Deleting Orphaned Disks in Citrix XenServer 5.5

Recently I ran out of storage space on a Citrix XenServer because a number of local virtual disks had become orphaned and deleting them proved to be a little difficult, so, I thought it might be useful to share what I found lest others suffer the same issue.

I think the problem occurred because I removed disks which were attached to some VMs which had been created from templates, because I was using them with Provisioning Server and had run the XenConvert stage to copy the hard disk to the vDisk. This was so I could test that they worked without local disks, but didn’t want to delete them in case there was a problem.

I found two methods – the “hard” way and the “easy” way.  Guess which I found first?! ;)

Method 1.

From a console shell prompt run the command:

xe vdi-list

Note that vdi is short for “virtual disk image” in this context. This should result in a display similar to the following with one entry per storage item so will include ISO images as well as virtual disks. Note that this will list all items, not just orphaned ones. Pipe the output to “more” or redirect to a file and use “vi” or similar on the file produced to find the oprhaned items.

uuid ( RO)                : cb5781e0-c6f9-4909-acd6-5fd4b509d117

          name-label ( RW): Vista master for UIA

    name-description ( RW): Created by template provisioner

             sr-uuid ( RO): 72cc0d44-bea7-6c15-cf8d-c2965ca495b2

        virtual-size ( RO): 25769803776

            sharable ( RO): false

           read-only ( RO): false

Fortunately, I knew the name of the disks that were orphaned so passed their uuid values as an argument to the “xe vdi-destroy” command thus:

xe vdi-destroy uuid=cb5781e0-c6f9-4909-acd6-5fd4b509d117

The storage space freed up by deleting the disks will eventually be realized but to force this, you can manually instigate a re-scan of the containing storage repository. For this, we need to know the uuid of the storage repository which we have in in the “sr-uuid” field in the original “xe vdi-list” command above:

xe sr-scan uuid=72cc0d44-bea7-6c15-cf8d-c2965ca495b2

Method 2.

Add the disk to an existing VM and then delete the disk from the “Storage” tab in XenCenter for the VM when it is powered down :)

I hope this is of use to someone?…

 

 

Centralis use Citrix XenDesktop & AppSense for 3,000 users at Dudley PCT

Dudley Primary Care Trust (PCT) has worked with Centralis (a key Citrix & AppSense partner) to deliver a virtual desktop environment to over 3,000 staff.

Using Citrix XenServer, Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenApp and AppSense, Dudley PCT are able to provision desktops to their staff from just 16 Virtual Servers.

AppSense enables a single standardize image of the OS and Applications to be stored, managed and delivered as fully configured and personalized desktops to thousands of users at minimal operational cost.

A more detailed account of this project can be found here

Other joint Citrix and AppSense Customers can be found here

Further information on the joint Citrix & AppSense Solution can be found on the Citrix website here

Thanks

Gareth

Inaugural Meeting of the Northern VMware User Group

On Wednesday 18^th November I had the pleasure of attending the inaugural meeting of the Northern VMware User Group (UK) at the Wellington pub in Leeds. There were about thirty five people in attendance, mostly administrators of VMware infrastructures, including some big ones, which was a pretty impressive turnout given the far from ideal weather conditions. A couple of VMware vExperts also attended the event.

A very informative presentation from Ross Bisby of b2net covering the details of investigating performance issues in ESX/ESXi environments kicked things off. Hats off to Ross for a top job given he was drafted in at the last minute. This was followed by informal breakout sessions covering topics such as VCP certification, iSCSI storage and VDI.  There was certainly a good deal of interest in VDI from many people there with a variety of experience from planning through testing to having, successfully, deployed it. It was encouraging too to find a number of the attendees already familiar with AppSense products.

Many thanks to the committee for organising such a successful event and to VMware and Veeam for sponsoring the bar – when in Rome …

Looking forward already to the next event!

AppSense Wins Best Desktop Software of 2009 at the TechWorld Awards

AppSense are very pleased to announce that AppSense Environment Manager 8.0 has won another high-profile award – The TechWorld Best Desktop Software Product of the year 2009.

The Techworld Awards reward innovation for all aspects of the IT industry and are evaluated on strategy, creativity, innovation and effectiveness. Winners are selected by an independent panel of judges consisting of highly respected individuals from the IT industry and Techworld editors.

This new award is a great achievement and comes only a short time after AppSense Environment Manager recently won Gold in the Desktop Virtualization category in the Best of VMworld 2009 Awards Program.  Combined, these awards, along with our recent record growth and ever strengthening relationships with Citrix, Microsoft and VMware confirm AppSense as the clear leader in the User Environment Management space.

Here is a copy of the AppSense Press Release to accompany this recent award:

AppSense Wins 2009 Techworld Award

AppSense Environment Manager 8.0 announced Desktop Software Product of the Year

 New York, NY – November 18, 2009 – AppSense, the leading provider of user environment management solutions for the enterprise, today announced that AppSense Environment Manager 8.0 has won the Desktop Software Product of the Year award as part of the Techworld Awards 2009. Recognizing both products and users, the Techworld Awards reward innovation for all aspects of the IT industry and are evaluated on strategy, creativity, innovation and effectiveness. Winners are selected by an independent panel of judges consisting of highly respected individuals from the IT industry and Techworld editors.

AppSense Environment Manager is the only enterprise solution that enables standardized desktop environments to be fully configured and personalized without the need for cumbersome profiles or scripts. From server-based computing environments through to virtual and physical desktops, AppSense Environment Manager ensures users always receive a consistent, predictable and personalized working experience. Full desktops can now be configured and business rules applied on-demand, enabling compliant, personalized virtual desktops to be quickly delivered to thousands of users at lowest possible cost. Additionally, AppSense technology is used in conjunction with many third party systems integrators, including CSC, HP, EDS, Dell and IBM.

“We are honored that AppSense Environment Manager has been recognized as the best solution to sit on the desktop by the Techworld editors and members of the IT community,” said Peter Rawlinson, vice president of worldwide marketing at AppSense. “AppSense’s unique approach represents a fundamental change in the way the corporate desktop is constructed and is a core solution in all desktop environments, providing a stable and consistent user environment. With the introduction of Microsoft Windows 7 and a huge uplift in VDI adoption, AppSense looks forward to continuing to provide enterprises with our award-winning solutions, allowing them to increase user productivity and dramatically decrease operational costs.” 

This award comes on the heels of the recent Gold award in the Desktop Virtualization category in the ‘Best of VMworld 2009’ awards for AppSense. For more information about the Techworld awards and to view a complete list of winners, please visit http://awards.techworld.com/2009/winners/.

About AppSense
Founded in 1999, AppSense is the leading provider of user environment management (UEM) solutions for enterprise organizations. UEM is a proven method of reducing desktop management costs by treating the user environment separate from the desktop and delivery method. This separation enables IT to standardize the corporate desktop and automate the delivery of the user’s working environment, significantly reducing operational costs. AppSense technology is used around the world by companies such as JPMorgan Chase, Lowes, United Airlines, Wachovia, Wal-Mart, ESPN and CB Richard Ellis. AppSense has main offices in New York and Manchester, England with additional offices in Palo Alto, London, Munich, Melbourne and Amsterdam.

PR Contact:
Heather Fitzsimmons
Mindshare PR
+1 (650) 947-7400
heather@mindsharepr.com

Please click on the TechWorld Winners Logo to be taken to the TechWorld Awards page to view the winners from other catagories.

Thanks to all those who have helped make Environment Manager the leading UEM solution that it is:)

The VDI Penny Is Starting to drop.

Enviroman (Oliver Sills, Product Manager for AppSense Environment Manager) was in the office the other day, pestering me about signing a petition to change the Environment Manager “colour” from green to Tangerine – something to do with some UK footy club. I told him the Budgie Smugglers don’t look any better in Tangerine, so stop sitting on my desk :-)

Just about then the phone rings, it was a Solution Architect from a large software company. “Tell him about Personalization”, Environman whispers in my ear. I covered the phone, told him to go way, and went back to the call.

Turns out one of his clients was trying to deploy 600+ Virtual Desktops, and it had just dawned on them that Policy, Profiles and the User Personality had become a nightmare to maintain when using a Non Persistent Pooled Desktop environment.

Think about it – each user, every time they log in, has a brand new base model PC.

This Client did a Proof of Concept – easy – P To V a couple of desktops, load a client, connect in using RDP – jobs a good’un – look Mum no hands – I’m doing VDI :-)

So then they ticked all the boxes, app compatibility – tick, ease of use – tick, centrally managed and deployed – tick, user acceptance – tick, user personalization – tick – hey, not so fast.

