasis on knowing a wide array of security information and has a prerequisite of four years of security experience. It has similarities to a college entrance exam in its rigid testing protocol: registration at an authorized test site that doesn’t allow books, notes, or Internet access. Certification is automatically renewed after three years as long as you stay on top of the minimum Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits and Annual Maintenance Fee (AMF). This is recommended because anything you can do to stay away from this chilling exam is advised.

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library® (ITIL) exam offers great visibility and transparency into IT service capabilities on the part of the applicant. There are four levels of certification, and the Service Manager, or master’s certification, level is the highest and most difficult. This exam assesses how well an individual can analyze and apply ITIL management concepts to new areas. The test analyzes not only theory, practice, and experience in ITIL but also communication, negotiation and presentation skills.

The Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA) is not only frightfully difficult, it’s also quite expensive. Passing this exam offers entry into an elite circle of fellow architects and, as part of the testing, it requires an in-person defense of a real-world solution predesigned by the person qualifying for the certificate. The MCA is divided into two primary paths, and, in addition to extensive pre-qualifications, the testing involves a combination of lab exams and rigorous, solution-focused interviews before a review panel of MCA-certified architects.

The importance of Unified Communications and converged IP networks as it relates to increased workforce mobility and communications is represented by the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) Voice certification exam. How hard is this test? Part of the difficulty lies in understanding the number of related exams (CUCM, CCNA, Voice) that are required to simply take the CCNP Voice exam. Certification recognizes the skill of engineers to design and implement Cisco-based Unified Communications (UC) infrastructures. To that end, the exam covers everything from gateways and IP phones/applications to router utilities and switches as well as running the Cisco UC Manager. It tests advanced UC knowledge and skills required to integrate the system into underlying network architectures to create scalable, collaborative solutions.

Finally, the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam has required intense preparation over the years and continues to intimidate even the most experienced project managers. Although the test is made up of random multiple-choice questions, no method exists for guesswork — eliminating wrong answers is not the way to pass this established exam. Thorough and absolute knowledge of project management processes is essential. On the positive side, entertaining test-preparation apps and games exist to help you fine tune your knowledge and test-taking abilities. The relatively high failure rate on first attempts confirms its status as an exam not to be taken lightly.