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Introduction to Citrix and Citrix Certification
Whether you’re preparing for that Citrix CCA exam, or just looking for comprehensive knowledge on how to best design and manage a VDI environment atop Citrix XenDesktop, this new series from CBTN instructor Greg Shields is your one-stop shop for all the info. Greg kicks off the series in this introductory nugget, talking in detail about Citrix and Citrix technologies, as well as their certification program that validates your experience.
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00:14:24 |
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XenDesktop Components, Architecture, and Prerequisites
XenDesktop seems the perfect fit into Citrix’s delivery infrastructure portfolio. These days, that portfolio just keeps growing, with new technologies and approaches for connecting users to their business resources. Yet not every approach works in every situation. That’s why understanding XenDesktop’s components, architecture, and prerequisites are a critical start. Greg explains all of XenDesktop’s many pieces in this introductory nugget.
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00:20:24 |
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Preparing for and Installing the XenDesktop Controller
With the foundations out of the way, your first task will be installing a XenDesktop Controller. The central hub of communication between users and your desktop infrastructure, the XenDesktop Controller is the heart of your delivery infrastructure. Learn its installation tricks, and a few preparatory activities in this nugget.
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00:15:20 |
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Configuring and Licensing a XenDesktop Site
Getting the software installed is the start. Before you ever put that Controller into production, you’ve got quite a few initial configuration and licensing tasks to complete. Join Greg in this nugget to accelerate your infrastructure build-out, and get that site ready for desktops.
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00:25:16 |
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Creating a Catalog and Provisioning VMs
Catalogs are XenDesktop’s solution for collecting virtual desktops into manageable units. Without them, you can’t create Desktop Groups and you can’t start provisioning. Learn the best practices with Greg in this nugget.
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00:32:10 |
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Managing Desktops with Citrix Desktop Studio
Catalogs and Desktop Groups require regular maintenance, which include a range of daily care-and-feeding activities. The Citrix Desktop Studio is well-designed to support all of these activities, including provisioning new machines, adjusting Catalog and Desktop Group settings, managing the power level of VMs, among a range of critical daily tasks. Greg shares some of the most important of those tasks in this important nugget.
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00:20:11 |
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Connecting to Desktops: Plugins, Receiver, and Web Interface
With a fully-built desktop infrastructure, you’re finally ready to begin connecting your users. As a member of Citrix’s delivery infrastructure, XenDesktop shares in Citrix’s many client-side agents. So many that they’re easy to get confused. Start off on the right foot in this client-side nugget. You’ll immediately recognize which agents work best for your specific situation.
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00:40:35 |
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Configuring XenDesktop Policies
Setting up a potentially huge technology like XenDesktop can be a real challenge. With literally hundreds of individual settings, keeping them straight across every server and situation can be a painful exercise. That’s why Citrix recommends using XenDesktop Policies to manage your servers. Citrix XenDesktop Policies can be integrated with Active Directory Group Policy; or for IT shops where getting access to Group Policies is a challenge, they can be directly applied. You’ll learn the tactics in using both in Greg’s first nugget on Citrix’s extremely important XenDesktop Policies.
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00:21:25 |
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Best Practices in Implementing XenDesktop Policies
Policies, settings, filters, and priorities, these represent the structure of Citrix XenDesktop Policies. But a Policy is only as good as the settings it configures. If you don’t know which are best for your specific situation, then even the best Policy structure does you no good. You’ll learn which policies are safe to ignore, and which you absolutely must implement immediately. Certifications and exams aren’t everything. This nugget goes far beyond the exam, giving you the personal advice you need to ensure XenDesktop success.
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00:37:26 |
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XenDesktop Roles and Permissions
Every enterprise platform has its built-in solution for assigning roles and permissions to administrators and users. Citrix XenDesktop is no different. While at first blush you might think XenDesktop’s approach is overly simplistic, there’s power in the roles you have available. Learn how you might map users – both inside and outside IT – to XenDesktop’s roles and permissions. You’ll be delivering desktops the moment new employees walk in the door.
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00:08:18 |
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Preparing for and Installing Citrix Provisioning Services
Think by this point you’ve learned everything XenDesktop has to offer? You couldn’t be more wrong. Deploying desktops via the Desktop Studio’s Machine Creation Services is great when your needs are simple. But if it’s ridiculous power you seek, you need Provisioning Services. It’s a complex tool, but one that facilitates a wide variety of delivery situations. Starting with this nugget on preparing for and installing Provisioning Services, Greg will have you booting desktops over the network and connecting to vDisks in no time.
