Recently, we sent out a survey to 7,000 students who completed an advanced XenApp training course or certification to understand what they would like to see and learn in an advanced XenApp 6 course. Thank you to everyone who recently completed this important survey! With your help, we are now able to better shape future curriculum to support this product. We will keep you posted on details of any future course(s) resulting from this feedback as they are available.

Didn't have a chance to participate? We are always looking for your opinion on a variety of topics! Please be on the lookout for more opportunities to tell us what you think via surveys, focus groups, workshops, and betas. These are all easy ways for you to contribute to the development of future Citrix training courses, exams, and certifications!

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At Citrix TechEdge Berlin 2010, you'll get a chance to meet some of Citrix Support's top engineers. One of these is Karen Sciberras. Karen is a Escalation Engineer based in our Dublin office in Ireland. Check out the video interview below.

You can also view some of the previous interviews with Nicolas Ogor, Lalit Kaushal, George Dunlap and Tomasz Czajka.

Learn more about TechEdge Berlin 2010, www.citrix.com/techedge, and stay tuned for more weekly close-up interviews with the TechEdge presenters.

Leave a comment

Let Karen know any thoughts, questions or feedback you might have for her session.

David
Citrix Support on:
Twitter - @citrixsupport & @citrixreadiness
Facebook
LinkedIn

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At Citrix TechEdge Berlin 2010, you'll get a chance to meet some of Citrix Support's top engineers. One of these is Nicolas Ogor. Nicolas is a Escalation Engineer based in our Dublin office in Ireland. Check out the video interview below.

You can also view some of the previous interviews with Lalit Kaushal, George Dunlap and Tomasz Czajka.

Learn more about TechEdge Berlin 2010, www.citrix.com/techedge, and stay tuned for more weekly close-up interviews with the TechEdge presenters.

Leave a comment

Let Nicolas know any thoughts, questions or feedback you might have for his session.

David
Citrix Support on:
Twitter - @citrixsupport & @citrixreadiness
Facebook
LinkedIn

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Summer is almost over and that means Synergy Berlin is nearly here!  We're busy making final arrangements for our first pan-European show to be held from October 6-8.  In advance of the program,  I want to draw your attention to my favourite part of the program - the Citrix Innovation Award. 

Every day, companies experience the tangible business benefits of virtualisation, networking and cloud computing. Benefits include savings in operating expenses, enhancing productivity and flexibility, cutting power consumption and reducing carbon emissions, to name a few. But there are also a number of organizations that have embraced the power of virtual computing to think about, and to do, business differently.  These include companies like Cocamar in Brazil that have used virtualisation technology to expand their market reach;  government agencies like Fairfax County, Virginia, that have used the technology to offer cloud-based computing services to cities and townships within the county; and ND SatCom that expanded its offerings to include a satellite-based solution for business continuity and connectivity. These are but a few examples of business innovation, and I know that there are thousands of stories about organisations around the world that have embraced virtual computing to spearhead change.

The Citrix Innovation Award highlights the stories of enterprises that are using virtualisation, networking and cloud technologies in exciting ways to drive innovation in their businesses. As we did for Synergy San Francisco, we've thrown open the doors for Synergy Berlin and invited everyone in the industry - partners, customers and employees - to nominate companies that are using virtualisation, networking and cloud technologies in innovative ways  to create a dynamic, agile business environment.

Once again, I'm amazed at the diverse range of businesses that implement these technologies, and use them in new and innovative ways.  Dozens of nominations were received from all over the globe; from those nominations twelve companies that best embody the spirit of the Innovation Award were shortlisted.

The winner is chosen by popular vote of peer organisations (that means all of you!) and members of the IT industry and will be announced at Synergy Berlin.

The full list of Innovation Award finalists is:

• Chemtura Corporation
• Codan Trygg-Hansa
• CZ Healthcare Insurance
• Derby Public Schools
• LG CNS
• MATERNA
• Medical University of South Carolina
• O'Neill Europe
• Perfetti Van Melle India
• Telecom Italia
• TeleComputing
• The Co-operative Group

Check out their stories of innovation and vote for your three favourites today.

And don't forget...you can still register for Synergy Berlin!  For more info go to www.citrixsynergy.com.

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I went kite fishing for the first time last week. Well, during this new adventure I got challenged by my teammates to relate kite fishing to XenDesktop, so this is my public reply to that challenge.

If you haven't gone kite fishing, I'll try to give you a brief explanation from a layman's perspective. Kite fishing is on the ocean and you fly a kite off the back of the boat. Attached to the kite line at intervals is a break-a-way loop that you run the fishing line through. The fishing line is then suspended from kite string with the bait in the water and the job of the fisherman is to keep the bait in the water by either letting out the fishing line when the kite goes higher or retracting the fishing line as the kite drops.

After carefully considering the experience, I came up with four areas where I saw similarities. First, I had never been kite fishing before and quite honestly, I would have never figured out how to kite fish without an experienced person to show me the ropes. Second, choosing the right kind of bait to attract the fish we were seeking required a specific knowledge of the fish diet. Third, setting up the kites and stringing the fishing lines didn't really require a lot of skill, but you had to have done it before - reading it from a book would not have worked for me. (They tried to explain it to me before they did it and I did not understand until I saw it occur). Finally, keeping the bait in the water was the key to getting a fish on the line.

Experienced Guidance

If this is your first time kite fishing, you want someone who had done it before to show you the ropes. Similarly, if this is your first time building or architecting a XenDesktop farm, you want someone knowledgeable to provide that guidance. As a XenDesktop architect with experience designing and architecting large farms, most of my blogs and whitepapers are targeted to providing you the information I believe is relevant to these tasks. In addition, Citrix has many partners (silver, gold, and platinum) and a professional services organization that are trained in XenDesktop design and deployment as well.

Customer Requirements

Selecting the right kind of live bait is key to a successful fishing trip. If the captain is unable to locate the right type of bait fish for the big fish his charter is seeking, he will not likely be successful. In most cases, an assessment should occur which provides input into the next phase. With fishing, the assessment is fairly simple since the captain just asks, "What kind of fish do you want to catch today?" From the conversations that I had, different type of fish required not only different bait, but different fishing techniques and different locations on the ocean. In much the same way, if you understand the customer's needs and long-term plans you can better design the XenDesktop farm. The XenDesktop assessment answers questions like "Where will the virtual desktops be accessed from?", " What applications will the users have?", and "What application virtualization platforms will be required?"

Setup and Installation

When feeding out the kite and the fishing lines, the whole environment must be configured in a specific order. With the kite going out first, followed by the first latch with the longest fishing line, then the second latch with the medium fishing line, and finally the short fishing line. If the correct process is not followed, it is likely the lines will get tangled and the first mate is not happy with you... Similarly, the XenDesktop farm needs to be installed and configured correctly to meet the customer requirements. Citrix provides many complimentary resources, such as the XenDesktop Checklist, the XenDesktop Quick PoC Kit, and XenDesktop Training. These items plus many resources are available from the XenDesktop website.

Fine Tuning the Environment

When kite fishing you need to work to keep the bait at a fairly consistent level in the water by playing out or retracting the fishing line based on the changing conditions. You have to account for the constantly changing distance between the free-flowing kite and the ocean waves as well as the direction the live bait chooses to swim. Now I know what a "fish out of water" looks like as it hangs from a kite, pretty funny really, but I digress. The skill comes in accurately judging the amount of line to release or reel in based on the environment. Much like fishing, once you get your XenDesktop environment up and running you will need to adjust for your user behavior. Things like desktop boot storms, user login storms, idle pool settings, patches, etc. all take a little bit of planning and adjustment after you get the environment into production.

If you are ever in the Miami area, I highly recommend Captain Nel Martinez of Top Gun Fishing Charters where I guarantee you will be well taken care of. If you are lucky, you will find some way to relate the trip to work and expense the whole thing.

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First off: if you are using the XenApp 6 SDK exclusively for scripting your farm actions and configuration, then this blog entry will not apply to you. If, however, you are a programmer and you wish to use the XenApp 6 SDK to build an application that interacts with XenApp, then you, my friend, are the target audience!

Note: Be sure you are using XenApp 6 SDK Version 6.1.2 when following along with this blog. The previous versions have bugs that prevent some of the programming features shown from working.

