Citrix® XenApp® 7.x Performance Essentials

Table of Contents

Citrix® XenApp® 7.x Performance Essentials

Credits

Notice

About the Author

About the Reviewers

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Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Designing the New FlexCast® Management Architecture

FlexCast® Management Architecture

The five-layer model

The user layer

The access layer

StoreFront

NetScaler Gateway™

Access policies

The resource layer

Hosted apps

VM-hosted apps

Streamed apps

Shared desktops

Remote PC Access

The control layer

Delivery Controllers

SQL databases

The Site database

Monitoring database

The Configuration Logging database

Moving databases

Scaling

License servers

The hardware layer

Hosting resources

Applications on servers – siloed versus nonsiloed

Siloed

Nonsiloed

Supporting the infrastructure

Storage

Machine Creation Services

PVS versus MCS

IOPS and IntelliCache

Requirements

Connecting to the virtual infrastructure

Creating a new master image

Creating a machine catalog

Updating machines

XenApp® 7.5 versus previous versions

Summary

2. Monitor and Optimize Infrastructure – Director and EdgeSight®

Citrix® performance monitoring counters

Citrix® Broker Agent

Citrix® Profile Management

Database counters

Broker Service

XML Service

Monitoring using Microsoft PowerShell

The Get-BrokerMachine cmdlet

The Get-BrokerController cmdlet

The Get-BrokerCatalog cmdlet

The Get-BrokerApplicationInstance cmdlet

Counting objects

Citrix® Director

System requirements

Installation

Director and EdgeSight®

Roles and helpdesk console

Monitoring virtual infrastructure

The Monitor Service Open Data API

Using Excel PowerPivot

Optimizing the infrastructure

CPU and memory optimizations

Windows Dynamic Fair Share Scheduling

Memory optimization

Network optimization

Power plan

TCP Chimney Offload

Receive Side Scaling

Load balancing and failover

Machine catalogs and delivery groups

Load balancing

Failover

Load Management

Zone versus site

StoreFront configuration

Summary

3. Monitor and Optimize End User Experience

The logon process

Enumeration

Execution

Session setup

Analyzing the logon process

Optimizing the logon process

Authentication issues

Profile issues

GPO and logon script issues

Citrix® Profile Management

Folder Redirection

Advanced redirection

Optimizing Storefront

Pooled sockets

Application pool initialization

Maintaining user sessions

Session Reliability

Automatic client reconnection

ICA® Keep-Alive

Workspace control

Missing features

Optimizing printing performance

Universal versus native printer driver

Improving user experience with Citrix® HDX™

HDX™ MediaStream

Flash Redirection

Windows Media redirection

Audio redirection

HDX™ Mobile

HDX™ Monitor

Analyzing applications with AppDNA™

System requirements

Usage

Import

Analyze

Report

Summary

4. Publishing Applications through WAN Links

Characteristics of a WAN link

Emulating links with WANem

Installing

Configuring

Using

WANalyzer

Optimizing the ICA® protocol

ICA® virtual channels

Virtual channel priorities

ICA® MultiStream

Enabling ICA® MultiStream

Audio over UDP

Traffic shaping

Monitoring bandwidth usage

Configuring

Network latency versus ICA® RTT

Receiver™ for HTML5

CloudBridge™

Licensed bandwidth

Deployment

Features

Summary

Index

Citrix® XenApp® 7.x Performance Essentials

Citrix® XenApp® 7.x Performance Essentials

Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: August 2013

Second edition: August 2014

Production reference: 1110814

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78217-611-4

www.packtpub.com

Cover image by Pratyush Mohanta (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Luca Dentella

Reviewers

Mark Fermin

Andy Paul

Anton van Pelt

Commissioning Editor

Usha Iyer

Acquisition Editors

Pramila Balan

Shaon Basu

Content Development Editor

Shaon Basu

Technical Editors

Ankita Jha

Sebastian Rodrigues

Copy Editors

Gladson Monteiro

Sayanee Mukherjee

Karuna Narayanan

Project Coordinators

Sanghamitra Deb

Amey Sawant

Proofreader

Simran Bhogal

Indexer

Rekha Nair

Graphics

Disha Haria

Production Coordinator

Melwyn D'sa

Cover Work

Melwyn D'sa

Notice

The statements made and opinions expressed herein belong exclusively to the author and reviewers of this publication, and are not shared by or represent the viewpoint of Citrix Systems®, Inc. This publication does not constitute an endorsement of any product, service, or point of view. Citrix® makes no representations, warranties or assurances of any kind, express or implied, as to the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, availability, or currency of the content contained in this publication or any material related to this publication. Any reliance you place on such content is strictly at your own risk. In no event shall Citrix®, its agents, officers, employees, licensees, or affiliates be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of profits, business information, or loss of information) arising out of the information or statements contained in the publication, even if Citrix® has been advised of the possibility of such loss or damages.

Citrix®, Citrix Systems®, XenApp®, XenDesktop®, and CloudPortal™ are trademarks of Citrix Systems®, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

About the Author

Luca Dentella is an IT architect working for an Italian consulting company, Sorint.LAB.

He graduated in Telecommunication Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Milan, and he specialized in Windows and Virtualization technologies, becoming both a Microsoft and a VMware Certified Professional.

Over the last 7 years, he has worked mainly for ING Direct, Italy, where he helped to design, develop, and evolve the IT infrastructure of the bank. Some projects he was involved in include call center virtualization, design of bankshop infrastructures, outsourcing part of the back office, and insourcing the core banking backend.

In the past, he worked as a Java/C# developer. Now, he leverages his programming skills to write scripts and programs to automate administrative tasks.

He designs, implements, and administers XenApp farms for different customers.

He's the author of Citrix XenApp Performance Essentials, Packt Publishing.

You can visit Luca's blog at http://www.lucadentella.it.

Special thanks to my family and my girlfriend, Sara, for supporting me during the writing of this book. Also, I'd like to thank my colleagues for helping me understand the network and security concepts, and my company for providing the lab environment.

About the Reviewers

Mark Fermin is a director and IT solutions architect living in Atlanta, Georgia. His 18-year IT career has allowed him to gain experience in engineering, consulting, architecture, and technical leadership and management. Most recently, his work has focused on solutions architecture in End User Compute, Datacenter Virtualization, Mobility and Consumerization, Application Delivery, Operational Intelligence, and Security and Privacy. While his career experience has spanned many industry verticals, he has specific affinity and passion for designing solutions for healthcare.

Mark's expertise comes from employment with industry leaders and clients, including Microsoft, Citrix Systems®, The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Providence Health System, Xerox, Bayer AG, and McKesson Corporation.

Mark was a reviewer for Getting Started with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, Stuart Arthur Brown, Packt Publishing.

Mark has been an active blogger and contributor to the enterprise IT community (specifically to the Citrix® and application/desktop virtualization communities) through his posts on his personal technology blog, http://benchtime.wordpress.com, contributions made through exclusive membership in the Citrix® Partner Technical Experts advisory group, membership and participation in the Atlanta Citrix® User Group, customer and community advisory groups for VMware, Cisco, ExtraHop, and healthcare IT, as well as mobile advisory workgroups.

Andy Paul is an accomplished virtualization architect, instructor, and speaker. He has designed and delivered virtualization projects for Fortune 500 companies, public and private healthcare organizations, and higher-education institutions. He