Posts tagged ‘Citrix’
Hotfix: Citrix XenDesktop Virtual Desktop Agent Version 4.0.4546 (XDE400VDAWX86003 / XDE400VDAWX64003)
Citrix released the third hotfix for the XenDesktop 4.0 virtual desktop agent. The hotfixes are available for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.
Here’s a quick overview of what is fixed:
When an application running inside a virtual desktop changes the state of the Caps Lock, Num Lock, or Scroll Lock keys programmatically, the LED indicators on the endpoint keyboard are not updated to indicate the changed state to the user. As a result, users can be locked out of external Web sites if they inadvertently mistype and submit their case-sensitive passwords multiple times.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#222015]
Using workspace control to log off a session on a Virtual Desktop Agent running on Windows XP when the session desktop is locked can cause the session to stop responding.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#223799]
Print jobs on network print servers are deleted unexpectedly when an administrator logs off from a session.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#225658]
When using a Windows 7 or Windows Vista Virtual Desktop Agent with a custom logon message, the session becomes unresponsive if you do not click OK in the the message dialog box within a few minutes.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#227368]
A system exception can cause the Citrix Audio Service to stop.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#227493]
When connecting to a virtual desktop session with a new user profile for the first time, both the endpoint cursor and the virtual desktop cursor are visible in the session.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#228309]
Windows Media content embedded in a Web page does not invoke HDX MediaStream Multimedia Acceleration on Virtual Desktop Agents running on Windows 7.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#228495]
Attempts to reconnect to a disconnected virtual desktop session can fail with EventID 1008.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#228805]
HDX Mediastream Multimedia Acceleration does not work properly with some media players, including GOM Player. For the fix to work, [Use WM ASF Reader] or [Use Windows Media Source] options may need to be selected in GOMPlayer preferences.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#229356]
Single sign-on to a XenDesktop session can intermittently fail, causing users to be prompted for credentials when launching a virtual desktop. This can result in failures to reconnect and unexpected behavior of PicaSvc.exe until the Citrix ICA Service is restarted.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#229633]
Attempts to connect to a virtual desktop session might fail intermittently.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#230024]
Attempts to reconnect to a disconnected session might fail. When this happens, the virtual desktop appears locked and users cannot pass Ctrl+Alt+Delete to invoke the Windows logon screen; a 9032 ThinWire error is logged in the Event Log of the Virtual Desktop Agent.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#230272]
This fix addresses logon issues, including excessive logon times and reconnect failures.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#230685]
Unresponsive windows in a virtual desktop session can prevent users from reconnecting to a disconnected session.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#230689]
When resizing the Desktop Viewer window, the Windows taskbar shifts up and down three times, and six times when maximizing the window. The issue does not occur on systems with Fix #230577 installed. After applying this fix, resizing the window causes the taskbar to move up and down only once, and twice when maximizing the window.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#231063]
Attempts to reconnect to a session from a different endpoint device using a different type of smart card reader than the original session fail and the login becomes unresponsive.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#231370]
After making an RDP connection to a Virtual Desktop Agent, ICA connection attempts no longer succeed.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#232247]
Intermittent failures to reconnect to a Virtual Desktop Agent might be observed. The virtual desktop appears blacked out and is unresponsive at the console.
[From XDE400VDAWX86003][#255306]
Also all fixes from the previous released hotfixes are included. For the download link and more information use the following two links.
Hotfix XDE400VDAWX86003 (Version 4.0.4546) – For Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 Virtual Desktop Agent x86
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124873
Hotfix XDE400VDAWX64003 (Version 4.0.4546) – For Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 Virtual Desktop Agent x64
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124876
Hotfix: Citrix XenDesktop Pool Management Version 4.0.4540 (XDE400PM002)
Citrix released the second hotfix for the XenDesktop Pool Management Service a few days ago. The following problems are fixed with this release:
- The Pool Management Service, CdsPoolMgr.exe, can consume excessive memory.
[From XDE400PM002][#212622]
- The System Center Virtual Machine Manager custom property CTXMgtInfo representing the status of the Virtual Desktop Agent can return inaccurate results.
[From XDE400PM002][#225274]
- The Pool Management Service does not recover from a lost connection provided the server and the network are still up.
[From XDE400PM002][#225544]
XDE400PM002 supersedes the previous hotfix XDE400PM001.
The hotfix is available for download at http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX125093.
Citrix Synergy 2010 San Francisco Day 2 Keynote Summary
After we already summarized the first keynote of Citrix Synergy 2010 San Francisco today you get a summary of the second keynote from yesterday. The second keynote was focused on virtualization and the data center. Again we’re focusing on the technical content of the keynote and try to leave out the marketing stuff as much as we can.
Keynote speakers were Mark Templton (Citrix), Michael Dell (Dell) and Frank Gens (IDC).
