How To - XenApp Fundamentals now in Amazon EC2 Cloud

0 | July 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Citrix

The Citrix C3 Lab with Amazon AWS now hosts XenApp Fundamentals on Windows 2003 Server with no installation required. The C3 Blueprint describes how to set up the environment so you can be testing or demoing apps delivered from the Cloud in minutes. XenApp Fundamentals is the new name for Access Essentials which is an ideal solution for SMB's looking for a simple way to administer and deliver Windows apps to office PC's , Thin Clients, Desktop Appliances, home PC's, Mac's, Laptops or mobile devices. Only a Receiver client is required on the endpoint, the applications get installed on a single XenApp server and are simply published to the users you want to access the app. The Admin console is wizard driven and easy to use, with the option for advanced features only if required.
Putting XenApp Fundamentals in EC2 makes everything even easier, no servers to buy or configure, the image is pre-built and ready to run. The Amazon plus Windows cost is only 12.5 cents per hour while you are using it. Even if you leave it on 24 hours a day all month that only $93 /mo ( plus storage and bandwidth, which is nominal for testing ). We have also included 2 User XenApp evaluation Licenses, so there are no other downloads or registrations required. Once you set up an Amazon account and start the server you only need to install your own apps in the image and click to publish to any user with any device.

This video walks you through every step to get started in 15 minutes.

( thanks to Simon Waterhouse for building the image )

Let us know of any questions or idea's on your use case in the comments below.

http://twitter.com/chrisfleck

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So what is a Nirvana Phone anyway ?

0 | July 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Citrix

If you have been following some of the recent blog posts about Nirvana Devices and Nirvana Phones, you can get a better idea of what we are talking about in this video clip. Conceptually the Nirvana Phone takes the Smartphone to the next level by solving the existing limitations of small screens and keyboards. There are now some new devices that are close to making this possible, especially in combination with a Virtualized Desktops and applications like XenDesktop and XenApp.


See all the Nirvana Phone blog posts

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Cloud Bridge

0 | July 1st, 2009 | Posted in Citrix

Cloud Networking is fast

You can create a complete end-to-end network from the datacenter to the cloud. All cloud servers communicate securely over SSL VPN.

Between the datacenter and the Amazon EC2 cloud is a site-to-site SSL VPN built with Vyatta. On the XenApp server in the cloud runs the Citrix Accelerator which connects back to the Citrix Branch Repeater/WANScaler at the datacenter, to accelerate data connections. The Citrix Accelerator makes cloud computing fast, Vyatta makes it secure.

The reason for using Vyatta site-to-site SSL VPN between the datacenter and Amazon EC2 cloud is there needs to be a secure network between the two for the transfer of data. The Vyatta AMI (Amazon Machine Image) can also function as a complete router and firewall. The Vyatta SSL VPN router provides security with scalability.

As you can see from the network diagram and video, complete routing from the datacenter to the Amazon cloud network is seamless. Data resides at the datacenter and is accessed, over the SSL VPN, by the Application running in XenApp. The remote user connects to XenApp, runs the application, and the application delivers the data to the remote user, quickly and securely.

To get your own cloud, go here.

Configurations used

Vyatta SSL VPN (V1) - Datacenter Configuration
Vyatta SSL VPN (V2) - Cloud Configuration
Windows VPN Client - Cloud Configuration

Links for this solution

Vyatta - go here
Amazon EC2 - go here
XenServer is Free! - go here
XenApp - go here
XenApp VPN Client - go here
Dell Server - go here
IP Addresses - go here

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NetScaler 9.1

0 | July 1st, 2009 | Posted in Citrix

Netscaler 9.1

Citrix NetScaler 9.1 Classic and nCore are now RTW - Release to Web, and are available to all customers via the Downloads section of the citrix.com support site.

Download it here.



What's New:
NetScaler Licensing Update - Starting May 25, all NetScaler appliances that are shipped from Citrix no longer contain pre-installed licenses. Reference "How To License NetScaler Appliances using the Activation System/Manage Licenses Tool on MyCitrix.com" in the Knowledge Base (CTX121062) or contact Customer Service.

Release 9.1 Classic only:

  • Support of New MPX 5500, 7500 platforms (8.1 build 65.5 and later are also supported on these new platforms)
  • NetScaler Web 2.0 Push
  • GSLB
  • AppFW

Release 9.1 nCore only:

  • NetScaler nCore software (9.1.nc) is currently intended only for use on the NetScaler MPX 15000 and MPX 17000 appliances. All other NetScaler appliances should use Release 9.1 Classic.

Citrix® NetScaler® nCore™ technology is a high performance, parallel-processing architecture that efficiently leverages multi-core technology to scale to meet the requirements of the most demanding Web applications.

