Archive
iOS 6.1 banned from corporate servers due to Exchange snafu – via @rspruijt
Summary: iPads and iPhones running the newest version of iOS are being blocked in some enterprises because bugs are overloading corporate Exchange servers.
One of the benefits of Apple’s iOS devices such as the iPad and iPhone is that you can upgrade to the latest version as soon as it comes out. Being on the cutting edge is usually a good thing, but sometimes it can come back to bite you. If you are connecting to an Exchange server for mail and calendar services, the latest version of iOS has an unpleasant surprise in store for you.
Reports started surfacing in late January about excessive logging on Exchange servers caused by the upgrade to 6.1. A report on Microsoft Technet states:
I had a user upgrade to 6.1 and immediately after he finished, his phone/IPAD started causing excessive logging on the exchange server.
I found the problem by using exmon and saw the CPU utilization in conjunction with high session count.
He shut down Outlook and the problem remained. He turned off his iPad and the problem went away. The only change he said he made that morning was upgrading to iOS 6.1.
This problem has been confirmed by many sources. Windows IT Pro’s Tony Redmond reports:
I’ve picked up a few other reports that cannot be publicly attributed at this point that also refer to excessive transaction log generation after iOS 6.1 devices are introduced into Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2007 environments. I assume the same is true for Exchange 2013 as the underlying cause is likely to be in Apple’s mail app code that calls ActiveSync…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
#Citrix VDI-in-a-Box 5.2, now supports CloudGateway etc. – @VDIinaBox, @CitrixCG
Ok, now VDI-in-a-Box is becoming more and more “complete”! This release delivers some of the features many have wanted for a while! For instance the support of the latest hypervisors as well as CloudGateway!
Read more below taken from the Citrix blog post:
Version V5.2 is now ready for prime time. The focus of this release was to support the latest hypervisors and Citrix components. Actually we did a lot more because we added a few features that our users have been clamoring for.
Support for the latest hypervisors:
As always we need to stay current and so version 5.2 supports vSphere 5.1, XenServer 6.1 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012. The latter should increase desktop density quite a bit. We’d love to hear your experiences along those lines. Please post on the forum what sort of density increases you are experiencing.
Unified access to VDI-in-a-Box desktops and your applications and data:
Version 5.2 now supports Citrix’s Cloud Gateway and allows you to access VDI-in-a-Box through it. Cloud Gateway provides a unified application and data store allowing you to access Windows, web, SaaS and Mobile applications seamlessly and so we felt it important that VDI-in-a-Box work with this application and data aggregation service.
Real-time collaboration with Microsoft Lync:
In addition, we support Microsoft Lync via the Citrix HDX RealTime Optimization Pack for Microsoft Lync. Now users can seamlessly participate in audio-video or audio-only calls to and from other HDX RealtTime users and other standards-based video desktop and conference room systems. This is especially good for call centers and the like who want wide ranging soft phone functionality with their virtual desktops.
Highly available Personal Desktops with PVD:
Many had asked that we provide some form of high availability for Personal (PVD) desktops. We provide this by allowing you to place PVD desktops on shared storage. Here’s how it works. You specify a third datastore which resides on shared storage and VDI-in-a-Box will honor this request and store all Personal desktops using PVD on it.
Turn old desktops into locked down thin clients:
Kids will be kids and so many school lab administrators have asked that we provide a way to lock down the devices used in their labs. Now, you can download the Desktop Lock from the VDI-in-a-Box download page on the Citrix web site. It will allow you to lock down the physical device and essentially turn your old desktops and workstations into a thin client that connects directly to VDI-in-a-Box and keeps the kids from doing any mischief.
Fully automated software update with our Touchless DTagent:
And since we’re always looking for ways to make things simpler, with V5.2, we now have a fully automated way for you to upgrade the VDI-in-a-Box software. We had two issues in the past. First, you had to manually install the VDI-in-a-Box desktop agent on a golden image (that is then used to stamp out multiple desktop instances). Second, when you upgraded the VDI-in-a-Box software, you had to manually update the agent on each existing golden image. In Version 5.1, we automatically install the agent on all new images. With V5.2, we now provide you a list of existing golden images whose agents need to be updated and once you click yes, we walk you through a wizard to automatically upgrade the agent and test the golden image. For more details on this, see the blog by David Liu: http://blogs.citrix.com/2013/01/22/viab-5-2-makes-updating-desktop-agents-easier/.
