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Wednesday 26 January 2011

XenDesktop 5 Database Sizing and Mirroring Best Practices

XenDesktop 5 Database Sizing and Mirroring Best Practices Guide Available!
Document ID: CTX127939   /   Created On: 12-Jan-2011   /   Updated On: 17-Jan-2011


2010's Top 20 eDocs Topics

posted on http://community.citrix.com/blogs/ by Beth Pollock

In the spirit of end of year Top 10 lists, we thought we'd provide a list of the 20 most-viewed eDocs topics between 1 January and 27 December 2010. The list is compiled based on unique pageviews. Landing pages for products or platforms are not counted. For this exercise, we are more interested in seeing which topics readers are going to for information that helps them accomplish a task, rather than gauging how popular certain products or platforms are.
Not surprisingly, system requirements and readmes are the most-read topics, along with installation instructions.
Rank
Title
Unique Pageviews
1
50,290
2
34,827
3
30,773
4
30,231
5
26,499
6
25,740
7
25,714
8
24,932
9
21,805
10
19,619
11
19,343
12
17,356
13
17,169
14
16,861
15
16,172
16
16,000
17
15,829
18
15,703
19
15,453
20
15,391
Are you surprised by any of these entries? Are there any topics missing that you would expect to be represented here? What's your personal top 5?

Top XenDesktop Technical Content 2010

Posted on http://community.citrix.com/blogs/ by David McGeough
Following on from my series of blogs in December last detailing the top 10 articles, whitepapers, hotfixes, presentations for 2010; due to popular demand see below the top 5 XenDesktop technical content for 2010.
Top 5 Technical Articles
Article Number
Article Title
XenDesktop 4 Licensing FAQ
How to Configure XenDesktop to Function Properly Without an Organizational Unit in Active Directory
Error: The system could not log you on. Ensure that you entered your details correctly and try again
Using XenDesktop with Multiple Active Directory Forests
Citrix Presentation Server Licenses have been Renamed to Citrix XenApp
Top 5 Whitepapers Articles
Article Number
Article Title
XenDesktop Modular Reference Architecture
User Profiles for XenApp and XenDesktop
Delivering 5000 Desktops with Citrix XenDesktop 4
XenDesktop - Design Handbook
Designing an Enterprise XenDesktop Solution
Top 5 Hotfixes
Article Number
Article Title
Hotfix XDE400VDAWX86002 (Version 4.0.4534) - For Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 Virtual Desktop Agent x86
Delegated Administration and Configuration Logging Components - For XenDesktop 4 Service Pack 1
Hotfix XDE400VDAWX86003 (Version 4.0.4546) - For Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 Virtual Desktop Agent x86
Hotfix XDE400PM004 (Version 4.0.4553) - For Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 Pool Management
Hotfix XDE400VDAWX86004 (Version 4.0.5013) - For Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 Virtual Desktop Agent x86
Top 5 Presentations
Article Number
Article Title
XenDesktop 4.0 Core Infrastructure and Features - GoToWebinar
TechEdge 2008 - Citrix XenDesktop Internals
Troubleshooting XenDesktop, Provisioning Services & XenServer Integration
TechEdge 2010 - Troubleshooting XenDesktop Deployments
XenApp and XenDesktop Authentication
Top 5 Forum Threads
Article Number
Article Title
Create catalog esx 4.1
XenDesktop, Windows 7 and ThinClients!
XD5 Windows 7 unable to re-connect
XD5 & Xendesktop PVS Setup Wizard tool - Unable to find hosting providers
Step by Step upgrade documentation needed.
Top 5 Videos
Video Link
Video Title
How To: Create a VM Template and Deploy using XenDesktop Wizard
How To: Configure USB Support on XenDesktop
How To: Enable Logging for the Desktop Delivery Controller and Virtual Desktop Agent
How To: Modify Initial Client Drive Mapping in XenDesktop Environment
How To: Configure ICA Packet Size in a XenDesktop Environment

Monday 10 January 2011

XenDesktop Overview Video Series Available from Citrix



The above link has some great XenDesktop 5 overview videos that would be worth a watch if you have a chance.

Dynamic Color Compression cuts bandwidth consumption by 35%

The ICA protocol is widely recognized as the most bandwidth-efficient remoting protocol in the industry, and it keeps getting better. Through integration with HDX Adaptive Orchestration, the Extra Color Compression feature introduced in XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 1 has been enhanced in XenDesktop 5 to automatically adjust based on available network bandwidth. Dynamic Color Compression takes advantage of the fact that the human eye is less sensitive to color information (Chroma) than luminance (Luma). When images are encoded with less color information, the bandwidth savings are huge yet the human eye still sees a very satisfactory picture. Most of today's digital cameras use this technique to save on storage space.
When there is plenty of bandwidth available HDX provides a "visually lossless" experience for Windows 7 desktops by disabling extra color compression. But on low bandwidth connections, HDX Adaptive Orchestration dynamically enables extra color compression, which uses lower color resolution for the images. This results in about 35% bandwidth savings! By default, extra color compression is enabled for connections below 2 Mbps.

