Citrix XenApp Connector for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations

Transcription

1 Citrix XenApp Connector for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations

2 Executive Summary This document provides concepts and considerations that complement the XenApp Connector for Configuration Manager 2012 product documentation on Citrix edocs in the most succinct possible manner, and is intended for organizations conducting evaluations and/or implementations of the product at an Enterprise level. The topics of interest covered in this document are as follows: What components comprise the product, where they are located in the distribution media, and where they need to be deployed. How to build a Proof of Concept/Pilot setup for evaluation purposes. How to shield service continuity from infrastructure disruptions. How to structure deployments involving multiple XenApp farms. How to structure deployments that span multiple geographic locations. How to automate the installation of the Connector. How to automate the creation and deployment of applications via PowerShell to reduce the cost of manual repetitive work when handling a large number of apps. Components overview Once having satisfied the product s System requirements, the XenApp Connector for Configuration Manager 2012 consists of the following components that need to be appropriately deployed throughout the enterprise: Deploy to Media location 1 Client devices Client Components\XenAppDTHandler_x64.msi (or Client Components\XenAppDTHandler_x86.msi) Client Components\CitrixReceiver.exe 2 XenApp Workers XenApp Server Components\XenAppAgent_x64.msi 3 XenApp Server Components\XenAppDTHandler_x64.msi 4 XenApp Server Components\XenAppPCMAgent64.msi (optional) 5 Machines with AppCenter XenApp Server Components\XenApp Group Policy Settings for Connector\CitrixGroupPolicyManagement_x64.msi 6 Machines with ConfigMgr 2012 Admin Console XenAppConnectorConfigMgr2012.exe Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 2

3 7 Connector XenAppConnectorConfigMgr2012.exe 1. Client devices must have Citrix Receiver and the XenApp DT Handler installed on them. o The ConfigMgr agent must be already successfully pushed to the client before installation. o It is recommended that Citrix Receiver be installed prior to the XenApp DT Handler. o The DT Handler requires the.net Framework 3.5. It mediates between ConfigMgr and Citrix Receiver during user targeted deployments. 2. XenApp Workers must have the XenApp Agent and DT Handler installed. o The XenApp Agent is a Windows service that orchestrates application and software update installs and uninstalls, mediating between ConfigMgr, XenApp and optionally Power & Capacity Management. 3. In the case of XenApp Workers, the DT Handler is required for no other reason than complying with a known limitation in ConfigMgr. 4. If Power & Capacity Management will be used, the PCM Agent needs to be installed on all XenApp Workers. o For more information on PCM refer to its documentation here. o In the context of the XenApp Connector, PCM can greatly reduce the impact that deployments have on XenApp farm user sessions. For further details on this topic refer to Power and Capacity Management. 5. Machines with the Citrix AppCenter console installed should be updated with the provided CitrixGroupPolicyManagement_x64.msi file. This update adds the XenApp Agent configuration settings to the GPO. Policies can also be edited via the Windows gpedit command; therefore it s possible (although not likely) that this XenApp GPO update be also necessary on any other machines from which XenApp policies are edited via gpedit. 6. The Console Extension plugin should be installed to extend the user interface of Microsoft s Configuration Manager Console wherever present. The Console Extension registers the following: o The Citrix XenApp deployment type with its corresponding wizard and property pages. o The XenApp Publications node with its corresponding property pages. o The "Citrix XenApp Server Version" global condition. Basic POC setup Upon installing the Connector for the first time and running Config Wizard, the resulting system is likely to look as follows: Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 3

4 ConfigMgr Site Connector PCM 2 4 SMS Provider Concentrator XenApp Farm Admin Console 1) A ConfigMgr 2012 Site used to manage (among other devices) the servers of a XenApp farm. a. The ConfigMgr client must be pushed to at least all Workers in the farm. 2) A XenApp Connector pointing to the Primary Site machine. a. The connector service account must have remote PowerShell access to the SMS Provider it points to. 3) The Connector also points to a machine a. The machine must be a Controller (not a Worker). b. The connector service account must be a Full Citrix Admin in that farm. c. It communicates via the XenApp Commands SDK (Citrix.XenApp.Commands) d. A XenApp farm can have any number of Controllers. The connector only points to one of them. Any one Controller operates on the entire farm. 4) If using PCM, the PCM Concentrator the Connector points to has been specified as well. a. The connector service account must have remote PowerShell access to the PCM Concentrator it points to. 5) If applicable, unlike the Connector, the PCM Concentrator communicates with the XenApp farm as a whole by interacting with the PCM Agent installed in each individual XenApp Worker machine. High Availability To take advantage of this feature, just install and configure the connector service on multiple servers. In the event of infrastructure disruptions, if one of the Connector stops working for any reason, another will automatically pick up the load. Only one instance of the connector service operates regularly while the other(s) remain idle as backups. Adding Connector machines does not increase capacity, it simply protects service continuity; therefore, regardless of the size of your operation, this optional configuration is always recommended. Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 4

5 ConfigMgr Site PCM 2 4 SMS Provider Concentrator XenApp Farm Admin Console (s) 1) The ConfigMgr Site manages, among other devices, the servers of the XenApp farm. 2) Any number of connectors are configured to point to the Site s SMS Provider. a. Different can point to different SMS Providers per Site to improve fault tolerance by avoiding a single point of failure on the ConfigMgr side. b. The Site s database is also used to store the High Availability table, which (in simple terms) contains information about which connector is currently the active one for a given farm. 3) also point to a XenApp Controller host. a. Each Connector can point to a different XenApp Controller or they can all point to the same one. 4) point to the one and only PCM Concentrator if applicable. a. As of the current version, the Connector only supports operating against a single PCM Concentrator per PCM Site. Multi-farm scenario The simplest way to use the XenApp Connector to manage multiple farms is to set up one or more Connector(s) for each XenApp farm. If PCM is used, setup a dedicated PCM Site per farm as well: Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 5

6 Farm A PCM 4 Concentrator XenApp Farm A ConfigMgr Site 1 SMS Provider 2 Farm B PCM 4 Concentrator Admin Console XenApp Farm B Configure each connector independently as if the XenApp farm it points to were the only farm in the enterprise. The Connector automatically handles the fact that other farms exist and operates without conflict. Nothing special needs to be done. Multi-Geo scenario with CAS The following example shows a typical way to arrange XenApp Connector Service machines in a large multi-geo Site hierarchy. On machines where the ConfigMgr Admin Console is installed and used to Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 6

7 manage the hierarchy from (for example, the CAS server) only the Console Extension should be installed: On machines running the Connector Service only the service needs to be installed: Secondary sites (not in the diagram below) are managed by their parent Primary Site and therefore by the Connector (or ) on or pointing to their respective Primary Site. The Citrix XenApp Connector should never be installed on Secondary Site machines as it would serve no purpose. Physical location considerations When planning the deployment of the XenApp Connector within a given ConfigMgr topology, always place the various Connector Service machines in close network proximity to the XenApp farm, PCM Concentrator and SMS Provider machines it operates with. Let ConfigMgr handle inter-site communication, replication, slow links etc. and avoid long distance communications between the XenApp Connector Service and other machines it s configured to work against whenever possible. The XenApp Connector Service uses chunking and compression, therefore providing efficient transfer of data without size limitations; however, its robustness and scalability would not be put to good use for inter-geo communication when there s already a ConfigMgr infrastructure in place which is precisely designed to take care of that in the most optimal way when properly set up. Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 7

8 Americas ConfigMgr XA Farm Americas XenApp Farm Admin Console Any additional Admin Consoles (Laptop, etc) Primary Site (Americas) CAS XA Farm Europe XenApp Farm Europe Primary Site (Europe) XA Farm Asia XenApp Farm Asia Primary Site (Asia) Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 8

9 Silent install The XenApp Connector installation package XenAppConnectorConfigMgr2012.exe provides one-way support for installing components via command line; uninstallation is not supported. Syntax In the example below the installer executable is invoked with arguments that indicate to apply the existing configuration data file on C:\ and, for the sake demonstration, specifies that both the Connector service and the Console Extension should be installed which would have been the default action otherwise: XenAppConnectorConfigMgr2012.exe /silent /install CONFIGDATAFILE=C:\ConfigurationData.xml FEATURES=Connector,ConsoleExtension Command line options For unattended install these two options are required: Column /silent /install Description Causes the installer executable to operate autonomously in quiet mode, such that no UI elements that require user interaction (prompts, message boxes or dialog windows) are displayed. Indicates the silent action. As of the current version, install is the only supported action. This option is combined with parameters such as CONFIGDATAFILE (the location of configuration data file), and FEATURES (a list of components to be installed) to specify additional information required to complete the unattended installation. Below are the install action parameters: Column CONFIGDATAFILE Description Required parameter for silent installation. This parameter is used to specify the location of the configuration file. NOTE: it is required that the full path of the location of the configuration data file be specified. For example: CONFIGDATAFILE=D:\SilentInstall\ConfigurationData.xml Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 9

10 FEATURES This is an optional parameter. To install individual components such as Console Extension or Connector, a comma separated components list can be specified. For example: FEATURES=Connector FEATURES=ConsoleExtension FEATURES=Connector,ConsoleExtension When FEATURES is not included in the command line, both the Connector and Console Extension components are installed. Configuration data file To create a configuration data file simply run Config Wizard from the command prompt specifying the /Export option as showed below. For more options use the /help switch: Citrix.ConfigMgr.ConfigWizard.exe /Export The folder where Config Wizard is located is: "%ProgramFiles%\Citrix\XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012\Config Wizard" The export command creates a file named "ConfigurationData.xml" in the current directory. The service account password (highlighted in yellow) must be entered by manually editing the file. Below is the smallest possible.xml configuration file, containing only the required elements for the sake of readability any unspecified settings automatically use their respective default values during install: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <ConfigurationData xmlns:xsd=" xmlns:xsi=" <ConnectorService> <Instance Name="Default"> <Credentials UserName="CONNECTOR_ACCOUNT" Password="******" /> <FarmConfigurations> <FarmConfiguration Name="XENAPP_FARM_NAME"> <XenAppServerName>XENAPP_SERVER_FQDN</XenAppServerName> <SiteProviderName>SITE_PROVIDER_FQDN</SiteProviderName> <SiteCode>SITE_CODE</SiteCode> </FarmConfiguration> </FarmConfigurations> </Instance> </ConnectorService> </ConfigurationData> Log files The installer places its log files in: "%windir%\temp". However, because the actual registration of components is done by Config Wizard, that information will be found in: Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 10

11 "%ProgramFiles%\Citrix\XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012\Config Wizard\Logs" Publishing automation In the case of large enterprises handling hundreds of applications, automation is often desirable. The creation of ConfigMgr applications with an associated XenApp DT as well as deploying them to devices and users can be automated. A PowerShell example is provided to use as reference. It is in a sense fully functional, although there s no App-V support and some of the properties are hardcoded. There are some dependencies that need to be present for this script to work: Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ApplicationManagement.dll Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ApplicationManagement.Extender.dll DcmObjectModel.dll AdminUI.DcmObjectWrapper.dll Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ManagementProvider.dll AdminUI.WqlQueryEngine.dll AdminUI.AppManFoundation.dll Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ApplicationManagement.MsiInstaller.dll Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ApplicationManagement.XenApp.dll AdminUI.DeploymentType.XenApp.dll These files are normally found in the Admin Console binaries folder: %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminConsole\bin The script is available for download at: Citrix XenApp Connector for ConfigMgr 2012 Enterprise Setup Considerations 11