In the first five parts of this series on XenDesktop 7 we've done everything needed to complete the last step, which is creating a XenDesktop 7 Delivery Group. This enables users, or groups of users, to access their desktop or applications. Delivery groups are where you can target various user...
One of the last steps to configure XenDesktop is to setup Citrix StoreFront. What is StoreFront? StoreFront is basically the web tier in a three tiered architecture (StoreFront, Desktop Controller, SQL database). It's more than just a pretty face. Citrix Receiver directly talks to StoreFront, even if you never use...
This is the fourth installment of the XenDesktop PoC guide, where we create a XenDesktop 7 machine catalog. As we near the point where we can dole out VDI VMs to users, one of the last steps is to create a catalog of VMs. These could be Windows 8, Windows...
This installment of the XenDesktop installation series will show you how easy it is to install the XenDesktop 7 VDA (Virtual Delivery Agent). The VDA can be installed on client VMs, servers (for XenApp), or physical PCs if you want to remote high-powered 3D graphics. It contains the 'secret HDX...
In Part one of my Citrix XenDesktop 7 installation guide we installed all of the XenDesktop 7 components on a single Windows Server 2012 VM. In this second edition we will setup the Citrix Studio site, which connects the XenDesktop 7 Studio to a database, vCenter, storage, and virtual networks....
In case you missed the announcement or my blog post last week, Citrix XenDesktop 7 finally hit the streets. It is a very major release of the product, merging XenDesktop and XenApp into a single management system. Gone are the days of a dozen or more different consoles to manage...
This is the fourth installment of my CloudVolumes spin around the block. So far the installation as has been quick, encountered no product problems, and the experience seems polished even for a v1.0 product. Given my good experience thus far, I can't wait to see CloudVolumes AppStack in action. Can I really instantly...
Welcome to Part 3 of installing and configuring CloudVolumes. In Part 1 I provided a short introduction on what CloudVolumes is and started the management console installation process. In Part 2Â I configured basic settings such as Active Directory, vCenter, and datastores. Now we are ready to install the CloudVolumes agent...
In Part 1 of "Installing CloudVolumes" I covered the basic concept of what CloudVolumes does, and we provisioned a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM for their management console. We are now ready to configure the CloudVolumes Manager console to interface with AD, vCenter, and setup the vSphere datastores. So far the CloudVolumes installation...
Last weekend I was catching up on my RSS feeds with Feedly (great Google Reader replacement BTW), and stumbled on an article on Brian Madden's site about a new way to enable non-persistent VDI. In that article, and accompanying video, they demoed a stack of software that I found very interesting. They...
XenDesktop 7 is a milestone in the Citrix end user computing experience. Citrix has merged XenDesktop (VDI) with XenApp, into a consolidated set of common consoles with common policies and HDX experiences. It also features full Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, and SQL Server 2012 (with AlwaysOn clustering) support. Last...
TechEd 2013 had a bunch of great sessions on Windows Server 2012 R2, which has a boatload of new features. You can now download Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview version now. Pick up your copy here. Windows 8.1 release preview will come out tomorrow, but you can get a jump start on...