© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 1

7.6

7.6

Roman Kapitán

Citrix Systems, System Engineer

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 2

XenApp 7.6 Instant App Access A simple, two pronged approach

How it works: • When user logs into Receiver, starts a

XenApp session with “dummy” app

• Session remains until time expires or load

too high

• User selected app immediately starts in

same session

Why it is good: • Eliminates more than 90% logon time

• No long logon duration complaints

• User experiences instantaneous app

launches

Application Prelaunch

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 3

XenApp 7.6 Instant App Access A simple, two pronged approach

How it works: • When user closes last app in a session, the

session remains active

• Session remains until time expires or load

too high

Why it is good: • Users often close an app before starting

another app

• Eliminates constant log off/on scenarios

• Provides a more desktop-like experience

Application Lingering

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 4

The XenApp 7.6 User Logon Process

Logon & authentication

Profile load GPO

processing Logon scripts

Drive mappings

Printer mapping

App launch

Auto-starts when

Receiver starts

Pause until user

selects app

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 5

Two-Way

Clipboard

One-Way

(Client-to-Server)

Clipboard

One-Way

(Server-to-Client)

Clipboard

No Clipboard

Granular Clipboard Security

All

data

Only

text

Only

bitm

aps

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 6

XenApp 7.6 – Connection Leasing Normal Operations

1. User authenticates to

StoreFront

2. StoreFront forwards

credentials

3. Controller authenticates

user and enumerates

resources via the DB

4. Receiver receives

response and starts

session

5. Controller logs resource

access in local XML file

Site DB

1 2

3

4

StoreFront

Delivery Controller

User

XenApp

XML File

5

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 7

XenApp 7.6 – Connection Leasing Database outage

1. User authenticates to

StoreFront

2. StoreFront forwards

credentials

3. Controller authenticates

user and fails to

enumerate resources as

DB is offline

4. Controller accesses

local XML file and

enumerates resources

5. Receiver receives

response and starts

session

Site DB

1 2

3

StoreFront

Delivery Controller

User

XenApp

XML File

4

5

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 8

Good and Bad IOPS

Random Access

Sequential Access

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

18 7 17 8 13 6 9 20 19 2 15 16 12 1 5 10 14 4 21 3 11 22

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 9

The XenApp & XenDesktop 7.6 Approach to IOPS

As RAM consumed, sequence and write larger blocks to disk

Place small, random writes in RAM

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

18 7 17 8 13 6 9 20 19 2 15 16 12 1 5 10 14 4 21 3 11 22

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 10

Resource Tier

(Windows Apps & Non-Persistent Desktops)

Caching Tier

(RAM)

Storage Tier

(Local Disk)

Citrix provides simple

and integrated storage

optimization solution • No specialized hardware

• No complex configurations

• No extra licensing costs

Read Cache Write Cache

Master Image HDD

Server Side

Cache VM Side

Cache

Provisioning Services

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 11

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Windows 2012R2 Windows 7

IOP

S

Native Disk PVS (Disk Cache) PVS (RAM Cache)

XenDesktop

eliminates over 90%

of the IOPS without

any extra storage

hardware

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 12

Migration from XenApp 6.5 - Tools and Resources

Only Citrix has the expertise from 20+ years of server migrations

Recommendations & Best Practices

Best practices documentation, Design guides, Architectural reviews,

How-to videos in one place www.citrix.com/xenapp/upgrade

Migration documentation :

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp-xendesktop-76/xad-

upgrade-xa65-to-vda.html

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp-xendesktop-76/xad-

xamigrate.html

Tools PowerShell Migration Tool

intelligently analyzes your existing XenApp 6.5 environment and

seamlessly imports select configurations into a XenApp 7.x

environment

© 2014 Citrix. Confidential. 13

Upgrade & Migration to XenApp & XenDesktop 7.6

From Path to XenApp & XenDesktop 7.6

XenApp/XenDesktop 7.5 In-place upgrade from installer

XenApp/XenDesktop 7.0 & 7.1 In-place upgrade

XenDesktop 5.x In-place upgrade – recommend upgrade from v5.6

XenDesktop 4 XenDesktop migration tool

XenApp 6.5 XenApp policies migration script, In-place upgrade of

worker servers + WI/SF aggregation

XenApp 6.0 & earlier WI/SF aggregation

Service-based migration workflow for XenApp under development – target early 2015

W O R K B E T T E R . L I V E B E T T E R .