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00:31:08 |
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Creating and Managing Private vDisks
At the core of Provisioning Services are its vDisks. These VHD-format virtual disks are very much the juice in what makes Provisioning Services a powerful tool for delivering desktops. vDisks come in two flavors: Standard (also known as “the ones you’ll want to use”), and Private (also known as “the ones you’ll probably better understand, at least at first”). Since PVS is such a powerful solution – and a fairly complex one at that – Greg starts you off easy with this look at PVS’ lesser-automated Private vDisks. You’ll learn how to create them, how to connect them to devices, and why they’re a great starting point for your PVS education.
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00:32:57 |
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Creating and Managing Standard vDisks
Now that you’ve seen its less-exciting Private vDisks, you’re probably itching to experience PVS’ full automation power. That you’ll get with Standard vDisks. These things are awesome. With them and a separate write cache, you can connect any number of desktops without the ridiculous storage consumption cost. Working with them requires a few new ways of thinking, though. So in this nugget, Greg shares all the gossip (and a few smart tactics) in ensuring you use Standard vDisks with greatest success.
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00:33:26 |
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Updating Standard Mode vDisks
Standard vDisks were amazingly powerful in previous XenDesktop versions, but they came with one glaring Achilles Heel: They were a nightmare to update. One of XenDesktop 5.5’s greatest achievements is a massive streamlining of the update process. Now an almost brain-dead activity, Greg shows you the steps in this nugget. While the process is indeed simpler, don’t miss this important nugget. Greg also shares a few key bits of knowledge here that’ll prevent you from inadvertently creating catastrophic mistakes.
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00:30:09 |
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Managing the Boot Process for Devices
Booting devices to vDisks is an impressively powerful activity, as long as you can actually boot to them. Back in the old days, this process was fraught with challenge. For some machines, that challenge still exists today – if you don’t have the information you’ll learn in this important bootable nugget. In it Greg explains how XenDesktop and PVS can be configured to boot almost any device you can find.
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00:15:04 |
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Additional Management Tasks in Provisioning Services
Every CBT Nuggets series has its “miscellaneous” topic, and this series is no different. Yet while “miscellaneous” seems the loaded word, and the topic seems like one easy to skip, Greg shares some important advice here. You’ll discover the Auto-Add wizard, learn how (and when!) to enable offline database support and Audit Trail, how and why you should keep an eye on your Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size, as well as many of the other advanced properties you’ll find in the PVS console.
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00:14:07 |
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Integrating XenApp with XenDesktop
At the end of the day, it’s the applications that’re the reason why you’re deploying desktops. Without user applications, an operating system is little more than an empty container. That’s why any discussion on XenDesktop deployments is remiss without discussing its integration with XenApp. With the two, you’ve got one solution for provisioning your desktops, and another for provisioning your applications. Combine this with the multiple ways applications can get connected with users, and this combination strategic-plus-tactics nugget almost becomes the most important in this series. Join Greg as he outlines the application delivery options now available to you with the XenApp and XenDesktop integration, and leave knowing that you’re prepared to right-size your application delivery approach to your users’ needs.
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00:30:27 |
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Delegating Daily Activities with Desktop Director
You’re an IT administrator. You’ve paid your dues in IT’s lower-level jobs, and you’ve earned your right to be called System Administrator, Engineer, and/or Architect. But keeping your role in the IT food chain means you need the support of a team of others, that group of technician and help desk administrators that tackle the day-to-day care-and-feeding tasks on the desktop you manage. Give them the power to help you be successful with Citrix’s web-based Desktop Director console. With it, they’ll have the right amount of instrumentation to troubleshoot, shadow, and manage your XenDesktop desktops.
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00:10:52 |
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Troubleshooting XenDesktop and Provisioning Services
To be perfectly honest, troubleshooting nuggets are the most difficult ones in the bunch. If you think about it, for any problem that’s been around long enough to get tested on, shouldn’t the vendor just fix it? Troubleshooting is indeed a highly personal topic. So in this nugget, Greg focuses on the troubleshooting tools, behaviors, and tactics that Citrix (and their exam enablement guide) suggest a test-taker should be familiar with. Troubleshooting counts for 21% of the CCA…shouldn’t you arrive prepared?
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00:14:28 |
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Building a Highly-Available XenDesktop Infrastructure
XenDesktop truly evolves the entire art of delivering desktops to users, but that delivery requires a functioning infrastructure for supporting all of its services. That creates a need for high-availability. Learn the areas where high-availability are a must (along with a few where you might save a buck) in this concluding nugget. Greg leaves you with your laundry list for all the XenDesktop components where extra HA attention will save your kiester once you’re in production.
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00:32:19 |
