Citrix: Presentation Server with Ardence OS Streaming

Wilco van Bragt (sbc.vanbragt.net) has written a nice how-to article on preparing a Citrix Presentation Server (version 4.0 or 4.5) with Ardence streaming.

Some Advantages of OS streaming in combination with terminal servers:

• Flexible provisioning
• Rapid software (OS/Apps) deployment
• Servers are always 100% identical
• Easy implementation of updates and hotfixes to the operating system and applications
• Easy rollback scenarios
• After a restart the system is back in clean state

Citrix MPS/Xensource/Ardence combo anyone ;)

Read the complete article here

VMware: WTS/Citrix on VMware ESX 3

Are you interested in virtualizing your Citrix or Terminal Services environment? If so, check out Rene Vester 's article "A short guide to virtualizing Presentation and Terminal servers on VMware ESX 3" on the Brian Madden website. He goes into great detail on the steps required to successfully install WTS or Citrix in a virtualized environment.

This is a great addition to my previous blogpost "Best practices for deploying Citrix on ESX"

Read the entire article here

Citrix: Citrix to acquire XenSource

Holy god, this is breaking news! After rumors on the brianmadden website about Citrix wanting to buy XenSource, there is now an official statement: Citrix has signed a definitive agreement to acquire XenSource.

Citrix’s acquisition of XenSource comes on the heels of a substantial new release of XenEnterprise, the company’s flagship commercial product line. The new XenEnterprise v4 marks a significant milestone. Citrix will thus become one of the major players in the virtualization field (and a direct competitor to VMware & Microsoft).

Read the official announcement on the Citrix website here

Microsoft: Terminal Services Session Broker

Michel Roth over at thincomputing.net has written a nice (p)review on the new load balancing options for terminal servers in Server 2008. Read his article here

WTS: Using ThreadMaster to Tame Rogue Applications

Duane Bradley has written an excellent tutorial on how to deploy & configure the free tool Threadmaster to "tame" CPU usage for specific applications on a Terminal Server or Citrix box. Read the article here

Microsoft: Its all about Virtualization now...

Yesterday, I attended the TechNet Webcast: Windows Server 2008: Server Virtualization Solution Scenario. It was quite interesting (although not as technical as I had hoped).

To summarize, Microsoft’s virtualization strategy is divided in 4 types of “virtualization”:

1. Desktop virtualization: desktops/servers can be virtualized on your local desktop using Virtual PC technology. Nothing new here.
2. Application virtualization: Microsoft bought Softricity a few months ago, one of the leading companies for applications virtualization. They are now selling Softgrid as their application virtualization solution (and a good one I might add). Softgrid 4.1 is now the current version, and version 4.2 will be released soon. Zerotouch (a web portal front end) was dropped.
3. Presentation virtualization: this one is quite funny (and the most surprising). As you might know, Server 2008 will have a bunch of new “Citrix-like” features for Terminal Services like load balancing, TS Web Access, TS gateway (SSL tunnel), remote (published) apps and UPD (called “easy print”). So now, Terminal Services is looked upon as being “presentation virtualization”. BTW, Citrix already uses the term “application virtualization” for its Metaframe Presentation Server solution.
4. Server virtualization: Oh yes, the combination of Virtual Server 2005 R2 (SP1) and/or Windows Server 2008 virtualization (“Viridian”) and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (now in Beta 2). SC VMM version 1.0 will be released in 2007, mainly to manage VS 2005 R2. A new release of SCVMM 2.0 will be released as soon as Viridian is ready (stripped of some features or not ;)) in 2008. So stay tuned!

During the presentation, a comparison was made between VMware ESX server and Windows Server 2008 with Windows Server Virtualization. The thing to note here is that VMware uses drivers in its hypervisor model, while WSV uses no drivers in their hypervisor. Instead, they deploy drivers directly in Virtual Machine instances. I can’t wait to compare it (even with hot-add & live-migration features stripped) to ESX!

