In May this year shortly before Citrix Synergy I wrote a post about Citrix Lifecycle Management and how excited we are at Login VSI to support this important initiative with a blueprint. Then I experienced the buzz at Synergy on the show floor and during the keynote. Since then, Citrix has been polishing the new product for an even greater experience giving me the opportunity to work with experts throughout the company on our blueprint.

So why did Login VSI create a blueprint for XenApp and XenDesktop? Simple. When building these environments either onsite or in the cloud you want to make sure you are delivering the best performance to your end users. This is where the goals of Citrix and Login VSI perfectly align. Citrix is now giving you the opportunity to configure and build these environments in a few mouse clicks. And Login VSI supports this with a load test that is simple and easy to set up.

The Login VSI blueprint creates a standalone installation of XenDesktop. It builds a XenDesktop Server with a SQL Server Express database, XenDesktop Controller, Citrix Studio, Storefront and a Citrix License Server. The Windows Server will include the Virtual Desktop Agent (VDA) which may be configured for shared desktops or server VDI. The final optional step of this blueprint is to configure a NetScaler Gateway to provide secure remote access to XenDesktop. Login VSI will be installed to execute performance tests after deployment.

When performance testing, I see that most test failures are due to the vast complexities of any given centralized desktop environment. One wrong setting can cause an environment to stop performing well. CLM and the blueprint approach dramatically ease the process of building these environments. We can now swap, reuse, delete and copy environments after they are used instead of having to be careful so they can also be used in a next project. Developers no longer need to spend their valuable time building these test environments…repeatedly.

So if you are looking for a way to quickly prototype a Citrix environment and validate its performance, or you would like to simulate what happens to performance when you push an update or change to your environment, CLM is THE way to go forward.

Need a bit more proof? Let me show you how easy it is to deploy a XenApp / XenDesktop proof of concept including Login VSI to my home-lab:

Step 1:

Add a resource location, in my case this is a Hyper-V server. On that server or one of the VM’s I have to install the Connector agent, using this agent CLM is able to communicate directly to the hypervisor.

Step 2:

Select the blueprint that you would like to aquire from the Catalog, as far as I know all of these blueprints are free :-)

Step 3:

Choose the blueprint and click Deploy

Step 4:

Give the deployment a name and if you have done a similar deployment before select a deployment profile so most settings are pre-configured.

Step 5:

Feed some basic information like do you want a Netscaler, Domain controller and the Server VDA for XenApp or XenDesktop. Last but not least select in what datacenter to deploy the environment.

Step 6:

Now its time to configure the environment, what domain name would you like? Where shall we install Login VSI?

Step 7:

After all of these settings are configured sit back and wait for the deployment to complete :-).

In sum, the CLM is a great development from Citrix that will sure to improve desktop virtualization as we know it. I predict CLM will be widely used within the Citrix customer community as well as in testing with Login VSI. Learn more about Citrix Lifecycle Management.

About the author

Mark Plettenberg (@markplettenberg) is a product manager of Login VSI and has played a critical role in the development and growth of Login VSI. Ask Mark about motorcycle mechanics and breaking/repairing anything and everything that has a power plug.