For those who have programmed against MFCOM in the past, programming against the PowerShell API is quite different. MFCOM exposes a COM API with an object model that can be traversed, from the IMetaFrameFarm interface, through an object hierarchy, eventually reaching the "leaf nodes" such as applications, servers, and sessions. Once you reach an object of interest, you call a method exposed by that object to perform an action. In PowerShell the approach is much more task-based. You start by choosing a task to perform, and then you either provide a wildcard to select objects that the task should operate on, or alternatively, pass objects into the task.

Another big change is that MFCOM calls are simply APIs that the programmer calls directly. In PowerShell, the approach is a bit more complicated. The programmer must:

1. Create a Runspace, with the relevant snap-ins loaded. This is relatively expensive; but assuming the Runspace executes on the local machine this can live for the lifetime of your program, and can be reused any time your program needs to execute PowerShell commands. (I'll get into remote Runspaces in a future blog about PowerShell Remoting.)
   
   
2. Create a Pipeline within the Runspace. Each time that you want to perform an atomic operation, you create a pipeline. A pipeline is equivalent to one command that you would type in the PowerShell command prompt.
   
   
3. Add either individual commands or a script to the Pipeline.
   
   
4. Invoke the Pipeline. When you call this method, you can optionally pass objects in, and it returns the objects that are output from the commands or script in the pipeline.
   
   
5. Convert the objects that are output from the pipeline (which are all of type System.Management.Automation.PSObject) back into concrete .NET types.

When developing the XenApp 6 SDK, we recognized that this is quite a lot of effort, especially when you just want to do something simple. We also recognized that there is potential for errors because the command names, parameter names, and object property names are all just strings. It is easy to make a mistake and enter "Enalbed" instead of "Enabled", and you won't find that error until you actually run the program. Therefore, to make development easier and more robust, we have implemented a set of SDK "wrappers" that simplify programming against the XenApp SDK.

The first thing we provide is a simple, predefined "default" runspace for executing Citrix commands. This runspace will have the Citrix.XenApp.Commands and Citrix.Common.Commands snap-ins already loaded, and it is created on demand and lives for the lifetime of your application. You can reuse it as often as you need; the only limitation is that you should ensure that multi-threaded applications do not try to execute multiple commands within the runspace at the same time.

To use the default runspace, reference the System.Management.Automation.dll assembly from the Microsoft SDK and the Citrix.Management.Automation.dll assembly, which can typically be found at "C:\Program Files\Citrix\XenApp Server SDK\bin". Add "using" references to the following namespaces:

using System.Management.Automation;
using System.Management.Automation.Runspaces;
using Citrix.Management.Automation;

Then, use the static property CitrixRunspaceFactory.DefaultRunspace:

Runspace runspace = CitrixRunspaceFactory.DefaultRunspace;

Note that there is also a method called CitrixRunspaceFactory.CreateLocalRunspace() that creates another runspace with the Citrix snap-ins loaded. You can use this in the rare case that you need multiple local runspaces, for instance to handle multiple threads.

Now that you have a Runspace, you need a Pipeline. PowerShell makes this trivial, so we do not provide a wrapper for this. Simply call the method CreatePipeline() on the runspace instance. The return value is a Pipeline object:

Pipeline pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline();

Into the pipeline you need to add one or more instances of System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.Command. To simplify the creation of Command objects, we provide an assembly that has classes capable of automatically generating them, pre-populated with XenApp 6 SDK PowerShell commands. This assembly is Citrix.XenApp.Sdk.dll and can be found in the same directory where Citrix.Management.Automation.dll is located. You will also find Citrix.Common.Sdk.dll which is the analogous assembly for the cmdlets in the Citrix.Common.Commands snap-in.

To use the Citrix.XenApp.Sdk.dll assembly, add a reference to it and a "using" statement for it:

using Citrix.XenApp.Sdk;

If you use the Visual Studio object browser to inspect the contents of Citrix.XenApp.Sdk.dll, you will find that it contains classes matching every XenApp 6 PowerShell SDK cmdlet, and every parameter set of those cmdlets. For example, there is a class matching the cmdlet Get-XAApplication with the parameter set "ByName"; this class is named GetXAApplicationByName. It has properties named BrowserName and Command (among others). You use this class by creating an instance of it, setting the properties as you would set the parameter values on the PowerShell command line, then getting the value of the Command property. This returns an instance of the PowerShell Command object, already set up to execute the cmdlet represented by the class' state. You can add one or more of those Command objects to the pipeline you created.

For example, to create a Command that gets all applications whose names match the pattern "A*", you can do:

var getAppByName = new GetXAApplicationByName { BrowserName = new[] {"A*"} };
Command command = getAppByName.Command;

The reason that the BrowserName property is an array is that the PowerShell command can accept multiple inputs, even on the command line.

Add the commands to the pipeline using the pipeline's Commands.Add method:

pipeline.Commands.Add(command);

Once the pipeline contains the command(s) that you want to execute, you invoke it. The pipeline has an Invoke method, which you can optionally pass objects into. This works as you would expect it to, if you are familiar with piping objects into commands via the PowerShell command-line. The Invoke method also returns a list of objects, which are the output of the commands in the pipeline:

var output = pipeline.Invoke();

The next step is to take those objects from the output and convert them back into concrete .NET types. The objects as returned are all of type System.Management.Automation.PSObject which can be used as a type of generic property bag; that is, you can get and set properties within it, referencing those properties by name. For example, you can get the value of an application's DisplayName property using (keeping in mind the output of pipeline.Invoke is a collection):

foreach (var app in output)
{
// 'app' is an instance of PSObject
Console.WriteLine("DisplayName: {0}", app.Properties["DisplayName"]);
}

(I apologize for the lack of indent; I can't get an indent to show here.)

However, we do not wish to reference properties by name. It is too easy to make a mistake and introduce a bug that is not found until you run the application. You really want to use a concrete, typesafe .NET type to store the output objects.

You will need a definition of the types that are output from the cmdlets. You can find these types defined in an assembly named Citrix.XenApp.Commands.Data.dll, and in the equivalent Citrix.Common.Commands.Data.dll for the Citrix.Common.Commands snap-in. Add a reference to that assembly, and a "using" statement for it:

using Citrix.XenApp.Commands;

There are a couple of options as to how to convert the PSObject values into concrete types. One option is to use the PSObject.BaseObject property, and cast it to an SDK type.

XAApplication xaApp = (XAApplication) app.BaseObject;
Console.WriteLine("DisplayName: {0}", xaApp.DisplayName);

This approach works, but only when the object is actually of the type that you are requesting. Rarely, what you will get from the pipeline is really a pseudo-type; one that has all of the same properties as the type you expect, but which is not actually an instance of the type you expect. This happens when some cmdlet in the pipeline must serialize the type. Typically this happens when using PowerShell remoting, or when using the Export-CliXml and Import-CliXml cmdlets.

To help you handle these pseudo-types, we have created a method that can convert them back into a XenApp SDK type. This method is implemented as an extension method on the PSObject type, named ConvertTo<T>():

XAApplication xaApp = app.ConvertTo<XAApplication>();
Console.WriteLine("DisplayName: {0}", xaApp.DisplayName);

This method is smart enough to do a direct cast if possible, otherwise, it will try very hard to convert the properties contained in the PSObject into the properties of an instance of the type you specify. I therefore recommend always using this method rather than just casting the BaseObject property.

You may wonder how you know what type the objects are that a cmdlet will output. This information is available in the cmdlet help; however, we have also built in some assistance here. If you used one of the "Command generator" classes in the Citrix.XenApp.Sdk.dll assembly, for instance the GetXAApplicationByName class, you will find it contains a method named ParseResult. This method takes in a list of PSObjects, and returns a list of the objects of the proper type which is expected to be output from that cmdlet. So you can rewrite the loop that handles the output as:

foreach (var app in getAppByName.ParseResult(output))
{
// 'app' is now an instance of XAApplication
Console.WriteLine("DisplayName: {0}", app.DisplayName);
}

At this point, everything is typesafe, and the invocation steps are quite straightforward. The entire sample looks like this:

Runspace runspace = CitrixRunspaceFactory.DefaultRunspace;
Pipeline pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline();
var getAppByName = new GetXAApplicationByName { BrowserName = new[] {"A*"} };
Command command = getAppByName.Command;
pipeline.Commands.Add(command);
var output = pipeline.Invoke();
foreach (var app in getAppByName.ParseResult(output))
{
// 'app' is now an instance of XAApplication
Console.WriteLine("DisplayName: {0}", app.DisplayName);
}

Hopefully you will agree, this is getting pretty simple and straightforward. But we still didn't like that it takes several lines of code to execute a simple command. So, we added extension methods to the Runspace type which make this even easier. The methods are called ExecuteCommand and ExecutePipeline. These methods are not quite as powerful as doing all of the steps yourself; for instance, you cannot add arbitrary PowerShell commands, only those that are part of the XenApp 6 SDK. But they are extremely simple.