Citrix: CPS 4.5 first impressions: installation

Well hmmm, the installation process has not really changed since MPS 4.0. It uses the same installation screens to connect/create your IMA datastore, configure XML ports, etc.. This is what I have noticed during installation:

The prerequisites have changed a bit:

• You can only install CPS 4.5 on Windows 2003 (x86 or x64)
• Access Management Console now uses .Net Framework 2.0 (was .Net 1.1)
• Java JRE 1.5 (was Java 1.4)


• Visual J# .Net 2.0

The new Access Management Console is to replace the (Java based) Presentation MC. From now on, applications are published from within this console. Also, the new Access Management Console is now divided into a number of separately installed components:

What I didn’t understand is the fact that you can still choose to install the Standard Edition. The Standard Edition does not exist anymore… Confusing??

This is new: you can now Enable IMA encryption during the installation of CPS 4.5.

The IMA encryption feature provides a more robust AES encryption algorithm. IMA encryption is a farm-wide setting. If you enable IMA encryption during Citrix Presentation Server installation, each server you add to the farm has IMA encryption enabled. To enable IMA encryption during installation, you must generate a key, which is used for all the servers in your farm, and specify that key during Setup. You can generate the key before Setup or during Setup.

Citrix: Application Streaming Internals

With the release of CPS 4.5, Citrix has updated its documentation library on http://support.citrix.com. One of the documents that caught my eye is Citrix Application Streaming Internals. It is more like a white paper/getting started guide and is worth the read.

This white paper provides you with details about profiling and Citrix Streaming Profiler internals for Citrix Presentation Server 4.5. It is one of a series of white papers designed to provide you with more detailed information beyond the scope of the Citrix Application Streaming Guide included with the Presentation Server documentation.

Download it here

VMware: Best practices for deploying Citrix on ESX

First and foremost: this tuning list is my own experience and the experience of several users on the VMware forum. Your mileage may vary.

The goods:

• Virtual Infrastructure 3
• Windows 2003 Std (or Enterprise) Edition R2 (x86, not x64)
• Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 (yes, I know, the old one ;))

The tips:

• First this: it all depends on the applications used! Context switches is the key here...
• Use Windows 2003, not Windows 2000
• Don’t P2V your servers, but use clean templates
• Make sure the correct HAL (single or multi) is installed in the virtual machine. Otherwise, your vCPU will spike.
• Always assign 1vCPU. If necessary, add a 2^nd vCPU. Do not use 4 vCPUs!
• Use 2 GB to start. Scale up to +-4 GB of vRAM if necessary
• Use 1 .vmdk for your system partition (C:\ or other remapped drive letter) and 1 separate .vmdk for your program files.
• Put the page file on the 2^nd .vmdk
• Important: disconnect any .iso file in your virtual CD-Rom
• Use roaming profiles and cleanup your profiles at logoff
• Disable sound for your published apps
• Install the UPH service (download it here)
• User sessions: for me, 30 users on a VM is the sweet spot. Do not expect to get as many users on it as on a physical box!
• Scale out, not up. A major advantage of VM is to clone/NewSID/sysprep existing servers and put them into your existing Citrix farm. Just stop & disable your IMA service, clean up your RMLocalDB (if you use enterprise) and NewSid the thing. Refer to this support article for more info.
• Use dual core or quad core systems. This because ESX will have more CPU to schedule its vCPUs on.
• Don’t ever use a 2 vCPU Citrix virtual machine in a 2 pCPU physical machine!
• Do not install the memory ballooning driver while installing the VMware Tools
• Do not use a complete installation Vmware tools: there is an issue with roaming profiles and the shared folders component. See my previous article for more info.
• Disable COM ports, hyperthreading, visual effects & use speedscreen technology where possible.
• Use snapshots when installing applications or patching your servers (yes! With VMware you can do this!). In case of disaster, you can still revert to the original working server without using backups. Make sure all snapshots are removed ASAP when finished!
• Always check that there are no snapshot leftovers (f.e. the infamous _VCB-BACKUP_ when using VCB)
• Don’t forget you can use DRS rules to run your citrix servers on separate physical hosts.
• Check out this vmworld 2006 presentation
• And last but not least: do not forget to read ESX's (excellent) performance tuning white paper.

