Archive for July, 2010

Taking a number of questions from customers regarding the upgrade of XA 4.5 to XA 5 and XA 6. 

Upgrade W2K3 XA 4.5 to XA 5.0 

For those of you seeking documentation for the upgrade to XA 5 reference the link below.  This doc will walk you through the process of upgrading your W2K3 XA 4.5 installation to XA 5.0.  For those of you moving froma W2K3 to W2K8 server environment the recommendation is build a completely new farm.  Installing OS updates over the top has never been recommended as a best practice for terminal server.  When upgrading the OS, the complete rebuild of the server is your best bet for success. 

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX116622

Upgrade to XA 6

The upgrade path to XA 6 is a parallel path installation.  XA 6 has been developed exclusively for W2K8 R2.  XA 6 does not run on W2K3 or W2K8 R1.  XA 6 does not offer the opportunity to share a farm context with XA 5 servers.  The documentation for upgrading to XA 6 is referenced in the link below.

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124241

XA 6 Migration Tool

Citrix has developed a Powershell tool capable of porting XA 5 farm settings into your new XA 6 farm.  To purpose of the XA 6 migration tool is of course to speed the deployment of your new farm.  The video will give you information on installation and configuration of the tool.  The video offers insight into the new XA 6 ability to publish applications to groups of users.  You will see how to configure and leverage the latest release of Web Interface to support user migration to the new XA 6 farm. 

Interestingly you will also notice a seamless workflow in the migration of users from Office 2007 to Office 2010.  This is achieved by leveraging System Environment Variables to publish the office applications, %MSOFFICEDIR%\Excel.exe is referenced as the follow up posts for the video.  System Environment Variables can be a great configuration resource for you on the network.  Remember though that for a System Environment Variable to work you must reboot the server to set the configuration….

Citrix XenApp 6 Migration Tool – Guided Tour

You can download the XenApp 6 Migration Tool from http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX125471

Enjoy your migrating.  Please feel free to pass on your questions. 

RTE

For those that would like to test Citrix application delivery to an iPad, look here for the Citrix Mobile Receiver URL Generator. For some explanation of just what is happening with this tool, look here. Looking to test even more devices check out the Citrix Cloud Demo Environment. These tools offer you an opportunity to test access to Citrix applications via your remote devices.

Tip: Keep these sites handy, I have noticed that our own support teams leverage these sites as troubleshooting tools to assure the Receiver is indeed installed and working correctly.

Next step, read the documentation…..

• http://support.citrix.com/proddocs

Expand the documents tree to see the item below. It is possible to deliver apps via the Receiver for iPad/iPhone via CSG 3.0 as well as AG Standard, Adv (4.5 with Hotfix 4 (AAC450W004)), and AGEE. You will also require Web Interface 5.* from which you will configure a XenApp Services Site (formerly PNAgent site). Read the documentation! Take your time, and be sure you are meeting the minimum requirements. As with anything else, I have some customers who are delivering apps via the CSG and AG products right off the bat without issue, while others need a bit more time to review the details. Take you time, and understand that the technology works! It’s always the little things.

As I write this, I am waiting for my iPad to be delivered to my home home office.  Some folks collect boats, art, sports cars, but I am a gadget guy.  I am windows focused in my orientation, and this will be my first foray into the Mac world in a very long time.  Of course I could not endure the normalcy of the the initial iPad release, I had to wait (and pay) for 3G, and I did go 64GB on disk.

There is not a meeting I am attending these days where discussion of iPhone and iPad is not being referenced.  Consumers are buying iPads like hot cakes.  Citrix is focused on leveraging consumer experience to business as a means of productive delivery of applications to end users, the success of the iPhone Reciever and the Dazzle plugins are great examples of this commitment.  In a basic sense, if a user has the ability to use an iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and now the iPad, our goal at Citrix is to leverage this knowledge to deliver business applications to these very same devices.

Below I will list some information for IT professionals to get started on the process of delivering applications to iPhad and iPhone leveraging the Citrix Delivery Center.