                                        Extra Color Compression enabled (left) and disabled (right)
Citrix XenDesktop administrators can override this default behavior by creating an image compression user policy in Desktop Studio.  This feature exposes two configuration settings.

When enabled, Extra Color Compression is applied whenever the effective bandwidth of the network connection falls below the threshold value specified in the Extra Color Compression Threshold setting.  Otherwise, extra color compression is disabled irrespective of the connection bandwidth.

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Wednesday 5 January 2011

Citrix Supported Databases - Updated 23/12/2010

Citrix have updated the supported database chart. Click the following link to see what’s new.


Tuesday 4 January 2011

XenDesktop 5 SQL Profiler Template Availble

A useful troubleshooting tool from Citrix has been released for XenDesktop.
The SQL profiler template allows data capture of XenDesktop 5 SQL activity for troubleshooting purposes. There are two templates included:
XenDesktop 5 SQL2008R2 Profiler Template for SQL 2008R2
XenDesktop 5 SQL2008 Profiler Template for SQL 2008
Prerequisites
SQL 2008 or SQL 2008 R2
Installing XenDesktop 5 SQL Profiler Template
1.     Start SQL Profiler 2008 or SQL 2008.
Example Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 > Performance Tools > SQL Server Profiler
2.     Click on File > Templates > Import Template.

3.     Select XD5 SQL Profiler Trace SQL2008R2 or SQL 2008, depending on your SQL edition.

4.     Enable file rollover and set the value to at least 100 megabytes.
5.     When you are ready to reproduce the event, click Run.
6.     Once the event has been reproduced, click on the red Stop button to stop the trace.
7.     Save the log file and upload for analysis.

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Citrix - ICA Clients and Supported Operating Systems

This article provides a summary listing of supported operating systems (with links to documentation) for some of the more recent ICA Client/Online Plug-in releases.
Note: Citrix typically supports the current version and one version back of the Online Plug-in (ICA Client), but maintenance only occurs on the most recent version. Often, to resolve specific issues, Citrix might require upgrading to the latest version. Functionality in previous product versions is not modified, enhanced, or altered once an updated version is available. (See Support of Non-Sale Products.)
Clients and supported Operating Systems
Note: Vista became officially supported starting with Citrix Presentation Server clients 10.x, and Windows 7 became officially supported starting with Online Plug-in 11.2.
Online Plug-in 12.1 (eDocs)
· Windows 7, 32-bit and 64-bit editions (including Embedded Edition)
· Windows XP Professional, 32-bit and 64-bit editions
· Windows XP Embedded
· Windows Vista, 32-bit and 64-bit editions
· Windows Server 2008 R1, 32-bit and 64-bit editions (not supported by XenDesktop connections)
· Windows Server 2008 R2, 64-bit edition (not supported by XenDesktop connections)
· Windows Server 2003, 32-bit and 64-bit editions (not supported by XenDesktop connections)
Important: For XenDesktop connections, be aware that the Desktop Appliance Lock is only supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Embedded.
Online Plug-in 12.0 (eDocs)
· Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions), 32-bit and 64-bit editions
· Windows XP Professional, 32-bit and 64-bit editions
· Windows XP Embedded
· Windows Vista (Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions), 32-bit and 64-bit editions
· Windows Server 2008 R1, 32-bit and 64-bit editions (not supported by XenDesktop connections)
· Windows Server 2008 R2, 64-bit edition (not supported by XenDesktop connections)
· Windows Server 2003, 32-bit and 64-bit editions (not supported by XenDesktop connections)
Important: For XenDesktop connections, be aware that the Desktop Viewer Embedded Edition is only supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Embedded.
Online Plug-in 11.2 (eDocs)
· Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions), 32-bit and 64-bit editions
· Windows XP Professional, 32-bit and 64-bit editions
· Windows XP Embedded
· Windows Vista (Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions), 32-bit and 64-bit editions
· Windows Server 2008 R1, 32-bit and 64-bit editions (not supported by XenDesktop connections)
· Windows Server 2003, 32-bit and 64-bit editions (not supported by XenDesktop connections)
Important: For XenDesktop connections, be aware that the Desktop Viewer Embedded Edition is only supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Embedded.
XenApp Plugin for Hosted Apps 11.0 (Administrator’s Guide, p. 26)
· Windows 2000
· Windows XP
· Windows Server 2003
· Windows Vista
· Windows 2008
Citrix Presentation Server Clients 10.x for Windows (Administrator’s Guide, p. 15)
· Windows NT 4.0 or later
· Windows 2000
· Windows XP
· Windows 2003
· Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs