Bernard Baurin

Since 1995, I hold teaching certification MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer), which allows me to provide training official Microsoft (during the famous OMC) in these approved centers.

This certification is renewed annually based on technical certifications and training carried out on the year just ended.

VMware offers to the technical architects a newest version of the document library, vCloud Architecturee Toolkit (vCat v2.0.1), very helpful to design and implement public, private or hybrid Clouds environments, including the technologies of vSphere 5 and vCloud Director 1.5. The library  provides guidelines detailed with use cases.

To read and study prior to initiating an architectural project !

Reminder : The ESXi hypervisor is the one component maintained in the new architecture.

 

VMware list the major steps to migrate VMware vSphere 4.x. to the 5.x version. The document VMware vSphere 5.0 Upgrade Best Practices describes all the combinations of cases for migration.

 

Major steps

Step 1 : Upgrade of the VMware vCenter server

Step 2 : Upgrade of the hosts to ESXi 5.0

Step 3 : Complete the upgrade of Virtual Machines

Step 4 : Upgrade the datastores to VMFS 5.

I was present at Citrix Synergy ™ in Barcelona, where Citrix announced the acquisition of App-DNA ™, a long-time partner. App-DNA is well known for its software suite AppTitude to facilitate the deployment of applications from Windows XP to Windows 7. It allows you to highlight the points of dependance to libraries, the security settings to review and the potential sticking points. It assesses the workload to produce according to the complexity of these different elements, which is particularly valuable when a planning has to be justified.

This acquisition follows major acquisitions made ​​in recent months, including:

• KAVIZA : in May 2011 for its VDI solution-in-a-Box destined for the SMB market;
• RingCube : in August 2011 for its desktop personalization solution in XenApp 6.5;
• ShareFile : in October 2011 for its solution of the storage and synchronization of documents on the Cloud.

This important technological evolution expresses the current mutation of Citrix’s office, now designed as flexible environment:

• any device : from the smartphone, the tablet to the laptop,
• anywhere : from the lan or a wan connection, in a online or offline context,
• any application : delivery of application on-demand,
• any data : with secure access to business data, from the availability on the Cloud, until the local storage on the endpoint device.

Citrix invites himself in the delicate phase of migrating applications that remains a difficult issue to be addressed in the projects of evolution of application services.

 

This POC was realized on a LAN configuration for all components, including the client devices.

NVIDIA MEMO

The graphic card NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 installed in the HP blades, provides 240 CUDA parallel processing cores and therefore has the prerequisites for the GPU core codec.

PERFORMANCES

It is useful to consult the Citrix HDX 3D 1.0 Requirements Guide to understand the gains / performance limitations associated with the selected configuration of the POC.

A single monitor configuration was retained, the use of business application has been excellent. For a resolution of 2500 x 1660, the number of fps varied depending on the complexity of 3D operations requested, between 15 and 45 fps. The graphic computing capacity rose to the height requirements with a bandwidth of “only” 50 Mbps on the LAN.

ISSUES

Most of the time spent on the resolution was taken on the proper selection of the graphics driver version for configuring the HP / NVidia components.

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

No break in use has been recorded by the client: for the choice of a resolution identical to the application running in a architecture no virtualized , the number of fps is so reduced by a factor of 10%, that is a very acceptable value.

The only brake on the spread of the Wan is the required bandwidth of 50 Mbps. The resolution being required, the decision was to limit the functional scope of the application for Wan connections, waiting to test the evolution of compression on the HDX versions later than 4.0.

PREREQUISITES FOR BLADE PC

The preparation has to be done for each Blade PC, before the setup of the Citrix VDA component.

The preparation of the Blade PC is divided in 5 steps:

• Step 1: Configuration of the BIOS
• Step 2: Uninstallation of the Citrix Display driver
• Step 3: Sizing of the Graphic Card Buffer
• Step 4: Setup of the NVidia components
• Step 5: Configuration of one NVidia display

Step 1: Blade PC Prerequisites – Configuration of the BIOS

1. Turn on the blade PC
2. Press <F9> when the blade PC boots to enter in the BIOS configuration
3. Press <enter> on the menu System Options
4. Select the menu Remote Console Mode
5. Press <enter>
6. Select the menu User Mode
7. Press <enter>

 

1. Press <esc>
2. Press <esc>
3. Press <F10>
4. The blade PC reboots
5. Wait for the screen, to display describing the Workstation is now in USER MODE
6. No graphic local session is possible. Any graphic session is remote by now.

 

Step 2: Blade PC Prerequisites – Uninstallation of the Citrix display driver

1. Launch the menu Start > Computer
2. Click Manage
3. Browse in the center pane to Display adapters
4. Select Citrix Systems Inc. Display Driver
5. Click Uninstall

Step 3: Blade PC Prerequisites – Graphic Card buffer sizing

1. Lauch regedit.exe
2. In the left pane, go to the key HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
3. Click New / DWORD (32-bit) value
4. In the right write the name of the new key, SessionImageSize
5. Double-click on the key (A windows entitled Edit DWORD (32-bit) Value appears)
6. Write 80 in the field Value Data
7. Click OK

 

Step 4: Blade PC Prerequisites – NVidia component setup

Prerequisite information : URL of the download of the NVidia component

1. Double-click on the NVidia msi file downloaded from the HP internet site (here the date is 10 Mar 2011)
2. A windows entitled NVIDIA Install appears : follow the next screens of setup

 

Step 5: Blade PC Prerequisites – Configuration of one NVidia display

1. Launch the NVIDIA Control Panel
2. In the left pane, browse to Display / Setup Multiple displays
3. In the right pane, uncheck HP Panel (2 of 2) if needed
4. Make sure that only one monitor is checked.

