 | | Introducing Project Andromeda : It's all about XenApp & Best Practices Automation | |
| | |  Introducing Project Andromeda : It's all about XenApp & Best Practices Automation
Some monthes ago I've published a Video showing a XenApp integration framework I've developped.
I even made a poll to know if some of you would have been interessed in getting informations on how to build such a tool.
Now we are some monthes later and I still did not publish anything about that.
So why did I do that ? Simply because I was not happy of the old framework (although it has helped me to drive lots of projects) and I had in my mind to completely rebuild it.
Now the Main Framework is finished (it's still evolving with all Citrix Hotfixes and so one, but the core code is fully functional) and that's time to begin to share about it.
Project Andromeda is the name I decided to give to this framework, and Easyfit is the name we're currently using at my current company for the XenApp integration module.
The first things that made me think about developping such a tool were related to my job.
As all "Citrix Geeks" will agree, a successfull XenApp project is not as simple as running the Autorun on the CD and launching the product installation.
It's really all about expertise.
You first have to properly design and scale your farm, but then you also have to do the Integration in the best possible way, using all tuning and configuration best practices to ensure that your servers will be stable and efficients.
And when it comes to do it as best as possible to overcome well known issues, it's not as easy as a non initiated XenApp engineer would think to remember all notes that you could see in ReadMe's, Patches release notes and so one.
You could then end with neverending documentations, with pages of procedures and some reg files to optimize Tuning, but to be honest, this WILL lead to some items to be forgotten and potentially your integrations to face some minor / majors issues.
To be able to develop a team that could be able to integrate Citrix environments "as I'd have done" I had to try to find an answer to all these questions, and actually I've tried to use a very heavy documentation then I gave this idea away.
And then came the first idea of developping "something" to automate me & my team XenApp integrations.
I know that I'm not the first one having this idea, Joe Shonk or Login Consultants have already published things or done Seminars about their answers to the problem, now it's my time to tell something about how I did handle these issues.
So what is really EasyFit ? Actually EasyFit is a set of vbscripts, developped in an object view, managing to install Microsoft Hotfixes, all XenApp prerequisites, XenApp itself, Rollup Packs, Hotfixes, Debug Tools, Tuning ...
EasyFit is also able to install the Citrix License Server, the Web Interface (tuned or not, black or white ...) and to tune a XenDesktop VM or a template profile for Portable Profiles.
EasyFit is able to handle from XenApp 4.0 to XenApp 5.0 on x86 and x64 platforms.
EasyFit is driven by EasySetup, a simple GUI designed to gather all input variables and translate them to EasyFit configuration files.
Once all is configured, you just have to go to the target server, and launch the script, then it's over ! You can go and drink some cofees and when You're back, your XenApp Server is over, and default Best Practices Configuration is ready to be automatically set by the XenApp Configurator Tool.
All has also been designed for EasyFit and XenApp Configurator to be integrated in solutions like Altiris, RDM or RDP.
 .
I'm not going to release this framework as other tools (actually the tools shared on this site are part of the Global Andromeda Framework) but instead I plan to release an article series explaining my view of a complete unattended XenApp Install (Scripts Architecture, Installation Sequence, Main Script Functions ...) focused on XenApp 5.0 for Windows 2008.
Then according to your feedbacks I could extend to some other tools release (like the XenApp Configurator) and other ways to automate XenApp configurations (MFCOM scripts ...) |
Posted on Saturday, June 06, 2009 (Archive on Monday, July 06, 2009)
Posted by Pierre Marmignon
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