Category Archives: Citrix

Employees are biggest security inhibitor – survey

Cybersecurity2A survey from Citrix and Censuswide has revealed employee negligence and indifference to IT policy is one of the most significant inhibitors to cloud security.

Polling around 2000 IT workers, the results showed respondents have a much more stringent approach to security at home than in work, while older younger employees are more likely to ignore company protocols when using devices and platforms.

“This research demonstrates that despite many individuals being well aware of basic precautions for handling their own personal data, too many are not so conscientious at work,” said Chris Mayers, Chief Security Architect at Citrix. “Employers have a responsibility to provide the tools and safeguards: employees need to use them.  Protecting a company’s digital assets is a two way street.”

The survey highlighted specifically that while 45% of workers are likely to use passwords to secure documents at home, this number drops to 35% at work. In terms of shredding and disposing of important documents, 68% would do this at home, whereas only 40% would do it in the work environment.

Despite security being consistently highlighted as a top concern for decision makers and the board, industry insiders have told BCN the company culture, as opposed to the technical challenges, should be more of a priority. The importance of security is underplayed by employees as they do not appreciate the threat of downloading unauthorized software or using public cloud platforms that are not approved by the IT department.

Our sources highlighted that board members in enterprise are focusing their attention on technology to address security challenges, when very little will change if the culture towards security is not altered, and education programmes are not launched.

The survey results also highlighted there is a much more relaxed approach to security from younger generations. Respondents aged over 55 are more likely to only use work devices with trusted company security software, 59%, compared to 47% of those aged between 25 and 34.

Citrix XenApp Announced XenApp Windows Server 2008 R2 EOL — What’s Next?

Citrix XenApp Announced XenApp Windows Server 2008 R2 EOL — What’s Next? Citrix is a provider of virtualization solutions that has consolidated its market position over its 25 years of operation. Along with its brand reputation and reliability, Citrix is popularly known for three issues: its cost, complexity, and name-changing product portfolio. While many have […]

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How Does Citrix Work?

How does Citrix work? Citrix is one of a few companies that offer comprehensive virtualization solutions to companies. Citrix products are built around virtualization technologies. Citrix software basically deploys applications and resources on a central server and publishes them to remote devices. Using the virtualization technology, Windows applications can be published to non-Window devices. Moreover, […]

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Parallels at UCISA 16: Learning Made Practical

Members of the Parallels team will be attending and presenting at UCISA16 in Manchester from March 16–18. Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA) is an organization designed to increase the value of education and educational initiatives by offering a more comprehensive way for students to learn, giving them access to a higher educational standard through […]

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Citrix Web Interface Transformation to Citrix StoreFront

Citrix Web Interface Transformation to Citrix StoreFront Of the hundreds of virtualization products that Citrix put forward over the past 25 years, XenApp is certainly the most popular one. Whereas XenApp publishes session based applications to remote devices, XenDesktop publishes full VDI desktops. Bridging the link between XenApp applications and the desktops offered by XenDesktop, […]

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Here’s How to Eliminate Your Citrix Printing Issue

Citrix products have been popular for their feature-rich tools and performance. However, these advantages come with certain challenges. Along with high cost and complexity, Citrix printing issues are a major challenge for businesses. Although Citrix is constantly trying to resolve printing issues, Citrix environments are still sensitive when it comes to printing. In addition, server […]

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Citrix Summit 2016 Pt 3: HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0

The final part of my series on the Citrix 2016 Partner Summit summarizes the notes Citrix provided around HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0. Part 1 recapped news around XenApp and XenDesktop and part 2 covered XenMobile and PVS 7.7. As always, please reach out if you’re looking for any more information.

 

HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0

  • Native Skype for Business 2015 UI – Provides the full Skype for Business UI experience and eliminates the limitations of a hybrid UI. Examples of features that were not supported in HDX
  • RealTime Optimization Pack 1.8 but are now available through the native Skype for Business UI include:
  • Call Delegation – Enables setting up a Skype for Business meeting on behalf of someone else. For example, an administrative assistant setting up meetings for a manager.
  • Voicemail access, playback, and delete – Ability to access your voicemail, play it, and delete from Skype for Business.
  • Response groups – Enables the response group feature, which routes incoming calls to groups of people called response group agents.
  • Team call groups – Set up a team of people who can answer your calls. You add and remove members and specify when they can answer calls for you. Members phones ring and once someone answers the call, the other phones stop ringing.
  • Authentication and SIP signaling  handled exclusively by the Skype for Business client – This release introduces architectural simplifications that improve robustness and user experience (for example, initialization time).

Fallback mode controlled by the following registry setting:

  • Warning: Editing the registry incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Citrix cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Be sure to back up the registry before you edit it.
  • Key: HKLMSoftwareCitrixHDXRTConnector or HKCUSoftwareCitrixHDXRTConnector
  • Value: DWORD DisableFallback
  • If the value is present and has a nonzero value under either registgry key, disable fallback mode; otherwise, enable fallback mode.
  • Web proxy support – Enables external access using a web proxy with limitations. For more information, see Limitations in 2.0.
  • Click-to-Run – Devices where Microsoft Office applications have been installed using Click-to-Run support HDX RealTime Optimization Pack.
  • Pairing Status Indicator – Icon that displays these status states:
    • Connecting – MediaEngine.Net is trying to establish a RealTime Connector connection.
    • Connected – There is a RealTime Connector connection over a virtual channel and the version of remote RealTime Media Engine matches the version of mediaEngine.Net exactly.
    • Fallback – There is a RealTime Connector connection to a local RealTime Media Engine process.
    • Disconnected – A registry setting (policy) prevented MediaEngine.Net from running RealTime Media Engine locally.
    • Version mismatch – Same as Connected but the version match is not exact (different patch or build numbers)
  • Improved audio-video quality – Improvements to the RealTime Media Engine:
    • Improved resilience to packet loss
    • Improved echo cancelation
  • Skype server settings – HDX RealTime Optimization Pack obeys the Skype for Business Server settings that control whether or not the endpoint can do audio and/or video calling.
  • Active speaker identification – Displays a photo of the current speaker.
  • Call and video call buttons added to the contact card – Enables calls and video calls to be started with a click of a button in the contact card.
  • Automatically join meeting audio controls – You can use Settings to specify how you want to join a meeting:
    • Use Skype for Business (full audio and video experience)
    • Use a phone number
    • Don’t join audio

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.

