subject: 1Y0-A05 XenApp Study Guide Part 1 [print this page] 1Y0-A05 XenApp Study Guide Part 1 1Y0-A05 XenApp Study Guide Part 1
Objective 1: Understanding the Citrix Architecture
XenApp Features and Components
Citrix XenApp 5.0 is an end-to-end application delivery solution that delivers Windows applications to users.
TheXenApp Document Library contains the technical documentation shipped with XenApp and is a core resource for additional information for:
* Installation
* Configuration
* Management
Load Manager ensures that each user connects to the server with the lightest load and can best handle the connection.
* Load Manager uses load evaluators with rules to determine resource load.
Resource Manager is based onCitrix EdgeSight functionality to provide administrators with the ability to monitor, report and collect server resource metrics for all servers in the farm.
Network Manager provides the administrator the ability to manage XenApp using SNMP and provides seamless integration with network management consoles such as:
* HP OpenView
* Tivoli NetView
* CA UniCenter
TheWeb Interface provides users with access to resources published in one or more server farms through either:
* A web browser
* The Citrix XenApp plugin
TheSecure Gateway provides secure remote access to published applications and resources on XenApp servers through SSL/TLS encrypted sessions.
* XenApp uses the Secure Gateway in combination with the Web Interface to secure communications.
TheCitrix XenApp Provider provides XenApp health information systems such as Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager.
* MOM 2005 is supported.
TheAccess Management Console allows administrators to configure administrator permissions, server and server farm properties.
* Administrators publish applications in the Access Management Console.
TheLicense Management Console is a browser-based utility that allows administrators to manage licenses, track license usage, create license reports and configure licensing alerts.
TheXenApp Advanced Configuration tool is a utility that allows an administrator to manage zones, implement policies and manage certain aspects of Load Manager.
* The XenApp Advanced Configuration tool was known as the Presentation Server Console previous to XenApp 5.0.
XenApp provides a variety ofplugins (formerly called clients) that make it possible for users to access published resources regardless of the operating system installed on the client device.
* Examples of XenApp plugins include:
XenApp Plugin for Streamed Apps
Java plugin (formerly called Client for Java)
The Java plugin deploysautomatically when a user connects from aMacintosh computer with theSafariweb browser.
XenApp Web plugin (formerly called Client for Web)
XenApp plugin (formerly called Program Neighborhood Agent)
Program Neighborhood
Aserver farm is a group of XenApp servers made up of one or more zones, all using the same data store, sharing information among them for load balancing purposes.
A logical group of XenApp servers communicating with a single data collector is called azone .
* Zones are typically based on subnets and highly-available subnets.
Adata collector contains dynamic information about XenApp servers in a zone such as:
* Session load
* Session status
* User information
Thedata collector election process involves a server in the zone taking over the role of data collector when the original data collector becomes unavailable.
Zone preference and failover allows user connections in a particular zone to failover to another zone in the event that the primary zone is not available.
Every farm has onedata store that holds all of the static information for all of the XenApp servers in the farm.
* The data store can be created on one of the following databases:
Microsoft Access
SQL Server Express
* or enterprise-level databases:
Microsoft SQL Server
Oracle
IBM DB2
A subset of the data in the data store that is on every XenApp server in the farm is called thelocal host cache .
TheIndependent Management Architecture (IMA) provides the framework for all server-to-server communication in the server farm.
Microsoft Terminal Services is a presentation virtualization platform for Windows Server.
* Terminal Services functionality is extended by Citrix XenApp by adding dimensions of security, flexibility, manageability, security and performance.
Services, Protocols, Port Numbers
The IMA Service:
* Provides a centralized framework used by administrative tools for XenApp.
* Delivers subsystems that collectively provide functionality to current and future Citrix products.
* Runs on all servers with XenApp installed.
Enabled by default during installation.
* Communicates through port 2512 for server-to-server communication.
* Uses port 2513 for communication between the XenApp Advanced Configuration tool and XenApp servers.
During XenApp installation, you can choose to have the Citrix XML Service share the same port as IIS.
* The default IIS port is 80.
The Access Management Console uses port 135.
Citrix SSL Relay uses port 443.
ICA sessions use port 1494.
Client-to-server UDP sessions use port 1604.
Session reliability uses port 2598.
Secure Computing SafeWord authentication uses port 5031.
Farm and Zone Configurations
In general, a single server farm meets the needs of most environments.
* Sometimes business reasons dictate the need for multiple server farms.
* Useseparate server farms fortest anddevelopment environments.
Because data collectors communicate with one another, zones within a server farm have an impact on one another.
Citrix does not recommend creating a zone for each subnet in your environment.
* Unless your farm is dispersed across a WAN, Citrix recommends having only one zone in your environment.
For performance reasons on WANs, Citrix recommends using only one zone for each large geographically dispersed data center.
To minimize the number of zones, Citrix recommends connecting locations with only a few servers to a larger zone if good WAN connectivity exists.
Zone Preference and Failover:
* Is configured in the User Workspace folder in the properties of a policy.
* Connections can be directed to a preferred zone and failover to a backup zone.
* Is supported by Web Plugin and XenApp Plugin.
By default, a data collector does not communicate the load information to other data collectors in the server farm.
* If the administrator wants to share load information across zones, theShare load information across zonesoption must be selected in the server farm properties of the XenApp Advanced Configuration tool.
Data Store Data
The data store contains persistent information for the server farm such as:
* Server farm configuration information
* Published application configurations
* Server configurations
* Server farm management security (administrator accounts)
* Printer configurations
* Policy configurations
A subset of the data in the data store is stored in the local host cache on each server in the server farm.
* The local host cache contains all the farm-wide information needed for a server to resolve user requests in the event that the data store is unavailable.
Objective 2: Licensing and Installing XenApp
Licensing Functionality and Ports
Prior to the installation of a valid license, theXenApp start-up license :
* Allows for one administrator.
* Allows up to 2 user connections to XenApp.
* Grace period expires and user sessions will not be able to connect to servers running XenApp after 96-hours.
An administrator can continue to configure XenApp after the start-up license grace period expires.
TheLicense Management Console uses port 8082 by default.
Thelicense manager daemon uses port 27000 by default.
By default, thelicense server vendor daemon uses a random port.
* When using a firewall, the recommended port for the license server vendor daemon is port 7279.
Allocate Licenses
To install a new license for XenApp:
* In theLicense Management Console on theWelcome page clickConfigure License Server >Step 1: Download license file from MyCitrix.com .
* Login toMy Citrix and from theCurrent Tool drop-down list, selectActivate/Allocate .
* Download the license file.
* Copy the license file to your license server with theLicense Server Management Console .
* Make sure the directory appears in theUpload license page , or browse to it and clickUpload .
* On theLicense Files page, clickUpdate license data .
The file will appear in the table on the page.
To allocate licenses to the server farm, the administrator needs:
* The license code.
* A MyCitrix user ID and password.
* The license server host name.
* The number of desired licenses.
Server Report Log Files
Before an administrator can generate a historical report the report logging feature must be enabled.
To enable the report logging feature:
* In theLicense Manager Console , clickConfigure License Server .
TheLicense File page appears.
* ClickFile Locations .
* UnderReport Log , clickChange .
* Enter the path to where you want to create your log and specify a meaningful name with a .rl extension for the report log.
* ClickChange and the report log is created and appears in theLicense Management Console .
In order not to degrade the speed at which historical reports are generated, do not let your license report log files grow larger than 50MB.
Report logs are required to generate historical reports.
* Logs can grow excessively large if they are not archived on a regular basis.
* Excessive report log growth can negatively impact your licensing system in two ways:
By consuming hard drive space.
By slowing down report generation.
