dready's Blog

Nutanix InstantON For Citrix Cloud

Nutanix and Citrix have partnered to create a tightly integrated hybrid cloud solution that simplifies and accelerates VDI deployments for companies of any size. With Nutanix InstantON for Citrix Cloud, the entire Citrix software stack is delivered as a 1-click service from the Citrix Cloud, attaching with zero effort to the on-prem Nutanix clusters powered by Citrix XenServer or AHV, the Nutanix native hypervisor.

The latest release of Nutanix AOS 5.5 supports out-of-the-box integration with Citrix Cloud and allows businesses to spin up a fully functional hybrid Citrix Cloud solution for XenApp and XenDesktop service environment within a couple of hours.

With Citrix Cloud XenApp and XenDesktop service, businesses no longer have to manage the desktop images, applications and security. All the desktop management services are part of the subscription. On the other hand the VDI and RDSH workloads, including all the sensitive data remain safe and close to the end users in the corporate data center. This hybrid solution approach takes out a lot of complexity of todays implementation of a traditional VDI infrastructure and internal IT can focus on stuff that really matters for the endusers. Continue reading “Nutanix InstantON For Citrix Cloud”

IGEL Cloud Gateway on Nutanix AHV

The IGEL Cloud Gateway (ICG) implements a secure connection between endpoint devices and the UMS, both of which are located inside private networks. Finally I found some time to implement the IGEL Cloud Gateway (ICG), which enables the Universal Management Suite (UMS) to securely manage endpoint devices outside the company network.

Some time ago I wrote about the new IGEL UD Pocket, the portable Universal Desktop Thin Client coming as a USB device (IGEL UD Pocket – Micro Universal Desktop Thin Client). Finally I found some time to implement the IGEL Cloud Gateway (ICG), which enables the Universal Management Suite (UMS) to securely manage endpoint devices outside the company network.

The UD Pocket boots IGEL Universal Desktop Linux on your computer. However, it does not make any changes to the operating system already installed on the hard disk, SSD or flash storage – UD Pocket runs entirely from the USB stick. With the latest firmware now it is also possible to turn your Apple Mac into a temporary IGEL Thin Client.

As the primary use case for the UD Pocket is to provide a secure and managed Thin Client environment for BYOD and unmanaged external endpoints, usually this devices are not part of your network and have no direct access to the IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS), IGEL’s management console. That’s exactly where the IGEL Cloud Gateway (ICG) can jump in and fill the gap.

The IGEL Cloud Gateway (ICG) implements a secure connection between endpoint devices and the UMS, both of which are located inside private networks. Continue reading “IGEL Cloud Gateway on Nutanix AHV”

Multi-factor Authentication for Citrix XenDesktop / NetScaler against Azure AD

In my last post about secure access to XenDesktop virtual workspaces I tried to give an overview of the different ways to implement multi-factor authentication with Citrix NetScaler and XenDesktop. I came to the conclusion that integrating the remote access with Azure AD and using the Microsoft MFA feature is a very end user friendly way to accomplish this goal, especially when you already have Azure AD in your setup. In this post I will outline a walkthrough to the setup and configuration steps needed.

Citrix Federated Authentication Service: Azure AD as Identity Provider

Are you looking to provide a secure way for your users to access Citrix XenDesktop and / or XenApp resources? Do you already have Citrix NetScaler in your setup? Do you have an Azure AD subscription? Well, by combining this three building blocks in the right way, you can easily secure the remote access to your users workspaces, implement conditional access rules and enforce multi-factor authentication – all in a very user friendly manner with a consistent experience for your end users, they might be already familiar with from existing cloud services like Office 365.

Building a HCI Lab with Nutanix Community Edition

It’s always handy to have access to some sort of lab gear at work/home for testing and learning. Nutanix Community Edition allows you to bring the latest HCI technology to your lab setup. I will outline some basic considerations when planning to go with Nutanix CE, show you what you need to start your lab project and what are the possibilities and limits of the platform. My personal lab setup is based on a four node cluster deployed on Intel NUCs.

According to my short twitter survey most folks (at least in the EUC community) use VMWare ESXi for their lab setups, followed by Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer. But hey Nutanix Community Edition is more and more gaining traction! Continue reading “Building a HCI Lab with Nutanix Community Edition”

Deploying Citrix NetScaler on Nutanix AHV

Citrix NetScaler VPX, the virtual appliance, is available for XenServer, VMWare ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V and KVM hypervisors. Since Nutanix AHV is based on KVM, it is possible to run your NetScaler VPX on the Nutanix native Acropolis hypervisor AHV.

NetScaler Gateway VPX is a virtual NetScaler Gateway appliance that is hosted on a hypervisor. NetScaler Gateway VPX supports all the features and functionality of the physical NetScaler Gateway appliance.
Continue reading “Deploying Citrix NetScaler on Nutanix AHV”

NVIDA Tesla M10 – vGPU Power for the XenDesktop VDI

Last year NVIDIA added the Tesla M10 GPU to their existing lineup of NVIDIA GRID accelerators. The Tesla M10 board is designed specifically for data centers that are looking for graphics acceleration for high density virtual desktop environments. It’s a dual-slot PCI Express form factor for rack and tower servers capable of supporting 64 concurrent users. I did a small single server setup / Poc based on XenServer 7.1 and XenDesktop 7.13 to see how vGPU helps to improve user experience, in particular for the delivery of multimedia content on a Windows 10 VDI.

IGEL UD Pocket – Micro Universal Desktop Thin Client

IGEL’s new UD Pocket, a micro Universal Desktop Thin Client on a USB 3.0 thumb drive, allows you to turn a PC, laptop or any compatible x86, 64-bit CPU based endpoint device in a Thin Client, running the Linux based IGEL Universal Desktop operating system. The UD Pocket can be managed side by side with all the other Hard- and Software Thin Clients from Igel through the Universal Management Suite (UMS).

IGEL’s new UD Pocket, a micro Universal Desktop Thin Client on a USB 3.0 thumb drive, allows to turn a PC, laptop or any compatible x86, 64-bit CPU based endpoint device in a Thin Client, running the Linux based IGEL Universal Desktop operating system. The UD Pocket can be managed side by side with all the other Hard- and Software Thin Clients from IGEL through the Universal Management Suite (UMS). Continue reading “IGEL UD Pocket – Micro Universal Desktop Thin Client”

OneDrive Roaming with FSLogix

The big announcement when FSLogix released their latest build of FSLogix Apps and the corresponding FSLogix Office 365 Container solution in version 2.7 was the support of Outlook Search on XenApp. But wait, there is more! For the first time the guys over at FSLogix managed to support OneDrive in non-persistent VDI deployments.

How-to migrate from Citrix XenServer 7 to Nutanix AHV

To migrate your existing VMs from XenServer 7 to Nutanix AHV there are a couple of steps required. You have to prepare the source VMs, identify the VHD files, move the VHD to a Nutanix Container, import the disk images and re-create the VM in Nutanix Prism.