Advanced Proof of Concept – Citrix Lifecycle Management Blueprint

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Citrix Lifecycle Management is extremely powerful so I’ve just released a new blueprint that takes the term Proof of Concept (PoC) to a whole new level.

Automation is the New Black – Azure CTO Mark Russinovich

I believe that a PoC without applications and 3rd party software isn’t much of a PoC. And a blueprint where you need to configure 30% manually afterwards isn’t much of a blueprint either.

In this Advanced Blueprint I’ve included software from FSLogix, ControlUp, uberAgent, Norskale and Devolutions. They’re all good friends of mine and support my work and virtual expo.

So I thought, let them make their software even better, and I’ll make sure it get’s easier for you to try their software in a PoC.

Let’s get started!

Sign in or create a trail account here.

From the Blueprint Catalog click + to add to the blueprint to your Library.

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From Design & Deploy you choose to deploy the blueprint to your preferred Resource Location. For more details check the following blog posts:

You can follow along to make sure everything works as expected. All the steps has detailed Verbose ouput and also creates a log file in C:\Windows\Temp.

The 0 installation status means the software installed successfully.

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Server Name Glossary

  • DC – Domain Controller
  • XDC – XenDesktop Delivery Controller
  • VDA – RDS Host with Virtual Desktop Agent
  • WSUS – Windows Server Update Services
  • MGMT – Management Server

When the deployment of the Advanced PoC Blueprint is finished you should connect to the MGMT server.

ControlUp

Start ControlUp and create an account or sign in to an existing.

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Add Computers and you’re done.

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Group Policies

A Group Policy Central Store has already been configured and the ADMX/ADML templates for uberAgent and Norskale have been copied to the Central Store.

Not only that, the blueprint has also imported a GPO configuration and linked the GPO’s to the top of the domain.

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If you used the default WSUS and MGMT server names nothing needs to be done, otherwise follow the steps below.

Computer Configuration – Policies – Admin Templates – Windows Components – Windows Update

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Computer Configuration – Policies – Admin Templates – Norskale – Agent Host Configuration

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Computer Configuration – Policies – Admin Templates – uberAgent – Receivers – Receiver 01

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Head over to ControlUp (MGMT) and select All Server – Actions – Group Policy – Refresh Machine Group Policy.

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Next select only the VDA server – Actions – Power Management – Reboot Machine.

This will bring the uberAgent stats faster into Splunk.

uberAgent

Start Splunk and change the admin password as requested.

Select uberAgent – Sessions – Session 0 to check that everything is working.

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Norskale VUEM

From ControlUp select the XDC Server – Actions – Manage Services.

Navigate to SQL Server Browser and set the Startup type to Automatic and then start the service.

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Open Norskale Database Management and select to Create Database. For simplicity you should use Domain Admins as the Administrator Group.

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Open Norskale Broker Service Configuration and configure the Broker Service.

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For simplicity you should use Administrator as the Broker Account.

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Save the Configuration.

Run the following command from PowerShell:

Open Norskale Administration Console and connect to Localhost.

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As of v2.60, the VUEM download package now contains quickstart setting files. These XML files will pre-configure your VUEM database when imported so that it’s PoC-ready out of the box.

To import the quickstart setting files, click the Import Settings button in the home ribbon.

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WSUS

The installation of the Windows Updates can take a couple of days to be 100% completed.

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You’re probably lazy like me and want things to work faster. Well, meet the fantastic product WUinstall.

Create a custom script and attach the trail version of WUinstall to your blueprint script.

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Run the script against all your servers and they’ll be 100% updated in a couple of hours or less (depends on the update status of your Template).

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That’s it. Please consult the vendors documentation for further information.

Hope you like my Citrix Lifecycle Management Advanced PoC Blueprint. Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comment below.

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