Citrix recommends that you estimate growth by watching report log growth over a period of time in your environment and not relying on a formula.
* You can address excessive report log growth by performing one of the following:
Archiving report logs using a standard file compression tool, such as WinZip, starting a report log with a new name, and moving the archived report log to a new location.
Changing the location or name of report logs.
When youchange the name of a licensing report log, anew report log is created .
Specifying that the report log overwrite itself whenever you restart the license server.
Do not let your report logs grow larger than 50MB. Report logs larger than 50MB can seriously degrade the speed at which the License Management Console generates reports.
To maintain license report logs, Citrix recommends:
* Rotating and archiving reports regularly.
* Giving report logs a meaningful name.
With the time interval in the name to make it easier to locate the log file in the license management console.
* Save report logs according to blocks of time such as weekly or monthly.
* In clustered license servers, do not give the report log the same name as either of the servers in the cluster.
If you do, the logs cannot be backed up properly.
Creating and Joining a Farm
To create a new server farm using an Oracle, Microsoft SQL or IBM DB2 database as the data store:
* On theCreate a Server Farm setup page, enter a new name for the farm.
* SelectUse the following database on a separate database server and select the database from the list.
* Either chooseUse default zone name or create a name for the zone.
* ClickNext and create a new data source connection to the database.
To create a new server farm using Microsoft Access or SQL Server Express for the data store:
* On theCreate a Server Farm setup page, enter a name for the new server farm.
* SelectUse a local database on this server and select the database from a list.
If using Microsoft Access, it will automatically be created during setup
If using SQL Server Express, install it on the server before installing XenApp.
* Either chooseUse default zone name or create a name for the zone.
* ClickNext and continue with setup.
To join an already existing server farm using a data store on a dedicated Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server or IBM DB2 database server:
* In theCreate or Join a Server farm page of the installation wizard, chooseJoin an existing farm .
* ChooseConnect directly to the database using ODBC and configure the ODBC driver for the database.
* To access the database, you'll need to enter the logon credentials of a user authorized to access the database.
* You do not need to create a new zone unless desired.
To join an existing server farm where the data store exists on the first XenApp server in the farm (Microsoft Access or SQL Server Express):
* In theCreate or Join a Server Farm page of the installation wizard, chooseJoin an existing farm .
* ChooseConnect to a database on this server ; specify the name of the server hosting the Access or SQL Server Express database and clickNext .
The default communication port is 2512.
* On theAccess the Database on a Citrix XenApp computer page, specify the credentials for the server to which you are connecting.
* You do not need to create a new zone unless desired.
Remote Desktop Users Group
During the installation of XenApp, the existing users and groups and the anonymous user accounts created by XenApp can be added to the localRemote Desktop Users group on the server.
* During theRemote Desktop Users group step of XenApp installation, an administrator can choose to:
Add the Authenticated Users now
Add the list of users from the Users group now
Skip this step, and add users later
Add anonymous users also
Only users and groups that are members of the local Remote Desktop Users group can access resources on the server using the ICA or RDP protocol.
If the users and groups do not exist at the time of the installation or the administrator wants to manually add the users and groups, the administrator can use the Computer Management utility on the server to perform this task after the installation completes.
Miscellaneous Licensing and Installing
To upgrade from an existing server farm to XenApp 5.0, there are three different ways in which you can do so:
* Server migration,
A new installation of XenApp is performed (not using theUpgrade Wizard ) on a clean system in an existing farm.
Farm upgrade, in which the existing farm and data store are maintained but at least one server in the farm is migrated to the new XenApp release
Farm migration, in which a new farm and data store are created, based on the installation of at least one new server (that is, the first server in the farm).
Shadowing restrictions set during the installation of XenApp are permanent.
* If shadowing was disabled or capabilities restricted during the installation, neither shadowing nor the restricted capabilities can be enabled after the installation is complete without reinstalling XenApp.
