Archive
Almost perfect.. #ShareFile StorageZones on Azure is now generally available! – #Citrix, #Azure
This is a great addition I must say, but some things are missing!
One thing that I’m missing is the full integration with Azure storage containers! You still have to specify a temp/cache storage location that today ShareFile controller requires to be on a CIFS share when you have multiple controllers. And if you put the controller up in Azure as well, how do you then get that CIFS share and make it highly available? There is no CIFS exposure directly from the Azure storage, you have to setup a couple of VM’s in Azure, do something like DFS to expose is.. and then all of a sudden you have a whole file service to manage there as well.. and to monitor and all of a sudden you need AD and monitoring and reporting of it.. phuuu…
So I hope that in next version we can specify an Azure storage container for that cache/temp storage as well! 😉
The other thing I’d really like to see is NetScaler support in Azure, so that we could do proper AAA/CS/LB of the controllers in Azure as well so that we can get a simple and fully cloud based service in Azure! 🙂
BYOD and a growing global workforce are generating demand for instant access to data, offline productivity and seamless collaboration from anywhere. Organizations are challenged with reconciling these forces with leveraging existing investments, protect intellectual property and meet regulatory compliance requirements – driving interest in ShareFile StorageZones. StorageZones offers IT the flexibility to store data in secure Citrix-managed datacenters in multiple worldwide locations, or on-premise within their own datacenters.
At Citrix Synergy 2013, we announced new ShareFile StorageZones options with Microsoft Windows Azure. We are now pleased to announce the general availability of ShareFile StorageZones on Azure with the release of ShareFile StorageZones Controller software version 2.2. This release includes support for Windows Azure storage containers, therefore if you have a Windows Azure account, you can use an Azure storage container for your private data storage instead of a locally maintained share. Hosting ShareFile data natively in your Microsoft Azure account helps IT build the most cost-effective and customized solution for their organization. This customer-managed solution integrates ShareFile with Microsoft Azure’s Binary Large Object (Blob) storage, a cloud service for storing large amounts of unstructured data that can be accessed from anywhere in the world via HTTP or HTTPS.
Product Overview
Azure storage is customer-managed storage hosted in the Windows Azure cloud. File uploads are initially deposited into a temporary storage area shared by all StorageZone controllers. Then, a background service copies those files to the Windows Azure storage container and deletes the local cached copy of the file(s).
Typically with CIFS based StorageZones, the Controller servers are installed on-premise in the customer’s datacenter. However, if a customer is hosting virtual machines in Azure, they could install the StorageZone Controller software on instances running in their Azure account and not necessarily on-premise.
Read the ShareFile StorageZones on Azure Storage Technical Brief and watch the video Installing and Configuring ShareFile StorageZones v2.2 with Microsoft Azure to learn more about this solution.
Check out our Citrix and…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Making #OpenStack Grizzly Deployments Less Hairy – #Puppet, #PuppetLabs
Today, I’m excited to announce a new module from Puppet Labs for OpenStack Grizzly. I’ve been working on this module with the goal of demonstrating how to simplify OpenStack deployments by identifying their independent components and customizing them for your environment.
The puppetlabs-grizzly module is a multi-node deployment of OpenStack built on the puppetlabs-openstack modules. There are two core differences in how it handles deploying OpenStack resources. First, it uses a “roles and profiles” model. Roles allow you to identify a node’s function, and profiles are the components that describe that role. For example, a typical controller node is composed of messaging, database and API profiles. Roles and profiles allow you to clearly define what a node does with a role, while being flexible enough to mix profiles to compose new roles.
The second difference is that the module leverages Hiera, a database that allows you to store configuration settings in a hierarchy of text files. Hiera can use Facter facts about a given node to set values for module parameters, rather than storing those values in the module itself. If you have to change a network setting or password, Hiera allows you to change it in your Hiera text file hierarchy, rather than changing it in the module.
Check out parts 1 and 2 of the demo, which walks you through how to deploy OpenStack with the puppetlabs-grizzly module.
Multi-node OpenStack Grizzly with Puppet Enterprise: Deployment (Part 1 of 2)
Put Citrix Receiver App Banners in Web Interface for Android and iOS – #Citrix, #Receiver
A good blog post from Roy Tokeshi about Citrix Receiver setup and provisioning.
I’ve used the Citrix Mobile Receiver Setup URL Generator for quite some time and like it (but now of course you’ll get pretty far with email-based enrolment if you can use that), but it’s still valid for some use cases and scenarios. But to add the banner to the download of the app itself is something I’ve not done, interesting!
One of the cool things you can do to help your users connect to your XenDesktop and XenApp environments is the Citrix Mobile Receiver Setup URL Generator at:http://community.citrix.com/MobileReceiverSetupUrlGenerator/
The output of this generator is a couple of links. The first is an iOS configuration link and the second is the Android configuration link. What is great about this is once the user gets this link on their iOS or Android device, via email, text message, or carrier pigeon with a micro SD card strapped to its leg , all the user has to do is click on the link and the local instance of the mobile Citrix Receiver is auto-configured.
- VCDC Email
- Application warning iOS
Something that Apple had made available is called a Smart App Banner. (I suggest that you don’t shout “Smart App Banners!” across the cube farm unless you want to start a bunch of prairie dogging or HR emails.) Regardless, the folks at Apple created an easy way for you to advertise the Citrix Receiver app itself from within web interface. At Citrix Systems we have had had a couple of different temporarily consistent hostnames we point at to get our apps and desktops. Among my customers, apps.company.com or atwork.company.com have popped up a few times. The point being, the user puts a name in the browser and the web interface client detect takes over, suggests a client version for Mac, Windows, Java and off they go to application or desktop nirvana. But what about the lonely neglected mobile devices. We tell our bosses that we need iPhones, iPads, and Androids for work. So the smart thing to do is to get a few work apps on there before bosses catch us playing Angry Birds, or Radical.FM So the question is, “How do I use this on my web interface?” That is an excellent question. We are going to take the cute little meta tag referenced in that Apple Dev article and paste that right into the login.aspx file in our web interface site. For the purposes of demonstration, I’m going to use our Virtual Computing Demo Center or VCDC as an example. The default web interface that acts as a front end of the demo instance is hosted on a virtual machine acting as the DDC for XenDesktop. The screenshots I am using are based on the connection I make to a XenApp desktop logged on as administrator. \\ddc\c$\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\DesktopWeb\auth\login.aspx looked like this:
Now, modified at the top line it looks like this.
Remember that this is something that is only supported in iOS and in fact from the default Safari browser. Here are some screenshots…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
The IT Melting Pot! 