Runspace runspace = CitrixRunspaceFactory.DefaultRunspace;
var apps = runspace.ExecuteCommand(new GetXAApplicationByName { BrowserName = new[] {"A*"} });
foreach (var app in apps)
{
Console.WriteLine("DisplayName: {0}", app.DisplayName);
}

That's all there is to it! We have tried to make programming against the XenApp 6 SDK as easy as scripting against it, and I hope that it is straightforward enough to enable 3rd party developers to leverage our SDK to create some really amazing applications as they have done in the past with MFCOM!

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It's been a while since my last blog.  In the last couple of months, we have been very busy preparing some fixes to the XenApp PowerShell SDK.  I'm happy to announce the immediate availability of Version 6.1.2 of the PowerShell SDK.  Since we never really explained the differences with previous versions, here's a recap:

• Version 6.0.0 is the version that shipped with XenApp 6.0.  Yes, that's correct: the SDK was there from launch day!  We did not have a unified help file, start menu shortcuts, and complete help for the Group Policy Provider available in this version.  But on a vanilla XenApp 6 deployment you can start Powershell, add the Citrix snap-ins, and start using the Powershell SDK without any further installation.
• Version 6.1.0 is the first version that was available for download.  This release was primarily intended to help out administrators by providing more thorough and simpler-to-use help.
• Version 6.1.1 was released shortly after 6.1.0, and it fixed a bug that affected programmers.  In 6.1.0 the Citrix.XenApp.Sdk assembly, which simplifies programmatic SDK usage, did not work as intended and did not match the documentation.  This release did not affect administrators that use the cmdlets for scripting only.
• Version 6.1.2, released today, fixes a bug that prevented the Edgesight agent from working when the 6.1.x versions of the SDK are installed.  It also helps programmers using the SDK, by enabling better cross-version portability of programs written and linked against the XenApp SDK.  Now, programs that leverage the XenApp PowerShell SDK are forward-compatible so that, for example, programs built against version 6.0.0, 6.1.0, or 6.1.1 will work when installed on a system with SDK version 6.1.2 installed.

If you have downloaded the XenApp SDK in the past, I encourage you to update to the latest version.  Those using the SDK as a programmer's API are especially impacted by these updates.

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I'm often asked why I'm so passionate about Dazzle, so I thought I'd blog about the origins of Dazzle, and help explain why I think this approach gives a better user experience and reduced cost.

Like the vast majority of Citrites, I use our software pretty extensively - and like most with a technical bent, I tend to use the early pre-alpha buggy stuff with all the extra goodness. It was one particular incident with this that lead directly to the first brain storming around Dazzle.

At the time I was in the middle of an important set of off-site meetings and my laptop and the pre-alpha software I was using was working well. Now it is never good to tempt the gods of software, but that is exactly what my "nanny knows best" software chose to do - it reconfigured my world - and in the process broke it.

Now all software can have bugs (especially early stuff) but the frustration I had wasn't so much caused by the bug, but by a case of poor timing by 'the system'. We have all seen people trying to avoid this - turning off virus scanning, avoiding networks - even refusing to logoff or power down incase that lurking update happens just before you get on a plane/enter the board meeting or whatever.

This particular incident propelled me into writing up a set of rules as to how the client software should behave. Here it is:

• "Don't remove (or update) software without asking"
  Users need confidence that if software worked yesterday it should continue to work today.

• "Don't give me stuff I don't want"
  We all have to cope with the clutter of junkware we don't want - and one person's "really useful app" is another person's junk.

• "Citrix apps should behave like local apps"
  This was nearly true before Dazzle, but not quite - and every minor difference leads to helpdesk calls and user frustration.

These three things were the original motivation behind 'Anthem' - or Dazzle as it later became. The idea resonated with the 'simpler' and 'user empowerment' camps, and fitted in with ideas of reducing IT costs, both through less support (because the user is in control) and lower software cost - if users only get the software they want, IT gets higher visibility over what is needed, and can reduce the amount they over provision.

Of course this was just the start of Dazzle, and I'll be talking about what else it does (and why) at Synergy in Berlin in talk SYN317 - Dazzle and Receiver vs. ICA clients - what's the difference, why it matters and how to make the move. I'll be joined by Simon Frost, the architect for Receiver who will be explaining how Receiver can make life simpler for the user whilst giving IT sufficient control to ensure that each user has exactly the right client side infrastructure and configuration, across a diverse world of Windows, Mac and other devices.

Hope to see you there.

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Yesterday at VMworld I endured sitting through a mind numbing session hosted by VMware End User Computing (formerly desktop) CTO, Scott Davis. This was a session where Scott made bold erroneous claims and assertions which I tweeted about. Then I saw this tweet from @claytonprice

claytonprice: Where do I find the desktop panel discussion featuring Scott Davis and @harrylabana? I can't find it in the schedule! #vmworld

I responded "he's scared" in jest. However as I think about this, I wonder if this is true. Earlier this year Brian Madden asked me if I would be willing to have an open debate at BriForum about the desktop on a panel that would include Scott Davis and myself. I agreed to it, but Scott apparently declined and instead opted to present a riveting session on his future vision which was met with thunderous ZZZZZZZZZZZ.

In today's 90 minute VMworld keynote, a generous 10 minutes was granted to talk about the desktop. We learned VMware CTO Steven Herrod likes to play a lot of Minesweeper. He also asserted that Windows was not very relevant and that the desktop of the future is all SaaS based. Hmm feels a lot like the Citrix Dazzle strategy extended to SaaS, but with the delusion that Windows is not relevant. Nonetheless a good discussion to have.

So since this is VMworld, and the desktop is important to VMware, let's arrange to have a public discussion on the topic, no need for canned PR scripts. Let's talk about the desktop today and the desktop of tomorrow. Perhaps if they are willing we can have Brian Madden or Chris Wolf moderate at a neutral location? We're all here in San Francisco so we can even arrange some logistics now.

The question is, Scott are you up to discussing the desktop or do we continue to listen to fantasy's of desktops morphing into SaaS based applications everywhere and Windows going away?

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Security has been blamed as the biggest barrier to cloud adoption. Organizational leaders are walking into IT departments with their brand new iPads and demanding access to the network from these convenient devices. And, the beast known as compliance continues to breathe down our necks.

Whether you're primarily concerned about the cloud, endpoint protection or data security, one thing is for sure - security is broken. Organizations routinely spend way too much on security measures that mostly serve to frustrate users, while contributing little to the overall security of truly sensitive data. And, legacy security practices such as end-to-end ownership, malware signatures and full physical isolation continue to be challenged by end-user demands, highly evolved attacks and new usage patterns.

All is not doom and gloom though - virtualization presents some innovative ways to respond to these business challenges and transcend security challenges that have plagued computing for decades.

In the CTO Crystal Ball session at Synergy Berlin, I'll be demonstrating the following security trends and more:

• Situational Security - protective measures that are fine-tuned to specific data needs and context
• BAOC (Bring Any Old Computer) - providing realtime device control to take endpoint security concerns out of the equation
• Flying through the Clouds - architecting true multitenant and mixed-mode data cloud security

Please join me along with Harry Labana, Martin Duursma, and Simon Crosby from the Citrix CTO office as we look into the future at Synergy Berlin!

More info on this demo-filled session and the CTO team's prognostication can be found at:
http://citrix.g2planet.com/synergyberlin2010/public_session_view.php?agenda_session_id=305

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In my first post I introduced all the great new features and enhancements to the XenClient software that runs on the laptops and desktops. Now I wanted to turn the attention to the Synchronizer for XenClient. This is the centralized delivery system that can deploy, update, backup, and secure virtual machines running on XenClient.  We will also have a few more surprises before GA that I'll share in late September.
 

