The Top Eight Best Practices for Deploying XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6

8/25/2015

Oracle Confidential – Internal/Restricted/Highly Restricted

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Top Eight Best Practices for Deploying Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6

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Moderator

Christine Ackley Director of Marketing Operations eG Innovations [email protected]

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eG Innovations

• Leading provider of IT performance

monitoring, diagnosis and reporting software

• Specialists in Citrix performance monitoring and management

• Citrix Premier Technology Partner since 2004

• Our solutions are used in some of the largest Citrix deployments in the world

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PQR

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Today’s Presenters

Rob Beekmans Senior Consultant PQR

[email protected] @robbeekmans http://vThoughtsOfIT.blogspot.nl

Srinivas Ramanathan CEO eG Innovations, Inc.

[email protected] @sramanat

mailto:[email protected]


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Agenda

Citrix XenApp / XenDesktop 7.6 Architecture

Top 8 Best Practices when deploying XA / XD 7.6

End-to-End Performance Visibility in XA / XD 7.6

Recommendations when moving to XA / XD 7.6

Q & A

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Logistics

Please submit your questions at any time during the webinar using the questions panel on the GoToWebinar client.

This webinar is being recorded. You will receive a link to the recording in a few days.

A copy of this presentation is posted on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/eginnovations/

http://www.slideshare.net/eginnovations/

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XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6

Unified Architecture for Applications & Desktops

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Old Architecture: IMA

Framework used for management and communication between the XenApp hosts.

• IMA Service

• Data store – contains farm configuration

• Local Host Cache on each of the XenApp hosts

• Data Collectors – A database keeps track of data about the servers in its zone, such as sessions, published apps, connected users, etc

• Management Console

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New Architecture: FMA

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FMA vs. IMA

• Zones together with their Zone Data Collectors are gone (it’s now one big Site)

• No more IMA protocol and Service, these are replaced by the XD7 Virtual Delivery Agents

• All virtual and or physical servers basically function as ‘Workers’ or ‘Session only Mode’

• Easier installation, VDA determines role

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XenApp / XenDesktop 7.6 Architecture

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Top 8 Best Practices for XA/XD 7.x

1. The data store is more important now

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#1: Data Store Design Principles

What does the data store have? Stores Site policies, Machine Catalogs, Delivery

Groups and published applications, desktops

Live runtime data - who is connected to which resource, which server, server load and connection status for load balancing

No data store (site database) means: No consoles

Users work on most used apps from last two weeks

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#1: Data Store Design Principles Host on a highly available database configuration

SQL alwayson Availability groups

SQL Mirroring

SQL Clustering instances

Of course – regular backups!

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2. Ensure connection leasing is on

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No Local Host Cache in XA/XD 7.6

Local Host Cache (LHC) - cache a copy of the central IMA configuration database

Speeds up user authentication and application enumeration

Has dynamic live runtime data used for making load balance decisions

Servers could operate independent from data store for ever

LHC got updated when connection was established

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#2: Enable Connection Leasing

XenApp 7.6 FP2 has connection leasing

Not exactly a substitute for LHC

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Users can reconnect to resources they used in past 2 weeks, history kept on controllers

No VDA load balancing will occur when leasing is active

Users connect to the last host they connected to when the site database was available

Anonymous users are not supported

Won’t work for pooled VDI desktops

Not a replacement for SQL clustering

Useful when network issues prevent connection to data store

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Extra load of connection leasing depends on the rate at which users are brokering sessions whilst the database is down

Overall relatively small increase in disk IOPs and CPU usage

Benefits much higher but not good enough to forget LHC

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3. Use session pre-launch/lingering to improve UX

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#3: Better UX with Session Pre-Launch

Improve user experience – start sessions before they are requested

Turned off by default

Applicable only for Delivery Groups with applications

Use judiciously for specific users/groups

Default timeout – 15 mins

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3. Use session pre-launch to improve UX

4. Use GPU for better scaling and performance

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#4: Use GPU for Scaling and Performance

Use cases: • Medical Apps

• CAD/CAM

• Engineering

Apps

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Evaluate shared vs. dedicated (or passthrough) GPU option XenApp, XenDesktop and XenServer now support GPU technology

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“Look at regular desktops and laptops. How many of them can you buy without a GPU? And if you price out a business desktop and then you have to shave off some costs, do you ever do that be removing the GPU? No! So by that logic a GPU should be 100% required for VDI, and if you don’t like the “added” cost of it, then you can offset it by putting 10% more users per server.”

By Brian Madden

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5. Enhance graphics performance with Framehawk

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#5: Enhance Graphics with Framehawk Introduces a new ICA virtual channel that

dramatically improves the user experience

For users on WiFi, satellite offices, public transport, etc. – links that are lossy

UDP based (vs. Thinwire – TCP based)

Framehawk is self healing (hides loss through interpolation) and smart (differentiate random loss vs. congestion)

Framehawk is off by default –selectively turn it on using studio

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#5: Enhance Graphics with Framehawk Keyboard input is more interactive with

Framehawk on lossy, high latency networks than with Thinwire

NetScaler supports this - 11.0 build 62.10 extends for external Framehawk connections

4-5Mbps + 150Kbps per ccu

Available in all licenses

Verify if Framehawk is enabled – http://blogs.citrix.com/2015/08/17/got-framehawk-weve-got-remote-access-tips-and-tricks/

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6. Use PVS for provisioning (vs. MCS)

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PVS or MCS?

