• Autolab – Packaged VMware Nested Lab

    Posted on by Phillip Jones Comment

    Recently Autolab, a new tool promising to make deploying your labs a LOT easier was released. I deployed my new lab yesterday using this tool and it couldn’t be simpler.

    Autolab

    This lab builder kit is designed to produce a nested vSphere 5.0 or 4.1 lab environment with the minimum effort. Prebuilt shell VMs are provided along with automation for the installation of operating systems and applications into these VMs. The lab build was originally created to aid study towards VCP5 certification however it has many other possible uses.

    This is version 0.5 – Please submit bug reports to feedback@labguides.com

    Installation Instructions PDF
    Nested AutoLab on Workstation 8
    Nested AutoLab on ESXi 5

    Hardware Requirements

    The hardware requirements for the lab are moderate. Hopefully you won’t need to buy a new computer, although you may need to do some upgrades.  If you can dedicate a computer to the role then the lab runs extremely well under ESXi.

    Hardware Minimum Great Choice Used to build the lab (laptop bought in 2009)
    CPU Dual Core, 64Bit Quad Core, i7 Core2 Duo
    RAM 8GB How much can you afford? 8GB
    Hard Disk 60GB free space 120GB SSD free space Second SATA hard disk, Laptop OS on small SSD
    Operating System 64 Bit ESXi 5.0 Windows 7 64Bit
    Virtualization Software VMware Player (untested) ESXi 5.0 VMware Workstation 8.0.2

    Additional software

    The AutoLab kit contains open source software and so can be freely redistributed. The full lab requires licensed software components some of which are quite large. Below is a list with download links where these are easily  available.

    For the older vSphere versions and for PowerCLI you will need an account with VMware or a good contact at VMware or a VMware partner.

    The version 4.1 components are only required if you plan to build a 4.1 environment, usually so you can run the upgrade to 5.0.

    • vCenter 5.0 Install DVD
    • ESXi 5.0 Install CDROM
    • vCenter 4.1 Install DVD
    • ESXi 4.1 Install CDROM
    • ESX 4.1 Install CDROM
    • VMware PowerCLI installer
    • VMware vSphere CLI Installer
    • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 180 day trial DVD
    • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Client 64bit
    • Microsoft Windows 2003 Server 32bit or Windows XP 32bit CDROM
     


    📂This entry was posted in Automation ESX ESXi Lab VMware

  • VMware View 5.1

    Posted on by Phillip Jones Comment

    VMware announced today the new features that will be in VMware View 5.1 This release has several new features worth noting.

    • View Storage Accelerator, already announced for View 5.0 and lifted at the last moment, this feature is borrowed from vSphere’s Content Based Read Cache (CBRC) and basically caches frequently used disk blocks into VDI host’s RAM avoiding frequent reading of the same informations from central storage.
    • View Persona Management is now extended to physical machine with the main purpose of VDI migrations or OSes migrations.
    • vCenter Operations (vCOPs) Manager for View is a new version, optimized for virtual desktop deployment, that provides end-to-end realtime monitoring of desktop and users. Already announced at VMworld Europe last year now includes a very requested feature: the ability to monitor PCoIP performance


    Also announced in this release are the following

    • USB Enhancements – We have reworked the USB redirect feature for the Windows client.  The new USB feature no longer requires device driver to be installed on the client side. A generic USB arbitrator is implemented on the client side, while a proper USB hub is implemented in the agent. This allows VMware View to support a much broader range of USB devices while supporting fine-grained remote device policy (e.g. enable/disable mass storage file copy) even on multi-function USB devices.
    • RADIUS Support – Based on customer feedback, we’ve extended the security authentication support in VMware View to other two-factor authentication vendors leveraging a RADIUS client in the View 5.1 Connection Server. This gives you more choice when implementing single sign-on or security tokens into your virtual desktops.
    • Continued PCoIP Enhancements – We also continuously strive to enhance the PCoIP remote protocol following the significant progress made in version 5.0. We realize that optimal remote protocol performance cannot be achieved with code improvement alone. To help our customers make the right choice in protocol with proper performance tuning, we published a white paper comparing the tuning and test results of all state-of-the-art remote protocols:

    Improvements have also been made in how VMware View 5.1 scales out for larger deployments.