Dynamic Image Mode (Experimental)

This is one of the most exciting capabilities that we added in RC2 and it really spans both the backend and the client. This capability allows layering of VM images. By separating the image into different layers (Base OS, Apps, User profile) administrators can maintain a single copy of the base image in the datacenter. As the base image is updated the Synchronizer will automatically generate a delta to upgrade the image deployed on existing XenClient systems or send the latest version to new XenClients. This not only allows for upgrades to your deployed virtual desktop images but allows roll-to any version of an image. So you can rollback or roll forward to any version of the VM image with a few mouse clicks. So if you deploy an update and it has some unintended interaction, no problem just flip a switch and roll everyone back. The user profile data is stored in a separate layer that allows it to remain untouched as the rest of the system is updated or rolled back. Additionally by separating the user data into a separate layer backup sizes are dramatically reduced. This is being delivered as an experimental feature in this release as it's a new model for image deployment and we want to get feedback on how it works for you in your environment.

Simplified disk space expansion for image and backup storage

Administrators will now be able to easily increase the amount of storage available for storing VM images and user backups. Now you can simply shutdown the Synchronizer appliance, increase the data disk drive in XenCenter and boot up the appliance. The Synchronizer will automatically find and use the newly added space it's as simple as that.

 

Simplified and Expanded Synchronizer Setup

We have revamped the Synchronizer setup process to be cleaner and easier to use. This includes streamlined HTTPS support and support for static networking configurations.

In place upgrade for Synchronizer

Just as you can move XenClient from RC1 to RC2 we also added the ability to upgrade Synchronizer to RC2 while keeping existing settings, images, and backups intact.

Scalability enhancements

Our Synchronizer wizards have been doing a bunch of scalability testing and optimization to increase the data transfer throughput and increase the number of XenClients per Synchronizer server. We will share some more detailed results including rules of thumb by the time we GA. We have also optimized the storage of compressed VM image and user backup data to reduce the amount of storage space required on the backend.

Usability Enhancements

We spent a lot of time on incorporating usability feedback into this release. We have a crack team of UX experts at Citrix that watched ITPros first use of the system and we learned some great information about how to make the product even simpler to use. While we made a host of enhancements and these are some of the ones that stand out:

Revamped web console

We have done a big revamp of the web admin interface touching almost every square inch of the UI. We got a chance to incorporate a lot of valuable feedback from the UX testing and feedback from users in our beta programs. And we are not done yet, look for additional enhancements in the GA release as well. Some highlights are below:

New user and group details pages with ability to easily view and modify user and group assignments

New multi-step assignment wizard

Version and author information display enhancements

Device filtering support

So you can see our engineering team has been hard at work adding some great new capabilities to both XenClient and the Synchronizer for XenClient. If you are using RC1 today upgrade and check out the new features if you have not tried it yet now is the time.

You can download XenClient and the Synchronizer for XenClient RC2 here.

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I'm excited to let everyone know that we just posted the second release candidate of XenClient and the Synchronizer for XenClient to the web. This will be our last stop before GA and I wanted to tell you about some of the great new features and enhancements in this release in XenClient, tomorrow I'll share more details about enhancements to the Synchronizer for XenClient. We will also have a few more surprises before GA that I'll share in late September.

Windows 7 x64

This was one of the top requests as we are seeing about a 50/50 split with customer deployments of Windows 7 between 32bit and 64bit. The Xen virtualization technology we use in XenClient is 64bit so adding this support was really a matter of porting the graphics, USB, and other supporting drivers over to 64bit. The storage and networking drivers were already 64bit ready courtesy of the XenServer group.

Improved USB

Another top request was improvements to USB device support. So we spent a lot of time making major improvements to the USB support in XenClient. This includes support for integrated USB devices such as webcams and fingerprint readers. Also we built a new user interface for routing USB devices between VMs and setting up persistent connections between VMs and USB devices. At this point most USB devices should work with the platform. If not let us know. I've listed some of the top requests below.

Added support for the following devices:

Apple iPod, iPhone, iPad

Microsoft Windows Phones

Android Phones

Headsets

Fingerprint Readers

Webcams

Smart Card Readers

3G data modems

And many more...

 

Bluetooth

With our new improved USB support comes support for a variety of Bluetooth devices. On most systems in our HCL the Bluetooth system is actually a USB device that can be assigned to a virtual machine. This allows that virtual machine to talk to your Bluetooth devices.

Usability Enhancements

We spent a lot of time on incorporating usability feedback into this release. We have a crack team of UX experts at Citrix that watched ITPros first use of the system and we learned some great information about how to make the product even simpler to use. While we made a host of enhancements and these are some of the ones that stand out.

Simplified VM upload and download process

We removed combined steps and even removed a number of steps to make the process of uploading a VM image to a Synchronizer super simple. We also removed the duplicate publish VMs that were cluttering the UI.

Improved display of upload/download progress

Along with enhancements to the actual upload and download process we enhanced the display of upload and download progress information and now include this information on the main Receiver for XenClient UI.

Enhanced client authentication experience

Here again we combined steps and cleanup up the UI to make the authentication experience on XenClient simpler to use and understand.

In VM alerting system

We have a brand new in VM alerting system that will make sure users are aware of critical issues affecting the system such as low disk space, policy actions, or impending lease time expiries. Previously this type of information was only available in the Receiver for XenClient UI.

Mouse pointer trails support

We have starting extended XenClient to be more accessible to all users and the first area of focus was on the mouse and trackpad. In this release we added pointer trails support 

Automatic slipstream of Intel Graphics drivers

XenClient has some amazing 3D graphics support that lets a virtual machine have direct access to the Intel graphics system for a native graphics experience. Now in this release we automatically slipstream the Intel graphics drivers into most versions of Windows. So you can flip on the 3D graphics feature and be ready to go without having to download any drivers.

Intel AMT KVM Remote Control

The latest version of Intel vPro technology includes a great new feature called AMT KVM Remote Control. This allows you to remotely view and control a laptop using a VNC viewer. This works on systems shipped this year with Intel vPro on Core i5 and i7 systems.  We did some nice integration work that allows you to remote control not only the XenClient UI but also switch between all of your VMs. It's useful for remote troubleshooting and training with users. I also find it helpful for doing demos of XenClient over Go2Meeting. You need a second PC running Go2Meeting and then you can connect via a VNC viewer to the XenClient system. This lets everyone on the Go2Meeting see everything on the XenClient system.

 

Intel Extended Page Tables support

In this release we added support for hardware acceleration of virtual memory operations for increased memory performance. In the past the Xen hypervisor we use in XenClient did an admirable job of page table virtualization but nothing beats hardware assist and this will give us an extra boost in overall performance for memory operations.

 

In place upgrade for XenClient

We have had a tremendous response to the first release candidate and every time I go to a field event I get people showing me their laptops running XenClient. We have a legion of fans running XenClient as their daily software and so we wanted to make sure they had a path to move to the latest version of the software. So you can boot your existing system with an RC2 CD and the installer will find your existing setup and upgrade it. Once the software is upgraded be sure to update the XenClient tools software in each of your virtual machines. And as usual be sure to backup your system before doing the upgrade.

Local authentication enhancements

We made some nice changes to the authentication experience on XenClient simplifying the way you enter credentials as part of the usability upgrade mentioned above. We also added support for manual and automatic locking of the system. This means if you walk away from your XenClient system we can lock it automatically to protect your VMs and configuration.

Secure Application Sharing

We made a large number of enhancements to the secure application sharing feature to make it easier to use and provide helpful guidance if a publishing VM is not active.  Below are a list of some of the enhancements that have been made:

Automatic resolution changes when attaching a projector or external monitor

Notifications if the publishing VM is alseep or powered off

Ability to adjust thickness and color of secure shared application windows

Blacklisting of non-essential Windows utilities and built-in apps

Expanded hardware compatibility

This was also a big area of feedback from RC1 and over the next few releases you will see a big increase in the number of systems and peripherals we support. You will even see some new additions by the time we get to XenClient 1.0 GA.

