This may seem like a strange concept, but a useful analogy is to look at pizza and how you consume it:. You could make your own from scratch — delicious, but takes a while and can get messy build your own on premises.
You could buy a frozen one from a supermarket and cook it at home deploy in cloud IaaS , you could order-in — quick, simple, but you still need to add drinks, a table and wash up afterwards Citrix Cloud , or you can dine out — walk in, eat, pay, leave fully managed. Citrix Cloud is a delivery model that you may not be familiar with, however it can address many of the typical challenges around owning and operating a Citrix infrastructure. Citrix Cloud is a Citrix managed solution where the management components required for delivering your Citrix workloads to users are hosted as a cloud service.
You simply manage your workloads servers with application installed , and the rest of the solution can be consumed as a service. This is particularly relevant as we approach XenApp 6. If you want to maintain your management infrastructure yourself then you will need to choose which Release Cycle you want to deploy. Current Release CR branch is a quarterly release which receives the latest features and updates, ensuring you always have the greatest capabilities available.
Each quarterly release receives six months of maintenance support, with 18 months before it reaches end of life. This means your update cadence will be relatively high, with normally at least one update a year to maintain support.
I should emphasise though, that the upgrade experience between 7. This release is a specific combination of component versions that Citrix will provide five years of maintenance support for, with the option of a further five years of extended support available with separate support contract.
Cumulative Updates are typically released around every six months, so you will still likely need to perform a mini-upgrade at least once a year. We can assist with your transition, whichever route you choose. Since StoreFront can connect to both 6. StoreFront has features that can help with farm migration:.
Self-Service is the client side of StoreFront. Favorites — In StoreFront, users can mark icons as Favorites. The selected Favorites are stored on a database that is replicated to each StoreFront server. Web Interface never had this capability. Do you want to leave Favorites enabled? Beacons — Receiver Self-Service uses Beacons to determine if the client machine is internal or external. Workspace app or Receiver configuration methods — There are multiple methods of configuring Receiver Self-Service: registry, group policy, StoreFront Account Services, and installer command line arguments.
This feature requires datacenter-specific DNS names. Networking skills — Citrix is a networking device, which requires different skills than the server-based Secure Gateway. Cutover DNS? This lets you run Web Interface and StoreFront in parallel, and you can migrate users and Receiver at your leisure.
We are looking at upgrading to a newer cumulative update within the same version. Going from 7. Thanks in advance for taking a look at this post. We use 7. Using MCS provisioning. Not too long ago you helped me out tremendously when I was working on a Database issue with an old environment. Here is my question. When I built our 7. Our Vendor gives us data to put up for specific users put into AD Security groups. This data can be presented in one of two specific software programs the vendor utilizes to present data to users.
These programs are not multi-user aware.. Right now we just build an image in VMWare, make a snapshot, build teh Machine Group and make however many Workstations for the of users needing to see the data. I make a published application for the Vendor software package s..
Since each engagement the vendor sends us has specific data for specific users.. We use to use Server R2 to host some of the data, but the vendors software package is not multiuser.. App-V does virtualization of app. App Layering is more common. Thanks for responding Carl. Maybe this will help.. As I was saying the Vendor who gives us data to plug into one of two or both applications that they provide tell us which users are supposed to have access to it and for how long.
We could get 4 packages of data that will go to 4 different groups.. If there are 6 users.. I make 6 machines etc. If a specific user is also assigned to another package.. The problem has always been timing so its nearly impossible to have one machine per user for all engagements etc. I WISH the software was multi-user aware.. Oh well.. The specified Citrix XML Service could not be contacted and has been temporarily removed from the list of active services.
I have 4 DDCs 3 on R2, 1 on Afaik, even with this messages, the users are still able to access to their resources, the SSL handshake probably uses other ciphers with lower priority and eventually succeeds. I think you can run IIS Crypto on the machines to enable the recommended ciphers and protocols. Carl, we have 7. If I build a new controller with newer os, can it be joined to the existing farm since they are on different os levels?
Citrix Licensing Server Licensing Upgrade — I would go to 7. I have around 50 on-premise application servers which we are planning to migrate to AWS. These app servers serving applications via Citrix. After migrating these servers to AWS, is Citrix users will face any latency issues?
If Yes, then what will be the best way to reduce the latency. Thanks Carl for your quick reply as usual and providing the link to check latency on AWS regions.
I can understand the necessity for license server first, and director to give you an immediate view post upgrade, but why Storefront first? License server first.
I logged a support call with Citrix and so far no fix. The issue looks very similar to this one:. Hypervisor is ESX 6. Another client reported the exact same issue with 7. This kind of error is usually a kernel driver e.
Vmware tools — latest version for ESX 6. The issue seems to go away for a week or two and then returns. The hosts and VMware are showing no alerts either. We want to upgrade our Virtual Desktops from 7. Carl, I have got Xenapp 7. But my Storefront component is at 3. So what would you suggest should I go for 3. The reason I am thinking of 3. But my only worry as from 3. At this moment if I only want to upgrade Storefront from 3. Ok, sure.