Frank Gens kicked of the keynote by talking about the five game changers in the enterprise IT: cloud computing, pervasive mobility, social computing, the embedded Internet of things, and the ubiquitous analytics. If you want to know more just watch the recording of the first part of the keynote.
After Frank Gens, Mark Templeton came up on stage and talked about NetScaler and XenServer.
NetScaler
Citrix NetScaler is currently available for the most virtualization platforms (XenServer, ESX) and as hardware appliances as well. Citrix added some new, very powerful hardware appliance called NetScaler MPX 17500, 19500 and 21500. These models support throughput from 20 to 50 Gbps. In a matter of fact all three new models are based on the same hardware and the additional throughput is unlocked by a license key. Citrix calls this “pay-as-you-grow”. The NetScaler MPX family support throughput from 1 Gbps to 50 Gbps and you only have to buy a new hardware appliance if you want so switch from 1 – 3 Gbps to 5 – 15 Gbps or from 5 – 15 Gbps to 20 – 50 Gbps. Of course you could also jump from 1 to 50 Gbps as well. These appliances are already available.
Citrix also announced the PayGrow Burst Pack. You can buy a PayGrow Burst Pack licenses and if you need more throughput then you have currently licensed you just break open your Burst Pack when you need it and then you have more throughput 90 days. The PayGrow Burst Packs will be available in June this year.
The last announcement on NetScaler was the NetScaler VPX for Hyper-V appliance. With this announcement Citrix now supports every major virtualization platform for their NetScaler VPX virtual appliances.
Additionally with the release of NetScaler VPX for Hyper-V there will be a full integration of NetScaler in Microsoft System Center and also the support (through AppExpert templates) to use NetScaler with Microsoft applications like SharePoint and Exchange 2010. The VPX for Hyper-V and the tight Microsoft integration will be available in summer this year.
By the way, did you know that 75% of the internet users passing NetScaler systems every day? No wonder because Google and Amazon, for example, are using NetScaler.
XenServer
In the second keynote XenServer 5.6 was announced and will be available on May 28. XenServer 5.6 is powered by the following new features:
- Better density and scale
- Faster network performance
- Memory optimization (memory over-commitment)
- Host power management
- Role based administration
- Snapshot & revert
- Self service user portal
Also XenServer 5.6 will be available in four versions: free, advanced (1000$), enterprise (2500$) and platinum (5000$). More information on the XenServer release can be found in the official press release.
Mark T. also presented, together with Brad Anderson (Microsoft), the next version of Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) with full XenServer integration. Brad A. demonstrated some really cool features like the VMM design studio where you can manage the roll out for your new servers/applications through drag and drop. This is possible by using stuff like single image management, virtualizing server services with App-V and so on.
After Marks session Michael Dell came up on stage and talked about the future of the desktop and gave a sneak preview of the new Dell “streak” device which will available next month.
If you want to watch all three keynote session just visit citrix.com/tv or access the keynotes directly by using one of the following links:
Synergy Keynote May 2010 Day 2 – The Five Game Changers in Enterprise IT
Synergy Keynote May 2010 Day 2 – Virtualization and the Datacenter
Synergy Keynote May 2010 Day 2 – Dell and Citrix Systems
Citrix Synergy 2010 San Francisco Day 1 Keynote Summary
Yesterday Citrix Mark T. hold the first Keynote of Citrix Synergy 2010 San Fransisco. The presentation was full of live demos and very interesting topics. It also was very Apple-ish and there even was a “One more thing” thingy. If you missed the live keynote Citrix you can watch it on citrix.com/tv right now or read our short summary.
The following summary will only cover technical topic and leave out most of the marketing stuff. The keynote actual was about three topics (XenClient, Dazzle.next and Reciver, HDX Nitro, XenApp 6) which we will cover right now.
XenClient
Citrix today announced the immediate availability of Citrix XenClient (as a release candidate). XenClient is Citrix’s approach of delivery a type-1 hypervisor for clients. XenClient is based on the open source Xen Client Initiative (XCI). XenClient allows you to securely run multiple virtual machines on your local device (a notebook or even a desktop). This allows you for example to deploy a personal VM with all your personal applications like iTunes, Windows Live Messenger, Google Picasa and so on. In addition to that your corporate IT can centrally deploy business virtual machines with all needed business applications and policies to your local device. This is done through Citrix Synchronizer a virtual appliance which runs only on top of XenServer (at least for now).
There are many use cases for XenClient. For example if you have to run some application in a complete secure and locked down environment so that no data inside this VM can get outside you can to this with XenClient.
XenClient is based on the open source Xen hypervisor engine. To run Citrix XenClient you need a device which supports Intel vPro and therefore Intel VT-x and VT-d. The concrete requirments are:
- Intel Core 2 Duo series processor with VT-x and VT-d (Intel vPro)
- 4GB memory or more
- 160GB disk space or more
- Intel integrated graphic 4500MHD
On top of XenClient currently Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 are supported in their 32-bit versions.
