Category: Virtualization

XenApp 7.15 LTSR / XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR is now available for download. (15. august)
XenApp and XenDesktop 7.15 Long Term Service Release (LTSR) is the next LTSR after 7.6. For an overview of features that have been added since the XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6 LTSR release, click here.

Some new features that I will mention:

Local Host Cache
During a new installation of XenApp and XenDesktop, Local Host Cache is enabled by default. Connection leasing is disabled by default.

Director
Application Failure monitoring. Director extends the Trends view with the Application Failures tab to display historical failures associated with published applications.

MCS supports generation 2 VMs
When using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager to provide VMs, you can now use Machine Creation Services (MCS) to provision generation 2 VMs.

Virtual Delivery Agents (VDAs) 7.15
After upgrading your VDAs from version 7.9, 7.11, 7.12, 7.13, or 7.14 you do not need to update the machine catalog’s functional level.

You can download 7.15 from citrix.com

After two fantastic days are CUGtech over for now. Hope all is happy and got more inputs from all good session.

Presentation from my two sessions is available here:

• Citrix in Azure
• Customer Case – Norwegian (Airline)

Finally, I want to thank you all for trust to become CUG Norway board member.

If you run XenServer 7.1 you may have these problems:

• When reboot Host, server crash insted of rebooting. (When use UEFI)
• VM with more than 8 vCPU adn has Direct Inspect API’s enabled, may freeze

Install and download hotfix from Citrix support.
(Require MyCitrix login)

Thanks to Buypass  for secure my website!

Why use Buypass and not an cheap company? Buypass is 100% norwegian and then also under Norwegian law. NSM recommend all norweigan companies to only use certificate from trusted World wide CAs.

NSM (NASJONAL SIKKERHETSMYNDIGHET)

På bakgrunn av dette anbefaler NSM at for norske systemer tilkoblet Internett, benyttes det digitale sertifikater utstedt av sertifikatutstedere som, i tillegg til å være internasjonalt anerkjent og forhåndsinstallert i de fleste systemer og enheter, også er underlagt norsk lovgivning. Til nå er det bare Buypass som tilbyr sertifikater utstedt av en PKI hvor hele sertifikatkjeden er i Norge og dermed underlagt norsk lov. NSM anbefaler derfor Buypass’ TLS-sertifikater.

For more information see Buypass homepage.

After installation is finish of Director and you browse to the site, you need to type username, password and domain:

To Pre-Populate Domain Name for Director you need to change some code.
This change will be reset back to default after upgrade of Director.

1. Browse to this file and edit with notepad:
   

   C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Director\LogOn.aspx

2. Search for code line that start with:

   <asp:TextBox ID="Domain" runat="server" 
   

3. Change code to this:

   <asp:TextBox ID="Domain" Text="Domain.local" readonly="true" runat="server"
   

Result:

Citrix article

After upgrade to 7.x, the famous qfarm command gone.

Qfarm was a nice tool to check health and load on all farm XenApp servers:

In 7.x server load is replaced with loadindex. Default Citrix loadindex only check number of users. I will recommend to also set this citrix policy:

To check loadindex, it can be done in Studio, Director and with PowerShell.

Studio

1. Add new columns with Load Index
   .
   
2. Last columns will now show the load as you normal see in qfarm.
   .
   

Director

After login, choose Trends i top bar and then Load Evaluator Index

PowerShell

Add function inside a PS module that will load automatically and qfarm command is back 🙂

function qfarm
{
    if(!(Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.name -Like '*citrix*'}))
    {
        Add-PSSnapin citrix*
    } 
    
    Get-BrokerMachine -AdminAddress servername.domain.local  –SessionSupport MultiSession –Property ‘HostedMachineName’,’LoadIndex’,’SessionCount’, 'InMaintenanceMode'

}