Coen Verbree was nice of enough to drop line and let me know there is a small errata in the Presentation Server 4.5 installation script. 

He found that the following line is incorrect:

CTX_MF_CREATE_FARM_DB_CHOICE="Third Party"

and should be changed to 

CTX_MF_CREATE_FARM_DB_CHOICE="ThirdParty"

This only affects those who want to use the script to Create and new SQL based datastore.

Well, the final night party is over which signals the end of another great conference.  While most of the information we received is still under xenDA, I can post a few random comments and observations.

First, there is a rumor that Citrix changed the name of Presentation Server to XenApp. While I will defer judgment to a later date, I do want to point out what has to be the best comment I’ve heard so far. This comes from Ormond Merino via the Thin List, “As long as they rename CCIA to XenMaster I’m ok with it”.  I agree!

Wow!  I received and a lot of positive feedback on the initial release of the DeleteProfiles.vbs scripts and based on that feedback, I have a new version to share.

New Features:

CLI switch parser
Ability to run the script in Read Only mode
Console switch to output Log to the console screen
No longer forces a Log File to be created if one is not chosen
Three levels of logging (none, basic and verbose)

Here are some features that I am working for a future release:

Run script against remote machine
Alternate credentials for running script against a remote machine
Inclusion\Exclusion List with wildcard support
Delete Profiles based off of Profile age
Better error handling

Wahoo!  The first post of the year!  I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season.  Sorry it’s been a while since the last update. It’s been busy, busy, busy around here.

A lot of things have happened since the last update and just to name a few:

Citrix completes the Purchase of XenSource.  After working with it for a few months I do have a couple of observations.  The Xen Hypervisor itself is awesome.  The GUI and the toolset, (which is what Citrix purchased as the Hypervisor itself is open source) well let’s just say that there is a lot of potential.  Working with shared storage (iSCSI and FC) or even local storage in general has been a bear.  Things, like installing a hotfix, are a multi-step and convoluted process that simply is not necessary.  On the flip-side, there is a lot of functionality built-in to the product that you don’t see in the GUI.  Reworking the GUI and polishing it off is really the next step for XenServer.

iForum 2007 came and went.  It was a much different tone this year than last.  The message was much more refined and future focused.   Also, congratulation to Cox Communications for winning the Innovation Award!  Cox Communications is one of our (Thin Client Computing) customers and this was a project that we designed and delivered to them.

One company that grabbed my attention was Marathon.  I knew of Marathon from back in the day when you had to buy special hardware from HP and a lot of it to create a fault-tolerant system.  Now everything is software based.  At the exhibit hall, they demoed a solution for XenServer in which two VM on two different Hosts were mirrored allowing for a high degree of fault-tolerance.

In mid-November, Ardence Software Streaming Platform was repackaged as Citrix Provision Server (PVS) for DataCenters and updated to version 4.5.

The Shonk Lab is now up and running!  We now have some machines to play with I can test the latest batch of scripts that I’ve been working and posted them to the site.   The lab is running XenServer, Provisioning Server and DataCore’s SanMelody Lite so if you interesting building a low cost lab of your own I will post specs shortly.  I’ve also managed to get VMware ESX 3.5 running as well.  More to come!

There are many cool things coming your way in 2008 so stay tuned! 

Joe