So in case we run into an issue we can revert the snapshot and our storefront will be functional as before? Wondering if anyone has attempted a scripted upgrade of Citrix 7. Hello Carl, before asking you for advice, I want to thank you for your great job! Can I only upgrade Storefront without upgrade others components?
Thanks in advance for your reply. But technically, upgrading just StoreFront will work. I do not speak English. Hi Carl, currently have a 7. VDA installed on the controllers show as 7. Studio running from that same DC shows ver. Which represents the actual version for this controller. I want to ultimately upgrade these controllers to 7. I am trying to export a storefront config to import on another fresh server that will join but not propagate correctly.
However I get the following and can not seem to find much on it. Verify that the property exists. ExportConfigura tion. I just finally figured out that part. Even though on this version the pnagent seems to be under my actual portal site.
After doing this it was able to export successfully. I can now import it on the new server i had run the Clear-DSConfiguration on it first however it seems to set up as a standalone server now.
However now both are their own server group and I do not see how to add no join option the new one so that I can propagate changes to it from the main one. Looks like I may have to just do everything manually now? I am planning to try CU3 upgrade for Xendesktop environment this weekend. On my test environment I did not have to change the target device and it worked fine. Also, installing target device should require reverse imaging which I do not see in any section of upgrade documentation.
At least VDA could be changed anytime. Everyone voted for increasing CR upgrade support to at least a year instead of 6 months and sending feedback about it. These are the summary I get in deployment and I planning to stick with it with slight variation based on my environment.
Thanks for your quick response. Based on the article win7 does not work with new CR releases, so if I upgrade my servers to and leave win7 VDA on 7. If anything happens during update bring snapshot back online including license server. Are you asking about StoreFront? I have 1 storefront servergroup based on R2 7. I both want a newer OS server en upgrade to 7. I know first to deploy 2 freshly OS for and install Storefront ltsr 7.
Export import current storefront config? Or first add the new storefronts to the servergroup? Page 17 of the Document- mentions Smartcheck is free. I try to log in and get the following email. Email Address: peer. I have called Citrix Support and they say we are not licensed for smart.
Support is no help. Appreciate your input as we are trying to go to 7. Carl, just an fyi that the Citrix Telemetry service needs to be stopped on 7. Hi Carl, I have to make a vdi backup policy. Everyone use UPM, so I need to backup only the masters? Persistent and nonpersistent Thanks. For non-persistent, you only need the masters, plus a documented procedure to recreate the pools in your DR site. For Persistent, it depends if you want to restore them as the user customized them or not.
Some environments accept that users have to re-setup their desktops after a disaster. When you stated If Zones, upgrade all Delivery Controllers in all zones at the same time. Do you have some background information on that? So in a zone configuration are you saying to upgrade all Delivery Controllers in each zone prior to the DB upgrade, or can you still do half up front 1 in each zone and the others after DB upgrade? Is Azure SQL something to consider? Current Version 7.
Hi carl, I installed Windows 10 operating system in version And I did the 7. But when users save an excel or word document to the desktop and then restart the machine or log out, excel and word data are lost. But if the file is in excel and word document attachments, the data stops.
Do you have a comment about the problem? Hi Carl, Just want to thank you for all of the content as always so well explained and laid out. I would love to get your take on MS Teams on Citrix best practices.
Thanks again. I do not see any other error. I had to clone one of the production server to continue searching for solution, only the clone-server does not have network connection. I tried the upgrade newly on the clone server and got same error message. Went through about 40 logs in the folder suggested but none indicate any error or failure.
However, I observed I was able to install 7. So the problem is not the system or prerequisites. Only this way would not be appropriate as all my configurations are gone with uninstall. Since it is StoreFront upgrade creating problem and it is installed on its own. Thanks for the detailed upgrade process. I will be upgrading our platform from 7.
We are currently on PVS 7. Do I have to update target device software at the same time or can it be done later? Does target device software 7. Can you please confirm. You can upgrade PVS at any time. Can we upgrade in this order? Yes, the TD Software is installed inside the vDisk. I have a 7. I want to do an in-place upgrade to 7.
I am currently putting together my Method of Procedure in order to get approval from Change Management. I just wanted to make sure that my understanding of the Target Device and VDA upgrade was correct, which is this:. Promote and xcopy the image to remaining PVS storage and reboot App servers to pull that new updated image? Are these R2 servers that were converted from 6.
I was not the person who initially built these images but I know they are R2 now and pretty sure they were built as that. They were not converted from 6. Not sure about choosing the XenApp name instead of XenDesktop but that makes sense since we only utilize the App functionality. Citrix 7. When you run the metainstaller on a new machine, it asks if you want to name it XenApp, or XenDesktop.
Does pvs upgrade involve just the VDA or we have to reinstall target device again, which could lead to reverse imaging. The only concern I have is that our citrix site databases are hosted in SQL clustered servers. I have been trying to find information on upgrading the database in this configuration but have come up short. Do you have any first hand experience with upgrades in clustered environments? Do you have any recommendations specific to clusters or is the documented process good for every configuration?