 

By Peter Crepeau, Solutions Architect

Get All the Features of Every XenApp Edition with Parallels Remote Application Server

Citrix provides a range of products, including virtualization technology, and the company has been in the virtualization market for two decades. XenApp is Citrix’s flagship application delivery product with a large user base of over 100 million. XenApp allows businesses to install applications on central servers and securely publish applications and desktops to clients running […]

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What is Citrix NetScaler?

Today’s organizations face new requirements for their datacenter and application delivery architectures. The rapid adoption of BYOD policies has underscored the importance of the performance of virtual applications accessed from web or mobile devices. CIOs have to cope with the increasing traffic to ensure optimal application performance while respecting rigid budget limits, no matter how […]

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Citrix Summit 2016 Part 2: XenMobile 10.3 and PVS 7.7

Here’s part 2 in my series of recap posts of the most important updates that came out of the Citrix 2016 partner summit. In this post, I’ve gathered notes from Citrix around XenMobile 10.3 and PVS 7.7. Yesterday, I posted about what’s new with XenApp and XenDesktop in case you missed it. If you’d like to talk about any of these updates in more detail, feel free to reach out.

Citrix XenMobile 10.3

The following features are new in XenMobile 10.3 and rely on an upcoming release of the Worx Mobile Apps and MDX Toolkit to be fully functional:

  • Shared devices in XenMobile enterprise mode. Shared devices is available in MDM mode.
  • Android for Work device owner mode and support for devices earlier than Android L.
  • Retrieval of voice or SMS messages on Android devices.
  • Support for Google Cloud Messaging on Android devices.
  • Fast encryption device policy, VPN policies, and new Restriction policy options for Samsung KNOX.
  • New language support for Korean, German and Portuguese and right-to-left text support in Worx Apps. These languages are available in the XenMobile console with XenMobile 10.3.

New Console Appearance: XenMobile 10.3

XenMobile 10.3 has a new look. The console is updated with new colors, fonts, tabs, and improved functionality.

  • The Dashboard tab in previous versions of the console has been moved under the new Analyze tab, which also includes the new Reporting tab. For details, see Reports.
  • The Manage tab now includes the new Users tab where you manage local users and groups.
  • The Configure tab now includes the new ShareFile tab where you configure settings to connect to the ShareFile account.
  • You access Settings, formerly under the Configure tab, by clicking the gear icon on the upper-right of the console.
  • The Support tab now opens in the same tab as the console instead of in a new tab.

New Platform Support: XenMobile 10.3

XenMobile 10.3 now offers support for the following platforms:

  • Mac OS X
  • Android HTC
  • Android Sony
  • Samsung SEAMS
  • Windows Mobile/CE
  • Windows 10 Phone: Device management in XenMobile MDM and Enterprise modes.
  • Windows 10 Desktop/Tablet: Device management in XenMobile MDM and Enterprise modes.

Citrix PVS 7.7

The following new features are available with Provisioning Services 7.7:

  • Support for Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise and Professional editions.
  • In-place upgrade of target device software. Rather than reverse-imaging, you can install a new version of the target device software without having to manually uninstall the previous version. To do an in-place upgrade from version 7.6 to version 7.7 you must first install version 7.6.1.
  • Support for UEFI pre-boot environments. This enables you to stream at startup time using gigabit network speeds, so users experience faster startups, and to use disks over 2 TB.
  • The licensing grace period for Provisioning Services has changed from 96 hours to 30 days, for consistency with XenApp and XenDesktop.
  • The Provisioning Services API has been enhanced to provide a standard object-oriented PowerShell interface that enables you to integrate your products and tools easily with Provisioning Services.
  • vGPU-enabled XenDesktop machines can be provisioned using the Provisioning Services XenDesktop Setup Wizard, rather than manually or by  using the Provisioning Services Streamed Virtual Machine Setup Wizard. You can provision machines on VMware vSphere 6.0 as well as on XenServer 6.2.
  • System Center Virtual Machine Manager Generation 2 VMs can be provisioned through Provisioning Services. Generation 2 VMs are optimized for modern workloads: the operating system does not carry the overhead of legacy drivers, devices and x86 architectures.
    • Note: This feature has received limited testing, may not be present in future product releases and must not be enabled on production systems. Citrix may not respond to support requests regarding this feature.
  • FIPS support. Provisioning Services uses a new algorithm that is compliant with Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).
  • XenApp Session Recording is automatically available by default on all machines: you do not need to use a manual workaround.
  • Streaming VHDX formatted disks. This feature adds flexibility and efficiency to image and merging operations by letting you stream VHDX files as well as VHD files. Provisioning Services recognizes and uses the file format .vhdx as the extension for base disks and .avhdx for differencing disks (also known as versions). No configuration of this feature is necessary. You perform all image manipulation functions, such as deleting or merging vDisks, or creating new versions, in the Provisioning Services console the same way for both formats.

 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

 

By Peter Crepeau, Solutions Architect