SETUP OF CITRIX XenDesktop COMPONENTS FOR BLADE PC

Once the set of previous steps have been followed, the Citrix components have to be installed:

• Step 1: Installation of Citrix VDA
• Step 2: Installation of Citrix HDX 3D
• Step 3: Check of Citrix HDX 3D

Step 1: Citrix XenDesktop Components for Blade PC – Installation of Citrix VDA

This step must be done for each blade PC or virtualized desktop.

Information prerequisite : The name of the XenDesktop farm

 

 

1. Browse to the folder where the VDA client has been uncompressed (for instance here : XDE400VDAWX64005)
2. Launch a DOS windows with the line command msiexec /I XdsAgent.msi INSTALLONWDDM=1

1. Follow the next screens of setup
2. Check that the setup has detected the correct XenDesktop farm

Follow the next screens to end the setup and restart the Blade PC

 

Step 2: Citrix XenDesktop Components for Blade PC – Installation of Citrix HDX 3D

This step must be done for each blade PC or virtualized desktop.

1. Browse to the folder HDX3D_Pro_Graphics_1_1 where the Citrix HDX 3D binaries have been uncompressed.
2. Browse to the child folder : RTM_with_12.0.1_client_health_Check_Tool > Server
3. Launch the binary for x64 platform, here : HDX3D_PROGFX_x64SERVERMSI

Follow the next screens to end the setup and restart the Blade PC

Step 3: Citrix XenDesktop Components for Blade PC – Check of Citrix HDX 3D

This step must be done for each blade PC or virtualized desktop.

1. Browse to the folder HDX3D_Pro_Graphics_1_1 where the Citrix HDX 3D binaries have been uncompressed.
2. Browse to the child folder : RTM_with_12.0.1_client_health_Check_Tool > Health Check Tool
3. Double click HDX 3D Pro Graphics – HealthCheck.exe

Check all the results are colored with green.

If a result is in red, click Suggestions to follow the Citrix instructions to solve the problem.

Inside this post, the following operations have to be conducted:
• Get the XenDesktop License (from the My Citrix web site)
• Installation of the DDC server
• Creation of the dedicated AD OU to the XenDesktop farm
• Assignment to the XenDesktop farm

STEP 1 : GET XENDESKTOP LICENSE

Security Prerequisites

• Local Administrator, db_owner of the database (SQL Express for POC)
• DDC joined to the Microsoft domain
• Login account in My Citrix

Software Prerequisites

• W2003 sp2 or R2
• TS installed in application mode
• IIS installed

Actions

Connect to the web site MyCitrix with the following URL : https://www.citrix.com/English/myCitrix/publicindex.asp
Fill with the number of desktops provided by the infrastructure in the field Quantity to Allocate
(for instance here : 20)
Fill with the hostname of the License server in the field Hostname of your Citrix license server
(for instance here : DDC)
Be aware : the hostname is case sensitive

STEP 2: SETUP OF CITRIX DDC 4.0

Actions prerequisite

• Mount the ISO file DDC_VDA or the burnt CD on the operating system
• Logon a local session or a RSAT session with Local administrative privileges

Informations prerequisite

• Name of the XenDesktop farm

 

 Step 3 : Creation of an AD OU

If you have unchecked the 2 configuration choices, the AD OU may be configured later with the Active Directory Configuration Wizard, tool and the License set with the License Management Console:

 

Either you have kept the two options checked or launched the two previous applications, you get the configuration screens below:

 

 

 

STEP 4 : LICENSE ASSIGNMENT

Actions in the License Management Console

• Launch the menu Start > All Programs > Citrix > Management Consoles > License Management Console
• Click Configure License Server

 

 Actions in the Citrix Delivery  Services Console

• Launch the menu Start > All Programs > Citrix > Management Consoles > Delivery Services Console
• Browse in the let pane to Citrix Resources > Desktop Delivery Controller > [Farm Name]
• Click Properties

The purpose of this post is to present a feedback on a pilot project based on Citrix HDX 3D and XenDesktop 4 I have achieved for a great company. The study is presented in 4 parts:

• Part 1 : Scope of the POC and required architecture
• Part 2 : Installation of Server Components
• Part 3 : Installation of Components for Blade PC
• Part 4 : Results

Scope of the POC

The justification of the POC is to validate the functional and performance aspects of a business application having to manage huge 3D images.

Out of the scope

Virtual Desktop Provisioning: the aim of the POC is to check the performance capabilities of the Nvidia Quadra graphics chipset. Only after this validation done, that the delivery of  desktop built on Windows 7 x64,HDX 3D and the business application will be industrialized with Virtual Desktop Provisioning. In the context of the POC, the blade PCs are manually installed.

