Getting Started with Citrix XenApp® 7.6

Book description

Install, configure, and support your XenApp systems with the power of Citrix XenApp

About This Book

  • Familiarize yourself with Citrix applications and desktop virtualization
  • Maintain and troubleshoot your XenApp environment to minimize system downtime
  • A hands-on, step-by-step guide with a practical approach and real-world examples to get you up and running with XenApp systems

Who This Book Is For

This book is intended for IT administrators and consultants who want to build application and desktop virtualization solutions for their employers and customers. No prior knowledge of Citrix technologies is required.

What You Will Learn

  • Make the use case for Citrix XenApp and design your first system
  • Prepare your existing IT infrastructure for XenApp and learn what licenses you need
  • Install and configure the XenApp infrastructure
  • Enable access with StoreFront and NetScaler Gateway
  • Enable load balancing with NetScaler
  • Maintain servers and publish applications and desktops
  • Manage printing in a Citrix environment
  • Troubleshoot your environment using advanced tools and methodologies employed by Citrix Escalation Teams

In Detail

If you want to effectively deploy the various components of Citrix XenApp to create an enterprise environment for application and desktop delivery, this hands-on guide is perfect for you. You start off by understanding the need and benefits of Citrix XenApp with respect to Virtualization technology. After this, you will get to grips with the requirement analysis and designing aspect of building XenApp systems and all the necessary installation and configuration procedures for Citrix XenApp, StoreFront and NetScalar Gateway are explained one by one in detail.

Step-by-step, you will learn to deploy your first XenApp with the Machine Creation Services method and Provisioning Services method. After this, you will explore the administering part of applications and systems, followed by printing in the XenApp environment. Next, you will learn all the trips and tricks required to troubleshoot and support the XenApp environment. By the end of this book, you will be ready to go live with your new XenApp environment.

Style and approach

This is a step-by-step guide to technical implementations in a conversational and easy-to-follow style. Each component is deployed sequentially until a full solution is built. Basic as well as advanced features of the product are explored to appeal to the widest possible audience interested in the topic.