Beside some experimental features like 3D graphic support and secure application sharing (publish applications from one local VM to another) it allows you, in conjunction with Citrix Synchronizer, to centrally deploy, restore and backup virtual machines running on your XenClient devices. It also allows you to do some security stuff like control which VM can use which local devices, how they can access the network, how long they can run without contacting the Synchronizer (time bombing) and send a remote kill pill to remotly wipe a stolen device.
You’re going to find more information on XenClient and the actual download on citrix.com/xenclient.
Dazzle.next and Receiver
Citrix finally gets serious about Dazzle and Receiver. At lot is coming to these both components but let’s start with Dazzle. Dazzle is the Apple AppStore for enterprises made by Citrix. While Dazzle has been around for a year the only thing you could do with Dazzle is to allow your users to add the applications they wanted to their start menus. But with Dazzle.next Dazzle get some really helpful feature like request management and a ask, learn and share feature.
Request managament allow a user to request access to a certain application which he wasn’t allowed to access before. The request then can go through some workflow and have to be allowed or denied. If it is allowed it than can be, for example, booked on a specific cost center.
Also it allows the IT personal to set up some kind of FAQ and learning site for your users. They also can ask the support directly or share their experience they made with Dazzle with other users.
Right after Dazzle.next there was some talking about Citrix Receiver. Citrix Receiver also was already around for a year or so. But now there coming lot of cool new plug-ins to Receiver like 3rd party anti virus plug-ins or the Citrix Encrypted Data plug-in.
The Citrix Encrypted Data plug-in allows administrators to encrypt (256bit AES) the data delivery through XenApp and App-V applications at your end point. Users can be forced to safe their data from seamless applications in a specific ecrypted container called SafeZone. Last but not least the administrators can centrally control the access to the SafeZone and also wipe it remotely.
Dazzle.next should be available later this year but if you want to try the Encrypted Data plug-in you can give the technical preview a try.
XenApp 6
There was a quick recap of the features and possilibies with XenApp 6. But as this is nothing now I will skip this part.
HDX Nitro Technologies
HDX Nitro is a bundle of five development projects around Citrix’s HDX protocol starting with HDX Mach 3.
- Project Mach 3 is an optimized kernel (as Mark T. refereed to it) of the HDX protocol which should deliver 3 times the peformance of the actual HDX protocol.
- Project Zoom silently pre-loads a HDX session which then allows you to instantly start published applications.
- Project Laser optimizes the universal printer stack which should reduce the needed printing bandwidth a bare minimum (10% of that what’s currently needed).
- Project Mecury should accelerate the HDX WAN sessions and make them very usable even over connections with up to 300ms of latency by using compression, caching and prioritizing techniques.
- Project Dynamo is an enhancement to Citrix’s adaptive orchestration feature of HDX which allows you intelligent QoS (Quality of Service) and policy-driven configuration to optimize your sessions regarding the quality of your network link and the capabilities of your end point.
Unfortunately there wasn’t any live demo or technical details about HDX Nitro. So check out hdx.citrix.com/nitro regularly to get the latest news about HDX Nitro.
One more thing…
As I already said the keynote was very Apple-ish and so there also was the “One more thing”. At this point Mark T. demonstrated a really cool feature. He showed us how you can push a published application from one Citrix Receiver (in this case an iPad) to another Receiver (a Windows 7 device). This is really cool but useful? I guess time will tell.
So much for the first day keynote. If you still want to know more just watch the recording of the keynote below.
How to add an additional local disk to your XenServer 5.5 host
After I described how to convert an existing local XenServer storage repository to support thin provisioning I’m now going to show you how you can add an additional local disk to your XenServer host.
Actually that’s pretty straight forward and the first thing you have to do is to add a new physical hard drive in your host. After that you boot up your XenServer again and go to the CLI.
[Side note: Red marked entries have to be changed with your own parameters or can differ from my entries. Also the command you have to enter on the CLI are marked bold.]
On the XenServer CLI you have to list your physical disk with fdisk.
fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 499 4008186 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 500 998 4008217+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 999 30401 236179597+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table
There you can see your new hard drive. In my case it shows up as /dev/sdb. For integrating the hard disk into your XenServer you first have to reveal the UUID of your host. This is done by the following command. More…
How to enable thin provisioning on a local XenServer 5.5 storage repository
Today I rebuild my personal XenServer lab using the new Update 2 release. While doing this it came to my mind if it is possible to fit some more virtual machines on the local drive of my XenServer. And yes it is possible – it’s called thin provisioning. Actually there are two ways for enabling thin provisioning, which I will show you in a second.
