Virtual Desktop Blog
Friday, 03 July 2009 11:30 | 
Author: Nico van Meurs | 
A few weeks ago I finally got a new laptop from my company. Ok it’s still only a Dell Latitude D830, but…. it’s virtualization compatible!
So now I could do what I planned a while ago; Install Windows 2008 R2 on my laptop and play around with Hyper-V.
So I installed Windows Server 2008 R2, installed the Hyper-V role, cool stuff! But now I need an OS to do my work on and I was not planning to use my parent partition for this.
So I thought I’ll just install a Windows 7 virtual machine and use that VM in full screen mode to work on… no problem right? Well I can tell you… the performance is not very satisfactory. So what now?
Luckily for me Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 have the capability to be booted directly from a VHD. So this means that you can create a dual boot scenario where you can choose between the natively installed Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 that boots from VHD. What’s extra cool about this, is that for backup up your complete Windows 7 workspace, you only have to make a copy of the VHD! For who likes this, here’s what you have to do;
1. Of course you first have to install Windows 2008 R2 and with the Hyper-V role on top of it.
2. After that create a new virtual machine and install Windows 7 on that machine. Make sure to use a fixed size VHD! Otherwise you will begin to notice the defragmentation after some time
3. After the installation of Windows 7 including your favorite apps I advise you to make a copy of the VHD so that you can always revert to your clean installation.
4. Now use the following commands to add Windows 7 to the boot menu;
bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Windows 7 VHD"
This command returns a guid for the new boot entry. Use this guid in the next commands.
bcdedit /set <guid> device vhd=[driveletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
bcdedit /set <guid> osdevice vhd=[driverletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
bcdedit /set <guid> detecthal on
This should look something like this:
You can repeat this method for as many VHD’s as you like. My next move will be to mount a VHD where I will try to install Citrix XenServer on. I’ll post my results here!
Monday, 29 June 2009 13:37 | Author: Nico van Meurs |
In Provisioning Server 5.1 Citrix changed the SOAP service port from 8001 to 54321. They did this to avoid a port collision when the PVS Server and the XenDesktop Server are installed on the same system.
But with this change a new problem arised. When you run through the XenDesktop Setup Wizard on the Provisioning Server and you arive at the Virtual Disk (vDisk) selection screen, no vDisks are displayed. The follwoing message is bing displayed:
Unable to retrieve the vDisk templates.
When you click details your see the following error:
Unable to retreive site information from the Provisioning Server farm.
Unable to find sites in Provisioning Server. The operation failed with System.ServiceModel.CommunicationObjectFaultedExeption.
To solve this issue we need to make some changes in the SetupToolApplication.exe.config file on the Provisioning Server. The file is located in: C:\Program Files\Citrix\XenDesktop Setup Wizard
Now open the file with notepad and edit the following lines:
Locate the following line;
http://localhost:8000/pvs/mapi/commandset
Change the line to;
http://localhost:54321/pvs/mapi/commandset
Also locate the following line;
net.tcp://localhost:8001/pvs/mapi/commandset
Change this line to;
net.tcp://localhost:54322/pvs/mapi/commandset
Now save the file and restart the XenDesktop Setup Wizard. You will notice that you can now choose your vDisks in the Virtual Disk (vDisk) section of the wizard.
Friday, 12 June 2009 10:48 | Author: Nico van Meurs |
As of last Tuesday Citrix released Provisioning Server 5.1.
So.. lets take a look at the new features:
Standard Image NIC Teaming
Enables teaming of NIC’s on provisioned devices using Intel or Broadcom based NIC teaming drivers.
This was a feature that was already available for private image mode, but is now also available for standard image mode. Especially needful in high available environments where XenApp is being provisioned.
Offline vDisk Maintenance
Provides ability to boot Provisioning Services VHD Images directly with XenServer or Hyper-V for “offline” maintenance without requiring access to a streamed device.
This is actually an extremely cool feature! This greatly simplifies the process of upgrading the Provisioning Server client software, where you normally had to reverse image the vDisk to a physical harddisk in order to make changes to the Provisioning Server client drivers. You can now directly boot the vDisk in either XenServer or Hyper-V and just make the changes right there!
User Assigned vDisks
Selects the vDisk to stream to a provisioned system based on the user logging into it.
Important to know here is that during boot time the user is asked for username and domain. There is no password authentication in this functionality. The user assigned vDisks feature is only meant to identify the user and assigning the right image. This feature can be useful for schools so that students don’t have to choose their image from a menu, but get the correct image by just typing in their username.
Offline Database Support
Allows for continued operation of Provisioning Services hosts and provisioned systems in the event of a database failure or outage.
What happens here, is that al Provisioning Services hosts have their own cached database stored locally so that when the database server fails, new booting systems can still be mapped to the correct image. During this time the PVS hosts may not be rebooted! Sounds pretty formilliar....Local Host Cache anybody?
Server Maintenance Mode
Provides a mechanism to place a Provisioning Services host into “maintenance mode”, automatically moving streaming sessions to other hosts in the farm.
Can be pretty usefull, before this release you had to just stop the streaming service so all devices would failover to the other hosts.
Multiple Partition vDisks
Enables imaging of systems that have multiple physical or logical drives into a single vDisk.
XenConvert 2.0 is now being used for the Image Build process. XenConvert gives you the opportunity to convert up to 4 volumes to your vDisk.
