Get this slide deck from the SYN316 session at Citrix Synergy 2015 to learn about designing your XenApp 7.6 solution from A to Z.

1. © 2015 Citrix
Welcome to SYN316-Designing your XenApp 7.6 solutions A to Z
Note: this slide deck contains multiple animations and is intended to be viewed interactively.
1

2. © 2015 Citrix
Before we begin, feel free to blog, tweet, post, whatnot
Please use the hashtag citrixsyergy
You can also follow me on twitter
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3. © 2015 Citrix3

4. © 2015 Citrix
A quick intro about me, I am the Director of Outsourcing Delivery for IPM
My focus is on Technical Project Management & Enterprise Architecture (Primarily Citrix
Technologies)
I’ve been working with Citrix technologies for around 15 years
You can check out my personal blog as well as my XenApp Book published last year through
Packt Publishing
4

5. © 2015 Citrix
A quick intro about me, I am the Director of Outsourcing Delivery for IPM
My focus is on Technical Project Management & Enterprise Architecture (Primarily Citrix
Technologies)
I’ve been working with Citrix technologies for around 15 years
You can check out my personal blog as well as my XenApp Book published last year through
Packt Publishing
5

6. © 2015 Citrix
Designing your XenApp environment should be a holistic approach
Start with a high level design: what problem are you trying to solve, what business need is
driving this?
Take that through the process to a high level design, then detail, then build, test, etc
It needs to be a full life cycle, end-to-end; not just building a couple of servers and saying “here
you go”
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7. © 2015 Citrix
Why does it matter?
Here is a graph from the Project VRC State of the VDI & SBC Union
This is an independent survey released each year… take it with a grain of salt since it is a single
data point, but it is relevant…
As you can see, 3 of the top 4 initiatives (upgrade, BYO, DaaS) are related to XenApp
7

8. © 2015 Citrix
Why does it matter?
Here is a graph from the Project VRC State of the VDI & SBC Union
This is an independent survey released each year… take it with a grain of salt since it is a single
data point, but it is relevant…
As you can see, 3 of the top 4 initiatives (upgrade, BYO, DaaS) are related to XenApp
8

9. © 2015 Citrix
Why does it matter?
Here is a graph from the Project VRC State of the VDI & SBC Union
This is an independent survey released each year… take it with a grain of salt since it is a single
data point, but it is relevant…
As you can see, 3 of the top 4 initiatives (upgrade, BYO, DaaS) are related to XenApp
9

10. © 2015 Citrix
There are many components to Designing your Solution…
This is a short session, so we can’t cover all these points
Our main focus is PLAN! PLAN! PLAN!
Then DEFINE & DESIGN
Implementation is such a small part and won’t be our focus today
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11. © 2015 Citrix
There are many components to Designing your Solution…
This is a short session, so we can’t cover all these points
Our main focus is PLAN! PLAN! PLAN!
Then DEFINE & DESIGN
Implementation is such a small part and won’t be our focus today
11

12. © 2015 Citrix
I like to remind people that Citrix has been doing VDI for 20+ years
As the British say when a monarch dies… the king is dead, long live the king
every year I hear about how a new technology is a “XenApp Killer…” well, it’s not dead yet
12

13. © 2015 Citrix
I like to remind people that Citrix has been doing VDI for 20+ years
As the British say when a monarch dies… the king is dead, long live the king
every year I hear about how a new technology is a “XenApp Killer…” well, it’s not dead yet
As a matter of fact, during the keynote, Mark reiterated, We Love XenApp
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14. © 2015 Citrix
A quick Survey… who here uses XenApp/XenDesktop? What about VMware? Something else?
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15. © 2015 Citrix
A quick Survey… who here uses XenApp/XenDesktop? What about VMware? Something else?
Now, this being Citrix Synergy, I expect the results might be a tad bit skewed,
but consider this from Project VRC’s State of the VDI and SBC Union…
You can see Citrix holds a dominate share of the SBC and VDI utilization.
15

16. © 2015 Citrix
Taking that same information from Project VRC’s State of the VDI and SBC Union, I weighted
the scores based upon percentage of respondents and combining by Vendor… As you can see
here, when combining VDI and SBC percentages as a weighted score, you can see Citrix is by
far and away the leader in the SBC/Broker space. But if we compare that to Hypervisor layer, it
is almost inverse with VMware. What does that mean? Really not much, just the nerd in me
appreciating data graphs. J
16

17. © 2015 Citrix
Taking that same information from Project VRC’s State of the VDI and SBC Union, I weighted
the scores based upon percentage of respondents and combining by Vendor… As you can see
here, when combining VDI and SBC percentages as a weighted score, you can see Citrix is by
far and away the leader in the SBC/Broker space. But if we compare that to Hypervisor layer, it
is almost inverse with VMware. What does that mean? Really not much, just the nerd in me
appreciating data graphs. J
17