But why you should do this? For example if you want to install Windows 7 you need at least 10GB of disk space. So you create a VM with a 10GB HDD. That’s fine if you just want to use Windows 7 without any application. But what if you want to add some applications? Then you’re in trouble. First you have to extend the virtual disk of your VM and then you have to extend your Windows partition inside the VM. While this is really easy using Windows 7, it’s kind of tricky with older versions of Windows like XP or 2003. With thin provisioning enabled you can actually create a very large disk, let’s say 100GB. This disk then only allocates the space which is really needed by the OS inside of the VM. So if you install Windows 7 on this 100GB VM it only allocates 5GB of local disk space on your XenServer host and not the whole 100GB. You see the benefit? Additionally you can now use fast cloning if thin provisioning is enabled. If you clone a VM it doesn’t clone the whole VM instead only a delta virtual disk is created for the VM clone. More…
Intel Atom/NVIDIA ION and Citrix XenDesktop – a match made in heaven for thin clients?
Today I received my brand new NVIDIA ION mainbord from Point of View which I bought to update my personal HTPC. But it came to my mind why no one is using this thing as thin client?
In my following article I assume that the customer is going to use Citrix XenDesktop for delivering desktops and applications to his employees. That means the thin clients are going to connect to Windows flavored desktops which are published through XenDesktop.
You can get a full featured NVIDIA ION-based PC for about 257€. Full featured means: Single- or Dual Core 1,6 Ghz Atom CPU, 2Gigs of RAM, 320GB HDD, Geforce 9400m GPU, Gigabit ethernet and even a DVD writer. Oh and yes, you can also use multiple monitors as you have HDMI, DVI and VGA video output.
The power consumption is also pretty low compared to a normal desktop PC, a DELL Optiplex 740n needs about 60 to 90 watts. The ION only needs about 20 watts in idle state and between 25 and 30 watts under full load. More…
Citrix Products 2010: A Wish List (continued)
Yesterday I read Helge’s article about his whish list for Citrix products in the year 2010. As I really like the idea of creating a wish list I just want to expand Helge’s list with my wishes. Hope he don’t mind. I also want to encourage every other blogger to continue this list as well.
By the way, my additions are marked red.
XenApp
- A version of XenApp that runs on Windows Server 2008 R2
- One console only, at least for XenApp
- PowerShell SDK for managing XenApp
- Realtime audio/video so that, for example, Microsoft Office Communication Server can be used well
- Migration tool that exports an old farm’s settings and imports them after optional transformation into a new far
- Consistent feature set among the XenApp versions (2003 / 2008 / 2008 R2)
- Special folder redirection, power management, HDX Flash, etc
Citrix HDX 3D for Professional Graphics – a quick’n'dirty review
A few days ago Citrix released a long awaited product, it is called HDX 3D for Professional Graphics. HDX 3D is a technology to delivery professional graphic applications (CAD/CAM) like AutoCAD through or with the ICA protocol in LAN (100 Mbps) and even in WAN (2 Mbps, with up to 200ms latency) scenarios.
This technology has a very long history with dozens of code names like boing, pictor, visual design studio, apollo, prism and finally the 1.0 release is called HDX 3D for Professional Graphics (ProGfx). HDX 3D is an add-on to XenDesktop 3.0 and it works with OpenGL and DirectX-based graphic applications which need graphics hardware (GPU) acceleration.
Even if this is a XenDesktop add-on version 1.0 of HDX 3D ProGfx doesn’t work with virtual machines. It only works with physical hardware like blade pcs or rack workstations . As ProGfx can leverage NVIDIA’s CUDA technology it is recommended that your hardware contains a graphic card with a NVIDIA GPU. More…
Citrix Merchandising Server 1.1 – the next cool puzzle piece
One of the greatest thing which Citrix has done – after doing Provisioning server and the HDX stuff – for me is Citrix Merchandising Server (CMS). I have to say I love this new little handy management tool because it makes managing the Citrix client sprawl really easy. Also it’s another piece which really fits into the whole “Citrix end to end delivery center”-puzzle thing.
So what’s behind this new Citrix product with the strange name. In simple terms the Citrix Merchandising Server is nothing more than software delivery solution dedicated to all kinds of Citrix clients plug-ins:
- Citrix Online plug-in (XenApp/XenDesktop ica client)
- Citrix Offline plug-in (XenApp application streaming client)
- Citrix Secure access plug-in (Access Gateway Enterprise client)
- Citrix Communications plug-in (Citrix Easy Call client)
- Citrix Acceleration plug-in (Citrix WanScaler client)
- Citrix Performance monitoring plug-in (Citrix Edge Sight agent)
- Citrix User Profile Manager (Profile management service)
- Citrix Dazzle (Citrix’s iTunes for applications)
and last but not least the Citrix Receiver (CR).