    • Increased scale in NFS attached clusters — now you can scale your VMware vSphere clusters up to 32 ESXi hosts
    • Reduce storages costs with View Storage Accelerator — combine VMware View 5.1 with VMware vSphere 5 and substantially optimize read performance using in-memory cache of commonly read blocks — totally transparent to the guest OS
    • Standalone View Composer Server — VMware View Composer can now be installed on its own server, opening up several new capabilities

    To begin understanding large scale VMware View designs, you need the basic building blocks found in all successful VMware View implementations. The three key building blocks are the View Pod, View Block, and Management Pod. These are logical objects, but they do have some tangible boundaries.

    To learn more about these components and scalability improvements, please check out the Demystifying VMware View Large Scale Designs


    📂This entry was posted in VDI View VMware

  • RVTools 3.3 Released

    Posted on by Phillip Jones Comment

    RVTools is one of my favorite VMware community tools that every VMware admin should be using. Today version 3.3 has been released. I have been using this tool for many years and it has saved me from disaster many times.

    RVTools is a windows .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK to display information about your virtual machines and ESX hosts. Interacting with VirtualCenter 2.5, ESX Server 3.5, ESX Server 3i, ESX Server 4i, VirtualCenter 4.0, ESX Server 4.0, VirtualCenter 4.1, ESX Server 4.1, VirtualCenter 5.0, VirtualCenter Appliance or ESX Server 5 RVTools is able to list information about VMs, CPU, Memory, Disks, Partitions, Network, Floppy drives, CD drives, Snapshots, VMware tools, ESX hosts, HBAs, Nics, Switches, Ports, Distributed Switches, Distributed Ports, Service consoles, VM Kernels, Datastores and health checks. With RVTools you can disconnect the cd-rom or floppy drives from the virtual machines and RVTools is able to update the VMware Tools installed inside each virtual machine to the latest version.

    This Application Supports:

    •  ESX Server 3.5
    • VirtualCenter 2.5
    • ESX Server 3i
    • ESX Server 4i
    • VirtualCenter 4.0
    • ESX 4.0
    • VirtualCenter 4.1
    • ESX 4.1
    • VirtualCenter 5.0
    • VirtualCenter Appliance
    • ESX 5

    Changes in 3.3

    • GetWebResponse timeout value changed from 5 minutes to 10 minutes (for very big environments)
    • New tabpage with HBA information
    • On vDatastore tab the definition of the Provisioned MB and In Use MB columnswas confusing! This is changed now.
    • RVToolsSendMail accepts now multiple recipients (semicolon is used as separator)
    • Folder information of VMs and Templates are now visible on vInfo tabpage
    • Bugfix: data in comboboxes on filter form are now sorted
    • Bugfix: Problem with api version 2.5.0 solved
    • Bugfix: Improved exception handling on vCPU tab.
    • Bugfix: Improved exception handling on vDatastore tab.

    Links –
    Offical Site
    Download RVTools


    📂This entry was posted in RVtools tools VMware vSphere

  • vExpert 2012

    Posted on by Phillip Jones Comment

    I am honored to be included in the 2012 vExpert list as awarded by VMware. There are just over 400 experts annoucned this year and I am proud to be included in this distinguished list of Experts.

    The annual VMware vExpert title is given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the community of VMware users over the past year. The title is awarded to individuals (not employers) for their commitment to sharing their knowledge and passion for VMware technology above and beyond their job requirements

    Links –
    vExpert Directory and Information
    vExperts 2012


    📂This entry was posted in 2012 vExpert VMware

  • Citrix Netscaler 10

    Posted on by Phillip Jones Comment

    Citrix systems recently announced the release of Citrix Netscaler 10. I am excited about several of the new features that Netscaler has to offer. This major release has over 160 new features.