Citrix Provisioning Services

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PVS or MCS?

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PVS or MCS? PVS:

Central image store, the PVS server

Creating /updating an image with PVS is easy – just change the pointer for each target

MCS: Places the image on each data store used for targets

First creates a single image file from a VM snapshot and when finished copies that image to each data store. This process takes up CPU, IO and network resources

Multiple image management is a challenge

PVS preferred if you have multiple data stores or images

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#6: Exploit PVS Enhancements

New caching option called “Cache in Device RAM with Hard Disk Overflow” (PVS > 7.1)

Cache in RAM provided great throughput, better response time but if cache became full, the target would experience a BSOD

Hard disk overflow avoids the BSOD problem

Data is written to the memory buffer first. When buffer is full, “stale” data is flushed to disk.

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#6: Anti-Virus & PVS

Anti-virus not properly configured can slow down your streamed targets

Scan your vDisk before you close and set a signature if possible that it’s scanned.

Set exclusions to avoid scanning of PVS related files

Make a plan how you update your AV definitions for your vDisk is read/only

Look at: http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx124185

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7. Get a handle on Citrix performance with Director/ NetScaler Insight

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#7: Get Citrix Performance Visibility

EdgeSight:

Enfant terrible from Citrix, deprecated in 7.x

In 7.x integrated in Director (helpdesk tool)

Logon duration report enabled by default

Only one week history without Platinum

Mostly Citrix centric

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#7: Get Citrix Performance Visibility

NetScaler Insight for Citrix stack (Platinum)

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4. Use vGPU for scale and performance



7. Get a handle on Citrix performance with Director/ NetScaler Insight

8. End-to-End performance visibility is key for success

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• No longer a single product

• No unified API/toolset to

manage these tiers • Director • NetScaler Insight • XenMobile admin • PVS admin • XenCenter

• Slow, manual diagnosis

process

Let’s talk about the Citrix stack first!

#8: Get End-To-End Performance Visibility

Sharefile Control

Device Manager

Citrix Performance Management

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What Citrix Director/EdgeSight Provides

Citrix Director/ EdgeSight

• Visibility into XenApp instances

• Visibility into user desktops for XenDesktop

• Integration with NetScaler Insight Center for network performance

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Network Web on

ESX

Active Directory SQL

XenApp on

VMware ESX ZDC on

VMware ESX

License Server

Profile Server

Enterprise

Apps

vCenter Oracle

Client

Where is the Root-Cause?

SAN Switch

What is the root cause of the service problem? Network? VMware? AD? SQL? Storage? Profile Server?

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#8: Get End-To-End Performance Visibility

• Performance of the non-Citrix tiers can also impact Citrix performance

• Not sufficient to monitor only the Citrix tiers

Profile Management

Sharefile Control

Device Manager

Citrix Performance Management

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#8: Get End-to-End Performance Visibility

Manage the different Citrix tiers from one console

Manage the non-Citrix tiers as well

Manage the Citrix SERVICE end-to-end, not as silos

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eG Enterprise – Live Demo

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Monitoring the User Experience

When users access applications, they are seeing 100% errors!

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End-to-End Citrix Service Topology

The XenApp server is seeing some issue. Let’s drill down.

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Virtualization Topology View

The XenApp server is running on a VMware server that is having an issue. Let’s drill down and see.

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Drilldowns into Each Tier

The VMware server’s system console is running hot. Something is taking a lot of CPU, affecting all the VMs on this server.

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Diagnosis to Pinpoint the Root-Cause

OOPS – there are multiple samba backup jobs running on the VMware server that are affecting Citrix performance!

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#8: Get End-to-End Performance Visibility

Manage all the different Citrix tiers from one console

Manage the non-Citrix tiers as well

Manage the Citrix SERVICE end-to-end, not as silos

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The eG Universal Monitor

A single agent license for all OS and virtual platforms

A single price, regardless of OS or server configuration

A single agent for monitoring any application

Auto-upgradeable

Agentless monitoring option

100% web-based – HTTP(S)

Delivers maximum flexibility, ease of deployment and rapid ROI

eG Monitor

Citrix VMware Oracle, SQL

Web, Email, DNS, FTP

Network Devices

App Servers - WebLogic

Web Servers

Sybase, DB2

Windows Applications

SAP R/3 Custom

Applications

eG Manager HTTP/HTTPS

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ROI of Total Citrix Performance Management

“Dramatically simplify and accelerate virtualization performance

management. Deliver peak

performance, user satisfaction and ROI.”

Citrix Performance Monitoring

with eG Enterprise

IT Productivity

Higher service uptime

Simplicity

User Satisfaction

Cost control & ROI

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4. Use vGPU for scale and performance



7. Get a handle on Citrix performance with Director/NetScaler Insight

8. End-to-End performance visibility is key for success

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Moving to XenApp /XenDesktop 7.6

Consideration Recommendation

Stability Good

Ease of migration Easy – esp if Win 2008 R2 or later

Migrate vs. build fresh Build fresh unless you have many published applications

Setup process One of the easiest!

Do yourself vs. rely on a consultant Experience can help!

Performance Should be the same as before. Monitor for any changes in performance before and after the change.

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Contact Us for More Information

Web: http://www.eginnovations.com Trial: http://www.eginnovations.com/freetrial Email: [email protected] Ph: +1 (866) 526 6700

Web: http://www.pqr.com Email: [email protected] Ph: +31 (30) 6629729

http://www.eginnovations.com/


http://www.pqr.com/


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