What’s New with Citrix XenApp 6

Overview

In the quick-changing world of virtual applications, Citrix’s XenApp product has been at the forefront of innovation. The ability to virtualize almost any Windows application to use them on a number of different platforms has changed how many organizations communicate with their employees, and fundamentally shifted how employees can integrate their work with their very active lives. This article reviews the changes that have been integrated into Citrix XenApp 6 and the benefits that are offered by this new version.

What’s New

The new XenApp 6.0 has been purpose-built on top of the Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 platform and takes advantage of many of the features provided by the platform. Besides supporting the newer features provided by Windows 2008 R2, there are also a number of different changes that have been introduced or upgraded. XenApp 6.0 performance improvements result in a 15% or higher user density per server.

The feature that will be most appreciated is that XenApp 6.0 can be installed on the target platform in about ½ the time than was possible previously. This saves the time of the installer and gets the system up and running so production can begin. The new installer provides the ability to install XenApp 6.0 using three different methods: automated pre-requisite installation, zero-configuration installation and role-based setup wizards.

With the XenApp 6.0 release Citrix strives to support “Any device, anywhere.” They do this using Citrix Receiver which supports most of the available platforms in use in today’s working environments, including all of the commonly used mobile platforms; the supported platforms include:

• Microsoft Windows XP and higher
• Apple Macintosh 10.4 or higher
• Linux
• Sun Solaris
• Android 1.5 and higher
• Microsoft Windows Mobile Professional 6.0 and higher
• Blackberry
• Apple iPhone/iPad

Another addition is Dazzle. Dazzle is a self service storefront that provides the user the ability to choose from a list of available applications that can be used. The Dazzle interface was designed with modern storefronts in mind and should be easy for most users to use. Each user can subscribe to the applications required for their purposes; if the application is no longer required they can unsubscribe from it. Microsoft App-V support has also been included with XenApp 6.0; this offers the administrators the ability to support both XenApp and App-V applications within the same management interface.

XenApp 6.0 includes High Definition Support (HDX) for CD quality audio in real-time as well as real-time collaboration support for Microsoft Office Communicator (OCS) and VoIP. Support for webcams using Microsoft mobile devices is also included. Other added features and abilities include:

• Echo cancellation support
• Plug-in-Play USB support (Also available using XenApp 5 Feature Pack 3)
• Support for 32-bit color depth, support for Windows Aero and native multiple monitor support
• Smartcards support is also Windows 7 clients (login, reconnect, unlock, auto-disconnect and SmoothRoaming)

XenApp 6.0 introduces AppCenter which provides a single management console that provides fast product installation and seamless Microsoft management integration; AppCenter is modeled after MMC 3.0. Active Directory Group Policy extensions have also been provided to enable policy-based management. XenApp 6.0 also includes support for PowerShell 2.0 to enable management automation.

A new license management console has also been provided. Using this new console, the license server can be managed using a number of different platforms including Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, 7, 2003 and 2008, Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5, Red Hat 4.0 and 5.0 or Sun Solaris 32-bit.

Summary

Overall there are a number of different features that are provided with XenApp 6.0 that one should give the upgrade strong consideration, especially if an existing Citrix implementation exists. As the performance of Server, Desktop and Application solutions becomes more optimized these technologies will take over a good portion of the market with their ease in management and cost advantages.

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