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Index
Mastering Citrix® XenDesktop®
Table of Contents
Mastering Citrix® XenDesktop®
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
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Disclaimer
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Evolution and Core Strengths of XenDesktop®
The evolution of XenDesktop®
Citrix® and its vision
Citrix®'s relationship with Microsoft
Citrix® XenDesktop® virtualization solutions
The XenDesktop® and Project Avalon roadmap
XenDesktop® releases and improvements
Citrix® Desktop Server 1.0
XenDesktop® 2.0
XenDesktop® 2.1
XenDesktop® 3.0
XenDesktop® 3.0 Feature Pack 1
XenDesktop® 4.0
XenDesktop® 4.0 Feature Pack 1
XenDesktop® 4.0 Feature Pack 2
XenDesktop® 5.0
XenDesktop® 5.5
XenDesktop® 5.6
XenDesktop® 5.6 Feature Pack 1
XenDesktop® 7.0
XenDesktop® 7.1
XenDesktop® 7.5
XenDesktop® 7.6
XenDesktop® 7.6 Feature Pack 1
Core strengths of XenDesktop®
Citrix® Receiver for any device, anytime, anywhere
HDX user experience technology
Intelligent redirection
Adaptive compression
De-duplication of network traffic
FlexCast® delivery technology
Hosted shared
Hosted VDI
Random/Non-persistent
Static/Non-persistent
Static persistent
Remote PC
Streamed VHD
Local VM
On-demand apps
Open architecture - Cloud-ready FMA
On-demand applications by XenApp®
Automated application migration with AppDNA®
High security and compliance standards
Summary
2. Understanding the XenDesktop® Architecture in Detail
Key features of the XenDesktop® architecture for businesses
The evolution of XenDesktop® architecture
XenDesktop® 2.0 and Independent Management Architecture (IMA)
XenDesktop® 5.0 and FlexCast® Management Architecture
XenDesktop® 7.0 with FMA - the unified architecture for XenDesktop® 7 and XenApp®
The basics of FMA - the XenDesktop® architecture
Concepts and terminologies
The components of FMA
Core components
Additional components
The features of FMA
Terminology change from the IMA to the latest FMA
Advanced FMA - the XenDesktop® architecture in detail
The five layers of FMA
Working of FMA components to deliver virtual desktops
Phase 1 - User authentication and resources enumeration
Phase 2 - Virtual Desktop allocation and connection establishment
Designing FMA for your XenDesktop® deployment
Project Accelerator
The assess phase
The design phase
Results along with an example
Summary
3. Designing XenDesktop® for Complex Environments
Desktop environments
The essential elements of a desktop environment
Business expectations of a desktop environment
XenDesktop® – Transforming desktop environments
XenDesktop®
Additional technologies
Process of designing XenDesktop® deployments
Decisions to be made at each layer
User layer
Access layer
Desktop/resource layer
Control layer
Hardware layer
Tools for designing XenDesktop®
Project Accelerator
Virtual Desktop Handbook
XenDesktop® Reviewer's Guide
XenDesktop® deployment architectures for complex environments
XenDesktop® architecture designed for high availability
Overview
In-depth analysis of the HA architecture at each layer of FMA
User layer
Access layer
Desktop/resource layer
Control layer
Hardware layer
Best practices of HA
Design considerations for a scalable deployment
XenDesktop® scalability
StoreFront
Delivery controllers
Database
Provisioning technologies—MCS and PVS
Open architecture and Cloud support
Windows operating system and applications optimization
Site capacity and multi-site deployments
Hardware scalability
Single server scalability
Scalability with hardware assisted server technologies
Storage considerations
App Orchestration – multi forest Active Directory Environment
Active Directory requirements
DNS requirements
VDA requirements
SSL requirements
XenDesktop® and Cloud computing integration
Cloud computing for desktop virtualization
XenDesktop® Cloud support
CloudPlatform
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Computing (EC2)
AWS limitations for XenDesktop® deployment
Private Cloud
The deployment architecture
Public Cloud (using Amazon AWS)
The deployment architecture
Deployment functional overview
Detailed deployment procedure
Hybrid Cloud (using Amazon AWS)
The deployment architecture
Deployment functional overview
Detailed deployment procedure
Summary
4. Implementing a XenDesktop® Environment
Installing of XenDesktop®'s main components
Installing Citrix® Licensing
Understanding the site database
Installing the Delivery Controller
Creating the XenDesktop® site
Installing Citrix® Director
Installing Citrix® StoreFront
Creating a Citrix® StoreFront store
Summary