Continue reading here!
//Richard
PVS support in XenServer 6.1 – via @_POPPELGAARD – #XenServer, #Citrix, #PVS
Good blog post from Thomas Poppelgaard!
And this is something that many have waited for, either they upgraded and ran into the issues and had to revert back to 6.0.2… but now it’s fixed! 🙂
Citrix have released Hotfix XS61E009 & XS61E010 for XenServer 6.1 and now you are able to have Citrix Provisioning Services with XS 6.1 and use VVS.
I have been waiting for this for a while.
Issues Resolved In This Hotfix XS61E009
- Virtual Machines (VMs) with out of date XenServer Tools, may not be flagged as “out of date” in XenCenter. This hotfix resolves this issue and enables customers to be notified in XenCenter when new XenServer Tools are available.
- Booting a Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS) target device using a Boot Device Manager (BDM) image can take an extended time to complete. This hotfix resolves this issue.
Issues Resolved In This Hotfix XS61E010
- Customers using XenServer Platinum Edition to license Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS) may find that one PVS license per VM is checked out, rather than one PVS license per XenServer host. This may lead to a shortage of PVS licenses and an inability to provision VMs. Installing this hotfix along with CTX135672 – Hotfix CPVS61016 (Version 6.1.16) – For Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1 – English resolves this issue.
- Attempts to shut down Microsoft Windows Vista and later VMs can cause intermittent blue screen errors, with a "STOP: 0x0000009f..." error message.
- Adding more than eight NICs to Microsoft Windows Vista and later VMs, using the xe CLI can lead to a blue screen error on reboot.
- Copying data to a Microsoft Windows 2003 VM can cause the VMs to hang and lead to a grey screen error.
- When Dynamic Memory Control (DMC) is enabled, attempts to migrate Microsoft Windows XP and later VMs using XenMotion can cause the VMs to hang and lead to blue screen error.
- When the Citrix Xen Guest Agent service is running, Cut and Paste will not work between a XenDesktop virtual desktop and the endpoint device.
- Microsoft Windows XP and later VMs may hang during the boot process and may have to be forced to reboot.
- Attempting to install or upgrade the XenServer Tools on Microsoft Windows Vista and later VMs, which do not have access to a paravirtualized or an emulated network device can cause the installation process to hang.
- Manually installing the Legacy XenServer Tools without changing the device_id to 0001 can result in a "STOP: 0x0000007B..."error when rebooting a Windows VM. After installing this hotfix, customers will not be able to manually install the Legacy XenServer Tools by running xenlegacy.exe…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
XenServer 6.1 Releases
“Over the past several months, literally hundreds of people have asked me the question “When will Tampa release?” I am pleased to announce that earlier today, “Tampa” officially reached GA as XenServer 6.1. Within engineering, this is officially considered a “cloud centric” release. While on the surface that would seem to indicate a lack of features for traditional server virtualization and desktop, but the reality is quite different. When you consider that a cloud runs in a datacenter, and that cloud workloads typically translate into some pretty large VM densities, all with a requirement for a high degree of workload isolation; “cloud centric” actually translates into a set of pretty stringent performance requirements. To illustrate the point, let’s consider three key features, live storage migration, network security and VM conversion.
When you look at some of the most successful clouds, you’ll quickly see that the concept of resource pools are somewhat limiting. Regardless of the size of the pool, if your cloud is successful, eventually you’re going to have more customers than can fit in your cluster or pool. During the design phase for Storage XenMotion, we accounted for this with the result being a shared nothing live storage migration solution which works equally well across all storage types and without being confined to an arbitrary resource pool concept. While designed for the cloud, it fully supports enterprise storage management requirements, and even supports live VM migration between local storage for those cases where shared storage wasn’t implemented.”
Continue reading here…
//Richard
The IT Melting Pot! 