    Triscale is perhaps the most compelling and interesting feature announced in Netscaler 10 allowed you to scale up and out at will. Netscalers have thus far been a HA Active/Passive configuration and done well but can now work as a cluster. It introduces the 3 key factors around scalability which addresses all your needs immaterial of what nature of business you have and what is your deployment model.

    • Scale UP – on demand growth up to 5x on single hardware
    • Scale IN – consolidation of 40 appliances in single unit
    • Scale Out – capacity scale by adding nodes up to 32x


    The Clustering technology which enables Scale Out factor by 32x is just wonderful as it works seamlessly on all hardware and software NetScaler appliances. NetScaler 10 introduces this biggest infrastructure change where you can Cluster NetScaler nodes together to drive through any kind of performance and scalability requirement. It focuses on how easily you can transition from multiple nodes working in isolation to logical Cluster of nodes without any physical hardware requirement. It also has a simplified extension model where you can keep adding nodes based on your scale requirements without disrupting the production traffic. It helps reduce the power usage and rack space consumption from Datacenter/Cloud point of view and can be huge for a large deployment.
    Here are quick facts on Cluster:

    • Cluster of NetScaler nodes
    • Can be formed with 2 to 32 nodes
    • Single system image for end user
    • Built on NetScaler nCore architecture
    • No Chassis or new hardware required
    • Dynamic changes permitted

    Cluster Benefits:

    • Provides linear scalability
    • Higher Throughput
    • Configuration Scalability
    • In-built Fault Tolerance
    • Active-active Support
    • Active-standby Support

    Let us get to other functional and usability enhancements in NetScaler 10.

    Traffic Management Enhancements:

    • TCP Westwood support
    • Dynamic TCP receive buffer size
    • Advance policy support for SSL
    • Ability to flush Surge Queue
    • Rule Based Persistence for TCP/SSL_TCP
    • TXT record support in DNS
    • DBS Auto-scaling
    • Responder action for Timeout
    • Better Entity Scalability
    • String based custom server id persistence
    • Preferred backup list for GSLB Proximity
    • Rewriting NX domain responses
    • Slow Start fine tuning at Vserver layer
    • Multiple firewall LB vserver support
    • NetScaler Based persistent ETag
    • NetScaler tracing enhancements
    • Set-cookie header logging for Weblogs
    • Custom Client-IP header logging for Weblogs
    • Multiple Binding for Content Switching Policies
    • SIP Expression Support
      • Content Switching
      • Rewrite
      • Responder
      • Rate Limiting

    Lots of new features and capabilities, increasing the overall value of NetScaler solution. TCP Westwood can act really well in wireless environments. Entity scalability is critical for the larger deployments with huge number of entities around. SIP expression support makes us SIP aware at layer 7 and you can do all kind of layer 7 processing for SIP traffic… technically acting as a SIP firewall :)

    DataStream Enhancements:

    • Responder for DataStream
    • Rate Limiting for DataStream
    • Token LB for DataStream
    • AppFlow for DataStream
    • Logaction for DataStream
    • Caching for DataStream

    DataStream was the biggest innovation in ADC world recently and was introduced with previous release in NetScaler. Now with NetScaler 10 you have all the layer 7 feature modules supporting Database traffic, which add value to HTTP/TCP flows today. So it is completely integrated into the system with advance policy support. The advantages from DataStream Caching and AppFlow would be huge and a real game changer…
    AAA Enhancements:

    • SAML 2.0 Consumer Support
      • Service Provider Initiated
      • Identity Provider Initiated
    • NTLMv2 Session Support
    • NTLMv2 Signing Support

    NetScaler has the strong AAA module and adding further support for NTLMv2 protocol helps with seamless integration into the Microsoft environment. The real game changer here is SAML which is becoming standard authentication and SSO protocol for the Cloud services and deployments. Having SAML 2.0 consumer support is excellent because it enables us to work with various Identity providers. Along with providing other ADC services in Cloud, SAML support will make us de-facto choice for Cloud deployments.
    XA/XD (WIonNS) Enhancements:

    • Client Plugin Download options
    • Login Page Customization
    • Mobile Receiver client support
    • Handling Case sensitivity
    • Multiple Client Access Methods
    • Address Translation

