[THIN] MSTerminalServices.org - December 2006 Newsletter
- From: "MSTerminalServices.org" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "THIN List" <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:35:38 -0600
MSTerminalServices.org Newsletter of December 2006
Sponsored by: 2X Software
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In this issue:
What's up?
KB Articles of the Month
Ask our MVPs!
Learning Zone
On the Spot
Rumours on the SBC Space
Welcome to the MSTerminalServices.org newsletter! Each month we will bring you
interesting and helpful information on MS Terminal Services
and server based computing. We want to know what all *you* are interested in
hearing about. Please send your suggestions for future
newsletter content to: SVermeulen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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1. What's up?
Stefan Vermeulen, Terminal Server MVP and Citrix CTP
Hi there!
By the time this newsletter appears in your inbox, most of you will already be
on holiday or are wrapping up the year to celebrate Christmas
and the year end. It's been a good year for the msterminalservices.org website,
and also a rocking year for the Terminal Server
administrators out there. Citrix presentation server 4.5 is just about to be
released, a longhorn beta has been released, which will probably
change the SBC landscape a bit more and lot's of events have passed this year,
giving you more and more opportunities to gain knowledge on
SBC and to meet your peers in the field.
We have grown with our list of authors up to 9 and have welcomed Duane Bradley,
Michel Roth, Rick Mack and Patrick Rouse to our team of
excellent writers this year. Together with Jason Conger doing the blogging on
the website, I feel confident that 2007 will be an even better
year. The website got a complete make over this year and the rss technology on
just about every piece of information on the site will help
you to stay in touch with every change that matches your taste in news.
That's all for now. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
See you all back in January!
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Citrix burning a hole in your pocket?
Get 2X ApplicationServer - unlimited - for only $995. Tunnels Windows
Applications onto remote desktops: Install the application once on the
server and eliminate the administration hassle of deploying the applications on
all workstations. Allow access to the app from the internet
via SSL!
Get your free copy today! (http://www.2x.com/applicationserver/citrix.htm)
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2. KB Articles of the Month
Here are some interesting and useful Terminal Services related articles posted
by Microsoft in the last month:
Remote Desktop Connection 6.0 client update is available for download in the
Microsoft Download Center
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925876/en-us
Terminal Services Client That Is Using a Smart Card Cannot Connect to the
Terminal Server
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830579/en-us
Stop error message when a Terminal Services client logs off from a session on a
server that is running Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack
1: "Stop 0x000000AB (SESSION_HAS_VALID_POOL_ON_EXIT)"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923035/en-us
You receive a "STOP 0x50" error message that is related to
win32k!HmgDecrementShareReferenceCount+0xb on a Windows Server 2003-based
terminal
server
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926128/en-us
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3. Ask our MVPs a question
This is simple and straight forward: shoot us your TS/Citrix question and we
will get some of the top Terminal Services MVPs together and get
you an answer, from everyone?s point of view! The best question of the month
will be published here with all the answers from these guys.
Just email us at SVermeulen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
QUESTION: Hello Stefan,
I am thinking about changing my 10 32bits TS servers, running 500 concurrent
users and replace them with 2 64bits servzilla's. That will save
my company quite some money and I will be the big hero. What do you think?
Regards, John64
ANSWER: Dear John64,
There are a few new ways of thinking that we need to do when talking about
64bits. The biggest thing is that, in the 32bits era, the
bottleneck usually was the 2gig user and kernel mode memory address limitation.
With this limitation gone, the sky is not the limit. There
will of course be new limitations you have to take into calculation. My 2 cents
go to the disk system, especially for those servers running
client-server applications. Independent studies have shown saturation (not
memory) of a system somewhere between 200 and 250 sessions and not
the 800 sessions marketing departments tend to send out. To be sure that that
is not your limitation, all you can do is test the server in
advance.
And have you taken into account what happens with your server B if A goes down?
Can it handle the 500 users? Probably not. So without doing
any testing, which you really should do, my feeling tells me that you would
need at least 4 servers in your setup. (3 for the load and 1
spare/load for issues)
Good luck with the migration!
