What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with XenApp 6.5, provides an introduction to XenApp 6.5 and discusses the new features in the product. This chapter also covers the requirements to deploy XenApp 6.5.

Chapter 2, Designing a XenApp 6.5 Farm, explains Citrix farm terminologies and concepts, and how to design a basic XenApp architecture and a basic pilot plan to deploy XenApp. Also, how to choose applications and implement them on XenApp is discussed with the help of a case study.

Chapter 3, Installing XenApp 6.5, describes how to install and configure XenApp 6.5, including XenApp, Licensing Service, and Web Interface roles using the new XenApp Server Role Manager. Configuring Remote Desktop Services, installing the new Citrix AppCenter management console, and learning about Controller and Session-host modes are also discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 4, Advanced XenApp Deployment, explains unattended install of XenApp servers and customizing the Web Interface.

Chapter 5, Using Management Tools, presents the Citrix AppCenter Console, License Administration, and Citrix Web Interface Management Consoles. It shows other tools like Citrix SSL Relay Configuration tool, Shadow taskbar, and SpeedScreen Latency Reduction Manager. Finally, it shows how to create and manage Citrix administrator's accounts.

Chapter 6, Application Publishing, discusses how to publish different types of resources in XenApp: hosted and streamed applications, content and server desktops. Also, it discovers content redirection, from server to client and client to server, and explains how to set up and update file type associations.

Chapter 7, Application Streaming, explains the installation, configuration, and delivery of streaming applications. It describes system requirements and components for application streaming. It chooses plugins for application streaming and describes how to profile and publish Microsoft Office 2010 on a XenApp farm.

Chapter 8, Managing XenApp Policies, describes XenApp policies and how to create, manage, and apply Citrix policies. It explains the use of the Group Policy Management Console, Citrix AppCenter Console, and Local Group Policy Editor to manage Citrix Policies. Also, troubleshooting Citrix Policies is discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 9, Printing in XenApp Environments, describes Windows and Citrix XenApp printing concepts. It explains how to assign network printers to users using Citrix policies. It presents the new XenApp Printing Optimization Pack. It shows how to manage printer drivers, use the Citrix universal printer, and implement printers. It also explains printing for mobile users.

Chapter 10, Multimedia Content on XenApp, explains how to optimize user sessions for XenApp using different Citrix HDX features like HDX MediaStream Multimedia Acceleration, HDX 3D Technologies to improve image display, HDX MediaStream for Flash, and more. It describes how to configure HDX MediaStream for Flash on the Server and different multimedia, audio, and video settings using Citrix policies.

Chapter 11, Managing Sessions, describes sessions and explains how to manage and monitor sessions using Citrix AppCenter Console, including viewing and shadowing of sessions. It discusses how to customize user environments in XenApp and limit concurrent connections. It also shows how to optimize user sessions, redirect local Special folders in sessions, and maintain session Activity using Session Reliability, Auto Client Reconnect, and ICA keep-alive.

Chapter 12, Scripting Programming, shows how to install and configure PowerShell to manage XenApp farms and how to use cmdlets to manage XenApp servers. It explains how to use PowerShell commands from inside VB.NET and C#.NET code. It discusses how to convert MFCOM scripts to PowerShell and access MFCOM objects and manage previous versions of XenApp from PowerShell.

Chapter 13, Receiver and Plugins Management, presents Citrix Receiver, including features and compatibility, and explains how to install Citrix Receiver for Windows and Macintosh. It describes how to deploy a Citrix Merchandising Server on VMware, XenServer Virtual Machines, and configure Merchandising Server and Receiver Plugins.

Chapter 14, Virtualizing XenApp Farms, explains how to deploy XenApp 6.5 in a virtualized environment, including advantages and disadvantages of virtualization, virtual machine performance, host scalability, and more. It describes how to deploy XenApp 6.5 on Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware vSphere virtual machines, and how to clone XenApp 6.5 virtual machines.