Citrix Master Class - Live Upgrade from XenApp 6.5 to 7.6

Editor's Notes

• #9: No reason to upgrade if you are already on 6.5. 2008R2 still has a long life left. However, if you have a goal of moving to 2012R2, then you should also move to XenApp 7.6 as the OS change will require you to rebuild your servers. Might as well do both at once. However, even if you stick with 6.5 for some time, you still get enhancements from the 7.6 release even without changing XenApp. StoreFront – you can use it. It provides more capabilities than Web Interface Chrome Receiver and new features (printing, usb, clipboard, touch, webcam, 2 way audio) PVS Storage: the latest version of PVS includes some amazing storage optimization
• #11: As noted throughout the different slides, this 7.6 release continues to bring value to existing XenApp 6.5, this slide is simply a recap of all the new features and functionality available in XenApp 7.6 that can be applied to customers who have active SA for XenApp 6.5. Flash redirection enhancements Windows Media Redirection for Mac and Android HTML5 Video Redirection for server offload Lync enhancements including Linux and iOS Quadrupling 3D Graphics Density: Working with Nvidia Director and 6.5 details: Director supports troubleshooting IMA user sessions, so when a user calls in and has a 6.5 session, the admin can troubleshoot that user session with Director. Single helpdesk tool to troubleshoot both 6.5 and 7.x sessions.
• #12: PVS now has a new caching mechanism that uses RAM, which is super fast. As the ram cache is consumed, the blocks are written to disk in larger, sequential blocks. This is a simple concept and it had truly amazing results. Over 90% reduction in IOPS to disk. For Windows 2012R2 (RDS), IOPS went from 9 per user to 1. Windows 7 was even greater going from 14 down to 0.2 (yes, that is less than 1). This was with 512MB of ram allocated to each VM. Even if we dropped this down to 256, IOPS only went to 0.4. You could easily get by with a lot less per VM and still show huge IOPS savings. Remember, fewer IOPS to disk means less storage requirements, which helps reduce your cost. BTW, configuring this requires no extra hardware, no ssds, no complex configs. To turn this on, you essentially flip a switch (change an option in a dropdown box). That is it.
• #15: We’ll be running upgrade demos concentrating on the user experience. In this case, our user is Patrick, our Sales Director!!
• #16: Richard to cover how his upgrade from XenApp 5 to 7.5 went.
• #18: We basically utilize storefront (or WI) to integrate the two environments together for the users. They see a single view for both environments.
• #19: The final option is to do a rebuild. This is really applicable when you change OS versions. This process is still similar to migrate in that you migrate the farm to 7.6 first, then you rebuild servers. This includes installing a new OS, the XenApp VDA and your apps. But do not forget that with a new OS you need to think about the app compatability
• #20: As citrix has done migration for 20 years, we know a thing or two about application compatibility. This is why we recommend AppDNA. It will help you move from XP to 7 or 8. Will help you move from 2003 or 2008 to 2012.
• #21: But what if we are going from IMA to FMA? That is the point of the session right? In this case we will do a migration. We will first migrate the farm settings from 6.5 into a 7.6 site. This will include policies and published applications. Once we’ve migrated the farm, we can do an in place upgrade of the xenapp workers.
• #22: This is by far the easiest. In place upgrade. This is only for environments that are not changing infrastructure (FMA to FMA only). You simple update the delivery controller Then update the VDA on the hosts Pretty easy
• #24: Simpler Architecture Networking with fewer components Lower cost and easier scaling Fewer management touch points Higher Performance Brings out the best of x86 architecture Optimized resource utilization for compute, networking, and management Faster, More Flexible Automated deployment/provisioning Unification leads to reduced complexity Management via a single interface No Compromises No trade-offs for function Enhanced design capability Designed for the future, today Better TCO/ROI Touch market share numbers and growth in the last 5 years
• #26: Speaker notes Mention hypervisor agnostic Mention Nexus 1000v and VSG Mention QoS end-to-end VM-FEX: Even though Distributed virtual switch addresses some of the scaling concerns of virtual network (Eg – instead of having a network management point within each physical host you get to manage groups of physical hosts together in the Nexus 1Kv case upto 64 hosts), it adds a few new complications Virtual network management is opaque to the physical network management Features available in your physical network infrastructure may not be consistent with the features available in your virtual network infrastructure With VM-FEX collapses the physical and virtual network into “ONE” network. All VMs get assigned a PCIe device on the Virtual Interface Card. Virtual switching inside the hypervisor is removed - The virtual port on the vSwitch (or vETH) that used to be inside the hypervisor now moves to the physical switch and the VM gets its own presence on the physical network using the vEth - Traffic between VMs on the same host need to go the physical switch. - VM-FEX eliminates the additional complexity introduced by virtual network - Network management points are dramatically reduced – instead of managing a switch per host (or even one per 64 hosts in case of distributed switches) you manage a single switch that is responsible for both physical and virtual networking - Virtual and physical traffic is treated consistently. You don’t need 2 sets of policies for virtual and physical network The 2nd benefit from VM-FEX comes from the fact that switching is completely off-loaded to the physical switch’s ASIC. The Host CPU is relieved from this effort and we see improvements upto 12% for standard (emulated) mode and upto 30% for high performance (VMDirectPath or PCIe pass thru) mode. Lets talk about the different modes of VM-FEX now
• #28: Mention storage openess ... Not just for Mini but for UCS in general.
• #29: Citrix and Cisco mobile workspace stack: The first instantiation of this solution is with Citrix will be ready for market in the March timeframe – and we look forward to announcing it at Interop LV. It includes our Mobile Networking, Cloud Infrastructure and Security solutions as the basic platform. We then build Mobile Policy for networking and devices, together with Citrix XenMobile MDM, Application delivery with Citrix XenDesktop and XenMobile MAM and App storefront. On top of that we build Mobile productivity with Cisco Mobile Collaboration and Citrix Content Management - and finally we build the Workspace Management layer with Prime Service Catalog and Citrix CloudPlatform and UCS Director
• #30: Cover DaaS CVD
• #31: We’ve been doing this for a long time. We have numerous resources that are available to you to make this process as smooth as possible.