youngtech's blog
An application, desktop and server virtualization blog for Microsoft, Citrix and VMware enthusiasts
Configuring the First Enterprise VDI and Cloud Ready DHCP Server, Windows “8″ Server Core with DHCP Replication!
0In consulting with clients over the years for Virtualization, VDI and Cloud initiatives, an inevitable conversation that surfaces is DHCP high availability. While Microsoft allows Enterprise customers to protect DHCP in a Failover Cluster, my experience is that this option lacks mass adoption due to licensing requirements, increased complexity and an added dependency on the quorum storage (also a single point of failure). Dane Young’s blog posts are in the process of moving! Continue reading the full article on ITVCE.com, the new source for youngtech’s blog posts!
Configuring XenDesktop 5.6 with Provisioning Services 6.1 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 RC
0March 12, 2012
There have been a lot of amazing announcements this week, the most notable was the availability of XenDesktop 5.6 and Provisioning Services 6.1 which now both support System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Release Candidate (and RTM once announced). In addition, Microsoft announced the availability of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 Community Technology Preview (CTP) which extends the SCVMM capabilities to support “Hyper-V 3″ on codenamed Windows Server “8″. With a little playing around, I was able to determine that both XenDesktop 5.6 and PVS 6.1 may require additional code changes to support SP1. For example, for PVS the XenDesktop Setup Wizard runs all the way through (for both Server 2008 R2 SP1 and Server “8″ hosts) and errors at the final stage when assigning the MAC address from the SCVMM MAC Address Pool:
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Adjusting XenServer Dynamic Memory Minimum Limits (lower than 1024MB) through XE CLI
0If you’ve ever tried to provision a Windows 7 32-bit XenServer Virtual Machine with dynamic memory, you may have experienced a frustration I have with XenCenter only allowing 1024MB for the Win7 dynamic memory minimum value:
Creating a Load Balanced Multi-Node Citrix Receiver StoreFront Server Group for use with Citrix CloudGateway
1January 18, 2012
Hopefully, you are well aware that Citrix Web Interface is no longer being developed past the current version, 5.4. Stephane Thirion and Thomas Koetzing have covered product development and some background information well in their excellent blog posts you can find here:
Instead of rehashing all the background details, I wanted to go through an advanced multiple server Receiver Storefront deployment with NetScaler being used for load balancing. Then, I’ll cover the critical components required to connect through Access Gateway Enterprise Edition (on the NetScaler Platform) and Access Gateway VPX (v5.0.4). Let’s start with an architectural overview to discuss the modular components involved:
You will notice that additional databases will be required for more than one store. If these databases are remote, the same scripts will need to be executed for each new store database to be created properly. (more…)
Installing and Configuring Citrix Desktop Director 2.0 for use with XenApp 6.5
5December 9, 2011
If you’re anything like me, the minute you heard that Desktop Director 2.0 would now integrate with XenApp 6.5, you became all excited! If you haven’t used or seen Desktop Director yet, you are in for a treat! If you’ve tried configuring an existing Desktop Director instance to point to XenApp 6.5, you may have experienced my frustrations and in my experience the eDocs guide linked here was no help. According to eDocs, this should be as simple as configuring Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses for XenDesktop and Service.AutoDiscoveryAddressesXA for XenApp. If you’re supporting multiple XenDesktop sites and multiple XenApp farms, you should be able to comma separate these sites/farms with the Service.MultiSite=true flag, right? (http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/director-200/director-cfg-multi-sites.html). I have built and rebuilt in my lab multiple times without success using these recommendations. All configurations result in XenDesktop sites being listed, but no XenApp session data or search options. Below you will find some of my tips to get this all setup in no time. Let’s get started:
Rapid Provisioning vSphere ESXi 5.0 Hosts Using Image Builder and Auto Deploy (Part 1)
3November 25, 2011
If you haven’t heard or read some of the new capabilities in vSphere 5 around rapid provisioning hosts, allow me to introduce you to Auto Deploy (previously Fling). Auto Deploy is a PXE boot process that loads ESXi into memory thereby eliminating any need for local storage, even USB boot thumb drives. This capability is currently limited in that you may only have one Auto Deploy server per vCenter instance. This pretty much rules out the notion of load balancing the TFTP service, providing multiple image distribution points, or otherwise protecting Auto Deploy with methods other than VMware HA. However, with careful planning and appropriate monitoring we can mitigate that risk and protect it carefully as we do with vCenter. If fact, with the current limitations of Auto Deploy, I would recommend it be deployed on the vCenter server and managed as part of that VM. This way it sits in the VMware Management Cluster (which should not be provisioned using Auto Deploy), and is protected just like vCenter.
