The Citrix Mobile Solutions Bundle, which includes XenMobile MDM, is an enterprise mobility management solution that provides mobile device, app and data freedom for employees. Employees have quick, single click access to all their mobile, web, data center and Windows apps from a unified app store, including beautiful productivity apps that seamlessly integrate to offer a great user experience. The Mobile Solutions Bundle provides identity-based provisioning and control for all apps, data and devices, policy-based controls, such as restriction of application access to authorized users, automatic account de-provisioning for terminated employees and selective wipe of device, apps or data stored on lost devices. With the Mobile Solutions Bundle, IT can give users device choice while giving IT the ability to prevent data leakage and protect the internal network from mobile threats. Continue reading “Citrix Mobile solutions bundle available”
Month: February 2013
AppController 2.5 implementation tips
Matthew Brooks (an architect for the WorldWide Consulting group of Citrix) has written a short blogpost with some very usefull Appcontroller version 2.5 implementation tips.
AppController is a component of the Citrix CloudGateway Enterprise suite that orchestrates access to Enterprise Cloud applications. Those applications may take many forms including Mobile Applications, Software-as-a-Service hosted in public clouds, and Web links. Below I provided some tips to help with the implementation of AppController 2.5 (which is the latest version as of the publishing of this blog).
System Related
Including settings such as the Hostname, SSL certificates, and Restore.
TIPs:
- Take a hypervisor level snapshot after the initial installation so that you can easily return to that base level if configuration or integrations efforts go awry.
- The hostname cannot contain special characters in the AppController certificate signing request.
- The hostname must match SSL certificate.
- The system cert must be chained to its CA/(s).
Read more here at the Citrix blogs…
Overview of often overlooked or misconfigured settings to improve graphics performance
Throughout the life of XenApp and XenDesktop, the combination of many factors such as the architecture of the base operating system, graphics device drivers and network bandwidth have been a determining factor in the overall end-user experience from a graphics quality standpoint. Citrix’s HDX protocol has made many enhancements in this area using such technologies as advanced compression methods and features such as Progressive Display and Adaptive Display. In addition, many HDX features (for example HDX MediaStream, HDX RichGraphics, HDX Optimization Pack for Google Earth) are provided to enhance the experience with certain types of content by offloading certain processes onto the client endpoint when possible.
However, because of limitations in current technologies, many Citrix environments do hit certain points where customers must make some amount of trade-off between end user-experience and session performance. The most prevalent example of this is improving session performance over lower bandwidth/WAN connections by reducing graphics quality using image compression. As Citrix continues to make further innovations in this area, there are some features added within the existing product versions that are often overlooked or misconfigured that can greatly improve current graphics related performance in certain environments. For example, some settings within an environment can be tweaked to try and avoid screen refresh issues sometimes seen with certain types of applications, or with scrolling issues that have also been reported amongst customers in the past. This article serves to point out some of these overlooked or misconfigured settings. Continue reading “Overview of often overlooked or misconfigured settings to improve graphics performance”
Hotfix XS61E012 for XenServer 6.1.0
Citrix has released hotfix 12 (XS610E012) for XenServer 6.1.0 today.
This hotfix resolves the following issues:
- If a Virtual Machine (VM) running on a pool member is shut down when the XAPI service is not running, the associated Virtual Disks Images (VDIs) do not get detached.
- After shutting down a VM, attempts to immediately destroy a Virtual Block Device (VBD) attached to the VM will fail. This is due a race condition which marks the VBD as attached – even when the VM is shut down.
- When the Pool Master is unavailable, attempts to restart the XAPI service on a pool member can result in a failure to set up the management interface. Continue reading “Hotfix XS61E012 for XenServer 6.1.0”
ShareFile User Management Tool 1.2
Citrix has released version 1.2 of the ShareFile User Management Tool.
The ShareFile User Management Tool enables IT departments to provision and deprovision employee users and distribution groups in ShareFile based on Active Directory. This allows IT to leverage existing AD workflows for creating and updating users and groups and have them automatically kept in sync with ShareFile.
For Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008
New features include: Continue reading “ShareFile User Management Tool 1.2”
Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1 hotfix packaging policy
Previously hotfixes for all Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1 components were delivered as loose binaries and that resulted in overhead for customers and required many manual steps to track and deploy the hotfixes correctly. To improve the customer experience, the Server and Console hotfixes will now be provided as an installation package only. The advantages of having an installer include:
- Reducing manual tasks for deploying hotfix
- Tracking what hotfixes are installed on the local machine
For the Target device, based on the customer feedback we will continue to only provide loose binaries as a flexible deployment option.
Packaging Policy Continue reading “Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1 hotfix packaging policy”
McAfee VSE8.8 patch 2 and Patch3 differences
The Patch 3 package will contain files for both Patch 2 and Patch 3.
Patch 2 files are intended for operating systems prior to Windows 8 / Server 2012.
Patch 3 files are intended for Windows 8 / Server 2012 only.
When the package is added to an ePO repository for distribution via the deployment task, a detection script ensures only the appropriate files are downloaded for that operating system. Operating systems prior to Windows 8 will download and install the Patch 2 files, and Windows 8 / Server 2012 systems will only download and install the Patch 3 files. Continue reading “McAfee VSE8.8 patch 2 and Patch3 differences”
Hotfix CPVS61017 for Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1
Citrix has released a new hotfix for Provisioning Services 6.1 Hotfix 17 is the latest one and here’s the small fix list:
- When streaming multiple guests to a XS 6.1 host, Provisioning Services consumes one PVS target license per virtual machine instead of checking for available XenServer licensing options.
Note: To enable this fix in its entirety, you must also install XenServer Hotfix XS61E010 or its replacement hotfix.
[From PVS610TargetDeviceWX86017, PVS610TargetDeviceWX64017]<cat_pvs_targetdevice>[#LA3362]
You can download the hotfix here.
Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 controller hotfix update 3
Citrix has released hotfix update 3 for XenDesktop 5.6 Controller (32 and 64 bit). These hotfixes address several issues with the XenDesktop 5.6 Controller. In order to address all issues in their entirety, you must install all hotfixes included in this download package. Installing just a partial set of these hotfixes will fail to address the issues and might lead to system instabilities.
Fixed issues:
Server/Site Administration
- Desktop groups cannot be created or deleted if their names exceed 63 characters in length or contain underscores (“_”).
[From XD560BrokerSvcWX64003]<cat_server_farm_administration>[#LA0978]
- With VMware vSphere 5, when deleting a dedicated virtual machine (VM) from Desktop Studio, the delta disk of the dedicated VM might be left behind. Continue reading “Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 controller hotfix update 3”
Differences between WI and StoreFront
In the newly released StoreFront Planning Guide (which you can find here) comes this great overview of differences between Web Interface and StoreFront.
Where StoreFront will go beyond Web Interface in the future
| Feature | Storefront | Web Interface |
| XenDesktop Deployment Scenarios | ||
| Cross farm aggregation and de-duplication | Next version | XA farm migration Only |
| Configuration through Citrix AppStudio | Next version | No |
| IPV6 support | Next version | No |
| Windows Server 2012 support | Next version | No |
| HTML 5 access on more devices | Next version | |
| Authentication Services | ||
| Smartcard support from most Receivers (LAN and AG) | Next version | Windows PNA on LAN Only |
| Unified EPA/Smart Access across Receivers | Next version | No |
| SDK for partner extensions (most Receivers) | Next version | Ad-hoc integrations, Web Only |
Where StoreFront matches Web Interface Continue reading “Differences between WI and StoreFront”