The performance and scalability benefits enabled by nCore technology have significance for both current and future Web application delivery requirements. nCore technology provides:

  • Better performance for Web 2.0 and rich Internet applications
  • Improved ability to handle large traffic spikes
  • Expanded capacity to support more users and more applications
  • An all-in-one platform for Web application delivery requirements: L4-7 load balancing, caching, GSLB, compression, SSL VPN, SSL offload, application security, performance monitoring and more.

For complex layer 7 workloads that tend to be more CPU intensive, nCore technology provides up to a sixfold improvement. Applications needing to support many concurrent users will benefit from a sevenfold improvement in concurrent connections.

For more information on the NetScaler 9.1 product release, especially for 9.1 Classic and nCore supported features, visit the Release Notes under General Documentation section at http://support.citrix.com.
If further assistance is required, contact the Customer Service representative in your area.

Download Details:

The FCS build is available for download from the following locations:

Via MyCitrix: www.MyCitrix.com > Home > Support > Downloads > NetScaler

Employees and customers with valid ANG maintenance contracts who have requested/received MyCitrix login credentials will be able to view and retrieve files from this location.

Via FTP: ftp.netscaler.com

If you do not have access to this folder, login credentials for this site are available through Technical Support.


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Windows 7 gets guided tours

0 | July 1st, 2009 | Posted in Bink


Now Microsoft has a series of guided tours for Windows 7 too. Similarly to the recent iPhone 3GS video, the Windows 7 videos too feature a charming employee who introduces and narrates the videos, in this case, Latika Kirtane.

If the face looks familiar to you, that’s because you probably watched Latika sing in the now infamous Microsoft Research Songsmith video. Interestingly, according to her LinkedIn profile, she has since moved on from the Windows team to now work on Windows Internet Explorer. In terms of the video production, it’s fascinating to see the use of Sims-like figures in the introduction of the videos. Each of the four videos feature slightly different themed scenarios related to the topic of the video.

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Workflow Studio vs. PowerShell

0 | June 29th, 2009 | Posted in Citrix


Jason Conger and Brandon Shell did a little video debate at Synergy on PowerShell vs. Workflow Studio. You can view it here:
http://community.citrix.com/x/cgRqB

So, who do I think is right? That is easy - they both are!

First I want to say thank you to both of these guys for getting a discussion going. If I can paraphrase Brandon's side of the argument it would be "Why do I need Workflow Studio? I have Windows PowerShell." This is a question I have gotten a lot and I want to take some time to address it here.

Workflow Studio is designed to run on top of PowerShell. PowerShell 1.0 is a pre-requisite and many of our activities are written in PowerShell. Like Brandon, I think that PowerShell is an excellent scripting language and I personally can't wait for the day when everything is in PowerShell and there is no more need for VBScript. I believe every Windows administrator should learn PowerShell and use it regularly. I am doing what I can to drive all Citrix products to expose an SDK in PowerShell.

So wait a minute then... if the Product Manager for Workflow Studio is saying to use PowerShell then what is Workflow Studio for?

There is no reason that you should have to decide between the two technologies. If you are a Citrix customer then you have Workflow Studio at no additional cost. Workflow Studio has a great SDK for consuming PowerShell libraries, so you can leverage your existing PowerShell libraries with Workflow Studio. Here are some other things you can do with Workflow Studio:

  1. Workflows are stored centrally in a SQL database making sharing and re-use across your team much easier
  2. Workflows are automatically versioned when stored in the database. If you update a workflow that has been deployed, a copy is automatically created so you can continue to reference and use the previous version.
  3. Workflow Studio is integrated with a task scheduling interface to automate the execution of your workflows based on schedule.
  4. Workflow Studio has a simple, graphical, drag and drop interface. Most likely not everyone on your team is a PowerShell expert. Workflow Studio provides a simple interface that lets those not familiar with PowerShell be productive with it as well.
  5. Workflow Studio can easily integrate with things that aren't PowerShell (native libraries support VBScript, WMI, and running batch files. You can also use 'off-the-shelf' activity libraries for Workflow Foundation as well.)
  6. Workflow Studio is designed to support persistence. For simple, quick jobs, someone who is familiar with PowerShell and the cmdlets necessary to complete a given task will be more effective using the PowerShell command line interface. If the task requires several levels of approvals over hours, days, or even months then Workflow Studio and its underlying persistence and tracking engine from Workflow Foundation is a better tool for the job.

And remember, everything in Workflow Studio is exposed via PowerShell, so you can build your own interfaces to your workflows in PowerShell.

I would love to get more feedback on this topic in the comments. Let me know if you agree or disagree. Ultimately these are both just tools and if they don't help you do your job then they are meaningless. Let us know how we can make both technologies work better for your organization.

