My workspace journey
With the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop 1903 release, Machine Creation Services continues to improve! The RAM-based write cache feature has been updated and improved. I wanted to see how the new RAM-based write cache capability compared to the previous version and how it compares to a desktop without using a RAM-based write cache. First,... Continue Reading →
If you need to automate the updating of a Machine Creation Services machine catalog, this script will be useful. It was created for a XenServer host. The first part is to setup my parameters. For the variables $StorageResource and $HostResource, you will use the names from Citrix Studio - Configuration - Hosting. I use "XenServer"... Continue Reading →
Since its inception, a Machine Creation Services VM was based on thin cloning technology. Each VM would read from the same copy of the master image while any writes would be directed to a VM-specific differencing disk. Because the differencing disk only contains writes, it is often thin provisioned to save on storage space. This... Continue Reading →
As Q said in the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "All good things must come to an end" and after 6 previous blogs focusing on deciding between Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services, it is time to end. As I explained, over the past 5 years, improvements were made to Provisioning Services... Continue Reading →
This is part of a series comparing Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services Part 1: Resource Delivery Options Part 2: Scalability Part 3: Storage Optimization Part 4: Deployment Part 5: On-going Maintenance Part 6: Architecture Part 7: Summary In the previous blogs comparing PVS with MCS, I focused on functionality within each technology, but this... Continue Reading →
This is part of a series comparing Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services Part 1: Resource Delivery Options Part 2: Scalability Part 3: Storage Optimization Part 4: Deployment Deploying Machine Creation Services is extremely easy as there is nothing to deploy. Deploying Provisioning Services is easier with Hyper-V Gen2 VM support and the single-stage Boot... Continue Reading →
This is part of a series comparing Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services Part 1: Resource Delivery Options Part 2: Scalability Part 3: Storage Optimization Part 4: Deployment Part 5: On-going Maintenance Part 6: Architecture Part 7: Summary So far, the latest analysis between Machine Creation Services and Provisioning Services included within XenApp and XenDesktop... Continue Reading →
As I was discussing the storage optimization capabilities in the Machine Creation Services vs Provisioning Services debate, I mentioned the use of a XenServer RAM-based read cache. This can be misunderstood as XenServer IntelliCache (a mistake I'm sad to say I've made in the past). XenServer IntelliCache (released with XenServer 5.6 SP1) and XenServer RAM... Continue Reading →
This is part of a series comparing Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services Part 1: Resource Delivery Options Part 2: Scalability Part 3: Storage Optimization Part 4: Deployment Part 5: On-going Maintenance Part 6: Architecture Part 7: Summary For years, storage optimization has been one of the major strengths of Provisioning Services. With PVS,... Continue Reading →