18. © 2015 Citrix
Taking that same information from Project VRC’s State of the VDI and SBC Union, I weighted
the scores based upon percentage of respondents and combining by Vendor… As you can see
here, when combining VDI and SBC percentages as a weighted score, you can see Citrix is by
far and away the leader in the SBC/Broker space. But if we compare that to Hypervisor layer, it
is almost inverse with VMware. What does that mean? Really not much, just the nerd in me
appreciating data graphs. J
18

19. © 2015 Citrix
The principles we discuss here apply to XenApp, XenDesktop, View, etc… the technologies may
differ, but the underlying planning process is the same!
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20. © 2015 Citrix
The principles we discuss here apply to XenApp, XenDesktop, View, etc… the technologies may
differ, but the underlying planning process is the same!
However, this is not the answer to life, universe and everything
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21. © 2015 Citrix21

22. © 2015 Citrix
VDI is an umbrella term… it can mean different things to different people
What does VDI mean to you?
– HVD: Hosted Virtual Desktop (DesktopOS / Traditional “VDI”)
– HSD: Hosted Shared Desktop (ServerOS / Traditional “Published Desktop”)
– SBC: Session Based Computers (ServerOS / Traditional “XenApp”)
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23. © 2015 Citrix
VDI is an umbrella term… it can mean different things to different people
What does VDI mean to you?
– HVD: Hosted Virtual Desktop (DesktopOS / Traditional “VDI”)
– HSD: Hosted Shared Desktop (ServerOS / Traditional “Published Desktop”)
– SBC: Session Based Computers (ServerOS / Traditional “XenApp”)
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24. © 2015 Citrix
VDI is an umbrella term… it can mean different things to different people
What does VDI mean to you?
– HVD: Hosted Virtual Desktop (DesktopOS / Traditional “VDI”)
– HSD: Hosted Shared Desktop (ServerOS / Traditional “Published Desktop”)
– SBC: Session Based Computers (ServerOS / Traditional “XenApp”)
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25. © 2015 Citrix
This is an older FlexCast diagram from Citrix, but I like it
The further right you go, the greater density, greater ROI, etc… that is the XenApp Hosted App
model
I always lead with XenApp, I love XenApp… but if the right fit, I may use Virtual Desktops as well
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26. © 2015 Citrix
This is an older FlexCast diagram from Citrix, but I like it
The further right you go, the greater density, greater ROI, etc… that is the XenApp Hosted App
model
I always lead with XenApp, I love XenApp… but if the right fit, I may use Virtual Desktops as well
26

27. © 2015 Citrix
Whatever flavor of VDI you use, you still have common building blocks
These concerns apply in XenApp as well as XenDesktop..
How do you deliver apps, where do they live, what about data, what about personalization…
As you can see, there is a Citrix technology for every layer of the block
27

28. © 2015 Citrix
Whatever flavor of VDI you use, you still have common building blocks
These concerns apply in XenApp as well as XenDesktop..
How do you deliver apps, where do they live, what about data, what about personalization…
As you can see, there is a Citrix technology for every layer of the block
28

29. © 2015 Citrix
Whatever flavor of VDI you use, you still have common building blocks
These concerns apply in XenApp as well as XenDesktop..
How do you deliver apps, where do they live, what about data, what about personalization…
As you can see, there is a Citrix technology for every layer of the block
29

30. © 2015 Citrix
Whatever flavor of VDI you use, you still have common building blocks
These concerns apply in XenApp as well as XenDesktop..
How do you deliver apps, where do they live, what about data, what about personalization…
As you can see, there is a Citrix technology for every layer of the block
30

31. © 2015 Citrix
Whatever flavor of VDI you use, you still have common building blocks
These concerns apply in XenApp as well as XenDesktop..
How do you deliver apps, where do they live, what about data, what about personalization…
As you can see, there is a Citrix technology for every layer of the block
31

32. © 2015 Citrix
Whatever flavor of VDI you use, you still have common building blocks
These concerns apply in XenApp as well as XenDesktop..
How do you deliver apps, where do they live, what about data, what about personalization…
As you can see, there is a Citrix technology for every layer of the block
32

33. © 2015 Citrix
Whatever flavor of VDI you use, you still have common building blocks
These concerns apply in XenApp as well as XenDesktop..
How do you deliver apps, where do they live, what about data, what about personalization…
As you can see, there is a Citrix technology for every layer of the block
33

34. © 2015 Citrix
Whatever flavor of VDI you use, you still have common building blocks
These concerns apply in XenApp as well as XenDesktop..
How do you deliver apps, where do they live, what about data, what about personalization…
As you can see, there is a Citrix technology for every layer of the block
34