You CAN have a tick in that box if you are talking One to One, dedicated hosted virtual desktops for a small number of users – otherwise, you need to think again.

It’s like when I started talking to the Aussie market about AppSense back in 2004 “Yes I hear what you say, but I’ve only got 5 servers – it’s not a problem” 6 months later “Yes I hear what you say, but I’ve only got 10 servers – it’s not a problem” 6 months later “Our farm is out of control, now we have 15 Citrix servers we now understand what you guys were on about 6 months ago”

As we always say – we don’t hold a grudge – and we don’t ever say “I told you so”.  After all we’re from AppSense – we’re here to help :-)

Virtual Desktops are starting to ramp up, and unfortunately with some clients projects, the devil will be in the detail.

Like the client we are now helping, they thought the “Profile Stuff” built into the VDI solution would be the easy bit. “There’re tools built into the base product” they say – yes there are, but those built in tools can be compared to other in-built free software like NTBackup – yes it will backup a file, but it’s not granular enough, and it just won’t cut it in an Enterprise environment – that’s why companies invest in a Third Party backup products.

AppSense is exactly the same. Built in “Profile” tools or features are o.k. for a simple small deployment where one size fits all, but the reality is most organisations will need more.  The reason for this is simple, profile management tools are there to solve profile issues such as bloat and logon times.. they are not designed to be cross platform, cross delivery mechanism personalization solutions, not to mention the need for policy action control also.

It’s just not as easy as saying “We use Roaming Profiles and redirected folders” – try reimaging every PC in your business, every morning, and see if it causes a few hassles for users.

So we keep plugging away out there – educating the market in advance, some clients “get it” up front and they’re the ones with the smooth running, no surprises VDI projects.

As for the rest of you – we’ll be here, happy to answer questions, happy to show and tell – all with passion and enthusiasm.

After all – we’re from AppSense – we’re here to help :-)

User Installed Applications – won’t they just cause me a huge headache?

Do we really want to allow our users to have the ability to self provision / install applications? Won’t this just cause mayhem and anarchy? How will we ensure that we are licensed to install the applications that the users choses to install?

These are a small sample of some of the obvious and key issues that the IT administrator needs to seriously consider when thinking about allowing the user to install applications of their own choice.

Just this week, @HarryLabana asked the following question via twitter – “Are user installed apps a compliance nightmare waiting to happen?”. A very sensible question that effectively is asking, “WHY should we even consider allowing the user to install their own stuff?”

To labor on the need briefly, it is relatively simple as to why we need to cater for it (we don’t need to agree with it but we do have to accept it to a certain degree :-( ). Bottom line is that for years, there has been a challenge with packaging all the applications required by a user to conduct their daily duties. This is a challenge that traditional desktop managers have had for years, and now with desktop virtualization it is perhaps getting more noise. Unfortunately it is not going away any time soon, in fact may be getting worse as time progresses and the number of applications increases. If we choose to not allow users to install their own stuff, then how do we ensure that the user does not fall foul downstream of an application not being available and hence their inability to conduct their work? An obvious example would be the corporate user who uses Microsoft Live Meeting to conduct online meetings, who has a meeting booked with an organization that uses Citrix GoToMeeting. The GoToMeeting client would not be installed, and hence the user would only find this out 5 to 10 minutes before the session, and hence would be unable to join :-(

@coldroyd wrote about the various user installed applications a month or so ago and is well worth a read – http://appsense.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/what-is-a-user-installed-application-and-why-should-we-care/

So, now we have accepted that we need to cater in some form or another, we can move on to consider HOW. The key aspects to delivering users with the ability to install their own apps is CONTROL – it would be insane (most would argue) to allow ALL users with the ability to install their own stuff. Very quickly the enterprise would find themselves in a situation where literally 1000’s of applications have found their way in, and are posing a serious legal issue. It is [mostly] true that a typical enterprise using laptop devices has this very issue today, since the majority of users of laptop devices are administrators of them. There is usually a solid business reason [from years gone by] as to why the user is an administrator, whether that reason being a requirement to install printer drivers [pre Vista] or something like that. Typically, once a user has admin rights, it is nigh impossible to get them back again :-(.

Arguably this is all part of something called “User Rights Management” as well as “Personalization”. Both of these are clearly becoming markets in their own right with vendors appearing in it regularly, and many other vendors morphing their solutions to fit the model(s) also ;-)

In order to deliver against the need, but to do so in that all important controlled manner, we need to enable / allow for the following (there will be more – these are just the key areas);

• Only allow certain users to install apps (AD group based / end point device based)
• Only allow those users to install from certain [internal] network location(s) – that way the enterprise can control exactly WHAT a user who is authorized to install can install
• Only allow those users to install applications from certain vendors
• Full reporting is required to enable the administration team to be able to see what is out there in a quick snapshot
• Full administrative override to enable rapid removal of any applications as necessary

The overriding point here is simple – user installed applications is NOT for everyone, but it will be for a significant portion of the user population, so we need to provision for it in some way – simply saying no will not cut it.

AppSense Spotlight on Citrix TV

Since first working with Citrix 10 years ago, AppSense have always found the partnership to be positive and productive.  I’m sure it’s not gone unnoticed however, that the AppSense-Citrix relationship has gone to a new level in 2009.  Key teams from both companies are working together to ensure the technology links seamlessly, joint events run efficiently and the combined solution is messaged clearly.

 Check out the Citrix TV pages to hear the latest about how AppSense and Citrix are working together; http://www.citrix.com/tv/#videos/1311

 

AppSense University 2009

Last week saw the annual round of AppSense Universities taking place. A gathering of the best consultancy minds from AppSense channel partners and system integrators. The goal of this year’s University was to drive home the AppSense best practices when delivering AppSense solutions and to educate the attendee’s with an increased technical understanding of the Environment Manager product.

It is clear that User Environment Management has become a very hot topic within the technical community and so this year’s attendance was higher than ever with over 50 partners attending the 2 day event. The sessions were a mix of theory and practical work, culminating in an exam that tested both current skill levels and knowledge acquired over the 2 day.  Over 90% of the attendee’s have been working with AppSense for many years, but all that attended commented on how much additional technical content they had obtained by attending the event.

“The University and Inner Circle events give us the ability to educate our partners on areas of the products which may have changed since they attended the Certified Administrator Course and allow us to share our own wealth of knowledge regarding best practice. Partners who attend become more self-sufficient due to the education we provide regarding the inner workings of the products and troubleshooting sessions” – Simon Townsend, Director of Technical Services, AppSense

The practical sessions saw delegates solving real world challenges with ease when using an AppSense Solution.  The practical sessions provided delegates with a technical insight into Environment Manager via the Deep Dive sessions, this included how Environment Manager integrates with the logon process. While the hands on labs enabled delegates to migrate users from a current problematic Roaming Profile to an AppSense Managed Profile, there was also the chance for delegates to get a grasp of all Environment Manager Best practices as well as implement these in the lab sessions.

 The event also provided a solid platform to feedback into AppSense Product Management on features that would like to be seen and features that are already present. The University events prove to be one of the best sources of feed in for product features since the delegates are all seasoned professionals who need solutions to their own unique issue areas.

“Having been to several AppSense Technical Universities, I can genuinely say they are a valuable experience to anyone working with AppSense technology and is looking to expand their customer base in the user environment management space. There is always a great mix of theory, practical lab sessions and open discussion on personal experiences out in the field, which makes the event both educational and informative. It’s also good to see what’s next in terms of product development and refreshing to be able to offer input, which is often incorporated in to the new versions. I’d definitely recommend this event to anyone who is serious about AppSense.” – Simon Mulrain, Senior Consultant, Point to Point.

The exam was received positively with many wanting to test and prove their AppSense knowledge. On a whole the results were fantastic but a special mention must go to Esteem, ADD3, Centralis, ISC and Point to Point whose delegates on the day achieved the top grades.

Most walked away from the event feeling that the content was very relevant, and already asking the dates for the next University. We all look forward to seeing you all again next time.

Photo taken from midway back, right hand side of the room

 

I Love my Hyper-Wee

Yes, there I’ve said it, I’m in love with a technology that’s not from AppSense :-)

We had to present at a recent Microsoft Partner event.

Two things Microsoft wanted us to show:

1. License control for Microsoft Apps in Citrix/Terminal Server/VDI/Streamed App environments, and
2. How we can simplify Windows 7 migrations.

After a couple of demos from my trusty partner Jacob, they were also all over us about App-V integration.

There was a problem though – none of my demos were running on Hyper-Wee, I mean Hyper-V (must stop listening to PerfMan, his accent is starting to have an effect on me).

So the challenge.

