A new utility titled “Citrix Fast Launch” will be released soon on the Citrix CDN site. This is kind of a unique tool because it was developed for internal use by the Citrix Application Delivery Team. The Citrix Application Delivery Team is responsible for rolling out XenApp and related products for internal use by Citrix (or Citrites). Anyway, this tool launches applications at workstation startup very quickly - quicker than your local applications in fact. Check out this video from Gus Pinto showcasing Fast Launch. Gus also did a follow up interview with the creators of Fast Launch - Kevin and Paul. You can check out this video here. Be sure to stay tuned to the Citrix CDN site for release!

Technorati : Citrix, Fast Launch, Slow Logon, Startup Application, XenApp
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Citrix maintains a support article (Document ID: CTX107572) that contains a plethora of troubleshooting tools for your Citrix/Terminal Services environment. Most of the tools are targeted at Citrix installations, but there are several tools useful in a pure Terminal Services environment as well. At last count, there were 106 tools available. Some of these tools you will use on a daily basis - others you will use once in a blue moon. However, I think there is value in familiarized yourself with what is available.

The list of troubleshooting tools includes the following categories:

General
Advanced Access Control
Application Isolation Environment
Fatal Errors and Application CrashesCitrix Access Gateway
Citrix Licensing
Citrix Presentation Server Console
Citrix Password Manager
Clients
Content Redirection
CPU Utilization and Memory Optimization
Data Store Issues
Independent Management Architecture
Installation Manager
Installation/Migration
Load Balancing
Login/Authentication
NetScaler
Performance
Ports and Printing
Resource Manager
Seamless
Shadowing
Teros
Virtual IP (VIP)
Web Interface

Be sure to bookmark this page as more tools get added to the page on a periodic basis.

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Technorati : Citrix, Presentation Server, Terminal Services, XenApp, free tools, troubleshooting
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If you use Citrix Web Interface or Program Neighborhood Agent, you have no doubt seen those buttons that say “Reconnect”, “Disconnect”, and “Logoff”. Those buttons are part of a feature called Workspace Control - which is part of a feature called Smooth Roaming. The gist of Workspace Control is that user’s sessions “follow” them between devices. For instance, if a user logs on to workstation A and launches several sessions then logs on to workstation B, all the sessions would pop up on workstation B (whether the sessions were disconnected or active). Another feature of Workspace Control is the manual disconnect and reconnect options made available to the end user (that’s what those buttons mentioned earlier are for). So this all sounds simple - and it is in theory - but there is quite a bit of technology that goes in to making all this work. If you are interested in learning more about the “nuts and bolts” of Workspace Control, be sure to check out the Citrix article CTX116633. The article “…provides details about the design and functionality of the Workspace Control feature as implemented in Citrix Presentation Server versions 4.0 and 4.5.” You’ll learn about the XML Service, MFServer subsystem, IMA server queries, dynamic store, etc.

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Technorati : Citrix, Presentation Server, Smooth Roaming, Workspace Control, XenApp
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Microsoft recently released a video showcasing their “Presentation Virtualization” suite of products. In the video, Microsoft demonstrates how Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services, TS Web Access, TS Gateway, and TS RemoteApp work together to enable a remote workforce. The video is presented from both the administrator’s point of view as well as a home user’s point of view connecting to the corporate network. This video is gives a good overview of the capabilities built right in to Windows Server 2008. The goal is to show how seemless the experience is for the remote user who wants to run applications and tools using Presentation virtualization.

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Technorati : RDP, TS Gateway, TS RemoteApp, TS Web Access, Terminal Services, Windows Server 2008
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The benefits of virtualizing Citrix XenApp (Presentation Server) servers in the past was often offset by performance and complexity trade-offs. With the acquisition of XenSource (renamed to XenServer) by Citrix, it is now a reality to efficiently run your Citrix XenApp servers in a virtual hardware environment.

Why would you want to do this you may ask? There are several benefits including:

• Reduced server/data center footprint
• Improved fail-over and redundancy
• Zero-downtime hardware maintenance
• Rapid server, application and capacity provisioning
• Fast, easy and portable test and demonstration environments

Citrix recently released a white paper detailing the virtualization stack, the history of Xen, XenSource/XenServer, the more details on the benefits of using XenApp in conjunction with XenServer. The white paper does a good job of explaining different types of virtualization (Hardware, OS, and Application virtualization) as well as hypervisor concepts. I even learned some bonus trivia while reading the white paper - the Xen hypervisor is less than 50,000 lines of code.

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Technorati : Cirix, Performance, Presentation Server, VM, Virtualization, XenApp, XenServer
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Citrix is hosting a webinar detailing the use of PowerShell and MFCOM to manage Citrix Presentation (XenApp) Servers. Brandon Shell and Vishal Ganeriwala will teach you all you ever wanted to know about this topic. PowerShell is one of my personal favorites. Be sure to attend this webinar to get a feel for the breadth of options available with using PowerShell and MFCOM together.

Details

Date/Time: Tuesday April 29th, 2008 at 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST

Target Audience: Basic PowerShell, Basic Citrix Admin Skills and Basic MFCOM experience in VB script.