Added support for the following laptops:

HP EliteBook 2540p

Dell Latitude E4310

Dell Latitude E4200

Added support for the following desktop:

HP Compaq 8000 Elite

Added support for the following wireless adapters:

Support for Dell Wireless™ 1501 adapters

Support for Dell Wireless™ 1520 adapters

Support for Intel 5150 Wireless adapters (WiFi Only)

Support for Intel 6250 Wireless adapters (WiFi Only)

Support for Broadcom 4312G Wireless adapters

Support for Broadcom 4322AGN Wireless adapters

So that's some of the great new features and enhancements we have made to XenClient, see my second post to find out about some of the great new features in the Synchronizer including our new Dynamic image mode.

You can download XenClient and the Synchronizer for XenClient RC2 here.

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Companies migrating their users to Windows 7 desktops are facing the challenge of supporting legacy IE 6 enterprise web apps on Windows 7 OS. Since IE 6 is not supported on Windows 7, customers need to find a way to deliver IE 6 to these users. The supported and cost effective way of doing this is using XenApp. Several XenApp customers are doing this today by hosting the IE 6 browser on XenApp and seamlessly delivering it to both virtual and physical desktops. And the reasons for doing that are

• IE 6 delivered via XenApp on RDS is supported by Microsoft. In this option, you are hosting the IE6 browser on an RDS server and delivering it using XenApp

• This is the most scalable and cost effective way to deliver IE 6 to all your enterprise Windows 7 desktop users
• Since most companies average around 3-5 IE 6 enterprise web apps they need to deploy, they probably get high concurrency among their users and can use 1 XenApp CCU license for every 5 to 10 users

For those who are new to XenApp, I have recorded a short video to demonstrate how simple it is easy for administrators to deliver IE 6 using XenApp 5 on Windows Server 2003 and how seamless it is for end users to access IE 6 enterprise web apps in conjunction with other Windows 7 desktop apps

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Thank you to all those that attended the Essentials for using Windows PowerShell with XenApp and XenDesktop  Tech Talk on August 24th, 2010 - we had a fantastic turnout! For those of you that missed it, both the recording and presentation have been posted.

• Tech Talk Full Recorded Presentation
• Tech Talk Presentation Slides

This FAQ focuses answering questions on the XenApp Section of the presentation, and has answers about functional questions as well as useful scripts. For the XenDesktop side, please see the XenDesktop PowerShell SDK FAQ. If you have any XenApp questions that weren't answered, please post them here!

Here is the full list of questions answered in this FAQ:

• Can you use the PowerShell SDK for XenApp 5 (2003 or 2008)?
• How do you set up Remote Administration for a XenApp server?
• Can PowerShell manage other products, such as Provisioning Services, XenServer, ESX, SQL?
• Do the SDKs get installed separately from the main product?
• Is there a book available for training on Citrix Powershell SDKs?
• Is there an MFCOM to PowerShell converter?
• How would I remove multiple XenApp servers from a specific published app?
• How would I disable a specific app in a XenApp farm?
• Is it possible to set Custom administrator above particular application folders?
• How would you enable multiple applications to a single server?
• How do I disable logons to a specific server?
• Is there a way to query which is the highest currently utilized application and how much CPU per user it's taking up?
• Is there a way to check for disconnected or down sessions?
• Can you monitor/interact with XenApp sessions?
• Can you export all farm settings for backup?
• Is the information on the SDK from the LHC (Local Host Cache) or the Data Store?
• Are scripts to PowerShell encrypted when sent?
• Are there plans for making SOAP/REST API available, or iPhone/Android?

XenApp FAQ

Q: Can you use the PowerShell SDK for XenApp 5 (2003 or 2008)?

A: Yes, you can (with caveats!). By installing the XenApp Commands Tech Preview v2 (login required), you'll have access to almost identical commands as available in XenApp 6. That being said, not all commandlets will work exactly the same, though they will be close. All scripts so far written on this blog work the same on XenApp 5 for 2003 as they do on XenApp 6 for 2008 R2.

That being said, the XenApp 5 commandlets are supposed to be more of a stepping stone for XenApp 6. Support is provided for XenApp 5 scripts via the Developer Forums. So go at it and have fun!

Q: How do you set up Remote Administration for a XenApp server?

A: Remote administration is possible and can be set up in several ways, depending on whether Citrix administrators are also local administrators or not. There are also considerations around limitations. Please see an upcoming blog post for additional information about Remoting, or see the SDK help file under "Remoting," available after the XenApp 6 SDK is installed.

Q: Can PowerShell manage other products, such as Provisioning Services, XenServer, ESX, SQL?

A: Yes, as long as these products have PowerShell interfaces, you can manage them via PowerShell.

Q: Can the PowerShell SDKs be used to check Citrix Policies?

A: Yes, the PowerShell SDK can be used to check and configure Citrix policies. A future blog will look at how to do it.

Q: Do the SDKs get installed separately from the main product?

A: Yes, the commandlets need to be installed separately. You can download the SDKs fromdownload.citrix.com.  Go to the XenApp product category, and scroll down until you see "XenApp SDKs" - the XenApp 5 & 6 PowerShell SDKs will be at the bottom of that list.

Q: Is there a book available for training on Citrix Powershell SDKs?

A: There aren't any books out (yet), though there is a lot of information out there. There are a lot of resources out there already for XenApp:

• Jason Congers blog

• The XenApp code share

• The XenApp SDK forums

• My Blog
  
  

Q: Is there an MFCOM to PowerShell converter?

A: As the underlying code base is completely different, there is no direct converter. However, there is a tool that can assist with mapping MFCOM to PowerShell functions (CTX12508)

Q: How would I remove multiple XenApp servers from a specific published app?

A: There are a few ways to do this:
#This will remove specific servers from the application Remove-XAApplicationServer -BrowserName Calculator -ServerNames "CCSXA601", "CCSXA602" #This will remove all servers from the application Remove-XAApplicationServer -BrowserName Calculator -ServerNames * #This will set only the servers listed as providing the applications? Set-XAApplication -BrowserName Calculator -ServerNames "CCSXA601", "CCSXA602"
Q: How would I disable a specific app in a XenApp farm?

A: The following code will answer that question - please note that you also want to hide the application when you disable it, so that users don't continue to see the icon.
Set-XAApplication -BrowserName Calculator -Enabled $false -HideWhenDisabled $true
Q: Is it possible to set Custom administrator above particular application folders?

A: Yes, with the following code. Note that it is recommended to add the domain in the @DOMAIN format to the username, the same as in the XenApp console.

Add-XAAdministratorPrivilege -AdministratorName "edy@CITRITE" -FolderPath "Applications/New Admin Folder/AnotherTest" -FolderPrivileges LogOffSessions, ViewSessions, ResetSessions, SendMessages

The code above assumes that the administrator already exists in the database, and you're just adding permissions. We can make the code more intelligent to see if the administrator exists and create him if he doesn't exist:

if((Get-XAAdministrator -AdministratorName "edyf@CITRITE") -eq $null) {     New-XAAdministrator \-AdministratorName "edy@CITRITE" \-AdministratorType Custom } Add-XAAdministratorPrivilege -AdministratorName "edy@CITRITE" -FolderPath "Applications/New Admin Folder/AnotherTest" -FolderPrivileges LogOffSessions, ViewSessions, ResetSessions, SendMessages

Q: How would you enable multiple applications to a single server?

A: If you're adding new applications that does exist in the farm:

New-XAApplication -BrowserName "Temporary Application 2" -DisplayName "Temporary Application 2" -Accounts "Domain Users@CITRITE" -CommandLineExecutable "C:\Windows\system32\gpedit.msc" -ApplicationType "ServerInstalled" -ServerNames "CCSXA601"

If you're adding existing applications to a server:
Add-XAApplicationServer -BrowserName "Temporary Application" -ServerNames "CCSXA602"
Q: How do I disable logons to a specific server?

A: See the following code:

Disable-XAServerLogOn -ServerName "CCSXA601"

And to renable:
Enable-XAServerLogOn -ServerName "CCSXA601"
Q: Is there a way to query which is the highest currently utilized application and how much CPU per user it's taking up?

