Today at Citrix Synergy 2011 in Barcelona, Citrix released the Tech Preview of Citrix Cloud Gateway Express that will replace Citrix Web Interface before 2015. They also released Tech Preview of Citrix Receiver 13.1.045.

The Citrix Cloud Gateway will come in two versions, the VPX edition that’s free and the paid Enterprise edition that provides more features. Basically the Citrix Cloud Gateway is a new Web Interface with once again a new color theme, but let the users decide which applications they want on the portal. The user settings are stored in the SQL database and roam with the users independent of which device they use to logon to the Citrix Cloud Gateway.

The paid Citrix Cloud Gateway Enterprise will also provide Single Sign On to Web Apps, SaaS and Follow-Me data. Think of it as a portal with all your XenApp Apps, XenDesktop VDI, LinkedIn, Facebook e.g. together with an Enterprise File Sharing System ala DropBox provided by Citrix Share-File.

The Citrix Cloud Gateway require Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express or Enterprise.

The installation is straight forward and any missing prerequisites will automatically be installed by the setup wizard (except from Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2). The configuration wizard look very identical to Citrix XenDesktop 5.x. If you want to integrated it with Citrix Access Gateway 5 please that a look at the Citrix eDocs – Known Issues in Citrix Cloud Gateway.

When the Citrix Access Gateway 4.6 (CAG) VPX Virtual Appliance was announced in Febrary 2010 the Citrix Community became very excited. The day when I finally got my hands on the product I got disappointed when I discovered that it only supported Citrix XenServer. Most of our customers have VMware in their DMZ and nobody was interested in replacing their working Citrix Secure Gateway before there where Citrix Access Gateway VPX support for VMware.

At this time it wasn’t a big issue, because the iPad hadn’t been released for sales in Norway so the pressure wasn’t too heavy on the IT apartments. The workaround was to create a XenApp Service site without any kind of 3 party authentication to begin testing the iPad in some environments.

At Citrix Synergy 2010 in Berlin there where some buzz about Citrix Access Gateway VPX 5.0 being released in the end of October 2010 with support for VMware ESX. Once again very excited, but turned down once more by the fact that it required an update of the Citrix Receiver to version 4.2.1. The Citrix Access Gateway VPX 5.0 was released 28th of October and we waited almost 1.5 month for the Receiver that was released 17th of December. I know this is not only Citrix’s fault since they were waiting for the App to get approved by Apple after the release of IOS 4.2.1.

The cool thing about the new Citrix Receiver for iPad is that it makes it possible to launch ICA files from Safari which means all Citrix Secure Gateway (CSG) solution with Citrix Web Interface 4.6 (WI) or higher will work even with 3 party authentication. So why should we upgrade to Citrix Access Gateway VPX 5.0?

Well the sales pitch is to use your internal Web Interface and remove the old WI from the DMZ. Another point is the security aspect because you no longer need to run Windows Updates and apply security patches to you Citrix Secure Gateway. This is great, because I have seen many solutions that have been forgotten and not been updated in ages. CSG will also in the feature bee discontinued and no longer supported.

So we should upgrade to Citrix Access Gateway straight away right?

Well hold your horses. Right know there are too many issues with iPad not working with Citrix Access Gateway VPX 5.0. I have talked to many consultants and they have given up and just sticked to Citrix Access Gateway 4.6 which works with the XenApp Service. We are also still waiting for the Citrix Receiver for iPhone 4.2.2. If you are planning on using it with your Android devices you’ll need to upgrade to the brand new Citrix Web Interface 5.4 which could be a problem if you plan to use your internal WI like Citrix wants you to do.

If you plan to try it out be aware that there currently are a lot of threads in the support forum regarding iPad and also some issues with older Citrix Presentation Server 4.5.

I have blogged about this before; Should Citrix pay more attention to Citrix Forums? when they launch a new product. There are some videos available on Citrix TV, but they don’t cover everything from A to Z so it’s easy to get lost in the configuration. And the new eDoc documentation doesn’t help anymore, Citrix please give us the PDF documentation back at least for brand new products.

Everything is easy when you know how to do it, I remember back in the CSG times I used at least 20 hours on the first installation, but then quickly got it down to 3-4 hours when I had done it a couple of times and had made myself a step by step installation guide.

So are you using Citrix Access Gateway VPX 5.x in your organization or are you sticking to Citrix Secure Gateway? Please leave a comment below.

Resource :

• Citrix Access Gateway

Last week Citrix announced a Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability in Citrix Web Interface 5.x. It’s highly recommended that you upgrade to the newest Citrix Web Interface 5.4 that fixes this issue and also give you the new facelift. After the release of the previous Web Interface 5.x in black a lot of people have been spending much time on adding the white template and customizing it.

I would highly recommend you to take a look at my previous post “How to Load Balance Citrix Web Interface with NLB” since your Web Interface Server is probably one of your single point of failures. The nice thing with the release of Citrix Access Gateway is the possibility to use your internal Citrix Web Interface, which means you will have an Load Balanced Web Interface cluster for both internal and external access.

Be aware that some people have problems installing Citrix Web Interface 5.4 on a domain controller (Citrix Support Forum). I haven’t had time to take a closer look at this error message, but I confirmed it when I installing it in my RackSpace Lab.