Read Only vDisk Storage
Improves system performance by allowing VHD’s to be deployed on read-only volumes, reducing disk I/O.
I don’t exactly know what is being meant here. But it looks like with this feature you’re now able to host your vDisk on SAN volumes directly attached to your PVS hosts without the need for a product like Sanbolic MelioFS.
Is there anybody that can confirm this?
Auditing and Enhanced Logging
Provides enhanced ability to monitor system and administrator activity.
Yet another step to becoming a really mature product.
XP Embedded Streaming
Provides ability to build and stream XP Embedded images used by thin client machines.
This is quite a nice feature for companies using Windows XP Embedded thinclients. Now you’re able to provision desktops, terminal servers and thinclients all with the same product.
Also take a look at this Q&A about the new release:
Q: Will PVS 5.1 work with XenDesktop?A: Yes, PVS 5.1 will work and has been tested with and is only support on XenDesktop 3.0 at this time. Q: Will PVS 5.1 work with XenServer?A: Yes, PVS 5.1 will work with and has been tested with XenServer 5.0 (with hotfix 3 installed) and will ship and be supported with XenServer 5.5. Q: Will PVS 5.1 work with XenApp?A: Yes, PVS 5.1 will work with XenApp Platinum (XA 4.x and higher) and the recent new license model. We recently made a change that allows more troubleshooting time in the event of IMA service failure where you have 3 hours to troubleshoot in the event IMA has issue and PVS cannot determine the edition of the XenApp server being booted. Solves the 5 minute shutdown issue! Q: Will PVS 5.1 work with XenAppPrep?A: Yes, PVS 5.1 will work with XenAppPrep. For information on XenAppPrep: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX116063 Q: Can I upgrade from PVS 5.0 to PVS 5.1?A: Yes, please refer to the Install.pdf which is now included with the install download in the root. There you will find a whole section on upgrading! Q: Can I boot a PVS 5.x vDisk file from a PVS 5.1 server?A: Yes. When we designed PVS 5.0 the intent was to make upgrading a little easier. One thing to note, the benefit of upgrading the VHDs to PVS 5.1 is so you gain any updates/changes/new features we made to our client install. Once major change was support for vendor NIC teaming, so be weary of that! Check out the a new way to upgrade our vDisks on page 93 of the Install.pdf.
Monday, 18 May 2009 10:04 | Author: Nico van Meurs |
The exam has 51 questions, all multiple choise. And you get 2 hours (it took me 30 minutes...)
I must say it's a pretty easy exam, especially if you are currently working with the product on a regular basis. But there are some sneaky questions. So if you are planning to take the exam, bare this in mind;
- Walk througt all the options in the console, it's not that much and it will help you awnser a lot of questions;
- Know all writecache options including the advantaged and disadvantages;
- Know on which levels you can delegatie administrative permissions;
- Know about store types (site/farm) and store owners;
- Walk through the Configuration Wizard a few times and know all configuration options;
- Know when to use which type of streaming account;
- Know the permissions of the streaming acount for registry, database and vDisk store;
- Know all network services and when they are being used;
- Know the vDisk automatic update procedures.
I think with this in mind the exam must be peace of cake! Oh also good to know, I had absolutely no questions about the portblocking and personality features (probably cause nobody uses them).
Good luck with the exam!
Tuesday, 07 April 2009 11:08 | Author: Nico van Meurs |
Citrix finally released some documentation about the Provisioning Server / XenApp usecase. The documents are available for 2 weeks but I just noticed them yesterday.
Provisioning Services for XenApp - Reference Architecture
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120512
Provisioning Services for XenApp - Implementation Guide
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120513
Provisioning Services for XenApp Best Practices
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120464
Friday, 03 April 2009 11:07 | Author: Nico van Meurs |
I'm very happy with this opportunity to help increase the validity of the upcoming Citrix exam. I've done many Citrix exams in the past and like the idea that I now have an influence on the content of this new CCEE exam!
From the email:
Dear Subject Matter Expert,
Congratulations! You have been selected to participate in the Item Development Workshop (IDW) for the new Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer™ (CCEE) Engineering a Virtualization Solution exam! You were selected to participate in this workshop because of your knowledge and experience implementing Citrix products and technologies in enterprise environments. I am excited that you are going to participate in this very important workshop. By participating in this workshop, you will help us increase the validity of the upcoming exam and reach our goal to assess relevant and real world scenarios.
During the workshop you will have the unique opportunity to work alongside other experts to develop questions for the new CCEE Engineering a Virtualization Solution exam. You will share your expertise with your peers and the Citrix Education Exam Development team. You will also be listed as a subject matter expert for this exam in the exam’s enablement guide, which will be published on www.citrixtraining.com and will also be accessible from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, GoodSearch, etc. In addition to being mentioned in the enablement guide, you will receive free copies of related courseware and a voucher for this exam as well as other benefits.
- View Online Citrix Documentation with Citrix eDocs
- Citrix App Reciever for IPhone: Tech Preview Out Now!!
- Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 SP2 Released
- HOW TO GUIDE: Installing and Configuring Citrix Provisioning Server for Deploying XenApp - Part 2
- HOW TO GUIDE: Installing and Configuring Citrix Provisioning Server for Deploying XenApp - Part 1
) and is still busy designing and implementing SBC and VDI environments at customers, based on Citrix products. Besides consultancy Eelco is frequently asked for troubleshooting jobs and infrastructural challenges.