A: Sure, there are lots of ways to do it - for the example below, we're going to assume our goal is to find out which application is using the most total CPU (sum of the user CPUs), and then output a list of the users with their CPU usage on one server.
$apps=Get-XASessionProcess CCSXA601 $cpus = @{} foreach($app in $apps){ if($app.AccountDisplayName -ne $null -and $app.AccountDisplayName -ne ""){ Write-Host $app.AccountDisplayName $app.ProcessName $app.PercentCpuLoad $app.CurrentWorkingSetSize if($cpus.get_Item($app.ProcessName)-eq $null){ $cpus.Add($app.ProcessName, $app.PercentCpuLoad) echo "Adding $app to our hash table." } else { echo "$app already exists. Adding CPU percentages." $cpus.set_Item($app.ProcessName, $cpus.get_Item($app.ProcessName)+$app.PercentCpuLoad); } } } $cpus_rank=$cpus.GetEnumerator() | Sort-Object Value -Descending #This creates an ordered list $cpu_high=$cpus_rank[0] #this creates an object with the highest cpu value echo "**********" echo "The most active process is: " $cpu_high.get_Key() echo "**********" echo "Used by: " foreach($app in $apps){ if($app.AccountDisplayName -ne $null -and $app.AccountDisplayName -ne "" -and $app.ProcessName -eq $cpu_high.get_Key()){ Write-Host $app.AccountDisplayName $app.ProcessName $app.PercentCpuLoad $app.CurrentWorkingSetSize } }
Q: Is there a way to check for disconnected or down sessions?

A: Absolutely - see the following code. It can be modified to wait and check in 10 seconds to see if a session has been cleared, and if not, clear it.
$sessions = Get-XASession foreach($session in $sessions){     if($session.Protocol -eq "Ica" -and $session.State -ne "Listening" -and $session.State -ne "Active")     {         Write-Host $session.SessionName $session.ServerName $session.AccountName $session.BrowserName $session.State $session.Protocol     } }
Q: Can you monitor/interact with XenApp sessions?

A: Yes - several scripts here and in my blog have shown how you can monitor. Interaction is possible, though it depends largely on non-Citrix PowerShell commands, and may require some customization depending on what's needed.

Q: Can you export all farm settings for backup?

A: Yes.

Q: Is the information on the SDK from the LHC (Local Host Cache) or the Data Store?

A: Both MFCOM and PowerShell interact only with the Data Store. If you're constantly checking the local MMC console to confirm changes have been made, you may see inconsistencies as a result, because that information may be coming from the LHC.

Q: Are scripts to PowerShell encrypted when sent?

A: If we're referring to the remote module, then you'll be happy to know that encryption is an option. The PowerShell channel is an implement of the WS-Man (uses WinRM), in which you can specify different authentication options. See the help for Invoke-Command for more details.

Q: Are there plans for making SOAP/REST API available, or iPhone/Android?

A: Additional API plans are in the works.

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Update
We have delivered the Tech Talk on Essentials for using Windows PowerShell with XenApp and XenDesktop and both the recording and presentation are now available for viewing. We also have a separate blog for the Q&A from the session.

• Tech Talk Recording
• Tech Talk Presentation
• XenDesktop SDK Q&A Blog Post

Session Description
Learn how to simplify your XenApp and XenDesktop administration using simple but effective PowerShell scripts. This session will provide a high-level overview of the PowerShell SDK for XenDesktop 4 and XenApp 6, and will focus primarily on live demos of PowerShell scripts for automating various aspects of these environments.

Programming knowledge is not required - an administrator with a basic scripting background can leverage the knowledge gained in this session and put it to use within their own environment. We hope to see you there!

Reference Materials
Mike and I have started to put together a blog series on the XenDesktop and XenApp PowerShell SDKs to be used as reference materials for the Tech Talk. If you haven't already seen them, feel free to check out the links below. We will be giving live demos of several of the scripts mentioned as part of these blogs.

XenDesktop 4 PowerShell SDK blog series - by Ed York

• Getting Started
• Retrieving the XenDesktop farm properties
• Creating a new desktop group
• Enabling/disabling a desktop group
• Updating the idle pool settings of a desktop group
• Adding virtual desktops to a desktop group
• Adding AD users and groups to a desktop group
• Disconnecting and stopping virtual desktop sessions
• Restarting virtual desktops and series wrap-up
  

XenApp 6 PowerShell SDK blog series - by Mike Bogobowicz

• Getting a XenApp Farm Inventory
• Checking XenApp Application Setting Consistency
• Checking Server Availability
  

About the Presenters
Ed York - Senior Architect - Worldwide Technical Readiness
Ask-the-Architect Site: http://community.citrix.com/p/product-automation#home
Follow Ed on twitter: http://twitter.com/citrixedy

Mike Bogobowicz - Principal Consultant - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Blog Site: http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/michaelbog
Follow Mike on twitter: http://twitter.com/mcbogo

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Thank you to all those that attended the Essentials for using Windows PowerShell with XenApp and XenDesktop Tech Talk on August 24, 2010 - we had a fantastic turnout! For those of you that missed it, both the recording and presentation have been posted.

• Tech Talk Recording
• Tech Talk Presentation

Mike Bogobowicz and I co-presented this session where I led the XenDesktop PowerShell SDK side, and Mike let the XenApp PowerShell SDK side. This blog will focus on just the XenDesktop SDK questions that came from the session. Mike will have a separate blog post on the XenApp SDK questions.

XenDesktop SDK Q&A
Here's the list of questions we received specific to the XenDesktop PowerShell SDK. In no particular order:

Q: Are you going to post the scripts you used in today's session?
A: All the scripts we demonstrated are contained in the blog series that was posted prior to the session. You can find links to the blog series at the bottom of this article.

Q: What does "DDC" mean?
A: First, this is a great question!! If you are a XenApp admin that hasn't touched XenDesktop, DDC is a brand new term. DDC stands for Desktop Delivery Controller. It is the component of XenDesktop 4 that brokers virtual desktops to end-users, much like how the XenApp Zone Data Collector (ZDC) brokers published applications to end-users.

Q: This looks a lot like the PowerShell SDK for XenServer, just different commands. Is it similiar?
A: Yes, I believe Engineering made the PowerShell SDKs for XenServer, XenDesktop, and XenApp similar in structure on purpose. In that way, once you learn one, learning the others will be much simpler.

Q: The 4th XenDesktop PowerShell script from the Tech Talk showed how to shut down a single virtual desktop session. How would you modify this script to interact with an entire Desktop Group or multiple users?
A: The key here is to play with the parameters of the Get-XdSession cmdlet. If you provide the -User parameter, you can get specific user sessions. If you provide the -Group parameter, you can get all sessions from a particular desktop group. If you don't include either of these parameters, you'll get back all sessions across the entire farm. To get started, I would encourage you to check out the full help details for this cmdlet.

Get-Help Get-XdSession -Full

Q: With the virtual desktop session shutdown script, is there a way to allow the user to prevent the shutdown?
A: I don't believe so. Once you call the Stop-XdSession cmdlet to shut down the session, it's going to perform an immediate shutdown of that virtual desktop. That's why in the demo I mentioned sending a warning message to the user to give them a heads up of the shut down, perhaps 10 to 30 minutes prior for them to save their work.

Q: Do we need to provide some credential (i.e. username/password) in order to be able to run the PowerShell script from a remote domain machine?
A: You can execute all of the scripts I'm providing in the blog series from a remote domain machine. I did some additional research on this and it looks like your logged on account to that remote machine needs to be both a XenDesktop admin and have access to the XenDesktop database. This would make sense from a security perspective to not allow any domain user to manipulate your farm. So the security is performed with your logged on machine account. We don't need to pass a XenDesktop credential to the XenDesktop cmdlets.