5. Delivering Virtual Desktops and Optimizing XenDesktop®
Configuring XenDesktop® components for high availability
Installing an additional Delivery Controller
Installing an additional Citrix® StoreFront
Making configuration changes in StoreFront
Installing Virtual Desktop Agent
Creating and configuring machine catalogs and delivery groups
Optimizing XenDesktop® Virtual Desktop Agent for performance
Managing Citrix® policies
Summary
6. Configuring XenDesktop® for Advanced Use Cases
Advanced use cases of XenDesktop®
Implementing advanced business use cases with XenDesktop®
Fine-tuning and customizing XenDesktop® for advanced use cases
Configuring XenDesktop® for advanced business use cases
High-end 3D business applications using GPU technology
Traditional setup for high-end 3D business applications using physical desktops
XenDesktop® provisioning GPU enabled virtual desktops
NVidia GRID – graphics accelerated virtualization
XenDesktop® 3D solution architectures using NVidia GRID technology
Implementing XenDesktop® 3D solutions using NVidia GRID technology
Steps to implement the GPU sharing environment using Citrix® XenDesktop®, XenServer®, and NVidia GRID
Unified Communications Solutions (UCS) - audio and video conferencing applications
Challenges with UCS - audio and video conferencing applications
XenDesktop® support for UCS (audio and video conferencing) applications
Generic HDX RealTime technologies
Optimized HDX RealTime technologies
Local App Access (Reverse Seamless) for the UCS applications
XenDesktop® and UCS (audio and video conferencing) applications
XenDesktop® optimized UCS applications
Other UCS applications and XenDesktop®
Configuring the UCS applications in XenDesktop®
Optimized for XenDesktop® – Microsoft Lync
Generic UCS application – Citrix® GoToMeeting
Streaming media applications through HDX technology
Components of streaming media and its setup in the traditional desktop environment
XenDesktop streaming media capabilities
The HDX MediaStream Flash Redirection
Configuring XenDesktop® for streaming media
Configuring HDX MediaStream Flash Redirection
Secured Internet access through web filtering
Web filtering technologies and their options
Integrating web filtering technologies with XenDesktop®
Further consideration for DaaS service providers
Secured virtual desktops through policy restrictions
Windows group policies and registry restrictions
General restrictions
Completely locked down or restricted service provider environments
Further resources
Citrix® policy restrictions
Further resources
Virtual desktops through low bandwidth remote and mobile user connections
Remote access from home PC broadband networks
Remote office WAN connections
Mobile users Wi-Fi and telecom network connections
High Performance Computing applications
High-performance computing and Citrix XenDesktop
NVidia GRID vGPUs and CUDA
Advanced fine-tuning of XenDesktop®
Virtual display
Citrix® display delivery technologies
Progressive display
Legacy graphics mode - adaptive display
H.264-enhanced SuperCodec
Desktop Composition Redirection
The HDX display delivery technologies comparison
Integrating local applications
Business use cases for Local App Access
Configuring Local App Access
Enabling Local App Access
Enabling only local applications access that is published in Studio
Current limitations of Local App Access
Controlling seamless and in-browser access
Provisioning instant virtual desktop sessions
Summary
7. Networking for XenDesktop®
The role of networking in XenDesktop®
Overview - extranet access via NetScaler connecting to virtual desktops
Phase 1 - User authentication and resources enumeration
Phase 2 - Virtual desktop allocation and connection establishment
Communication ports used across XenDesktop®
XenDesktop® and layers of networking
Networking in a traditional desktop environment
Networking in virtual environments
Windows networking
Challenges in configuring networking for XenDesktop®
Network layer components and configuration
External networking
The domain name provider
External DNS
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates
How Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates secure communication
Third-party Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates
Installing and binding an SSL certificate for your website
Planning IP addresses and VLANs
Types of IP addresses
Public addresses
Private addresses
Choosing public and private IP addresses
Virtual LAN (VLAN)
Firewall
Network Address Translation (NAT)
Port forwarding/redirection
Port overloading
Real-time monitoring
Audit logging
Configuration replication
Citrix® NetScaler