In this first part blog post I will cover all of the basics needed to get Auto Deploy up and running and provisioning hosts. In later blog posts I will cover how stateless hosts should be handled differently including Host Profiles, Syslogging, ESXi Dump Collection, etc. To learn more than the basics about Auto Deploy, start here: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2005131 (more…)
Implementing a Multi-Node Hypervisor Cluster on a Single Desktop Running VMware Workstation 8
5October 8, 2011
As a field consultant for the last several years, I have been amazed at the numerous deployment scenarios that can be reproduced utilizing just one piece of physical hardware. Due to increasingly expensive electrical bills I trimmed down my server class lab hardware nearly a year ago in favor of a megadesktop that could handle anything I threw at it. While dual-, tri- and quad-boot scenarios have given me the ability of running ESXi, XenServer, Hyper-V, and Windows 7 natively on the hardware, it has been difficult to reproduce complex multi-node hypervisor cluster scenarios without wrangling additional equipment. With the release of VMware Workstation 8 and Nested 64-bit Virtual Machine support, hardware assisted virtualization technologies (Intel-VT/AMD-V) can now be passed through to virtual machines!
The screenshot above visually demonstrates the power and capabilities to nest Hyper-V R2, XenServer 6, and ESXi 5 directly into VMware workstation to evaluate or reproduce countless deployment scenarios. (more…)
Installing Citrix NetScaler nCore VPX 9.3 and Access Gateway Enterprise Edition in VMware Workstation for Evaluation Purposes
2August 13, 2011
Several months ago I blogged about installing Access Gateway VPX Express in VMware Workstation. I recently realized that while this post has received numerous hits and comments, a more valuable blog post would focus on installing NetScaler nCore VPX and Access Gateway Enterprise Edition in VMware Workstation! VMware Workstation, or any lab environment for that matter, is the best place for an individual learning or evaluating NetScalers as it is most often isolated or detached from the corporate environment. The approach will be similar to my post on CAG VPX Express, but in the end we will be ready to get started with further discussions around NetScalers and their potential in the enterprise.
Prerequisites:
VMware workstation
VMware OVFTool Converter Installed (Obtained from http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/automationtools/ovf)
NetScaler VPX (nCore) for ESX 9.3 Build 50.3 (Requires MyCitrix.com login). Navigate to: Downloads -> NetScaler -> NetScaler VPX Release 9.3 (You might as well grab both the Download and the Documentation, we’ll use both)
Provisioning Services Shared Volumes Using Read-Only Managed Stores
4June 26, 2011
When discussing options for vDisk storage placement and provisioning services there are two primary options: Block-based attached storage (Locally attached, iSCSI, FC, FCoE) and network attached storage (CIFS or NFS). One of the best resources to understand the advantages of Block-Based attached storage and NTFS file caching is the Advanced Memory and Storage Considerations for Provisioning Services document. After understanding the concepts in this document any Citrix engineer would choose block-based over network storage any day of the week! If you’ve made the mistake I made this would result in local storage for each Provisioning Server in a site and manual or DFS replication processes to ship updated versions of the vDisks. This blog post is designed to inform and instruct that this does not have to be the case in virtual or physical PVS environments where SAN storage is within reach!
In a Windows Server Cluster, write access to the shared volume is controlled by the witness disk or share. With Provisioning Services, Citrix provides a similar mechanism for controlling write-access using a feature called a Read-Only Managed Store and Maintenance/Active Mode. The example configuration below shows how to setup shared volumes for virtual provisioning servers running on vSphere 4.x.
Before we dig into the configuration, let’s talk about some design considerations:
- Shared volume presented from SAN storage
- Each vDisk (VHD and PVP) has a dedicated shared volume
- Each shared volume has a dedicated store marked as a Read Only Managed Store
- Shared VMDKs sized slightly larger than the anticipated VHD size for overhead and PVP file
- Provide a path to a read/write location for the write cache for the server failback option
Example configuration diagram:
Enhanced Access Gateway Enterprise Edition 9.x White Theme for Cleaner Integration with Web Interface 5.4 Design
2May 23, 2011
Citrix Web Interface 5.4 was released in correlation with XenDesktop 5 back in December of 2010. This new release featured a newly redesigned white theme promoting Citrix’s any device campaign. With the switch from white (nFuse) to black (Carbon Fiber) and now back to white (5.4), there can be inconsistencies when used in conjunction with gateway products such as Access Gateway Standard/VPX or Access Gateway Enterprise Edition on Netscaler. This issue is perpetuated if you install as default, utilizing the black carbon fiber Access Gateway Enterprise Edition front-end (default theme on current Netscaler 9.x code) to pass authentication to a white Web Interface 5.4 portal. This blog post will show you how to enhance your access gateway logon screen to cleanly integrate with Web Interface 5.4, transforming the logon screen into this:
