virtuEs.IT

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Citrix Certified Administrator for NetScaler

Feb 8

Posted by virtuEs in * News *, Favorites | Comments off


YES! Results are in for the A28 beta NetScaler 10 exam:

 

I passed!

 

The NetScaler certification was the only product certification that I did not have, so when I discovered the beta was available in December 2012 I could not resist and took on the challenge, knowing it would require a very different skillset than the VDI product range covers.

With a strong background in VDI solutions, covering OSI layer 7 mostly, it does not only take a different skillset but a different mindset as well to uncover the wonders and features of the NetScaler.

Fortunately, I still remembered network basics from my CCNA exam period over 10 years ago (that OSI model sticks with ya) and was able to map those basics to the many features this great appliance has to offer. So yeah, I’m very happy to be fully certified and ready to design and implement a lot more NetScaler infrastructures :-)

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Automatically start a vApp on XenServer boot

Jan 31

Posted by virtuEs in Favorites, HowTo, Hypervisors, Scripts | 14 Comments


Yesterday I was made aware of a new blogpost by @MichelHelderman on Twitter by my colleague @KBaggerman who refered Michel to a blogpost I wrote on enabling the VM autostart through the CLI for XenServer 6.0.
This feature is no longer available through the XenCenter GUI in XenSeerver 6.0 as it was interfering with the HA features on XenServer.

Michel provides you with a great alternative, namely the introduction of the new vApp feature for XenServer 6.0, which allows you to group VMs on a XenServer and control the automatic startup of the entire VM group. Even allowing you to set the boot order and wait time between boots.

The only setback with using the new vApp feature to group you VMs is that the vApp itself cannot be configured to automatically start when a physical XenServer Host is booted. It still requires a manual action through the GUI or CLI to start the vApp and have all VMs booted in their set order. Something we most definately want to be automated.
As there is no attribute for the vApp to configure it to auto-start, like my previous post explains for individual VMs, there are alternative ways to have a vApp be automatically started when a XenServer Host boots.

In this blogpost I have gathered some of the alternative methods to implement the auto-start feature for your VMs as I have found them on the internet.

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Where’s the XenServer 6 auto start VM feature?

Oct 11

Posted by virtuEs in Favorites, HomeLab, HowTo, Hypervisors | 18 Comments


Yesterday I finally had some hours left to spare at home to attend to my Homelab. as I’m prepping the environment for my next exam (A19 Citrix XenDesktop 5 Administration) I did wanted to upgrade the XenServers to the latest version. So I spent yesterday evening cleaning up the servers with the old VMs from previous studies and left the two XenApp 6.5 servers and my domain server in place.

 

Upgrading the XenServer Homelab

The upgrade itself was done easily with the single disk image. This time I was smart enough to learn from my previous mistake, so I brought down any running VMs (even disabled the auto start options to be sure) and started with my Pool Master upgrade, without triggering any Maintenance Mode. The upgrade went smoothly for both servers, so I was quickly up and running again and checking all VM settings.

 

VM auto start feature

I was a little puzzled on how I could set up my License Server VPX appliance to auto start on booting my XenServer, but I figured it was now set with the vApp features and settings. However the GUI did not offer a select box to enable the auto start feature at the Start Options in the General Properties of the VM. I did not configure HA as it is not necessary right now for my Homelab environment. I just made the assumption that creating and configuring the vApp would enable the auto start feature all the same. And turned off the Homelab servers to test it when I would boot my servers the next day.

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A Logica Gold Award

Feb 6

Posted by admin in * News *, Favorites | 1 Comment


This year has started out great.

All the hard work, extra hours and perfectionism to extend my Virtualization knowledge, adapt a Citrix Architect role and share my knowledge internally through numerous presentations and meetings has been noticed for sure by my Logica manager. I already received a big compliment on the quality of my Citrix XenApp design document by one of our clients, so knew I adapted to the Architect role. To top that off I have been rewarded with a Logica Gold Award (Employee Value Proposition “Committed”) for my work ethics, motivation and commitment.

I’m very proud to have received this award and will continu to have fun in my architect role, share my knowledge and keep my designs at the high quality level our clients deserve.I’m looking forward to the journey I’ll take in my personal growth this year and the new challenge I took on to share my knowledge even further by creating an internal workshop for Citrix XenServer.

Logica Gold Award - Committed The Logica Diamond Award program acknowledges team and individual actions that not only have a positive influence on the company, but who’s behavior reflects the Employee Value Proposition and are in line with “be brilliant together”. A Gold award is granted to an individual or team that has accomplished exceptional and/or innovative work and that shows behavior as elucidated in the Employee Value Proposition.

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RDS/CTX Shortcut Keys list

Nov 26

Posted by virtuEs in Favorites, HowTo, Remote Desktop Sessions | 1 Comment


A handy list to keep closeby is the shortcurt key list for Remote Desktop Connections and Citrix Sessions. So just to make sure I know where to find it, I’m posting the list on my site.

 

This post offers a list of shortcut keys that are available for RDS and CTX sessions.

 
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