Just make sure you have sysadmin permissions to the owning node and it can upgrade automatically. Or, generate scripts and send them to your DBA to run. Is it supposed to upgrade automatically during site update and perhaps PVS gets updated automatically when PVS is updated? Can you use Smart Migrate to upgrade XenApp 7. Thanks for your work! I have one question concerning a in-place upgrade.
However 2 other servers are Windows R2 servers. After that we want to remove these Windows R2 servers from the store and want to upgrade 2. Thanks for your reply! But in that case it would be better to install 7. After that replace those server in the load balancer, right? Has anyone found a way to use Smart Migrate or XenApp 6. When upgrading to 7. All my XenApp servers are running on an older version of the VDA and because of this I need to reverse image, update and then recapture my master images.
Can I still upgrade the delivery controllers to 7. Or do I need to do that before? I do need to reverse image the master images anyways, which I will do, but just wanted to verify. Carl we have a number of sites that are on XA 7. Go for it. You can certainly upgrade VDAs without upgrading Controllers.
Carl, I have recently updated from 7. The vda and target installation software on each vda is showing 7. What I am missing? Everybody should upgrade to 7. But once 7. Director upgrade is shown as a prerequisite before Delivery Controller upgrade, but you recommend to upgrade it after.
To in-place upgrade the Director servers: Ensure the Delivery Controllers are already upgraded. I agree, that there is no point in upgrading Director if you are not going to upgrade Delivery Controllers, but if you are — not upgraded Director can potentially break itself, I might be wrong.
But usually you do both in the same maintenance window. Are you aware of any references to official Citrix documentation with feature comparison matrix for CR vs.
LTSR for each supported version? Thank you in advance. Thank you for the very detailed and helpful article regarding upgrade paths and procedures. I have a question regarding a statement you have made regarding Citrix XenApp component supportability.
You mentioned that:. Can you please provide a reference to Citrix official documentation which confirms the above? Thanks Carl, I use 7. Do you really think App Layering can replace Pvd? Is a user can install an app to a layer or is it just because theoritycally you can package all apps? The use case for PvD is really let the end user installing their own apps, developers e. Unidesk has a User Layer feature that is similar to PvD.
When I install VDA 7. I am sure there was a great deal of time that went into this. Thank u for all of this. There are three classifications for on-premises releases: LTSR Long Term Service Release — these releases get 5 years of mainstream support from the release date, plus up to 5 more years of paid extended support CR Current Release — 6 months support from the release date.
Updated quarterly. This classification provides exceptions to the requirement that all components must be LTSR versions. To patch a Current Release, upgrade to the newest Current Release. Current Releases are end-of-maintenance after 6 months, and end-of-life after 18 months. Be prepared to upgrade to a newer Current Release every 6 months.
Workspace app too. This article will refer to LTSR 7. If you are on 7. Cumulative Updates do not include new features. Current Release 7. Receiver 4. Or will you wait until the next LTSR, probably released sometime in ? Another option is to remain on LTSR with latest cumulative update until you see a Current Release with new features that are desirable enough to upgrade to.
Database down? No worries, get it back when you can. Need to take some servers down for maintenance? No problem, just unpublish from the group… life was more simple than we thought it was in when 6. Now- XenApp 6. And wow… did I do a lot of 6. In a way, that makes me feel really old… but it also makes me realize that good design can really stick around and stand the test of time!
So when it comes to thoughts about migration- my advice is to keep that in mind. That all said- let's get into the basics of what you need to know about XenApp 6. The reality here is that a shocking amount of you running XenApp 6. Citrix can be cryptic at times but the reality is the Lifecycle Matrix has been published for some time now. Why is there two dates? Because if you had any interruptions of the Subscription Advantage — you found yourself at that date for End of Life.
Rough, but true. I am always shocked how many people realized EOL was coming or here and quickly renewed an SA that had been dormant for a few years. Sorry folks; that little trick didn't work this time around. Extended Support for XenApp 6. Quotes depend on how many servers you have, users, etc. But the last time I went thru this with XenApp 5. You'd have to contact Citrix to get a quote but here's the thing… there's very few reasons you would ever want to do that!
Hey- there are a lot of you out there so don't feel bad. Let's not focus on the reasons; let's focus on your options, and hopefully I can help you get on the right track. So unless you are updating that often I highly advise you do NOT use those versions.
Image courtesy of Citrix Systems. While they aren't yet EOL — 7. Let this also be a wake up call if you are running 7. Of this year. That means that Citrix is only actually maintaining four releases right now. So, why doesn't everyone do LTSR? CR Current Release is shiny. It has new and innovative features that, if you are able to keep up with the 6 month lifecycle, can be really great for your users.
If you don't have the ability to keep up with this pace, you are doing your company a disservice by staying on Current Release! Good news! NOW- a very important note here; there was a 7. Even better news if you are running 7. But my guess is given how many of you have already migrated from 7. I guess we'll have to wait and see!
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