35. © 2015 Citrix
Here is a project diagram straight from Citrix Consulting
It is a tried and true methodology… Define, Assess, Design, Deploy, Monitor
Nice, neat, pretty…
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36. © 2015 Citrix
Here is a project diagram straight from Citrix Consulting
It is a tried and true methodology… Define, Assess, Design, Deploy, Monitor
Nice, neat, pretty…
But we all know IT Project Management is never that clean..
I prefer a more representative diagram…
The focus is on analysis, then design/build. The testing/validation phase is an iterative process,
going back and forth to implement changes along the way
Then we get to a small pilot, a large go-live rollout, then monitor/maintain
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37. © 2015 Citrix
Now that we have our planning, we can start to define our environment
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38. © 2015 Citrix
The first step in defining your environment is knowing your users (or customers or subscribers)
…
WHO is using the system
WHAT do they need – printers, scanners, etc
WHAT are they doing, what are their workflows
Here we show a basic workflow of a doctor using a badge reader to sign in and get his EMR
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39. © 2015 Citrix
The first step in defining your environment is knowing your users (or customers or subscribers)
…
WHO is using the system
WHAT do they need – printers, scanners, etc
WHAT are they doing, what are their workflows
Here we show a basic workflow of a doctor using a badge reader to sign in and get his EMR
But we know it’s not THAT simple… he walks up to the PC, taps his badge, the badge reader
sends his credentials to Windows, which passed them to Receiver, which talks to StoreFront,
which queries the Controller over XML, then connects the user to the session
Every step along the way needs to be accounted for… understand the complete workflow
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40. © 2015 Citrix
Once we know the users and how they work, we need to understand the tools they use; namely
applications.
There are multiple ways to do this, and I like ALL of them
A simple survey – email, paper form, web form, survey monkey, whatever… ASK the users what
they use/need, let them identify
Then audit… tools like Liquidware Labs and Lakeside Software are great for that
I even wrote a tool years ago for auditing legacy XenApp deployments
The trick is to find out WHAT they use, and how often. Sometimes users don’t always know.
You may detect an app that is only used by 10% of the people, but it is a critical app
You can use AppDNA to help determine compatibility in the new environment
The key is to pull from multiple sources to capture the whole picture.
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41. © 2015 Citrix
Users and Applications are only part of the equation… we also need to understand their devices.
What sort of endpoint are they using? PC, Tablet, Thin Client… Windows, Linux, Mac…
Also, what attachments? Client printers? USB drives? Scanners, Cameras?
All this matters because we need to know what must be supported in our final solution.
What do the users need to do their job effectively?
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42. © 2015 Citrix
Putting it all together
Users + applications + Devices feed into our Use Case
What are we trying to achieve: at the end of the day, making sure our users/customers can do
their job!!!
I used to stay, it’s all about the apps… but really, it’s about the business process
Use Cases impact our overall design…
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43. © 2015 Citrix
Take for example a Medical Claims Division of 354 users… how do we determine the use case?
Is it one, is it several. After all, there are 5 or 6 divisions and multiple roles in each one.
Really, use case allocation is a mix of data collection, logical groupings, and occasional best
guess (at least to start)
So for this case, it makes sense to group by business function more so than department
Once we have that initial grouping, we can then refine further
So in our analysis, maybe we say that most of the users used the same data entry and reporting
applications… that can become a single use case… the outliers might have more advanced
requirements and become a second use case
Here we took 314 of the 354 users and are using a Hosted Shared Desktop… or XenApp… as
their VDI solution because it works best
43

44. © 2015 Citrix
Take for example a Medical Claims Division of 354 users… how do we determine the use case?
Is it one, is it several. After all, there are 5 or 6 divisions and multiple roles in each one.
Really, use case allocation is a mix of data collection, logical groupings, and occasional best
guess (at least to start)
So for this case, it makes sense to group by business function more so than department
Once we have that initial grouping, we can then refine further
So in our analysis, maybe we say that most of the users used the same data entry and reporting
applications… that can become a single use case… the outliers might have more advanced
requirements and become a second use case
Here we took 314 of the 354 users and are using a Hosted Shared Desktop… or XenApp… as
their VDI solution because it works best
44

45. © 2015 Citrix
Take for example a Medical Claims Division of 354 users… how do we determine the use case?
Is it one, is it several. After all, there are 5 or 6 divisions and multiple roles in each one.
Really, use case allocation is a mix of data collection, logical groupings, and occasional best
guess (at least to start)
So for this case, it makes sense to group by business function more so than department
Once we have that initial grouping, we can then refine further
So in our analysis, maybe we say that most of the users used the same data entry and reporting
applications… that can become a single use case… the outliers might have more advanced
requirements and become a second use case
Here we took 314 of the 354 users and are using a Hosted Shared Desktop… or XenApp… as
their VDI solution because it works best
45