Issues encountered

• Citrix : version of HDX 3D component compatible with Windows 7 x64
• NVidia : version of NVidia Quadro Pro driver for Windows 7 x64 and validated by HP on their hardware

Architecture Diagram

All the server components of the Citrix XenDesktop architecture used for the POC have been deployed on a single server.

Source

Domain Administrator Account

• Required for the installation of the DDC and initial security configuration

AD Test User Accounts

• These users have to be placed in a global group, which is referred to as the XD POC Users group.

Dedicated Organizational Unit (OU)

AD Group Policy

• An Organization Unit (OU) for the XenDesktop POC has to be created. All policy inheritance has to been blocked on that OU.

DDC REQUIREMENTS

Software required before setup

Before installing Citrix DDC, all the following components must be installed on the targeted computer, when a all the DDC components has to be deployed on a single server, which is the case of the POC:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (Standard or Enterprise Edition, with Service Pack 2 installed)
• Terminal Services running in application mode.
• Microsoft IIS 6.0 with ASP.Net
• IE Enhanced Security disabled

Software added (if not present on the operating system) by the setup of Citrix DDC

• Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 3.5, with Service Pack 1.
• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) Version 1.5.0_15.

Citrix binaries required for setup

• DDC_VDA.iso : size of 1 219, the software is delivered as an ISO file by Citrix, so it required to mount the ISO file with a tool as DAEMON Tools or to burn a CD

Computer requirement

• Memory (RAM) : 768 Mb minimum, 2 Gb recommended
• Disk space : 20 Gb for OS and installation
• Network interface : 100 Mb minimum, 1 Gb recommended
• IP address : static IP address
• Active directory : must be the member of the domain

LICENSE SERVER REQUIREMENTS

In the context of the POC, an evaluation license is used. The license service is installed on the same server as the one hosting the DDC.

Software required

• Citrix License Server version 11.6.1 to manage the evaluation license

BLADE PC REQUIREMENTS

For performance reasons, physical Blade PC with Windows 7 x64 hosting the desktop to deliver to the test users. The VDA is installed on these machines to manage communications and broker connections.

Computer requirement

• Physical Blade PC

Software requirement

• Windows 7 US x64
• Citrix VDA

ENDPOINT REQUIREMENTS

Endpoint devices retained in this POC are test workstation with Windows VISTA for the XenDesktop Receiver and as a management station for administration. The Desktop Receiver is installed on this workstation along with all the management consoles. The Workstation should have the .Net Framework 3.5 sp1 installed.

NETWORK REQUIREMENTS

IP addresses

• 1x build workstation IP address
• 1x DDC server IP address
• Xx workstation IP addresses; each virtual desktop will need an IP address

Preferred

• A separate VLAN for the XenDesktop servers and workstations
• Switches : disable Spanning Tree or enable Port Fast (STP Fast Link)

INTEREST

ZeroShell is a Linux distribution (the product is free) offerinf a comprehensive set of network services. The product is available in particular in the form of an appliance.

SERVICES: Here is a list of services

• Router with static and dynamic routes (RIPv2)
• Firewall with packet filtering and SPI
• TCP / UDP with PAT for creating virtual servers
• Multizone DNS server
• Multi DHCP server subnet
• RADIUS server

EARNINGS

• Deployment time of an appliance: a few minutes
• RAM used: 256 MB at most
• Ease of setup: via a web GUI integrated
• Configuration: a file stored outside the appliance

The storage of the configuration at outside the appliance allows you to find out the same services after a reboot or recover very quickly a new appliance with same functionalities.

DEPLOYMENT

A full document available on the site describes all the steps to deploy Zeroshell on a hard drive.

The statement in the inventory of VMware is performed by declaring the administration console vSphere:

• An existing file pointing to 1GB file Zeroshell.vmdk 30 MB
• A memory of 128 MB

The main stages of deployment include:

• Download Image Compact Flash
• Image storage on a USB stick
• Creation of the partition in linux command line
• Mounting USB memory on the VM
• Decompression of the image on the Linux partition created.

To perform the steps, boot from the live cd. Zeroshell is started in seconds. Start themenu prompt with ’S':

If the tools Citrix Essentials and Microsoft SCVMM are complementary, Citrix Essentials enriches functionally  the tools of  Microsoft on provisioning and management life cycle in the virtualized environments, the major contribution being probably  in the storage management with StorageLink.

Recurrent problems of storage management

• Multiplication of stages in the configuration of storage for VMs
• Significant loss of storage space
• Dependence of the storage policy
• Propagation and heterogeneous storage services such as thin provisioning, replication, or backup

StorageLink earnings

The creation of VM is performed indifferently on the target XenServer or Hyper-V, including bare-metal servers. By universalizing access technologies for storage,  StorageLink serves as a proxy for access to storage means by managing cloning, snapshots, and the most important thing for cost reduction storage, deduplication:

• Transparency of storage for VMs
• Disappearance of the loss of storage space
• Standardization and simplification of storage management