Citrix Free Test Drive

In the materials about testing the Citrix Receiver client on the Apple iPad and the new development - Citrix XenClient, we received from you several questions about the price of such solutions. And although Citrix really makes money selling virtualization technology, almost all of the company's solutions can be installed and used for free absolutely legally. For example, to find out how a particular technology works in practice, or even provide a small company with access to virtual desktops. On such a small scale, you don’t need to pay Citrix royalties; you only spend on Microsoft licenses and, of course, on hardware.

In our test configuration, we were able to get by with just a couple of laptops. One (with a powerful processor and a large amount of RAM) played the role of a server. Another is the compact Lenovo ThinkPad X100e, ideally suited to the role of the client. However, the client can be any other device - for example, a smartphone based on Symbian or Android, iPhone or iPad. With it, you can connect to a virtual machine on the server, or get remote access to an operating system running on "real" hardware. The second option is relevant when you want to get the resources of a powerful computer from a "light" client: for processing multimedia content or even games.


To begin with, we formulate the problem: what do we want to get as a result?

• A laptop acting as a server. Three virtual OSs work on it: the user OS, to which we will connect from the client, and Windows 2003 Server, which acts as the domain controller for our small network.

• Another virtual machine with Windows Server 2003, which will run the Desktop Delivery Controller program, which provides the process of connecting a client device to a virtual or physical machine.

• A computer with a Windows client OS, also included in the local network. To this system running on real hardware, we will arrange remote access from the client.

• A network device for connecting computers to a network. We used a regular home Wi-Fi router with gigabit Ethernet ports (for connecting a server and a computer) and a WiFi access point (for connecting a client laptop).

To get started, you need to download the XenDesktop Free Edition distribution kit from the Citrix website. 1.34 GB XenDesktop distribution can be downloaded hereafter quick registration. In the archive you will find the XenServer distribution, the XenCenter program for managing virtual OSs, as well as the Desktop Delivery Controller component for managing the delivery of virtual desktops. This edition of XenDesktop is free to use and allows up to ten users to work. All the main features and benefits of XenDesktop are shown in this video (with comments in English):



Next, we install XenServer: this process is unlikely to raise questions from any user who has at least a couple of times reinstalled an operating system. The only thing you need to pay attention to is the correct network settings. A typical installation process for XenServer can be seen in this video with comments by Citrix system engineer Sergey Halyapin:



You can install XenServer on any computer or laptop, the only requirement: a 64-bit processor with hardware virtualization support - Intel VT or AMD-V. For more information on XenServer system requirements, see the documentation . The following video demonstrates starting a virtual machine on XenServer and installing Windows 2003 Server. Everything is much simpler here: from a client device, we connect to a server where XenServer previously installed is already running using the XenCenter program. We connect the library of images of operating systems (in ISO format) and install the OS in a virtual environment. The entire process of installing the OS and setting up the domain (with some minor reductions) is shown in this video .

On the second virtual machine with Windows Server 2003, we install the Desktop Delivery Controller component, which provides the process of connecting a remote client device to our virtual or operating system running on real hardware. Desktop Delivery Controller setup instructions are here . For a small company, this is the optimal solution: one powerful server will be responsible for managing our virtual computer park and support client virtual OSs. Just make sure that the server can pull such a load.

Then everything is simple: create the required number of virtual machines on the server, install the Windows client OS in them. In the virtual OSs themselves, we install the Citrix VDA agent and register these machines on the Desktop Delivery Controller. We install the same agent on our computer with "real" Windows to provide remote access to it. At this stage, it does not really matter which system we are connecting to - virtual or hardware-based.

Finally, download from hereand install the Citrix Receiver program on the client laptop. With it, we connect to our desktop infrastructure, select the operating system to connect to and work remotely! To connect to a virtual OS, we just need to connect via WiFi or even through a cellular network, but transferring some complex content, such as three-dimensional graphics to a client machine, will require a channel with high bandwidth. HDX technology allows you to quickly transfer three-dimensional graphics over a relatively slow connection, but this is a topic for other material.

Summary

Of course, in the example shown, we put together a rather complicated system: at home, remote access to the desktop via RDP will be enough. But we got a quite functional system for a small company with a domain controller and virtual desktops for employees using various client devices with different operating systems. And the one who works with graphic applications will be able to connect remotely to a powerful workstation.

Citrix commercial solutions provide much more flexibility. For example, in our case, each virtual machine constantly takes up space on the server’s hard drive. Using the commercial version of XenDesktop, it is not necessary to allocate disk space for each virtual OS. In this case, the image of the virtual OS, programs and user data are stored separately, and when the client is connected, they are "collected" in a normal working environment. In this case, both more efficient server loading and increased security are provided: an incorrectly installed program or user error will not lead to data loss. And the administrator can update the software centrally, since he will not need to work with each client OS separately.