46. © 2015 Citrix
Take for example a Medical Claims Division of 354 users… how do we determine the use case?
Is it one, is it several. After all, there are 5 or 6 divisions and multiple roles in each one.
Really, use case allocation is a mix of data collection, logical groupings, and occasional best
guess (at least to start)
So for this case, it makes sense to group by business function more so than department
Once we have that initial grouping, we can then refine further
So in our analysis, maybe we say that most of the users used the same data entry and reporting
applications… that can become a single use case… the outliers might have more advanced
requirements and become a second use case
Here we took 314 of the 354 users and are using a Hosted Shared Desktop… or XenApp… as
their VDI solution because it works best
46

47. © 2015 Citrix
Take for example a Medical Claims Division of 354 users… how do we determine the use case?
Is it one, is it several. After all, there are 5 or 6 divisions and multiple roles in each one.
Really, use case allocation is a mix of data collection, logical groupings, and occasional best
guess (at least to start)
So for this case, it makes sense to group by business function more so than department
Once we have that initial grouping, we can then refine further
So in our analysis, maybe we say that most of the users used the same data entry and reporting
applications… that can become a single use case… the outliers might have more advanced
requirements and become a second use case
Here we took 314 of the 354 users and are using a Hosted Shared Desktop… or XenApp… as
their VDI solution because it works best
47

48. © 2015 Citrix
Take for example a Medical Claims Division of 354 users… how do we determine the use case?
Is it one, is it several. After all, there are 5 or 6 divisions and multiple roles in each one.
Really, use case allocation is a mix of data collection, logical groupings, and occasional best
guess (at least to start)
So for this case, it makes sense to group by business function more so than department
Once we have that initial grouping, we can then refine further
So in our analysis, maybe we say that most of the users used the same data entry and reporting
applications… that can become a single use case… the outliers might have more advanced
requirements and become a second use case
Here we took 314 of the 354 users and are using a Hosted Shared Desktop… or XenApp… as
their VDI solution because it works best
48

49. © 2015 Citrix
Take for example a Medical Claims Division of 354 users… how do we determine the use case?
Is it one, is it several. After all, there are 5 or 6 divisions and multiple roles in each one.
Really, use case allocation is a mix of data collection, logical groupings, and occasional best
guess (at least to start)
So for this case, it makes sense to group by business function more so than department
Once we have that initial grouping, we can then refine further
So in our analysis, maybe we say that most of the users used the same data entry and reporting
applications… that can become a single use case… the outliers might have more advanced
requirements and become a second use case
Here we took 314 of the 354 users and are using a Hosted Shared Desktop… or XenApp… as
their VDI solution because it works best
49

50. © 2015 Citrix
Take for example a Medical Claims Division of 354 users… how do we determine the use case?
Is it one, is it several. After all, there are 5 or 6 divisions and multiple roles in each one.
Really, use case allocation is a mix of data collection, logical groupings, and occasional best
guess (at least to start)
So for this case, it makes sense to group by business function more so than department
Once we have that initial grouping, we can then refine further
So in our analysis, maybe we say that most of the users used the same data entry and reporting
applications… that can become a single use case… the outliers might have more advanced
requirements and become a second use case
Here we took 314 of the 354 users and are using a Hosted Shared Desktop… or XenApp… as
their VDI solution because it works best
50

51. © 2015 Citrix
Take for example a Medical Claims Division of 354 users… how do we determine the use case?
Is it one, is it several. After all, there are 5 or 6 divisions and multiple roles in each one.
Really, use case allocation is a mix of data collection, logical groupings, and occasional best
guess (at least to start)
So for this case, it makes sense to group by business function more so than department
Once we have that initial grouping, we can then refine further
So in our analysis, maybe we say that most of the users used the same data entry and reporting
applications… that can become a single use case… the outliers might have more advanced
requirements and become a second use case
Here we took 314 of the 354 users and are using a Hosted Shared Desktop… or XenApp… as
their VDI solution because it works best
51

52. © 2015 Citrix
So, we have our initial planning done… we know WHAT we are trying to support… so we can
begin designing our actual XenApp environment…
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53. © 2015 Citrix
From the highest level, we have some basic tiers
• End Point
• Access
• Desktop/Application
Of course, don’t forget the back-end data as well
53

54. © 2015 Citrix
I always start with a “big picture”
Here I have my friend, Bob Ross, to help me paint the picture…
Whiteboards are our friends, I have a former coworker who use to say that “I can’t talk without a
marker in my hand”
I love to sketch/diagram solutions… to me, it breaks down communication barriers when people
can see what you have in mind
54