Components and architecture
NetScaler deployment and its working
NetScaler features
Global server load balancing (GSLB)
Load balancing
NetScaler Gateway
The role of NetScaler
Citrix® CloudBridge
The CloudBridge architecture
Web proxy / filter servers
Virtualization layer network components
The host/management network
NIC teaming/bonding
The virtual machine network
Full Internet access
Windows networking
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
DHCP for multiple networks and subnets
Configuring DHCP
Linking DHCP and DNS
DHCP for XenDesktop®
DHCP for XenDesktop® using provisioning services
Active Directory (AD) and domain membership
Virtual desktops and AD membership
Domain Name System (DNS)
Configuring DNS
DNS zones
Types of DNS zones
Classification of DNS zones
Types of DNS entries
Features of Windows DNS
Virtual desktops and DNS
Internal SSL certificates
IIS hosting StoreFront sites
Windows Firewall
Windows Firewall and XenDesktop®
Citrix® recommended network performance tuning
Summary
8. Monitoring and Troubleshooting XenDesktop®
Overview of monitoring and troubleshooting XenDesktop®
A deep dive into monitoring and troubleshooting XenDesktop®
Citrix® Director and EdgeSight®
Architecture
The Citrix® monitoring service
Installation
EdgeSight® performance management
EdgeSight® network analysis
Configuring EdgeSight® network analysis in Director
Linking the Insight Center virtual appliance with NetScaler
Linking Director Server with Insight Center
Configuring Delegated Administration
XenDesktop®'s built-in administrator roles for Director
Using Director and EdgeSight®
The dashboard view
The trends view
The filters view
Predefined filter views
Custom filter views
Shadowing user sessions
Monitoring licenses
Citrix® Studio
Common tasks for testing the XenDesktop® environment
Search
Configuration Logging
Enabling and disabling Configuration Logging
Accessing Configuration Logging data from Director
Creating reports from Configuration Logging
Citrix® Insight Services (CIS)
Citrix® Collection Tools for Citrix® Insight Services
Using Citrix® Insight Services
Citrix® Scout for XenDesktop® diagnostics
Included Citrix® tools
Key data points collected
Running Citrix® Scout
PowerShell command-lets
Citrix® troubleshooting tools for XenDesktop®
How to troubleshoot XenDesktop® issues
Refer to the right documentation
Understand the XenDesktop® architecture and its setup in your environment
Understanding the nature of issues
Citrix® HDX monitor
Features of HDX monitor
HDX technologies supported
Using HDX monitor
Citrix® Diagnostics Toolkit
Suite of tools included
XDDBDiag
XDPing
CDF Control
Citrix® Print Detective
XenDesktop® Site Checker
Troubleshooting knowledge for issues out of the scope of XenDesktop
Network tracing for external access issues
Troubleshooting at the virtualization layer
Troubleshooting at the Windows layer
Summary
9. XenDesktop® PowerShell SDK for Automation
PowerShell SDK for automation
The purpose of SDK
PowerShell and its capabilities
PowerShell and .NET framework
PowerShell and WMI
PowerShell and COM
PowerShell Remoting and WinRM
Target audience for PowerShell scripting
PowerShell for XenDesktop®
Role of automation for IT
Tools for developing automation using PowerShell SDK
Microsoft PowerShell ISE
PowerGUI
Visual Studio extensions
PowerShell tools
Citrix® Developer
The PowerShell community – CodePlex and PowerGUI
Using the XenDesktop® PowerShell SDK
Installation and configuration
Installing and configuring PowerShell
Installing and configuring XenDesktop® PowerShell SDK
Running SDK command-lets
Creating PowerShell scripts
Automation using PowerShell scripts
A deep dive into the XenDesktop® PowerShell SDK
Key notes about using PowerShell
Structure of the latest PowerShell SDK
Folder structure
PowerShell Module adoption
A complete reference of the PowerShell SDK
Troubleshooting and commonly used SDK command-lets
Get the license details
Get XenDesktop® Site details
Get XenDesktop® Site Services details
Test XenDesktop® Site services
Get the XenDesktop® database details
Get virtual desktop details and status
Get the XenDesktop® admin and user details
Summary
10. XenDesktop® and App-V Integration
Understanding the App-V infrastructure
The App-V components
Creating virtual applications using App-V
Delivering App-V applications using XenDesktop®
Installing the App-V client
Summary
11. XenDesktop® Licensing
Understanding Citrix® licensing
Microsoft licensing for virtual desktops
Discovering Citrix® XenDesktop® editions
Allocating Citrix® licenses
Summary
Index
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