Update 23/10/2011 – Citrix now states that they don’t support installing Citrix Web Interface 5.4 on a domain controller, actually they’ve never supported this even tough it worked before.

How hard would it be for Citrix to create a framework that people around the world could use to create their own look and feel, similar to the themes we have with WordPress blogs? In the comments section below tell me what you think.

Resource :

• Citrix Web Interface 5.4

Every Citrix Web Interface Server (WI) without any form of load balancing is a potential single point of failure in your environment. Network Load Balancing is available in both the Standard and Enterprise Editions of Windows 2008 so there shouldn’t be to many excuses for not implementing. This picture tutorial will take you through the process of creating a Network Load Balancing Cluster for your Citrix Web Interface Servers.

IP Address Overview :

winlb1.ctxlab.local    10.0.10.40
winlb2.ctxlab.local    10.0.10.41
nlb.ctxlab.local         10.0.10.42

Configure Citrix Web Interface :

1. Assign static IP Address to both nodes in the NLB Cluster
2. Install and create a Site on Citrix WI on Node A
3. Install and create a Site on Citrix WI on Node B
4. Customize, test and replicate WI Site from Node A to Node B
5. RoboCopy c:inetpubwwwrootCitrix \winlb2c$inetpubwwwrootCitrix /MIR

Configure Network Load Balancing :

Turning old PC’s into Thin Clients are very much alive and a lot of you are downloading the ThinClientPC ScriptFrameWork. I recently came past 2 very good articles discussing these matters The fundamental flaws of thin clients and Converting PC’s into thin clients – a rundown of a suddenly crowded niche.

Now that the Citrix XenApp 5.0 Feature Pack 2 are released supporting HDX MediaStream for Flash I have created a new version. Please take a look at the Readme.txt for further instructions. My golden image machine are Windows XP SP3.

Downloads :

• Adobe Flash Player
• Citrix Online Plugin Full 11.2
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7
• Microsoft Net Framework 2.0
• Microsoft Windows Media Player 11
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• ThinClientPC ScriptFrameWork

Note :

Please note that these scripts are provided “as is” and that using these is at your own risk. Please feel free to leave comments below regarding bugs & suggested improvements in future releases.

It’s Time For You To Take Action

Start today by downloading my free eBook like 3000 other Citrix Community members. It contains a lot of helpful information for both beginners and experts. Combined with the 7 day eCourse you will have a solid foundation to get certified as a Citrix Administrators. Check out some of these testimonials:

“Your web site has helped me greatly as I have now developed a test Citrix farm using your guide, this proved to be a great reference to follow when setting up a new 2008 environment with XenApp 5.0, not only does it cover installing XenApp but gives an insight into XenServer. Would highly recommend this web site and eBook to anyone from beginner to expert”. Nick Rimmer – Scotland

“I truly appreciate the work and the amount of time you spent in creating this amazing book. I found your book an excellent start to the world of Citrix XenApp. What I truly appreciate the most is the step by step instructions in about every little detail that goes with XenApp installation and settings. I wish I had your book a few years back when I first start learning about Citrix it would saved me a lot of hours and frustrations. Keep up the good work!”. Adam Tigris – Toronto

“I’ve used the the Hands On Guide for XenApp 5.0 extensively as a reference in my work. It’s been a great help to me”. John Martz – Illinois, USA

“Your guide was very helpful for me to get started with XenApp 5 and XenServer. I have deployed XenApp 5 using this on production environment and all looks good. Many thanks and keep up the good work!!!”. Manish N. Dwivedi – India

PS: I see some people unsubscribing after they downloaded the eBook. Don’t be that stupid. There are a lot of great value in the eCourse as well so please stay on for at least 4 weeks to get the full value.

[youtube e3_lvUS3WVI]

Music : Beatles vs James Brown MashUp. Drums and additional instrumentation by DJ Prince

The Citrix Dazzle Technical Preview has been released and you can download it here. It’s required to install the Citrix Receiver before the Dazzle Tech Preview. This version support Windows XP & Vista on x32, but it also works on Windows 7 with some minor bugs. Note that this version doesn’t support Mac OS like many people have Twittered about today.

What’s great is that Dazzle works out of the box also as standalone installation without the Citrix Merchandising Server. Simply configure your Dazzle Store to your PN Agent Config.xml file. That’s it

I had totally missed this next generation of Web Interface Management Console based on MMC. The Web Interface Management Console is compatible with the latest release of the Web Interface, Version 5.1. I discovered it browsing Citrix.com because I was missing the “Create Site” in the Access Management Console. After installing this small MSI file everything worked fine. More information and download here.

Discovered a very cool application today which organize your icons on your desktop or hiding them all simple by double clicking your desktop. Very handy when you are doing a presentation @ your customers! Works great with Windows 7, download here.

Citrix has released CTX119509 showing you how to make your Web Interface site using a White Theme instead of the default Carbon Fiber Black look. Really looking forward to when it’s as easy as WordPress when it comes to changing your look of your Web Interface Site. Techstur.com has some nice ones but they are starting at $1500…