55. © 2015 Citrix
I always start with a “big picture”
Here I have my friend, Bob Ross, to help me paint the picture…
Whiteboards are our friends, I have a former coworker who use to say that “I can’t talk without a
marker in my hand”
I love to sketch/diagram solutions… to me, it breaks down communication barriers when people
can see what you have in mind
Here is a rough sketch… it is the start of our Reference Architecture
You can see the basic layout of components and flow of information…
55

56. © 2015 Citrix
I take that basic whiteboard session, then convert it into a nice Visio diagram
You can see the different tiers: Access, App Delivery, Backend, etc
And the communication flows
This big picture can then be sent around to various teams for review/approval, etc
So the network and storage, and operations teams know what we are doing and can provide
their own input as necessary.
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57. © 2015 Citrix
We have out big picture… lets dig deeper in to the application delivery layer… or the XenApp
layer
We all know it’s not quite as simple as this diagram, but it is representative of this layer…
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58. © 2015 Citrix
First, a brief History of XenApp…
Multiuser > WinView > WinFrame > MetaFrame > Presentation Server > XenApp > XenDesktop
> XenApp
Who has used Multiuser? I started here at WinFrame
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59. © 2015 Citrix
First, a brief History of XenApp…
Multiuser > WinView > WinFrame > MetaFrame > Presentation Server > XenApp > XenDesktop
> XenApp
Who has used Multiuser? I started here at WinFrame
59

60. © 2015 Citrix
First, a brief History of XenApp…
Multiuser > WinView > WinFrame > MetaFrame > Presentation Server > XenApp > XenDesktop
> XenApp
Who has used Multiuser? I started here at WinFrame
60

61. © 2015 Citrix
First, a brief History of XenApp…
Multiuser > WinView > WinFrame > MetaFrame > Presentation Server > XenApp > XenDesktop
> XenApp
Who has used Multiuser? I started here at WinFrame
61

62. © 2015 Citrix
First, a brief History of XenApp…
Multiuser > WinView > WinFrame > MetaFrame > Presentation Server > XenApp > XenDesktop
> XenApp
Who has used Multiuser? I started here at WinFrame
62

63. © 2015 Citrix
First, a brief History of XenApp…
Multiuser > WinView > WinFrame > MetaFrame > Presentation Server > XenApp > XenDesktop
> XenApp
Who has used Multiuser? I started here at WinFrame
63

64. © 2015 Citrix
A quick comparison of old and new terminology…
For example, there are no more Farms, there are Sites
We don’t PUBLISH applications, we DELIVER Applications…
The “missing” XenApp legacy features are slowly being added back in… 7.0 was simply branded
as XenDesktop, 7.5 brought back the XenApp Name… 7.6 added back in session prelaunch and
linger
7.6 FP 1 – What’s New
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp-xendesktop-75/cds-75-about-whats-new.html
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp-xendesktop-76/xad-whats-new.html
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp-xendesktop-76fp1/xad-whats-new-fp1.html
What’s Missing
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp-xendesktop-76fp1/xad-features-not-in.html
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65. © 2015 Citrix65

66. © 2015 Citrix
When planning out and designing your XenApp deployment, these are some things you need to
consider
1 Site or Multiple Sites or even a stretched site?
One environment, or pods?
What constraints are you dealing with? Hardware, network, location, resources, etc.
Users: consider both concurrent and total…. You might have to support 10,000 users, but only
5,000 will be active at any time. In that case, do you design for 5000 or 10000 users?
Also, consider the different roles… do you combine or separate?
Ultimately, there is no right answer… but there are plenty of wrong ones.
What I mean by that… the right answer is what works best for your environment… a wrong
answer is one that is not optimal.
66

67. © 2015 Citrix
When planning out and designing your XenApp deployment, these are some things you need to
consider
1 Site or Multiple Sites or even a stretched site?
One environment, or pods?
What constraints are you dealing with? Hardware, network, location, resources, etc.
Users: consider both concurrent and total…. You might have to support 10,000 users, but only
5,000 will be active at any time. In that case, do you design for 5000 or 10000 users?
Also, consider the different roles… do you combine or separate?
Ultimately, there is no right answer… but there are plenty of wrong ones.
What I mean by that… the right answer is what works best for your environment… a wrong
answer is one that is not optimal.
67

68. © 2015 Citrix
I like to split environments into 1 of 3 categories…
Small, Medium, Large
Small is less than 500 users or a Proof of Concept…. The danger with a PoC is they commonly
become Production.
Who here has had that happen?
68

69. © 2015 Citrix
I like to split environments into 1 of 3 categories…
Small, Medium, Large
Small is less than 500 users or a Proof of Concept…. The danger with a PoC is they commonly
become Production.
Who here has had that happen?
I consider medium up to 5000 users
69