    In order to ease up XenApp/XenDesktop deployments, one of the major step was to have the capacity to host Web Interface on NetScaler. It has huge benefits and to further increase the value proposition multiple enhancements are done to this module.
    Visibility Enhancements:

    • Action Analytics
    • AppFlow
      • New HTTP Export Parameters
      • Support for MySQL and MSSQL
      • EdgeSight record templates

    Visibility became the mainstream focus for us in last release where AppFlow was launched. AppFlow made it possible to see the statistics all the way from layer 2 to layer 7 which was not possible with older standards. As we get deeper into Cloud deployment and even within Enterprise, Visibility requirements are becoming more important and this release enhances the core AppFlow standard to add end to end application visibility.
    NetScaler 10 brings out another exciting feature called “Action Analytics” which is a runtime analytic engine generating all kind of visibility into the applications. It brings in the on-board analytic ability which can be fed back into the policy evaluation cycle. Think of the use case of Caching responses for only Top 10 URLs flowing through the system at any point in time…
    AppExpert Enhancements:

    • Ability to import Responder page
    • Support for HTML5 content parsing
    • New advance expression support

    AppExpert layer has been driving many exciting features in last many releases. This release addresses both functional and usability features for AppExpert.
    Optimization Enhancements:

    • Dynamic Cache Memory
    • Multi Part byte range support
    • Metadata optimization
    • Seek streaming

    NetScaler 10 adds substantial functional features to the optimization layer and brings out the benefits of Cache engine. With these core architectural enhancements the Cache engine can store more objects, process responses faster and handle multi part HTTP requests.
    Application Firewall Enhancements:

    • CEF Logging
    • CSRF learning
    • Click to Rule AppFw
    • Sessionless security
    • AppFw policy manager
    • Signatures for Response side checks

    On Security front as well the AppFw module comes with bunch of exciting enhancements. Click to Rule could be very handy and useful while you want to relax the protection rules. CEF logging can help integration with 3rd party security products. Sessionless security helps with reducing memory usage significantly on the NetScaler platform while resulting into better security.
    Networking Enhancements:

    • Network Profiles
    • Logical grouping of IPs
    • IPv6 Support
      • SNMP
      • LLB
      • PBR
      • DSR
      • RNAT
      • Route with VLAN as nexthop
      • Extension Header parsing
      • IS-IS Routing
      • Monitoring gateway health
      • ACL Enhancements
        • Increased Extended ACL              
        • Better ACL Flush support
        • Rename support for extended ACL and ACL6

    Networking infrastructure bucket has several useful enhancements and specifically the IPv6 support has come through a long way. This is a blockbuster release reducing IPv6 parity with IPv4 features and bringing them on same ground. Network Profile as a feature will be loved by everyone as it helps in several use cases. ACL enhancements are again very useful and would apply to most of the use cases.
    Other Security Focused Enhancements:

    • Configurable SYN cookie protection
    • Runtime detection of SYN attack
    • Protection against TLS Reneg attack
    • Adaptive request timeout for HTTP DoS

    Security has remained our focus and with every release NetScaler adds value to the core protection layer. With NetScaler 10 we have introduced better SYN attack protection ability with runtime detection engine. TLS renegotiation MITM attack was under heavy focus last year and we have core protection added with multiple options as well. NetScaler 10 also addresses the popular Slowloris and Slowpost kind of attacks which troubled many Application and Web deployments worldwide.
    Manageability Enhancements:

    • Lightweight GUI
    • Most pages moved to HTML
    • Pagination support on UI
    • Easy user navigation support
    • Load Balancing Templates
    • Deployment Wizard for BR LB
    • NITRO Enhancements
      • Exception handling
      • Accept header support
      • Content-Type header support
      • HTTP Error code utilization
      • Login auth token support
      • Authentication using HTTP headers
      • Allow warning in NITRO responses
      • Cluster support with NITRO