Q: Can you create a desktop group in a specific folder?
A: I checked the New-XdDesktopGroup cmdlet that is used for creating a new desktop group and I couldn't find a parameter for specifying a folder as part of the desktop group creation process. It does appear, however, we can move a desktop group to a new folder immediately after it's been created. You would use commands like below:

#************************************************************ #Move desktop group to a different folder #************************************************************ #Add the XenDesktop snap-in to the current Powershell session Add-PSSnapin "XdCommands" #Set up variables for the script $strDDCAddress = "10.10.10.56" $strDesktopGroupName = "Windows XP" $strTargetFolderName = "Folder1" #Get the target XenDesktop folder $xdfolder = Get-XdFolder -Name $strTargetFolderName -AdminAddress $strDDCAddress #Get a particular desktop group $xdgroup = Get-XdDesktopGroup -Name $strDesktopGroupName -AdminAddress $strDDCAddress -HostingDetails #Display the current folder assignment for the desktop group echo $xdgroup.Folder #Change the folder assignment for the desktop group $xdgroup.Folder = $xdfolder #Apply the change to the DDC Set-XdDesktopGroup $xdgroup #Verify the update echo $xdgroup.Folder

Q. Is it possible to enable the "User-driven desktop restart" setting for a desktop group as part of creating the desktop group with PowerShell?
A. Just as with the last question, I checked the New-XdDesktopGroup cmdlet for creating a new desktop group and couldn't find a way to enable this setting as part of executing that command. However, you can enable this setting immediately after creating the new desktop group. You would use commands like below:

#************************************************************************************* #Enable "User-driven desktop restart" setting for a desktop group #************************************************************************************* #Add the XenDesktop snap-in to the current Powershell session Add-PSSnapin "XdCommands" #Set up variables for the script $strDDCAddress = "10.10.10.56" $strDesktopGroupName = "Windows XP" #Get a particular desktop group $xdgroup = Get-XdDesktopGroup -Name $strDesktopGroupName -AdminAddress $strDDCAddress -HostingDetails #Enable user-drive desktop restart $xdgroup.AllowUserDesktopRestart = $true #Apply the change to the DDC Set-XdDesktopGroup $xdgroup #Verify the update echo $xdgroup.AllowUserDesktopRestart

Q: If you have multiple DDCs, do you have to specify each, or just the master DDC to run against?
A: In a multiple DDC environment, if you point your scripts to the "master" DDC you should be fine. My XenDesktop farm only has one DDC so I can't verify this one, but I'm thinking you might be able to point the scripts to any of the DDCs in the farm. If someone has a larger farm out there that can verify for us, please post a note at the bottom. Essentially, check out the scripts from the blog series and look for the -AdminAddress parameter I've been using for several of the XenDesktop cmdlets. If you have multiple DDCs, experiment putting the different IP addresses for that parameter and see if the script runs fine against each DDC in the farm.

Q: How can you check for disconnected sessions? Can you tell how long they've been disconnected?
A: The code snippet below explains how to get all the disconnected sessions for the XenDesktop farm. It looks like the properties of the $xdsession object will tell you the start time of the session, but not when it was disconnected.

#***************************************************************** #Checking for disconnected virtual desktop sessions #***************************************************************** #Add the XenDesktop snap-in to the current Powershell session Add-PSSnapin "XdCommands" #Set up variables for the script $strDDCAddress = "10.10.10.56" #Get all disconnected sessions for the XenDesktop farm $xdsession = Get-XdSession -AdminAddress $strDDCAddress -SessionDetails | where { $_.State -eq "Disconnected" } #Display the disconnected sessions echo $xdsession

Q: Can you monitor what is happening on the virtual desktop through PowerShell?? Or interact with a specific session (SendKeys style)?
A: The XenDesktop SDK doesn't provide much in way of getting the details inside the session. In the Tech Talk, I demo'd how you can send messages to the session. You can also get some attributes for the session such as the client name and client IP that launched it. This blog goes into some of that. You can probably run other types of PowerShell scripts from within the virtual desktop session to get some additional metrics or details. Plus, there's Citrix EdgeSight as well to have an agent running on the virtual desktop to collect performance metrics and other details!

Q: When doing an automated desktop deployment using MDT or other image deployment tool, what is the best way to have the desktop imported into it's appropriate Desktop Group as part of the post install task sequence? These desktops are not pre-staged in AD and would prefer not to have the SDK installed on each VM. Can it execute a script on a remote server to do the import?
A: The XenDesktop PowerShell scripts do not need to be executed on the virtual desktops nor the DDC for that matter. They can be executed from any domain machine that can reach the DDC. You can use this blog for a sample script on adding virtual desktops to a desktop group. As part of your MDT automation process, you are going to want to install the virtual desktop agent (VDA) software on the virtual desktops prior to adding them to the desktop group. You'll also want these machines added to your domain prior as well.

Q: Is it possible to create an advanced presentation for those comfortable with PowerShell and SDKs?
A: This is something that we've been discussing for a bit. Now that we have laid out the groundwork for the XenDesktop 4 SDK Primer, we can now think about adding in some more complex scripts to build on top of that knowledge. If you are experienced with the XenDesktop SDK and have some suggestions for what you would like to see, please post a comment below. For the more complex stuff, it's always good to have a goal in mind for something practical that is needed out in the field.

Q: Do you cover VMware as a hypervisor in your blogs?
A: I didn't cover VMware specifically, but the scripts I provided in the Tech Talk and blogs should also work with a VMware ESX host. If you are using VMware ESX to host virtual desktops, you are still considered to be using a VM-based desktop group. In the blogs I created, they were focused on interacting with VM-based desktop groups with XenServer as the host. My understanding is that the syntax should be very close if not identical. If anyone has used the XenDesktop PowerShell SDK for a VMware host, feel free to provide a comment at the bottom regarding your experience. Were the commands pretty much the same? Did you find any differences with using the SDK compared to my scripts with a XenServer host?

Tech Talk Resources
As a reminder, we based the Tech Talk on the blog series we posted prior to the session. You can find all the sample scripts we demonstrated in the Tech Talk within these blogs.

XenDesktop 4 PowerShell SDK Primer blog series - by Ed York

• Getting Started
• Retrieving the XenDesktop farm properties
• Creating a new desktop group
• Enabling/disabling a desktop group
• Updating the idle pool settings of a desktop group
• Adding virtual desktops to a desktop group
• Adding AD users and groups to a desktop group
• Disconnecting and stopping virtual desktop sessions
• Restarting virtual desktops and series wrap-up

XenApp 6 PowerShell SDK blog series - by Mike Bogobowicz

• Getting a XenApp Farm Inventory
• Checking XenApp Application Setting Consistency
• Checking Server Availability

About the Presenters
Ed York - Senior Architect - Worldwide Technical Readiness
Ask-the-Architect Site: http://community.citrix.com/p/product-automation#home
Follow Ed on twitter: http://twitter.com/citrixedy

Mike Bogobowicz - Principal Consultant - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Blog Site: http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/michaelbog
Follow Mike on twitter: http://twitter.com/mcbogo

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I wanted my first blog post to be of some significance. After 12 years of personal blogging, and working on WinFrame as my first Citrix project I put special pressure on this particular post. In the end I couldn't find a topic that really had the technical merit to weigh in as my first blog post. I guess I wanted the post to be a ground breaking as Citrix has been life changing for me. So, rather than technical I will start this blog with an emotional disclosure.

On Bias:
I am biased because working with Citrix products has given me great opportunities, helped me support my family and made hard choices easier through flexibility. So there is the first one... Bias. In the title of this post I mention four topics. Bias is the first.
I wanted to talk about bias because it is a powerful force in our daily work as technologists. In star trek Spock weighs options and precisely calculates the optimum solution. While Scott is still logic based he still works the engineering solution with emotion. The ship is still a "she" as in "I'm givin' it all she's got!". The technologist is still emotional and still has personal connection to the technology. He has worked on the ship and invested enough of himself that the minimal separation between engineer and system are almost non existent. Technology represents as much as a personal extension of self as a child or spouse is an extension of self. Bias is powerful motivating force that should at least be acknowledged. In my case 13 years ago I was an SMS admin. Getting blamed for everything that happened during a package "push". Work with that product paid the bills and when birthdays and Christmas approached. I turned to a job moonlighting at a laptop manufacturer's helpdesk. Luckily for me my first WinFrame and MetaFrame contracts were so time consuming that I left that art time job and worked with Citrix products full time. For me, my bias in regards to Citrix starts there. Citrix represents reclaiming lost nights and weekends, Citrix represents time with my daughters, weekends at the zoo and parks. A true bias toward Citrix on my part.

On bicycles:
Which brings us to topic number two: bicycles. That Christmas after my first WinFrame migration, Kendra and Kirsten woke up to their first bicycles. Even though they are not directly connected I have an emotional connection with Citrix because of how I felt that year and how I remember feeling during that part of my life. MetaFrame represented something special to me. MetaFrame represented time at home, providing for my family and a special milestone in my daughters' childhood.