70. © 2015 Citrix
I like to split environments into 1 of 3 categories…
Small, Medium, Large
Small is less than 500 users or a Proof of Concept…. The danger with a PoC is they commonly
become Production.
Who here has had that happen?
I consider medium up to 5000 users
Large or Enterprise more than 5000 users
These are arbitrary numbers, of course…. I’ve seen small shops that want Enterprise grade
architecture… OK
I’ve seen enterprises that want a small, simple design… ok
These are not set in stone
70

71. © 2015 Citrix
Let's look at a small deployment
Generally this is a single site
We'll do a consolidated build and basic SQL
By consolidated build, we meant having 2 servers which host all the major roles, Director,
Studio, Director, StoreFront, etc.
We may or may not use PVS. This might be PVS, might be template-based VMs
We'll probably use a virtual NetScaler appliance
The more I work with XenApp, the more I like the consolidated builds, even with larger
environments, to reduce number of components and crosstalk... but that is optional
From a diagram perspectives, you can see there are not a lot of components to manage
71

72. © 2015 Citrix
Let's look at a small deployment
Generally this is a single site
We'll do a consolidated build and basic SQL
By consolidated build, we meant having 2 servers which host all the major roles, Director,
Studio, Director, StoreFront, etc.
We may or may not use PVS. This might be PVS, might be template-based VMs
We'll probably use a virtual NetScaler appliance
The more I work with XenApp, the more I like the consolidated builds, even with larger
environments, to reduce number of components and crosstalk... but that is optional
From a diagram perspectives, you can see there are not a lot of components to manage
72

73. © 2015 Citrix
Let's look at a small deployment
Generally this is a single site
We'll do a consolidated build and basic SQL
By consolidated build, we meant having 2 servers which host all the major roles, Director,
Studio, Director, StoreFront, etc.
We may or may not use PVS. This might be PVS, might be template-based VMs
We'll probably use a virtual NetScaler appliance
The more I work with XenApp, the more I like the consolidated builds, even with larger
environments, to reduce number of components and crosstalk... but that is optional
From a diagram perspectives, you can see there are not a lot of components to manage
73

74. © 2015 Citrix
In a medium sized deployment, we typically break each component out to its own server
This allows segmentation of role and separate updated process
Here we'll generally use PVS for image management and SQL HA
Probably upgrading to NetScaler MPX appliances
Generally a single site, possibly a stretch site, but a more complex diagram
As you can see, multiple use cases, infrastructure redundancy, etc.
74

75. © 2015 Citrix
In a medium sized deployment, we typically break each component out to its own server
This allows segmentation of role and separate updated process
Here we'll generally use PVS for image management and SQL HA
Probably upgrading to NetScaler MPX appliances
Generally a single site, possibly a stretch site, but a more complex diagram
As you can see, multiple use cases, infrastructure redundancy, etc.
75

76. © 2015 Citrix
In a medium sized deployment, we typically break each component out to its own server
This allows segmentation of role and separate updated process
Here we'll generally use PVS for image management and SQL HA
Probably upgrading to NetScaler MPX appliances
Generally a single site, possibly a stretch site, but a more complex diagram
As you can see, multiple use cases, infrastructure redundancy, etc.
76

77. © 2015 Citrix
For a large site, we are typically in a multisite build with multiple redundancies and greater scale
Maybe a large site is really 2 medium sites... or 2 PODs... or 1 big deployment
Look at scalability... each Controllers is rated to support 5000 connections, so we have 3
controllers to ensure N+1 standards.
If your standards are different, then you can build more or less as you need.
Or you may have 2 per site...
Here is a typical design with 2 data centers, 1 east 1 west
Each has the same type of designed and each is independent of the other.
Let me zoom in so you can see a little better
Much more complexity... more planning and design required.
77

78. © 2015 Citrix
For a large site, we are typically in a multisite build with multiple redundancies and greater scale
Maybe a large site is really 2 medium sites... or 2 PODs... or 1 big deployment
Look at scalability... each Controllers is rated to support 5000 connections, so we have 3
controllers to ensure N+1 standards.
If your standards are different, then you can build more or less as you need.
Or you may have 2 per site...
Here is a typical design with 2 data centers, 1 east 1 west
Each has the same type of designed and each is independent of the other.
Let me zoom in so you can see a little better
Much more complexity... more planning and design required.
78

79. © 2015 Citrix
For a large site, we are typically in a multisite build with multiple redundancies and greater scale
Maybe a large site is really 2 medium sites... or 2 PODs... or 1 big deployment
Look at scalability... each Controllers is rated to support 5000 connections, so we have 3
controllers to ensure N+1 standards.
If your standards are different, then you can build more or less as you need.
Or you may have 2 per site...
Here is a typical design with 2 data centers, 1 east 1 west
Each has the same type of designed and each is independent of the other.
Let me zoom in so you can see a little better
Much more complexity... more planning and design required.
79