4. Learning Zone
Modifying the Citrix Access Gateway
http://www.msterminalservices.org/articles/Modifying-Citrix-Access-Gateway.html
Date - November 23, 2006; Author - Rick Mack; Section - Articles :: General
In this article Rick explains how to modify the CAG for branding the look to
match your corporate identity. Support may not like it, but it
makes the portal look much better.
Securing Access to your Applications
http://www.msterminalservices.org/articles/Securing-Access-Applications.html
Date - December 13, 2006; Author - Wilco van Bragt; Section - Articles ::
Security
In this article Wilco explains how to secure your terminal server using gpo's,
NTFS rights and other tricks he can think of. Lock them down
and take the afternoon off.
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Citrix burning a hole in your pocket?
Get 2X ApplicationServer - unlimited - for only $995. Tunnels Windows
Applications onto remote desktops: Install the application once on the
server and eliminate the administration hassle of deploying the applications on
all workstations. Allow access to the app from the internet
via SSL!
Get your free copy today! (http://www.2x.com/applicationserver/citrix.htm)
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5. On The Spot
This month we talked to Alex Danilychev, Owner of tektips.com and an active
Terminal Server community member.
Stefan: Hello Alex and welcome to 'On the spot' here at terminalservices.org.
Alex: How are you, Stefan?
Stefan: Can you explain a bit about yourself, and how you rolled into the SBC
Community?
Alex: Hmm, surprisingly I had two "incarnations" into the Community - in the
late 1990s and again back in 2003
Stefan: I am curious about that 90's one; can you tell us what it was?
Alex: The first time; I just started with Citrix WinFrame 1.7 after
specializing in distributed applications, mostly web related. That was
the time of the WinFrame release and the first ActiveX version of ICA client. I
was quite impressed that you can literally open a "window"
through the web browser into another system, launch applications, browse the
files system, etc. These days we take it for granted, but in
those days it was a WOW.
Stefan: The time of the good old 256kb ActiveX client was all you needed. I
remember it well also.
Alex: Correct. The time of single server, no farms, no load balancing, no
seamless or published applications, or even secure ICA. In that
time Rick Dehlinger's Citrix tips and Jim Kenzig's Thin List were big and the
best knowledge sharing out there.
Stefan: So what happened back in 2003?
Alex: Many people that started in the early 1990s and had successful Citrix
careers did sell their businesses or extended their interests to
other technologies when the Internet flourished. So there was a change in
generations, I guess in the 2000-2002 timeframe. What caught my
attention was the new wave of interest among the IT Community to Citrix and
thin-client technology in general. The most noticeable, in my
subjective view, were books from Brian Madden in the US, the PubForum events in
Europe and releases like Doug Brown's "Methodology in a Box"
and various Community websites on SBC technology.
Stefan: Maybe the success of it was it being a part of the windows 2000 server
back then?
Alex: Could be, a capable OS definitely helps, but I have to admit, Citrix
demonstrated what it could do at the time of the Terminal Server
release. We all know about Citrix contribution to that project beyond the
introduction of MetaFrame.
Stefan: Your website www.tekworkshop.com(http://www.tekworkshop.com) holds
quite a number of free tools to ease the life of an SBC
administrator. Did you create them for yourself initially because you needed
them, or have they been requested by others?
Alex: Originally there was no explicit intent to release any applications that
are generic enough to be useful to others. I think some
applications did address pressing day-to-day issues like iPrintSearch to deal
with printers and their drivers across the servers; some were
just snippets of technology that went into commercial code - MFCOMChk, an
application that simplifies Citrix MFCOM scripts deployment and
troubleshooting. At the same time, articles and links to websites of interest
were a way to keep track of them for internal consumption,
though hopefully useful to others. One thing I tried to avoid - advertisement,
which you probably hardly find anywhere at the site.
Stefan: True. You run a very clean website. TekStop is the latest addition to
the list. Any more up your sleeve?
Alex: I did correspond with Rick Mack and am currently working on Citrix PS4
server re-imaging based on Rick's expertise. Although there are
some tools from Citrix related to the subject ("CTX_SmaUser Re-creation Tool"
for example), but I think there is a void to supplement in that
space.
Stefan: So in a few months, we can expect TekImage huh?
Alex: I would like to carve more time for it, but at the same time, most of us
have day jobs and other obligations.