    Links:
    Netscaler 10 Documentation


    📂This entry was posted in Citrix Netscaler Networking. Access Gateway

  • VMware Fling: vBenchmark

    Posted on by Phillip Jones Comment

    VMware has announced another fling, vBenchmark. vBenchmarks helps measure the benefits of your virtualized VMware environment. VMware flings are cool free tools and pet projects of VMware engineers. Some of these get incorporated into the larger products while others do not. It is a great way to see what is being worked on and what may be coming.

    vBenchmark Summary
    Have you ever wondered how to quantify the benefits of virtualization to your management? If so, please consider using vBenchmark. vBenchmark measures the performance of a VMware virtualized infrastructure across three categories:

    • Efficiency: for example, how much physical RAM are you saving by using virtualization?
    • Operational Agility: for example, how much time do you take on average to provision a VM?
    • Quality of Service: for example, how much downtime do you avoid by using availability features?

    vBenchmark provides a succinct set of metrics in these categories for your VMware virtualized private cloud. Additionally, if you choose to contribute your metrics to the community repository, vBenchmark also allows you to compare your metrics against those of comparable companies in your peer group. The data you submit is anonymized and encrypted for secure transmission.

    Key Features:

    • Retrieves metrics across one or multiple vCenter servers
    • Allows inclusion or exclusion of hosts at the cluster level
    • Allows you to save queries and compare over time to measure changes as your environment evolves
    • Allows you to define your peer group by geographic region, industry and company size, to see how you stack up

    vBenchmark is packaged as a virtual appliance with the following configuration:

    • vCPUs: 1
    • vRAM: 1.5 GB
    • vHDD: 5 GB

    Compatible Browsers:

    • Firefox 9+ (Windows)
    • Firefox 5+ (Linux)
    • Chrome 12+ (Windows & Linux)
    • Safari 5+ (Mac)
    • Internet Explorer 9+ (Windows)

    vBenchmark Instructions

    There are 3 deployment options for vBenchmark:

    • OVF: can be deployed directly to vCenter server 4.x, 5.0 and vCloud Director 1.x
    • OVA: can be deployed on vCenter server 4.x and 5.0
    • VMX: can be opened in VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion and VMware Player.

    Once the virtual appliance has been deployed and powered on, you can access the vBenchmark application from a web browser by entering the IP address of the virtual appliance.

    Links:
    vBenchmark Download
    About VMware Flings


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized

  • VMware VCP5 thoughts

    Posted on by Phillip Jones Comment

    As a follow up on my post How I intend to Pass the VCP5. I took the VCP5 on February 28th, talk about last minute as existing VCP4 only had until February 29th (Leap Day) to pass the test without having to take the VMware vSphere: What’s New [V5.0]. I can’t talk about what was on the test but I believe it was a harder test but very fair and leaning more forward hands on experience than sheer memorization. I think that is a move in the right direction. I did better this go around than I did on the VCP4 having a nice buffer, I felt good going in and out after the test.

    I also want to give a shout out to the Brownbags a VMware related podcast that covers products, technologies and certifications around the VMware ecosphere. There is a community driven effort led by Cody Bunch with many community guest speakers such as Damian Karlson, Josh Atwell and many others. I highly recommend this in addition to any other resource you are using for VMware VCP5 preparation.


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized

  • Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 and Provisioning Server 6.1 Released

    Posted on by Phillip Jones Comment

    Recently Citrix released to GA (general availability) XenDesktop 5.6 and Provisioning Server 6.1. Both of these upgrades fix many issues and offer new features. Below are some of the details on these two new product releases. I am really excited about Personal vDisk for Xendesktop as this allow users to join the pool and have their personalized installed apps follow them. I will blog more seperately about this new feature in the future.

    Provisioning Server 6.1 now supports vSphere 5.x as indicated below for those of you deploying Citrix on VMware as well as some KMS licensing modifications.