I don’t normally do much between 12 and 6 in the morning, just lying around the house, so let’s rebuild everything on Windows 2008 and Hyper-V.

So a new disk was already available, remove the old one (Dual boot Vista and Win 2003 running VMware Server for VM’s). Demo laptop is a HP (the best) 6710b 4GB ram Dual core 2.4 GHz, with a 300 GB 7200 rpm disk.

Obtain a license, the media and boot up Windows 2008 – 64 bit – yes that’s right, the person who always said 64 bit was not the answer was now asking the question – can I get 64 bit to run all my apps and more importantly will all my drivers work.

To enable Hyper-V you need 64 bit so there was really no option. :-)

The first thing I noticed, Windows 2008 64 bit took around 20 minutes to load!!!!

I sat there thinking there must be something else I’ve missed, surely you can’t load a new O/S in 20 minutes – including the time to format a 140GB partition !!!

But that was it.

Bit of research on the web and now I have to download and run a service pack to get Hyper-V up and running.

Knew there was a catch – the service pack takes about an hour to install :-)

Still not that much effort and time required to get to a new platform. Now the tricky part, what will be the easiest way to get my demo servers back up and running.

More research – turns out there is a freebee download utility available from here http://vmtoolkit.com/files/folders/converters/entry8.aspx which you point at a VMware VM which converts it to a VHD drive, and voila, it runs on Hyper-V.

I did find some extra info about Vm’s that have a SCSI disk as their base – you need to muck around with them a bit and add an IDE disk, so I decided to convert my VMs that used an IDE drive, and rebuild the ones using SCSI.

The longest part of the process was rebuilding the Windows 2003 DC for my AppSense Management Centre.

One thing I was looking for though - a “sleep” mode so I could have my servers boot quicker. When you are meeting a client the last thing you want to do is spend 15 minutes setting up before you start the preso or demo.

I suppose it’s o.k. if you have a big Irishman with you who can tell bad jokes for a while to distract the client, but most of the time I was by myself at appointments.

By accident I discovered the best feature (in my experience) of Hyper-V. Automatically it will snapshot servers if you turn off the host while they are still running. Very cool.

So here’s how my setup for a demo now goes…

08:30 power on laptop, shake hands, exchange cards

08:31 Login to Windows 2008 64bit

08:33 start Hyper-V consoles for my AppSense Management Centre, and my XP desktop

08:34 Demo Environment Manager Personalisation, the crowd goes…..   Oooh…… AAAAAh

08:35 My work here is done

Well not really, but my point is this sucker boots fast, starts my servers faultlessly, and just works.

Of course I have Performance Manager 64 bit running and I have configured it to favour the VM’s as far as CPU and disk priority goes and this definitely helps.

I’m a bit old school, so if I can get something that works for me, I’ll just stick with it. It takes a rocket – or a Microsoft Partner event – to get me to change.

But now that I’ve jumped the 64 bit fence, I’m glad I’m here :-)

Only thing I do have though, is how do I get my Wireless LAN on my notebook working – damn those 64 bit drivers :-)

Environment Manager New Feature – Logoff

AppSense Environment Manager 8.0 Service Pack 2.0 has introduced some new Logoff functionality.

To enable all Environment Manager actions to complete on logoff and to prevent the logoff black screen from appearing on Vista and Server 2008, the Shutdown Windows API call is detoured.

This API call is called whenever a user logs off or shuts down the system. The detour allows Environment Manager to:

• Trigger Environment Manager logoff actions
• Prevent logoff continuing until all Environment Manager actions have completed

When Environment Manager actions are completed or a 60 second default timeout has been passed logoff continues allowing any remaining processes to shut down before Windows itself shuts down. You can override the default timeout by setting a millisecond value in the “LogoffActionWaitTimeout” registry key. Since Environment Manager has already completed its work, it will not be a cause of the Windows logoff black screen.

Whilst the Environment Manager logoff actions are taking place, the system is effectively stalled and the user may wonder what is happening. To alleviate their concerns, a custom screen can be displayed informing the user that Environment Manager is busy. The screen is activated when text for the screen is configured from within the Blocked Text Library.

Adding an entry to the Blocked Text Library with the Title Logoff Message will allow a custom message to be specified for display.

Note: Once logoff continues, Environment Manager has effectively finished for the user session, therefore no more Policy Configuration actions or User Personalization will take place. Additionally, if another application decides to misbehave at this point, the black screen may still appear for those applications.