80. © 2015 Citrix
For a large site, we are typically in a multisite build with multiple redundancies and greater scale
Maybe a large site is really 2 medium sites... or 2 PODs... or 1 big deployment
Look at scalability... each Controllers is rated to support 5000 connections, so we have 3
controllers to ensure N+1 standards.
If your standards are different, then you can build more or less as you need.
Or you may have 2 per site...
Here is a typical design with 2 data centers, 1 east 1 west
Each has the same type of designed and each is independent of the other.
Let me zoom in so you can see a little better
Much more complexity... more planning and design required.
80

81. © 2015 Citrix
Once you have an idea of what you are building and how you want to build it, it’s time to do
some Algebra…
I’m fairly old school, so I still use excel sheets… you can also use the Project Accelerator to help
this exercise
Scalability depends on a great many factors, including your hardware platform, virtualization
platform, application/desktop resource requirements, etc
How MANY VMs do you need to support your users? What resources do they need? How many
can you get on a host and maintain performance
Its NOT a linear process, its an iterative process. The great thing about statistics & baselines …
anytime you change one coefficient, you need to recalculate
I also warn my customers… this is a PAPER exercise… this is just a first pass. Once you build
test and re-evaluate…. Pilot: test/reevaluate… Production rollout… keep re-evaluating your
baseline
81

82. © 2015 Citrix
Once you have an idea of what you are building and how you want to build it, it’s time to do
some Algebra…
I’m fairly old school, so I still use excel sheets… you can also use the Project Accelerator to help
this exercise
Scalability depends on a great many factors, including your hardware platform, virtualization
platform, application/desktop resource requirements, etc
How MANY VMs do you need to support your users? What resources do they need? How many
can you get on a host and maintain performance
Its NOT a linear process, its an iterative process. The great thing about statistics & baselines …
anytime you change one coefficient, you need to recalculate
I also warn my customers… this is a PAPER exercise… this is just a first pass. Once you build
test and re-evaluate…. Pilot: test/reevaluate… Production rollout… keep re-evaluating your
baseline
82

83. © 2015 Citrix
Once you have an idea of what you are building and how you want to build it, it’s time to do
some Algebra…
I’m fairly old school, so I still use excel sheets… you can also use the Project Accelerator to help
this exercise
Scalability depends on a great many factors, including your hardware platform, virtualization
platform, application/desktop resource requirements, etc
How MANY VMs do you need to support your users? What resources do they need? How many
can you get on a host and maintain performance
Its NOT a linear process, its an iterative process. The great thing about statistics & baselines …
anytime you change one coefficient, you need to recalculate
I also warn my customers… this is a PAPER exercise… this is just a first pass. Once you build
test and re-evaluate…. Pilot: test/reevaluate… Production rollout… keep re-evaluating your
baseline
83

84. © 2015 Citrix
Once you have an idea of what you are building and how you want to build it, it’s time to do
some Algebra…
I’m fairly old school, so I still use excel sheets… you can also use the Project Accelerator to help
this exercise
Scalability depends on a great many factors, including your hardware platform, virtualization
platform, application/desktop resource requirements, etc
How MANY VMs do you need to support your users? What resources do they need? How many
can you get on a host and maintain performance
Its NOT a linear process, its an iterative process. The great thing about statistics & baselines …
anytime you change one coefficient, you need to recalculate
I also warn my customers… this is a PAPER exercise… this is just a first pass. Once you build
test and re-evaluate…. Pilot: test/reevaluate… Production rollout… keep re-evaluating your
baseline
84

85. © 2015 Citrix
When looking at Image Management, we have several options… PVS, MCS or static builds
(may be SCCM, may be templates, whatever)
I will be honest, PVS is one of my favorite technologies in the Citrix stack, but it is not always the
right fit.
…
MCS is typically used for smaller deployments
PVS is standard for most deployments
Some customers still prefer static / template builds, that is fine
I greatly prefer PVS due to consistency, reusability, and version controls
...
Here’s a nice graph from Barry Schiffer on a MCS/PVS decision tree… as you can see, most
roads lead to PVS
85

86. © 2015 Citrix
When looking at Image Management, we have several options… PVS, MCS or static builds
(may be SCCM, may be templates, whatever)
I will be honest, PVS is one of my favorite technologies in the Citrix stack, but it is not always the
right fit.
…
MCS is typically used for smaller deployments
PVS is standard for most deployments
Some customers still prefer static / template builds, that is fine
I greatly prefer PVS due to consistency, reusability, and version controls
...
Here’s a nice graph from Barry Schiffer on a MCS/PVS decision tree… as you can see, most
roads lead to PVS
86

