4. High-Level Design
4.13 User Profile Management Solution
Profile management is enabled through a Windows service that provides a mechanism for
capturing and managing user personalisation settings within the virtual desktop environment.
Key Decisions
Configuration Decision
Version, Edition Citrix User Profile Management. Profile Storage
Location NetApp vfiler, CIFS share
Folder redirection
Applied using Group Policy: (minimum requirements): Application Data
Documents Redirected folder location:
NetApp vfiler, CIFS share Refer to the Appendix: DECISION POINT
Configuration Profile Management configurations will be applied using Active Directory GPO’s.
Table 24. Citrix Profile Management Key Decisions
Design
Citrix Profile Management coupled with standard Microsoft Windows Folder Redirection using
Active Directory GPO’s will be deployed. Storage presented via a CIFS share provided by the
NetApp storage platform will host the User Profiles and User Redirected Folders. All Profile
Management configurations will be deployed using Active Directory GPO’s.
4.14 Active Directory
Overview
This validated solution has a requirement to use Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services
and as such it is an assumption that such an environment already exists within the customer’s
environment. The decisions discussed below describe requirements from the existing Active
Directory in the form of Organisational Units and Group Policy Objects.
Supplementary requirements must also be met to ensure sufficient capacity from
authenticating Domain Controllers can handle any additional requirements or load placed on
the system by adding further Users, Groups, machine Objects and policy processing load.
DECISION POINT
Key Decisions
Configuration Decision Group Policy Application Recommended:12 Each infrastructure server role will have a minimum security baseline applied (MSB) via GPO
All XenApp Workers will have a minimum security baseline applied (MSB) via GPO
XenApp Workers will have a Machine GPO applied specific to their delivery requirements. This GPO will have Loopback mode enabled to apply user based settings at the XenApp worker OU level User based policies will be applied at the XenApp worker level Infrastructure servers such as Hyper-V host will be deployed in
relevant OU’s and MSB’s applied appropriate to their role. Table 25. Active Directory Key Decisions
Design
The recommended Group Policy and Organisational Unit strategy applied to this validated
solution is based on deploying Group Policy Objects in a functional approach, e.g. settings are
applied based on service, security or other functional role criteria. This ensures that security
settings targeted for specific role services such as IIS, SQL etc. receive only their relevant
configurations.
It is anticipated that the final design will be customer dependant and based on other factors
such as role based administration and other typical elements outside the scope of this
document. Refer to the Appendix: DECISION POINT
12 Reference to Minimum Security Baselines in the form of GPO’s will be the customer’s responsibility. GPO’s described in this document in all cases will be integrated into the customer Active Directory environment.
4.15 Database Platform
Overview
Citrix XenApp, Citrix Provisioning Services, Virtual Machine Manager and Cloud Portal Services
Manager require databases to store configuration metadata and statistical information. A
highly available database platform utilising Microsoft SQL Server is recommended.
The following tables describe minimum requirements of the database platform including
recommended sizing.
Key Decisions
Configuration Decision
Version, Edition Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard edition.
Client Configuration
SQL Native Client 10 installed on all XenApp servers and Provisioning servers.
MF20.dsn updated on all XenApp servers with mirror db information
Databases
Citrix XenApp 6.5 farm database:
Mirrored: Synchronous mirroring with Witness node Refer to the following articles for further details
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp65-install/ps- database-ref-sql-srvr.html
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp5fp-w2k3/ps- planning-datastore-intro-v2.html
Citrix Provisioning Services database:
Mirrored: Synchronous mirroring with Witness node Refer to the following article for further details:
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/provisioning-60/pvs- install-task1-plan-6-0.html
EdgeSight:
Refer to the following article for further details: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX122146
Microsoft VMM database:
Refer to the following article for further details:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg610574.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/gg490638.aspx
Citrix CPSM databases:
Refer to the following article for further details:
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/ccps-11/ccps-11.html The following database sizes can be used as a guideline
CPSM database Size: 200GBCPSM Data Warehouse database - Size: 500GB
Design
This document provides design guidelines for the actual databases used in this Citrix Validated
Solution, however does not attempt to provide design guidelines for Microsoft SQL Server.