Here is the rough agenda for the webinar:

PowerShell Basics
- Object Based
- Self Teaching
- Get-Help
- Get-Command
- Get-Member
- Properties
- Methods
- New-Object
- ‘-ComObject’
- .NET Class

Managing Citrix Servers via PowerShell and MFCOM
- Most Properties Return Objects (like Servers, Applications, Sessions)
- Creating MFCOM object in PowerShell
- Examples
- $mfobject = New-object -com ‘MetaframeCOM.MetaFrameFarm’
- $mfobject.Initialize(int parameters)
- With just these two lines you can start exploring you Citrix Environment
- $mfFarm = New-object -com ‘MetaframeCOM.MetaFrameFarm’
- $mfFarm.Initialize(1)
- Getting Key Info To get From Farm Object
- $mfFarm | Get-Member -MemberType Property # Gets just Properties
- Admins
- Applications
- FarmName
- Servers
- Sessions
- LicenseServer
- Printers
- Zones

Register today…

Technorati : Citrix, MFCOM, Management, PowerShell, Scripting, Webinar
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Are you looking to get a better grasp of some of the features available in Citrix Presentation Server (XenApp)? Or, maybe you would like to see how a particular feature works that you might not be using. The new Citrix Demo Center has videos available for many of the features in XenApp including:

• Web Interface - See how Presentation Server makes windows applications available to local or remote users via an easy to use website.
• Two Factor Authentication - By using strong authentication methods provided by our partners, administrators have an extra line of defense against malicious software, keyloggers, and network intruders.
• Client Heterogeneity - Presentation Server enables users on a variety of devices - including Windows, Linux, Mac, or PDAs - to access their applications from anywhere.
• Management Pack for MOM 2005 - The Citrix plug-in for Microsoft Operations Manager allows centralized monitoring and reporting of farm-wide events.
• Resource Manager - Offering straightforward management and reporting capabilities for even the largest Presentation Server deployments.
• Installation Manager - Easily deploy and publish applications across all of your Citrix servers.
• Web Interface for SharePoint - Dramatically improve performance and security by giving users access to their applications with this SharePoint Web Part.
• SmoothRoaming - See how Citrix provides personal access continuity across devices, locations, and networks.
• Application Performance Monitoring - Using the Citrix EdgeSight agent, administrators can keep tabs on their Presentation Servers - as well as on all other servers and clients on their network.
• Single Sign-On - Citrix Password Manager provide enterprise Single Sign-On capabilities, centralized credential management, and Self Service Password Reset.

XenApp is not the only product listed in the Citrix Demo Center. There are demos of XenDesktop, NetScaler, Access Gateway, EdgeSight, and more. You can even download virtual appliances for XenApp to use in your own virtual test environment.

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Technorati : Citrix, Demo, Presentation Server, Video, Web Interface, XenApp
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In an earlier post, I presented a question as to how the features of Citrix Presentation Server (XenApp) compare to Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services. There is a new white paper available for download on the Citrix website that explores this issue in great detail. The cool thing about this white paper is that is was co-developed with a couple of members from the Microsoft Terminal Services team. So, this white paper has views from both Microsoft and Citrix as to the features.

The white paper is mainly a feature comparison matrix. Five main categories are explored in detail:

• Centralized Control - Centralized Management, Printer Management
• Application Compatibility - Flexible Application Delivery, Application Virtualization
• Optimized User Experience - Simplified Access, Optimized Experience, Web-Based Delivery
• Comprehensive Access - Security, Policy Management, Universal device Access
• Enterprise Scalability - Simplified Configuration, Performance

The white paper goes in to great detail on these categories/subcategories and shows you where features overlap and where Citrix has an edge.

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Technorati : Citrix, Presentation Server, Terminal Services, Windows Server 2008, XenApp
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With the release of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services, there has been a lot of comparison with Citrix Presentation Server (XenApp) features. It does, in fact, seem that Microsoft has baked a lot of the Citrix XenApp functionality right in to the product. But, how do these features stack up with the Citrix features? That is the question Information Week’s Randy George aimed to answer in an article titled “Rolling Review: Citrix XenApp Vs. Windows 2008 Terminal Services“. The article compares three of the major new core pieces of functionality: TS RemoteApp, TS Gateway, and TS WebAccess.

Randy writes, “Windows Server 2008’s eagerly awaited Terminal Services is a respectable presentation virtualization alternative for smaller shops, but for large enterprises, Citrix Systems still reigns supreme. That’s the–not unexpected–finding of the first installment in our ongoing Windows Server 2008 Rolling Review. From a product-positioning perspective, Microsoft is walking a fine line, responding to calls for more core Terminal Services functionality in Windows Server, yet keeping its hands mostly off the large enterprises that comprise Citrix’s core audience.”

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Technorati : Citrix, Presentation Server, Server 2008, Terminal Services, XenApp
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Did you know that Microsoft TechNet has a Terminal Services community? In this Terminal Services community you can find answers in Microsoft newsgroups, locate non-Microsoft Terminal Services communities, join in chats, and share best practices and tips with your peers. There are blogs from Microsoft employees, Terminal Services MVPs, top downloads, resources for web casts, knowledge base articles, and more. If you are new to Terminal Services or a seasoned pro, you will be able to find some useful information here. There are RSS feeds as well to keep up to date on the content you want.

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