Table of contents

  1. Getting Started with Citrix XenApp® 7.6
    1. Table of Contents
    2. Getting Started with Citrix XenApp® 7.6
    3. Notice
    4. Credits
    5. About the Author
    6. About the Reviewers
    7. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more
        1. Why subscribe?
        2. Free access for Packt account holders
        3. Instant updates on new Packt books
    8. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
        1. Errata
        2. Piracy
        3. Questions
    9. 1. Why Citrix XenApp® – Making the Case for App Virtualization
      1. Understanding virtualization
        1. Application virtualization
      2. Understanding Remote Desktop Services
      3. Introducing Citrix XenApp®
        1. Design transformation in 7.x
        2. New features in XenApp® 7.6
        3. Application delivery models in XenApp® 7.6
      4. The user logon process
      5. Citrix® licensing
      6. Microsoft licensing
      7. Other components
      8. XenApp® supportability
      9. XenApp® certifications
      10. Summary
    10. 2. Designing a Citrix® Solution to Fit Your Needs
      1. Project planning
      2. Reference Architectures
      3. Designing XenApp® for an enterprise
        1. Goals
        2. Users
          1. Concurrency rate
          2. Active Directory considerations
        3. User location
        4. Devices and peripherals
        5. Networks
        6. Storage
        7. Profiles
          1. Citrix® Profile Management
          2. Folder Redirection
        8. Core applications
        9. Printing
      4. Creating your first architecture
        1. The host hardware
        2. The VM infrastructure
          1. Host A
          2. Host B
          3. Host C
        3. Resource allocation
        4. Microsoft licensing
        5. Citrix® licensing
      5. Examples from the IT field
      6. Summary
    11. 3. Preparing Your System for XenApp® Deployment
      1. Control layer
        1. XenApp® Delivery Controller
          1. Citrix® Studio
        2. Citrix® Director
        3. Citrix® License Server
        4. SQL Server
          1. SQL Server mirroring
          2. SQL Server clustered instances
          3. AlwaysOn Availability Groups
          4. Database permissions
          5. Database collation
        5. Citrix Provisioning Services™
      2. Access layer
        1. Citrix® StoreFront™
        2. NetScaler VPX™
        3. Citrix Receiver™
      3. Resource layer
        1. Server OS VDA
      4. Hardware layer
        1. Host requirements
        2. Domain infrastructure requirements
      5. Summary
    12. 4. Installing and Configuring Citrix XenApp®
      1. Creating a VM in XenCenter®
      2. Installing the Citrix XenApp® 7.6 Delivery Controller
        1. Site setup
        2. Remote PC access
        3. Scale your deployment – existing site
      3. Installing Citrix License Server 11.12.1
      4. Configuring Citrix XenApp® 7.6
        1. Hypervisor support
        2. XenApp® Service Account
        3. Securing the host connection with SSL
      5. Configuring the Delivery Controller
        1. Machine catalogs
        2. Delivery Groups
        3. Policies
        4. Logging
        5. Configuration
      6. Joining a second controller to the XenApp® site
      7. Summary
    13. 5. Installing and Configuring Citrix® StoreFront™
      1. Installing Citrix StoreFront™
      2. Configuring Citrix StoreFront™
        1. SSL certificates
        2. Setting up the StoreFront™ site
          1. Configuring authentication methods
        3. Joining a second ary server to the StoreFront™ deployment
      3. Testing the StoreFront™ user access
      4. Summary
    14. 6. Installing and Configuring NetScaler Gateway™
      1. Installing the NetScaler Gateway VPX™
      2. Configuring the NetScaler Gateway VPX™
        1. Licensing your NetScaler® appliance
          1. Basic modes and settings
        2. Configuring High Availability
        3. Configuring the LDAP authentication
        4. Adding a Subnet IP
        5. Managing SSL certificates
        6. Configuring session policies and profiles
        7. Creating a virtual server
      3. Summary
    15. 7. Load Balancing with Citrix® NetScaler®
      1. Configuring Citrix NetScaler® for load balancing
        1. Network requirements
        2. Verifying settings and licensing
        3. Obtaining SSL certificates
        4. Adding StoreFront™ servers in NetScaler®
        5. Creating Service Groups
        6. Configuring a load balancing VIP
        7. Testing NetScaler® load balancing
      2. Summary
    16. 8. Building Your First XenApp® Farm – Machine Creation Services
      1. Explaining Machine Creation Services
      2. Preparing your master image
        1. Designing your master image VM
        2. Configuring your master image for Citrix XenApp®
        3. Installing the Citrix® VDA on the master VM
      3. Building XenApp® Catalogs with MCS
        1. Adding, updating, and deleting VMs with MCS
          1. What is the maintenance mode, anyway?
      4. Summary
    17. 9. Building Your First XenApp® Farm – Provisioning Services™
      1. Getting started with PVS
        1. Single image management
        2. The power of read-only
        3. Scalability
        4. Infrastructure needs
        5. Licensing
          1. MCS versus PVS
        6. Designing the PVS environment
          1. Write caching in PVS
          2. Building the PVS infrastructure
          3. Installing Citrix® PVS
          4. Configuring Citrix® PVS
          5. Configuring the PVS target device software
          6. Running the XenDesktop® setup wizard in PVS
      2. Summary
    18. 10. Administering a XenApp® Environment – Application Management
      1. Application delivery – hosted apps
        1. Creating Delivery Groups
        2. Updating hosted applications – MCS
        3. Updating hosted applications – PVS
        4. Accessing hosted applications via NetScaler Gateway™
        5. Accessing hosted applications via StoreFront™
        6. App-V integration
      2. Summary
    19. 11. Administering a XenApp® Environment – Server Management
      1. RDS licensing
      2. Citrix® Profile Management
        1. So, why UPM profiles?
        2. Configuring profile management in a XenApp® environment
        3. Profile Streaming
      3. Taking advantage of Session Prelaunch and Session Linger
      4. Facilitating XenApp® administration with Citrix® policies
        1. How do you get started with Citrix® policies?
      5. The role of Active Directory Group Policies
        1. Disabling Administrative Tools
        2. Hiding XenApp® system drives
        3. Folder Redirection
          1. The potential drawbacks of Folder Redirection
      6. Upgrading VDA and PVS target device software
        1. Upgrading the VDA via MCS
        2. Upgrading the Citrix® Agents via PVS
        3. There must be another way…
        4. XenApp® permissions and delegated administration
      7. Monitoring the XenApp® site
      8. Summary
    20. 12. Printing
      1. Printing in the Windows world
        1. What happens in the background?
        2. Windows Printing challenges
      2. Printing in a Citrix® world
        1. The fundamentals
          1. Printer provisioning
          2. Local printers versus network printers
          3. The Citrix® Print Management service
        2. Citrix® Printing policies
          1. Autocreation
          2. UPS and UPD
        3. So, how do we deploy UPS, anyway?
      3. Summary
    21. 13. Troubleshooting Tools, Tips, and Tricks
      1. Troubleshooting methodology
        1. Notes and templates
        2. Research
          1. Citrix® Knowledge Base
          2. Citrix® discussion boards
          3. Community websites
      2. Case studies
        1. Provisioning Services™
          1. Case 1 – Retries
          2. Case 2 – BNIStack errors
          3. Case 3 – Target device boot failure
        2. XenApp® and XenDesktop®
          1. Case 1 – 1030 error when launching the app
          2. Case 2 – RDS license errors
          3. Case 3 – Citrix® Studio showing incorrect VM states
      3. Summary
    22. 14. The Big Day – Going Live with Citrix XenApp®
      1. Environment must-do's
        1. Functional and performance testing
        2. Database backups
        3. NetScaler® configuration backup
        4. Testing HA
          1. NetScaler® HA
          2. StoreFront™ HA
          3. Delivery Controller HA
      2. Production rollout strategies
        1. Going virtual for the first time
        2. Virtual-to-virtual migration
        3. Upgrading to the latest version
        4. Expansion of existing systems
      3. Summary
    23. Index

Product information

  • Title: Getting Started with Citrix XenApp® 7.6
  • Author(s): Konstantin Cvetanov
  • Release date: November 2015
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781784394233