The design and implementation for a highly available Microsoft SQL Server platform is
considered out of scope for this document.
Appendix A. Decision Points
This section defines the elements which need further discussions with the Customer as these
may be customer-specific.
DECISION POINT Description
Naming Convention Component nomenclature will need to be defined by the customer during the analysis phase of the project
Database Information to be provided Microsoft SQL Version Server name Instance name Port Database name
Resource Capacity (CPU Memory Storage)
CTX Licensing License server name
Microsoft Volume Licensing
Microsoft licensing of the target devices is a requirement for the solution and will be based on the customer’s existing Microsoft licensing agreement. The appropriate licensing option must be selected based on Microsoft KMS or MAK volume licenses for PVS target devices.
Note: The vDisk license mode must be set before target devices can be activated
Microsoft RDS Licensing (terminal server CALS)
At least two Microsoft RDS License servers should be defined with the customer environment including the mode of operation:
per user per device
Once defined these configuration items will be deployed via the Active Directory GPO.
Windows Pagefile
The final applications used and workload usage patterns required by the customer will influence the decision for the requirement of a Pagefile. Further customer validation will be required. Dependant on the
requirement for a Pagefile and its associated storage footprint, the write cache drive may require additional storage considerations.
Web Interface
Further analysis may be required for customers with aggressive user logon time frames to their desktops. In this scenario additional Web Interface servers may be required and must be added to the NetScaler load balancing service group.
Active Directory Domain services
The Active Directory Forest and domain will need to be discussed with the Customer to ensure sufficient capacity exists to support any additional authentication requirements the proposed solution may impose.
Group Policy is likely to be deployed to suit the requirements of the customer. Assuming the existing deployment meets best practices, the GPOs described within this Citrix Validated Solution can be integrated into the customer environment or configurations may be added directly to existing GPOs. Further analysis is required. Reference to Minimum Security Baselines in the form of GPO’s will be the customer’s responsibility. GPO’s described in this document in all cases must be integrated into the customer Active Directory environment.
DECISION POINT Description
Citrix EdgeSight
Citrix EdgeSight requires naming conventions for Company and departmental configurations.
Dependant on the customer preference the Citrix EdgeSight database can be deployed to a suitable existing SQL platform or as a standalone instance.
User Personalisation
User Profile Management will need to be further defined to meet customer expectations and application specific requirements. This includes folder redirection using GPO objects. Currently this document only describes minimal requirements.
Please refer to the following link for further details: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX134081
Appendix B. Server Inventory
This section defines the inventory of servers (physical and virtual) required to deliver the
Hosted Shared Desktop solution.
Qty Server role Type CPU RAM Disk NIC
Physical Servers 2 Hyper-V Host (Infrastructure) Physical – B200-M3 2 x Hex- Core 128GB SAN Boot – 150GB VIC1240 9 Hyper-V Host (HSD) Physical – B200-M3 2 x Hex- Core 128GB SAN Boot – 150GB VIC1240 Virtual Servers 2 Citrix XenApp Controller servers (Zone Data Collector) VM 4 vCPU 8GB 100GB 1 vNIC 2 Citrix Web
Interface server VM 2 vCPU 4GB 100GB 1 vNIC
3 Citrix Provisioning
servers VM 4 vCPU 16GB 100GB 2 vNIC
1 Citrix License
server VM 2 vCPU 4GB 100GB 1 vNIC
2 Microsoft DHCP
Servers VM 2 vCPU 4 GB 150GB 1 vNIC
54 Citrix XenApp Worker (HSD) servers VM 4 vCPU 16GB 100GB (PVS) 20GB (W/C) 2 vNIC 1 Citrix EdgeSight server VM 4 vCPU 16GB 100GB C: 300GB D: 1 vNIC 2 Citrix CloudPortal
Services Manager VM 4 vCPU 8GB 100GB 1 vNIC
1 Microsoft Virtual
Machine Manager VM 4 vCPU 16GB 150GB 1 vNIC
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