Preface

XenApp is the leader in application hosting and virtualization delivery, allowing users from different platforms such Windows, Mac, Linux, and mobile devices to connect to their business applications. Using XenApp, you can deploy secure applications quickly to thousands of users.

XenApp 6.5 brings with it exciting new features such as a brand new management console, Instant App access, Multi-stream ICA, Single Sign-on and SmartAuditor enhancements, and more.

Getting Started with Citrix XenApp 6.5 provides comprehensive details on how to design, implement, and maintain Citrix farms based on XenApp 6.5. Additionally, you will learn to use management tools and scripts for daily tasks such as managing servers, published resources, printers, and connections.

Getting Started with Citrix XenApp 6.5 starts by introducing the basics and new features of the brand new version such as installing servers and configuring components, and then teaches you how to publish applications and resources on the client device before moving on to configuring content redirection.

Author Guillermo Musumeci, includes a use case throughout the book to explain advanced topics like creating management scripts and deploying and optimizing XenApp for Citrix XenServer, VMware vSphere, and Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines. It will guide you through an unattended installation of XenApp and components on physical servers.

By the end of this book, you will have enough knowledge to successfully design and manage your own XenApp 6.5 Farms.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with XenApp 6.5, provides an introduction to XenApp 6.5 and discusses the new features in the product. This chapter also covers the requirements to deploy XenApp 6.5.

Chapter 2, Designing a XenApp 6.5 Farm, explains Citrix farm terminologies and concepts, and how to design a basic XenApp architecture and a basic pilot plan to deploy XenApp. Also, how to choose applications and implement them on XenApp is discussed with the help of a case study.

Chapter 3, Installing XenApp 6.5, describes how to install and configure XenApp 6.5, including XenApp, Licensing Service, and Web Interface roles using the new XenApp Server Role Manager. Configuring Remote Desktop Services, installing the new Citrix AppCenter management console, and learning about Controller and Session-host modes are also discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 4, Advanced XenApp Deployment, explains unattended install of XenApp servers and customizing the Web Interface.

Chapter 5, Using Management Tools, presents the Citrix AppCenter Console, License Administration, and Citrix Web Interface Management Consoles. It shows other tools like Citrix SSL Relay Configuration tool, Shadow taskbar, and SpeedScreen Latency Reduction Manager. Finally, it shows how to create and manage Citrix administrator's accounts.

Chapter 6, Application Publishing, discusses how to publish different types of resources in XenApp: hosted and streamed applications, content and server desktops. Also, it discovers content redirection, from server to client and client to server, and explains how to set up and update file type associations.

Chapter 7, Application Streaming, explains the installation, configuration, and delivery of streaming applications. It describes system requirements and components for application streaming. It chooses plugins for application streaming and describes how to profile and publish Microsoft Office 2010 on a XenApp farm.

Chapter 8, Managing XenApp Policies, describes XenApp policies and how to create, manage, and apply Citrix policies. It explains the use of the Group Policy Management Console, Citrix AppCenter Console, and Local Group Policy Editor to manage Citrix Policies. Also, troubleshooting Citrix Policies is discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 9, Printing in XenApp Environments, describes Windows and Citrix XenApp printing concepts. It explains how to assign network printers to users using Citrix policies. It presents the new XenApp Printing Optimization Pack. It shows how to manage printer drivers, use the Citrix universal printer, and implement printers. It also explains printing for mobile users.

Chapter 10, Multimedia Content on XenApp, explains how to optimize user sessions for XenApp using different Citrix HDX features like HDX MediaStream Multimedia Acceleration, HDX 3D Technologies to improve image display, HDX MediaStream for Flash, and more. It describes how to configure HDX MediaStream for Flash on the Server and different multimedia, audio, and video settings using Citrix policies.

Chapter 11, Managing Sessions, describes sessions and explains how to manage and monitor sessions using Citrix AppCenter Console, including viewing and shadowing of sessions. It discusses how to customize user environments in XenApp and limit concurrent connections. It also shows how to optimize user sessions, redirect local Special folders in sessions, and maintain session Activity using Session Reliability, Auto Client Reconnect, and ICA keep-alive.

Chapter 12, Scripting Programming, shows how to install and configure PowerShell to manage XenApp farms and how to use cmdlets to manage XenApp servers. It explains how to use PowerShell commands from inside VB.NET and C#.NET code. It discusses how to convert MFCOM scripts to PowerShell and access MFCOM objects and manage previous versions of XenApp from PowerShell.

Chapter 13, Receiver and Plugins Management, presents Citrix Receiver, including features and compatibility, and explains how to install Citrix Receiver for Windows and Macintosh. It describes how to deploy a Citrix Merchandising Server on VMware, XenServer Virtual Machines, and configure Merchandising Server and Receiver Plugins.

Chapter 14, Virtualizing XenApp Farms, explains how to deploy XenApp 6.5 in a virtualized environment, including advantages and disadvantages of virtualization, virtual machine performance, host scalability, and more. It describes how to deploy XenApp 6.5 on Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware vSphere virtual machines, and how to clone XenApp 6.5 virtual machines.

What you need for this book

The following are the software requirements for this book:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Citrix XenApp 6.5 are required to install and configure XenApp 6.5 servers

• Optional: dedicated database server running Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or later or Oracle 11g R2 is required in Chapter 3, Installing XenApp 6.5

• Microsoft Office 2010 is required to setup Application Streaming for Chapter 7, Application Streaming

• Microsoft Visual Basic.NET or Microsoft C#.NET to create applications in Chapter 12, Scripting Programming

• One hypervisor like Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware vSphere to create virtual machines discussed in Chapter 14, Virtualizing XenApp Farms

Who this book is for

If you are a system administrator or consultant who wants to implement and administer Citrix XenApp 6.5 farms, then this book is for you. This book will help both new and experienced XenApp professionals to deliver virtualized applications.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can use ServerManagerCmd.exe command, PowerShell cmdlets or Microsoft DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) tool to deploy prerequisites such as IIS or .NET Framework."

A block of code is set as follows:

Command myCommand = newCommand("Get-XAServer");
myCommand.Parameters.Add("ZoneName", "US-ZONE")
pipeLine.Commands.Add(myCommand);

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

Disable-XAServerLogOn-ServerName "BRICKXA65-02"

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "To install the Citrix AppCenter console (or the Citrix Delivery Services Console in XenApp 6.0) on a computer, from the XenApp Autorun menu, select Manually Install Components | Common Components | Management Consoles."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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