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XenApp, Provisioning Server, and more…

0 | June 28th, 2009 | Posted in Citrix

Just in case you haven't seen the posts by Ed York and Michael Bogobowicz on Workflow Studio recently I wanted to call them out. In addition to providing some excellent activities and workflows for you, there are posts that explain the process of creating activities and workflows around XenApp, Provisioning Server, and SQL.

Michael wrote a workflow that automates the update of vDisks in Provisioning Server using the CLI tools:
http://community.citrix.com/display/wf/PVS+Automatic+vDisk+Update+Script

Ed has written up two excellent blog series on Workflow Studio:

  • Workflow Studio SDK - This first series of posts detail Ed's experiences using the Workflow Studio SDK to build and debug custom activities and are an excellent place to start if you want to build your own activities:
    http://community.citrix.com/x/YIUJB
    Ed followed this series up with a post on building an activity to get a list of applications from XenApp using the MFCOM SDK and this activity and source code are available for download:
    http://community.citrix.com/x/KgE-B
    Ed also wrote a couple of activities that work with SQL Server:
    http://community.citrix.com/x/2IJiB
  • Automating Workflow Studio - The second series of posts is on automating workflows. Ed has posts that explain how to use the PowerShell interface to start a workflow and pass parameters to it. He then goes on to explain how to build your own front-end for starting these workflows:
    http://community.citrix.com/x/ToNiB

As a reminder, all community posts on activity libraries and workflows will show up right in the Workflow Studio product under the Community tab so you don't even have to go out to the site to look. RSS feeds are also available on the Community site if you want to get notified in your favorite RSS reader.

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Green Data Center Reviewed

0 | June 28th, 2009 | Posted in Citrix

During the Tech Preview of Workflow Studio, the most popular posts I had were around using Workflow Studio to create a green data center:

I wanted to review these very popular posts and talk about how the most recent versions of Workflow Studio can be leveraged for these tasks.

Wake On LAN
Support for WakeOnLAN was included in the activity library pack made available in April with version 1.1. The WakeOnLAN activity is in the 'Networking' library and in the 'Networking' folder in the Designer once installed:

Shutting Down a Windows Server
In the Tech Preview post, I talked about two methods of shutting down a computer. One of those two methods - LaunchProcess - is available as part of the library pack that was released in April (under Windows), but also in that pack is a Shutdown activity that manages this for you. The Shutdown Windows activity is in the Networking library with Wake On LAN.

Shutting Down a XenServer host
In the Tech Preview post, I talked about several activities for interfacing with XenServer VMs and the XenServer host. These activities are all part of the library pack from April. These activities are in the 'Citrix XenServer' library and in the 'Citrix XenServer' folder in the Designer once installed:

The host activities Disable-Host and Shutdown-Host that were in the Tech Preview post are not available yet, but will be in the next update to this library.

If you are using Workflow Studio to manage power in your environment, drop me a line and let me know how it is going. If you aren't using it, let me know what we can do to make it easier for you.

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Upgrade Versions of Win 7 Top Amazon Sales Charts

0 | June 27th, 2009 | Posted in Bink


Microsoft's half-price promotion for Windows 7 upgrades have attracted the attention of Amazon shoppers, according to the company's sales rankings

As of Friday afternoon, the $49.99 Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade was the top seller in Amazon's software section, followed by the Professional upgrade. The Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade, which is not included in the promotion and costs $219.99, was at number four behind Microsoft Home Office and Student 2007.

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Windows 7 to be available on USB Drives?

0 | June 27th, 2009 | Posted in Bink


Microsoft is considering offering Windows 7 on a thumb drive to allow Netbook owners to more easily upgrade their machines, a source tells CNET News. The move, which is still under consideration, is one of several things Microsoft has looked at to try to make it convenient to upgrade machines that don't come with a CD or DVD drives.

Microsoft executives have said that they recognize that upgrading Netbooks poses a challenge and are exploring ways that the company can make it easier. In an interview on Thursday, Senior Vice President Bill Veghte said that Microsoft had nothing to announce on that front.

The challenge of getting Windows 7 on to older Netbooks threatens to cast a shadow over the technical work Microsoft did to get Windows 7 running on Netbooks. Its predecessor, Windows Vista, proved ill-suited to Netbooks forcing Microsoft to continue selling Windows XP as its answer to the low-cost notebook phenomenon.

Although a USB flash drive could offer the simplest way to move a Netbook to Windows 7, there are other options. Buyers with an external drive could hook up that to their Netbook, while another option would be an upgrade through a service such as Best Buy's Geek Squad. Microsoft also sells a downloadable version of Windows today, so, in theory it could do the same with Windows 7, allowing buyers to put the OS on their own thumb drive.

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