    XenDesktop 5.6

    XenDesktop 5.6 includes the following new features and enhancements:

    • Personal vDisk – This feature is a personalization solution for virtual desktops. Two new types of catalog allow you to preserve the assignment of users to desktops even when the disk is cleaned at restart; the same user is assigned the same desktop for later sessions. The new catalogs are pooled with personal vDisk (for pooled-static virtual desktops) that you manage with Desktop Studio and streamed with personal vDisk that you manage with Provisioning Services. In addition, a dedicated storage disk is created, before logon, so users can store their data on the desktop, including any applications they install. For background information on this feature, see About Personal vDisks. New commands have also been added to the XenDesktop Software Development Kit (SDK) to support this feature.
    • System Center support – XenDesktop now supports Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and Microsoft System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager.
    • Virtual Desktop Agent – A new version of the Virtual Desktop Agent fixes issues in the version included with XenDesktop 5.5.
    • Citrix Licensing – Citrix Licensing 11.10 lets you assign access to the License Administration Console using Active Directory Users and Groups.
    • Desktop Director – Desktop Director 2.1 supports personal vDisks and contains fixes since the last release. For more information, see the Desktop Director documentation.
    • Fixed issues – For information on the issues that have been fixed in this release, see CTX124164.

    Known Issues

    The following known issues have been observed in this version of XenDesktop:

    • If Microsoft Visual Studio is installed by an administrator on a master image, it may fail to start on virtual desktops that are created from the image. Reinstalling this application, updating the image, and restarting the desktops corrects this issue. [#0270259]
    • Desktop-background images (wallpapers) are lost when users switch between a desktop with a personal vDisk and a desktop without one. This issue occurs with Windows roaming profiles when users select images for the background. The issue does not occur with background colors. The workaround is to use profile management solutions, such as Citrix Profile management. [#0272970]
    • In some deployments involving Windows 7 virtual desktops with personal vDisks, users may notice that network drives are incorrectly displayed as offline, instead of unavailable, in Windows Explorer. These are deployments in which the Enable Offline Files policy is changed to Disable Offline Files in Microsoft Group Policy. To work around this issue, ensure that Disable Offline Files policy is applied on the master image before using it to create virtual desktops. [#0277774]
    • Desktop-background images (wallpapers) are lost when users switch between a desktop with a personal vDisk and a desktop without one. This issue occurs with Windows roaming profiles when users select images for the background. The issue does not occur with background colors. The workaround is to modify as follows the Registry on the desktop containing the personal vDisk, and to use a profile management solution, such as Citrix Profile management, to handle profiles stored on the desktop.

      Caution: Editing the Registry incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Citrix cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Be sure to back up the registry before you edit it.

      In HKLMSoftwareCitrixpersonal vDiskConfig, change the value of the EnableUserProfileRedirection key from 1 to 0 [#0272970]

    • Do not use Desktop Studio to administer a mixed-controller site. Desktop Studio displays misleading information in a mixed site and cannot be used to create and manage objects in it. For example, if you have two controllers but only upgrade one to XenDesktop 5.6, the Pooled with Personal vDisk catalog type appears in Desktop Studio but you cannot create virtual desktops with it. The workaround for this issue is to upgrade fully all controllers in the site before using Desktop Studio to manage it (and only to follow supported upgrade paths). [#0276786]
    • Citrix recommends planning your hypervisor hardware requirements so the reduction in CPU performance when personal vDisks are used does not detract from the user experience. The reduction is also affected, especially in large-scale deployments, by your choice of operating system (OS). For example, in some environments Windows 7 machines with personal vDisks significantly outperform the equivalent Windows XP machines, allowing more Windows 7 machines to be hosted on each hypervisor. Choosing that OS rather than Windows XP therefore means you purchase and maintain less hardware. Citrix continues to investigate differences in operating system performance and continues to optimize XenDesktop scalability. [#0284660, #0284706]
    • You may fail to create viable machines if a node in a Hyper-V cluster is paused or offline. In some scenarios, the Failover Cluster Manager Console shows that resources are allocated for machines but Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager and XenDesktop cannot recognize them. To work around this issue, manually remove these resources using the Failover Cluster Manager Console and ensure all nodes are healthy (not paused or offline) before creating the machines again. [#285696]
    • The error “Citrix Personal vDisk failed to start” may be displayed on a desktop with a personal vDisk. If the error includes “Status code: 7” and “Error code: 0x2000000b”, this indicates that a master image has been distributed but the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD, part of the personal vDisk) is full. To work around this issue, on the image increase the percentage value of the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECitrixpersonal vDiskConfigPercentOfPvDForApps, and redistribute the image. [#287292]

    Citrix Provisioning Server 6.1

    Starting with this release, see http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131938 to view a list of fixed issues and hot fixes since the previous Provisioning Services release.