On Crackers:
O.K. but why crackers? When I was growing up, my mom would take an afternoon break with tea and crackers. Sometimes she would tell the story of how U.S. troops liberated the Drancy internment camp in France. Why this story? My mother was taken from her school in France when she was a young girl and put into the camp during World War II. She survived that camp long enough to be liberated by U.S. troops. After living in those conditions, she could barely tolerate the filed rations that a soldier tried to give her. Going from the worst of conditions, to the kindness of a soldier giving her the crackers from his C-rations she ate those rations. When she ate those crackers I remember watching her as her mind transported her back to that day of liberation. She always talked about the incredible taste of those crackers. How she could not get enough of them and that she ate them until she was sick. I don't know if you have ever tasted a military ration, or if you have ever talked to someone who has, but universally they are never described as "The best thing I ever tasted." My mom did describe those crackers that way.

On full disclosure:
The fourth in the list, full disclosure. I guess in a way, most of the disclosure has already happened. My personal bias, my blurred division between work and the places my family has been, have all changed the way I view things. I try to constantly take a step back and ask "Why am I doing this?, Why is this technology better?, Why is it the right fit?" After 12 years of application virtualization there is a part of me that says that every situation is a job for XenApp, XenDesktop, XenServer and NetScaler. But I do ask myself for the real reasons, and true justification.
The best of times is like this week at VMworld. I am put to the test so many times each day.

I truly believe what I say inside or outside the booth. There are lots of things out there. Lots of choices. Our job at Citrix is to make something that makes your job easier. Or allows you to do your job better. Or allows your users to achieve something that they couldn't before. When someone gives us the chance to do that, then we are doing our job right.

I hope each day that I can make that happen. That I can help people work easier or better. I hope that I can properly communicate the disconnected mobility and direct hardware access of XenClient, the tweets from space of XenDesktop, application delivery of XenApp, and network uplift of NetScaler. To do it with the real reasons and the real technical merit they provide.

My mom taught me that situations can change the intensity of feelings. That emotion is a part of who we are, what we do and how we think. I hope that I don't do it because of family, and bicycles. I hope that I do it for all the right technical reasons and not because it is my cracker.

My promise to you is that when you talk to me, or read this blog, that I will make sure that I give you the best of the technical reasons to make your best decision. Regardless of the product, the vendor, or my personal bias.

Thanks for your time, and thanks for hanging out with me here.

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Have you thought about charging your "customers" for IT services you are providing? I bet you have and I thought about that model for quite some time.
The promise of cloud computing, virtualization, usage metering, and IT as a Service often spawn the thoughts of billing the end customer, i.e. business units in a corporation. This is a world where super flexible infrastructure can flip the switch on applications, server workloads, entire desktops and user accounts in a heart beat.
Niel Nicholaisen writes about the topic in this article?
Let me add a few of my own thoughts:
• IT departments can count on (or hope for) a small percentage of a company's annual revenues as a budget for capex and opex. IT is asked to provide literally the entire workspace and infrastructure for all users and often has to do more with less compared to the previous year. In the healthcare industry, that number stands at roughly 3% of revenues in the US and only about 2% in Europe.
• IT departments often get frustrated, because they have to provide expensive and complicated applications to a handful of users that chew up a large portion of resources and expenditures to do so.
• With the dawn of desktop and broader application virtualization, IT departments are tempted to charge for their services on a per user or per application basis. $30 per month for a desktop, $20 per month for Internet access, $5 per month for anti virus, etc.
• The model is obviously tempting for two reasons: It discourages the use of complex and expensive applications and brings the true cost of computing back to the business and it also holds the promise of increasing the IT budget linearly with the services that are provided.

However, as Niel points out, this can alienate the users. First of all, as a user I may find that I get really shoddy service for the $70 per month or so for basic services per user. As a business, I don't have the choice to go get my Internet access or email service from someplace else . Sometimes (as a business) I think I can, and I may go to a cloud-based email service or attempt to buy my own backup service, but all of that comes at the cost of increasing complexity and introducing expensive integration points.
Keep in mind that IT is just another corporate service. I am not getting charged for payroll processing, legal support, marketing support, etc. Larger companies tend to cross charge for internal consulting services and sometimes for recruiting activities, but that's pretty much it.

So, here is my recommendation for IT: Go ahead and charge your business units. Be aware of the pushback this may generate. In order to prevent backlash, do the following:
• Be the best in the industry. That's right. Users will be tempted to compare the service you are providing (at the price you are charging) to consumer-grade services that are available online and that are provided by much larger organizations with better economies of scale. The expectation for the quality of your service goes up as you start charging for it.
• Virtualize applications and desktops. This will not only centralize the data, but make cost more transparent and predictable. If you do this right, you can reduce costs. If you don't, you can end up driving up your costs, so choose wisely.
• Consider using third party, cloud based services for certain types of apps. Just because you managed something in-house in the past, doesn't mean that this is the best modality going forward. CRM and web hosting services are examples of apps that have been pushed (or elevated) to the cloud for a while now in the industry.
• Monitor your resource use and utilization to get a grip on the human cost of environment support. The smaller your organization, the more difficult this is going to be. After all, you can't hire a fraction of a SQL Administrator.
• Ensure that you explain (via your executives) that you have much higher data availability and reliability standards to meet than any publicly available service and that the company is required to provide the services internally to maintain control and ensure compliance.
• Consider implementing a "Bring Your Own Computer" model. We've had it at my employer for a while and it's great. I own the endpoint, and I can manage my computer just fine, thank you very much. I can now have my own desktop, anti-virus, and other consumer grade services to dabble around and get a corporate Windows 7 image (a virtual desktop) from IT with the key apps I need to do my work.
• Expect to get charged by your accountants for the support they may need to lend to you as part of this process

Questions? Comments? Let me know what you think and how you have been managing the cost of providing IT services.

Florian Becker
Twitter: @florianbecker
Virtualization Pulse: Tech Target Blog
Ask the Architect - Everything Healthcare

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Part of my job here at Citrix, as a Technology Evangelist, is to find interesting, community led initiatives and help to communicate them out to a broader audience. Now, that can be open source projects, Community led Citrix sites, or just interesting free Citrix tools that make our lives as administrators/developers easier (and fun, lets face it ).

I have recently come across one of those community led projects!

It's an IRC channel that is focused on providing help to Citrix Users, Questions can be from general admin type questions to configuration based issues or even some development questions, it's up to you. You make the channel!

You can also find support for the channel at citrixirc at gmail dot com or find them on twitter at @citrixirc

Here are just a few of the channel admins and frequent channel contributors that are helping build the Citrix community via this channel.

• Blake Burgess
• Kirill Davydychev
• Ryan Gallier
• Jarian Gibson
• Shane Kleinert
• Jim Moyle
• Patrick Reynolds

To join the channel, visit http://join.citrixirc.com and start participating in the conversation

If you know of any other items like this, community led initiatives, let me know! You can ping me via email at john dot mcbride at citrix dot com or you can message me on twitter at @johnmcbride

Have Fun!

 

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At Synergy San Francisco we held the inaugural Citrix CTO crystal ball session where a number of the CTO Office team presented ideas and demos of future technologies and directions. At Berlin we'll be doing the same thing and raising the bar again on the demo's and topics covered. Look forward to seeing Simon Crosby, Harry Labana, Kurt Roemer and I present with some pretty cool demos.

I'll be covering mobility, and specifically some new directions we are taking that may surprise you. For example Citrix has had a strategy where we have provided a version of Receiver for practically any mobile device and we continue on that path. However in the last three years the explosion of new smartphone platforms has enabled numerous new possibilities as to how we can deliver enterprise content to these new phones. The always on connectivity and decent screen real estate are key drivers.

In the session I'll demonstrate how an Enterprise developer can write a touch enabled application that is published from a XenApp server, and accessed from a range of devices, both Smartphone and tablets. So if you have a problem with your CIO or CEO demanding support for iPhones, Blackberry, Android, WebOS and other yet to be invented tablets and Smartphones, then this is the session for you.

You can find more information on the CTO Crystal Ball session here
Looking forward to seeing you in Berlin!

Learn more about Citrix Synergy Berlin

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