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DWStovallFlag for United States of America

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Citrix Server Virtualization?

i have 450 XenApp "Enterprise" licenses.  I was exploring the notion of setting up Provisioning Services just to server out a standardized XenApp Server configuration to a set number of virtual servers.  It beats trying to manually configure a bunch of servers to be identical.

I learned from vendor that I'd have to upgrade all 450 license to "Platinum"just to use Provisioning Services for my servers.

Question - What are some alternative methods for provisioning an update-able XenApp image to my server farm?  All of the servers will be vitrtual using VMWare.
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basraj
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WYSE's WSM 3.0 is alternative does same as Citrix provisioning services. But not sure which is more advantageous in terms of cost and efficiency. You can check it out

http://www.wyse.in/products/software/wsm/index.asp
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There is also VHD CMS from Xtreaming Technologies Inc. See this link:

http://www.vhdsoft.com/

But you need to weight the pros and cons of these alternatives compared to provisioning servers from Citrix!
If you're using VMWare any version other than free has a template feature. Essentially you would take a Citrix VM with all your apps, convert it to a template and then deploy using a customization wizard or a file.  It will deploy the server within a few minutes.

You would still need to add it to the farm but the heavy lifting is done by VMWare.
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@ paulsolov,

I like the VMWare solution.  We have VMWare.  I have not worked with the template feature.  How much work is it to take a template and turn it into a working (unique) server entity - how would this affect adding an app or making a change other than something you could apply through GPO - is the template independent of the information that makes it a separate entity from the other servers in the farm?  I'm guessing that the work needed to make it unique is far less than having to rebuilt a bunch of servers from scratch and trying to make them all the same.
Right click on a vm you made and click convert to template
Deploying a template is pretty easy. It runs sysprep for you and asks a few questions you would answer when deploying windows. This way it creates a new Sid and joins domain. All apps would need to be pre installed if you want to use them. To update template convert back to a vm then upgrade apps updates etc.. And covert back to yemplate
Making a template is actually the notion where you want to make a base image from which you will build new servers fast enough and efficiently without the need to building it from scratch and reinstalling all the required applications. You will only then need to do some work for renaming the host, joining the domain.

However, you need to know and consider two things:

1. XenApp can't be installed within the template - when you join the farm you need to have  a unique server name which is obviously done post the template creation and after deployment. Also, it is not recommended in XenApp environment to install the applications before XenApp installation as you will run into many issues concerning user profiling per application. Therefore, with a template in a XenApp environment you will end up with general OS installation but not applications. Thus you will need to do all the work of XenApp installation, joining the farm, installing all the applications for each server. This is definitely and specifically why you need a provisioning server avoiding all of this hassle.

2.  Your new (as well as old) servers will still be independent from the template in terms of futrue modifications or maintenance. Say you got a request for an application upgrade or the introduction of new application. You will still have to do this for all your servers! Again this is where provisioning server makes your work very productive. You just modify the image and all your VMs boot from that image.
We have deployed hundreds of xen servers using VMWAre templates with no issues. Only piece we do is add it to the farm afterwards
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Ayman Bakr
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@paulsolov,

Thanks for all your input which takes us to the point I wanted the author to understand - that is the difference between provisioning and the use of templates.

The reason the vendor mentioned upgrading all the licenses to platinum is that with platinum edition you get the provisioning server for free. But I was not sure of the possibility of purchasing the provisioning server separately - but now that robocat has mentioned it I think the author needs to address to their reseller as it may turn to be much cheaper.

I agree that the weekly tasks of updating, upgrading apps, applying security patches and hotfixes and fine tuning would be catered by SCCM or altiris or Precision etc... However, they are no match for the productivity of the provisioning server. I've worked with the sofware distribution business for at least 6 years and used two solutions for that - you will still by occupied with reporting, troubleshooting the unsuccessful deployments and housekeeping. With provisioning services you do all of that in one image and then you are sure that all your machines got it.

And, you are right - the author needs to weigh all the advantages and disadvantages of all these different solutions including the cost against his requirements then select the most appropriate.
I concur.  Pick the tools that fits your needs and execute.
Thank you for all the input.  I appreciate the fact that other companies are offering desktop provisioning, but I still hold on to the notion that "big name" companies are who they are because of their successfulness and customer satisfaction with their product.  I believe Citrix is still the only real solution, but only if a can get Provisioning Services licensed separately.