Citrix: Presentation Server 4.5 available NOW

Presentation Server 4.5 is available now for download on http://www.mycitrix.com. Download and test!

Citrix: Office 2007 vs Office 2003 performance

Want to know how well Office 2007 performs on a SBC platform? Check this article that states that the impact on the CPU is significant compared to Office 2003. I wonder how well this will run in a Citrix VM...

Thanks to Wilco for the link!

Citrix: Client package 10 & streaming client now available

Citrix has released the new version of there ICA client package, 10. This version is used with CPS 4.5 (to be released in march).

Windows Vista is officially supported now. The majority of the known issues experienced with Presentation Server clients 9.x on Vista have been resolved. For more information, refer to Knowledge Base article CTX112067, Microsoft Windows Vista - Known Issues.

The Citrix Presentation Server Client Package is a three-in-one package of ICA clients. Based on Windows Installer technology (.msi), the client package provides an easy-to-use wizard that guides one through the installation and configuration steps for any or all of these individual clients:

• Program Neighborhood
• Program Neighborhood Agent
• Web Client

The Citrix Streaming Client is a new client introduced with the Presentation Server 4.5 release. This client is used when Streaming Applications to the Desktop.

Download it here

Citrix: Hotfix Rollup Pack R03 released

Just a quick note here: Citrix has just released the next Rollup pack for CPS 4.0 and AE 1.0 & 1.5. Download it here

Citrix: Presentation Server 4.5 released

OK guys, Citrix has launched Presentation Server 4.5. However, it is not available for download yet.

Brian Madden has an excellent article on his blog. It looks like Citrix will drop the Standard Edition and will launch a new version called "Presentation Server Platinum Edition" (what's in the name).

A remarkable thing is that it will support 500 users per server (!). This would need a powerful server + an x64 edition on it for sure.

Citrix: Wilco reviews Ardence

Wilco van Bragt has written a good review on OS streaming/virtualization with Ardence (recently acquired by Citrix). Check it out on Wilco's blog

Citrix: 20-second delay with folder redirection

When deploying Windows 2003 SP1 hosts as Citrix servers AND when using folder redirection in a GPO, a delay of 20 seconds will appear during logon. This is a known issue and will be solved in Windows 2003 Service Pack 2 (now in RC). Read this Microsoft support article for more info. There is also a hotfix available via Microsoft support. Thomas Koetzing has a link to the (unofficial) hotfix here.

You can notice this behaviour when unabling UserEnvDebugLevel (see a previous article) on your Citrix server. Look for the following entries in the debug log file:

--------------------------------------------------------------
USERENV(1944.2a68) 10:50:30:964 UserPolicyCallback:
Setting status UI to Applying personal document settings...
USERENV(1944.2a68) 10:50:50:261 UserPolicyCallback:
Setting status UI to Applying personal document settings...
--------------------------------------------------------------

Citrix: Shadow Key timestamps

Wilco van Bragt has written an article on the infamous Shadow Key timestamp. Normally, when you install an application, you have to set your terminal server into Change user /install (command line) or via Add/Remove programs so it will redirect all HKCU keys to a special place, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software.

Only problem is that the timestamps on the server are, when installing a new Citrix server, more recent then the timestamps of the roaming profiles. When users log on, there roaming profile is older then the Shadow keys on the server. Example: Office 2003 signatures will be lost because the Citrix server rebuilds the HKCU! There are some tricks to avoid this (RDT/SDT tools, set server clock in the past, etc.)

Read the article here

VDI: a conversation with Citrix's Brian Nason and Sumit Dhawan about VDI and Project Trinity

Brian Madden has done an interview with Citrix on VDI/ Project Trinity. Check it out here

VDI: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Overview

Patrick Rouse (from Session Computing Solutions) has written an excellent article on VDI and the different vendors / approaches.

Check it out here!

Citrix: Agreement to Acquire Ardence

Citrix has aquired Ardence. Ardence makes it possible to stream an OS (!) & its applications. Main purpose is to add more Citrix servers in a farm on the fly.