87. © 2015 Citrix
When looking at Image Management, we have several options… PVS, MCS or static builds
(may be SCCM, may be templates, whatever)
I will be honest, PVS is one of my favorite technologies in the Citrix stack, but it is not always the
right fit.
…
MCS is typically used for smaller deployments
PVS is standard for most deployments
Some customers still prefer static / template builds, that is fine
I greatly prefer PVS due to consistency, reusability, and version controls
...
Here’s a nice graph from Barry Schiffer on a MCS/PVS decision tree… as you can see, most
roads lead to PVS
87

88. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
88

89. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
89

90. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
90

91. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
91

92. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
92

93. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
93

94. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
94

95. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
95

96. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
96

97. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
97

98. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
98

99. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
99

100. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
100

101. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
101

102. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
102

103. © 2015 Citrix
Managing XenApp 7.6 is a little different from managing earlier versions
For one, you no longer PUBLISH apps, you now DELIVER them
That’s not just a chance in terminology… the process is different too
First off, we have Machine Catalogs: This is based on Operating System AND Delivery Method
Here I am making a Controller Group – this is purely optional, but I always publish my controllers for my admin
team…
Now, just having a Machine Catalog does nothing special for us yet other than tell our Site these machines exist
With the Delivery Group, you can pick Desktops, Applications, or Both
With XenApp, if you select both, the users will have the option to launch the desktop… and you can change it later if
you set it incorrectly
NOTE: Users are assigned to the Delivery Group, Applications are assigned to the Delivery Group… unlike older
versions of XenApp, Users are NOT assigned to Applications. Not a huge deal, but definitely a different way of
thinking through it.
When publishing Applications, you can do multiple at the same time…
The nice thing is with this version, everything you do in Studio you can do in PowerShell. And there are some
things you can do in PowerShell, that are not natively available in the Studio.
For example, we might want to publish, err deliver, the same application to multiple delivery groups… you can do
that in PowerShell
You might want to disable and hide an application… well you can disable in GUI, but not hide it, however in
PowerShell each application has a Visible property which can be set to $False
And of course PowerShell is great for bulk operations
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Of course, our job does not end with the design, build, and rollout
We need to monitor and maintain the environment.
We have built in tools… Director and Scout
Director is useful for helpdesk and real-time monitoring
Scout is part of the Citrix TaaS server, where you upload your logs and configurations and it will generate
alerts
But there is still a gap… most enterprises use these tools and augment with other tools
One of my personal favorites is uberAgent, which is a Splunk tool, written by Helge Klein
The key, regardless of which tools you use, is to actively monitor your environment, try to head off errors
or issues before they become a major crisis.
Especially around performance and capacity
Are you getting as many users or sessions as you planned? Is the user experience or login performance
as expected… has it gotten better or worse over time?
Of course, based upon your performance statistics, you might need to re-evaluate your design and
modify your baselines or expectations.
104

105. © 2015 Citrix
Of course, our job does not end with the design, build, and rollout
We need to monitor and maintain the environment.
We have built in tools… Director and Scout
Director is useful for helpdesk and real-time monitoring
Scout is part of the Citrix TaaS server, where you upload your logs and configurations and it will generate
alerts
But there is still a gap… most enterprises use these tools and augment with other tools
One of my personal favorites is uberAgent, which is a Splunk tool, written by Helge Klein
The key, regardless of which tools you use, is to actively monitor your environment, try to head off errors
or issues before they become a major crisis.
Especially around performance and capacity
Are you getting as many users or sessions as you planned? Is the user experience or login performance
as expected… has it gotten better or worse over time?
Of course, based upon your performance statistics, you might need to re-evaluate your design and
modify your baselines or expectations.
105

106. © 2015 Citrix
Of course, our job does not end with the design, build, and rollout
We need to monitor and maintain the environment.
We have built in tools… Director and Scout
Director is useful for helpdesk and real-time monitoring
Scout is part of the Citrix TaaS server, where you upload your logs and configurations and it will generate
alerts
But there is still a gap… most enterprises use these tools and augment with other tools
One of my personal favorites is uberAgent, which is a Splunk tool, written by Helge Klein
The key, regardless of which tools you use, is to actively monitor your environment, try to head off errors
or issues before they become a major crisis.
Especially around performance and capacity
Are you getting as many users or sessions as you planned? Is the user experience or login performance
as expected… has it gotten better or worse over time?
Of course, based upon your performance statistics, you might need to re-evaluate your design and
modify your baselines or expectations.
106

107. © 2015 Citrix
There is not right or wrong answer… even with Citrix, you have reference architectures and best
practices… but that might not fit YOUR specific environment
I always say, if you put 3 engineers in a room, you’ll get 10 different answers…
They key is, are you asking the right questions…
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108. © 2015 Citrix
There is not right or wrong answer… even with Citrix, you have reference architectures and best
practices… but that might not fit YOUR specific environment
I always say, if you put 3 engineers in a room, you’ll get 10 different answers…
They key is, are you asking the right questions…
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