PoC Res Relay Server Experiences
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Introducing Relay Server
To start the article it’s good to explain what the RES Relay Server actually is. The RES Relay Server is introduced in RES Workspace Manager 2012. Before the Relay Server all Workspace Manager clients (called Agents) are directly connecting to the SQL database where the configuration and logging of RES Workspace Management is stored. In case of real large environments this could be resource intensive on the SQL database. Also in the case of several offices/more sites the traffic between the agent and the database will be transferred over (slower) WAN links. In the last scenario RES Workspace Manager (RES WM) could be used with a second mirrored database, but this involves more hardware and software costs. The relay server component can be used for such scenarios. The relay server is separate component, which can be installed on a Windows machine. The agent server will communicate with the database and caches all the information. The agent will be connected to the relay server and retrieve the settings from the relay server.
Citrix Load Balancing Policies XenApp 6.x explained
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When I checked the statistics of the VanBragt.Net Virtualization website I noticed that several connections were based on search for Citrix Load Balancing. That brought me to the idea to write some more about it. In the same time in one of my project the Load Balancing part came into the picture so I can also share/use my personal experiences in the article. This article will describe when and why you would like to use Citrix Load Balancing and how you need to configure it.
Before we really start the article handles Citrix Load Balancing Policies which should not be confused with Citrix Load Evaluators which are often also called Citrix Load Balancing. The Load Evaluators are used to divide users equally over servers based on user load and/or used resources. However Load Balancing Policies are a step before that process by specifying which group of servers should be used to start the session on.
Update: As Andrew stated in the comments this component will only work when connecting via Access Gateway, Web Interface of Cloud Gateway. Old methods (like TCP via HTTP) often used on Thin Clients will ignore the configuration.
Read more: Citrix Load Balancing Policies XenApp 6.x explained
Why Client Hypervisors will become really important
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A few years ago Citrix launched the first version of XenClient. With this launch a big supplier (Citrix) started a product virtualizing the operating system on client hardware. When Citrix launches the technical people love the technique, but many people are/were wondering which business needs such products will fulfill. Although several suppliers followed, even Microsoft announced the availability of Hyper-V in the Windows 8 client; still the technique is not really adopted and is not hyped like other virtualization techniques. In this article I will describe my opinion why I think Client Hypervisors will become important, but by other reasons than current often used.
Read more: Why Client Hypervisors will become really important
PoC: XenDesktop, Provisioning Services and PvD Part 2
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Introduction
In the first part I showed and described the installation of XenDesktop, Citrix Provisioning Services and the corresponding agents. We will continue where we ended the first article, starting the image wizard of the Citrix Provisioning Services agent.
Creating the vDisk
If you did have worked with Citrix Provisioning Services for some time the creation vDisk process is pretty changed. The wizard starts my specifing the CPS server to connect to the CPS Farm. The second step is to create the vDisk within the farm by specifying the vDisk name, on which Store the vDisk should be stored, the VDH Type and the VDH Block Size. In the case you already have vDisks available; you can also select an existing vDisk.
Read more: PoC: XenDesktop, Provisioning Services and PvD Part 2
PoC: XenDesktop, Provisioning Services and PVD Part 1
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In March 2012 Citrix released XenDesktop 5.6. In this XenDesktop release the RingCube acquisition was integrated into the product as a feature called Personal vDisk. One of my customers was interested in this XenDesktop 5.6 with the Personal vDisk as an alternative for those who could not fit in the XenApp environment. I build a Proof of Concept with XenDesktop 5.6 combined with Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1. In this article I will describe the installation steps, the configuration and my real life experiences with the products and the setup.
Read more: PoC: XenDesktop, Provisioning Services and PVD Part 1