    This release contains the following new enhancements:

    • Support for Personal vDisks — Citrix XenDesktop with personal vDisk technology is a high-performance enterprise desktop virtualization solution that makes VDI accessible to workers who require personalized desktops using pooled-static virtual machines. Target devices that use personal vDisks are created using the Citrix XenDesktop Setup Wizard. Within a Provisioning Services farm, the wizard creates and adds target devices with personal vDisks to an existing site’s collection and assigns an existing shared-mode vDisk to that device. The wizard also creates XenDesktop virtual machines to associate with each device. A new type of catalog exists in Citrix Desktop Studio that allows you to preserve the assignment of users to desktops; the same users are assigned the same desktop for later sessions. In addition, a dedicated storage disk is created (before logon) for each user so they can store all personalization’s to that desktop. Personalizations include any changes to the vDisk image or desktop that are not made as a result of an image update, such as application settings, adds, deletes, modifications, documents, etc.
    • Support for Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager (SCCM) – The vDisk Update Management feature now supports SCCM 2012 environments.
    • Support for Microsoft System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) – The XenDesktop Setup Wizard and Streamed VM Setup Wizard now support SCVMM 2012 for Hyper-V environments.
    • Provisioning Services support for KMS licensing no longer requires local administrator privileges. Provisioning Services SoapServer KMS licensing now requires the same VHD mount privileges as Microsoft Windows (SE_MANAGE_VOLUME_PRIVILEGE, which is included in Administrators group by default).

      Note: If upgrading from a past release, be sure to reset the privileges accordingly.

    • Hypervisor support for ESX 5.0.

    Known Issues and Limitations

    In this Provisioning Services release, the following known issues has been identified:

    XenDesktop Setup Wizard
    BUG0278019 — In a streamed XenDesktop environment, the preferred mechanism for creating streamed desktop catalogs is to use the XenDesktop Setup Wizard, which is available from the Provisioning Services Console. While the XenDesktop Desktop Studio console also provides a mechanism to create streamed catalogs by ‘importing’ information from Provisioning Services, it is not the preferred mechanism because using it can lead to duplicate desktops being created in multiple catalogs (an unsupported configuration). To avoid this, only create new catalogs using the XenDesktop Setup Wizard, and only use the streamed catalog creation mechanism in Desktop Studio if you are reconstructing a catalog from previously created VM’s.

     Links to Download (Requires MyCitrix login)


    📂This entry was posted in Citrix Provisioning Server XenDesktop

  • Lab Software: Veeam offers free NFR Licenses

    Posted on by Phillip Jones Comment

    In a continuation of my Lab and tools series of blog post. Veeam a leader in virtualized backup and monitoring software has a holiday gift for you, an NFR (Not for Resale) version of Veeam Backup and Replication v6. This license is available for current VMware vExpert, VMware Certified Professional (VCP), VMware Certified Instructor (VCI) or VMware User Group (VMUG) member. You can get a FREE 2-socket NFR* license for Veeam Backup & Replication v6 for your home or work lab.

    Veeam Backup & Replication is built specifically for virtual environments to provide fast backup and recovery for virtual machines running on both VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V. With a single license, from a unified console, you can support your entire virtual infrastructure with industry leading features such as instant file level recovery and streamlined VM recovery, scalability, 2-in-1 backup & replication, built-in de-duplication, centralized management and much more. You can obtain this software for both VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V.

    Links and Resources.
    Official Product Page: http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup.html?ad=menu
    Whats new in v6: http://www.veeam.com/veeam_backup_6_0_whats_new_wn.pdf
    On Demand Webinars: http://go.veeam.com/v6-backup-replication-ty.html


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized