Varrow Blogs

So, it’s over.  I’m enjoying my last night in San Fran.  Went up to Fisherman’s Wharf (tourist hell, as I call it) and had some crab…..  Now I’m sitting at a Starbucks with a great view of the street so I can people watch.  That’s my one complaint about San Francisco….everything down here closes at [...]

There has been some good chatter going around concerning FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) from both Scott Lowe and Chad Sakac.  I had a chance to talk with Chad and Stuart Miniman today and I pretty much agree (go figure) with their thoughts, which align with Chad’s post.
For Varrow, in this context, we really see [...]

There has been some good chatter going around concerning FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) from both Scott Lowe and Chad Sakac.  I had a chance to talk with Chad and Stuart Miniman today and I pretty much agree (go figure) with their thoughts, which align with Chad’s post.
For Varrow, in this context, we really see [...]

So day 3 is in the books.  It was pretty much a continuation of day two with some very good sessions.  Some better than expected, others not.
Deploying Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
This session started out pretty slow with a VDI 101 review.  Sometimes I have to remember I’m at a Cisco conference and not everyone is [...]

So day 3 is in the books.  It was pretty much a continuation of day two with some very good sessions.  Some better than expected, others not.
Deploying Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
This session started out pretty slow with a VDI 101 review.  Sometimes I have to remember I’m at a Cisco conference and not everyone is [...]

I thought I’d blog about something that is very close to me (literally), the BlackBerry.  When I got to thinking about it about the only place this thing doesn’t go with me is in the shower.  During the day it’s on my hip or pressed against the side of my head and a night it [...]

Today started early with the first session at 7:30am.  That’s one case where a bit of jet lag helps out, it didn’t help out when I got back to the hotel at close to midnight.  The sessions today were more in-depth and packed with information.
Fibre Channel Storage Area Network Design
This was a lot of information [...]

While at Cisco Live I stopped by the VMware booth to check out the proof-of-concept that VMware and Cisco are currently doing involving extended distance VMotion.  VMware’s latest information about it is here.  The idea behind this is that you can distribute your CPU resources in multiple sites.  This should be especially useful for those [...]

Well, today was my first real day at Cisco Live…or Networkers..or whatever you call it.  Let me just say one thing.  For a guy used to North Carolina weather in June, it’s cold in San Francisco!  I almost needed a jacket tonight.  Crazy!
Had a couple of good sessions today.  Nothing too intense, that starts in [...]

Well, it’s time for Cisco Live.  I’m sitting in the lobby of the Hilton people watching and finalizing my session schedule for the week.  I spent some time this afternoon exploring downtown San Francisco.  I’ve been all over southern California, but never San Fran so it’s been fun.
As for what I’m attending this week, it’s [...]

OK, so I’ll admit that I have a problem…I’m a VIOPS junky.  A few of my previous posts have been based on resources from this great site but hey can you blame me?  There is a wealth of good information available on all things VMware and this particular article is no exception.
In a lot of [...]

Often times when setting up Citrix environments outside of production, it makes sense to combine multiple pieces onto one server. After recently setting up XenDesktop using an x64 environment, there was an unexpected issue trying to combine the XenDesktop DDC, Web Interface, and the Licensing Management Console. This combination has never been a problem in a 32-bit environment so what could be different in x64? The answer… IIS

It was all very confusing at first because the License Server installation happened at the very beginning and worked without a hitch. Licenses were added and then DDS was installed on the same machine. The complete desktop environment was built without encountering any problems until time to configure Web Interface. At that point, no web pages on that machine were accessible, not even the Licensing Management Console which had worked fine previously. After some research, the cause of the problem was found along with the solution midway through the release notes for Presentation Server 4.5 with Feature Pack 1 which can be found here:

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX112222

The DDC behaves a lot like XenApp and the same information regarding x64 applies. Quoting from the release notes found above, Citrix points out that “On a 64-bit version of Windows, the Citrix Web Interface installation will enable 32-bit Web extension support in IIS and this will disable 64-bit extension support.”

And the solution…. Install Web Interface FIRST.

Still quoting from the above article “Due to this requirement, if you are installing the Web Interface on a 64-bit version of the Windows operating system, ensure that you install Web Interface prior to installing any other Citrix software, including Citrix Presentation Server and Citrix License Management Console. This particular order of installation allows the products to adapt to the 32-bit support in IIS. If you install these products in an incorrect order, the Web server may produce errors messages when it is accessed, such as “Service unavailable.”

So, uninstall and reinstall making sure to do Web Interface first. This will prep IIS for all the subsequent pieces.

Well, well, well, what do we have here. A new point release from our old pal gill. Looks to be feature rich and full of tasty morsels. You’ve heard it from me before <until I was blue in the face> but again if you aren’t using RecoverPoint for your local and remote replication needs then [...]

When it comes to Thin Client computing there are several questions that typically come up.  The big one is usually “What about video performance?”.   Video performance was typically subpar or “choppy”, how choppy usually depending on what protocol (ICA or RDP) you were using.  WYSE responded with it TCX Multimedia Redirection software which significantly improved [...]

With the new version of Provisioning Server Citrix changed the management console ports from 8000 and 8001 to 54321 and 54322. The reason for this change is so that PVS can be installed on the XenDesktop Desktop Delivery Controller without port conflicts.
The port change breaks the the XenDesktop Setup Wizard because by default the setup [...]