Stefan: That is true. It is easily forgotten that most of us do this stuff next
to our day jobs.
Alex: One project I would like to mention is a new PNAgent compatible applet
that can run from a USB key without any install. At this point
this application is under the code name "myAgent" and is in a limited Beta. It
does support multiple credentials and thousands of distinct
PNA portals simultaneously. And yes, it also improved the appearance of PNAgent
icons.
Stefan: You mean the real PNA, with full functionality, running off a USB key
with no installation whatsoever?
Alex: True. It is a matter of settling on the final feature set. This
application also removes any dependency on Internet Explorer.
Stefan: So as long as you have that USB key with you, so is your office,
wherever you are?
Alex: Yes. myAgent supports a broad range of proxies as well as SSL
certificates (client certificate support by PNAgent portal is being
worked on). It is possible that the release will consist of two versions --
commercial and a no-cost Community version.
Stefan: Well, it sounds like the non commercial version will be a rich add-on
to your tool list. You have been to Europe quite a few times to
join the PubForum event. What makes it so attractive for you to make such long
journeys?
Alex: I come from a scientific background where seminars, not just conferences,
are quite popular. This is a bidirectional way of sharing
ideas and experiences and PubForum did this job very well. The Noncommercial
nature of the event helps too. There is an opportunity to relax
and meet with your pears. And I have to say vendors, such as triCerat, were
quite receptive and adapted to this model over the years.
Stefan: Yes, triCerat is a welcome vendor during this event, and has indeed
adapted well to its format. Citrix recently added a few
individuals to the CTP program including you. What do you think about the
program?
Alex: I am glad to be in such a good company - some guys I have known for about
10 years. Among developers awarded CTP is Gus Pinto - he is
doing incredible work and is very well received by the Community.
Stefan: Yes, Gus is working up quite a name for himself lately, and he deserves
it in full. For the interested, his website is
http://www.frameworkx.com So what can we expect from you in 2007, as you always
have some upcoming projects or tools up your sleeve.
Alex: Regarding new projects and directions. This year the most overused IT
term is "virtualization". I do hope to contribute to this cause
within my limited abilities.
Stefan: Can you be more specific about that?
Alex: I am currently working on a poor man's virtualization engine which
basically consists of file, registry and named-object abstraction.
This will allow deployment of applications in a "zero install" fashion as well
as "leaving no trace behind" on application termination. Here
are a few links for similar efforts which are: Thinstall -
www.thinstall.com(http://www.thinstall.com), EPAFactory -
www.epafactory.com(http://www.epafactory.com), Molebox -
www.molebox.com(http://www.molebox.com). Each solution has its strong features.
Stefan: Well Alex, I am looking forward to testing it when it is released.
Thanks you for taking time for us, and I wish you a Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Alex: You're welcome Stefan. Same to you and the readers of this newsletter.
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Citrix burning a hole in your pocket?
Get 2X ApplicationServer - unlimited - for only $995. Tunnels Windows
Applications onto remote desktops: Install the application once on the
server and eliminate the administration hassle of deploying the applications on
all workstations. Allow access to the app from the internet
via SSL!
Get your free copy today! (http://www.2x.com/applicationserver/citrix.htm)
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6. Rumors on the SBC Space
The only rumor that came to my attention is that briforum Europe might be in
Amsterdam. Will that be a good plan to have a few hundred geeks
raid my nations capital? Time will tell.
As far as industry news it's quiet on the front. Most important one is that now
everybody can download a free 2 user license for the Citrix
4.0 developer edition. Just register at mycitrix.com and download the keys and
the software. Citrix also launched the option to look at
how-to videos on their
website(http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=37486).
You can pre-register for the beta 3
of longhorn server
here(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/beta/betacentral.mspx) if you
like.
Happy holidays and see you next year!
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Citrix burning a hole in your pocket?
Get 2X ApplicationServer - unlimited - for only $995. Tunnels Windows
Applications onto remote desktops: Install the application once on the
server and eliminate the administration hassle of deploying the applications on
all workstations. Allow access to the app from the internet
via SSL!
Get your free copy today! (http://www.2x.com/applicationserver/citrix.htm)
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