Hello, I'm trying to create new streamed VMs using the "Xendesktop Setup Wizard" (PVS server v5.6), unfortunately I'm stuck with this error message (please see the attached screenshot).There's no service named "Citrix Pool Management" running on the new XenDesktop 5 DDC controller. Can anyone help me out ? Many thanks!

Regards,

Marek

Hi,

The XenDesktop 4.0 Setup Wizard for PVS does not currently support XD 5.0. You will have to create your desktops within PVS and import them into XD 5.0 as you would with other pre-existing desktops.

Regards,

David L

How do you automate the creation of the PVS desktops without the XenDesktop Setup Wizard? For example, if I want to created 25 XP VMs and have them on the domain?

And will a updated version of the XenDesktop Setup Wizard be released?

Thanks for the input.

Hi,

When I did this, I just wrote a script to clone XenServer VMs and plug them into PVS. PVS is really useful for automatic server provisioning as well as delivering desktops, so it was pretty generic for use outside XD too.

The setup wizard can be viewed as an extension to PVS functionality with an "add VM to an XD desktop group" feature. PVS is still a fully supported mechanism to deliver XD desktops, but PVS now is assuming more responsibility for the machines that it handles.

I hope this makes sense in terms of the distinction of "PVS features" versus "XenDesktop features". Obviously there will be further updates and integration work in future.

Regards,

David L

I understand what you are saying but it the automation of the machines from a template and especially adding these machines to our domain that concerns me. I understand how to deploy VMs (we use ESX) from the template and how to add those VMs to my PVS environment, but it is the adding of all these machines to the domain that has me concerned....I don't know how to automate that.

Add to the domain is easy, you have to select all VM's at one in PVS and select(rightclick) create ADS account.
Is it perfect ? No but is works for now.

The biggest issue i have with this approach is that i have to switch all vm's on in VMWare to let the auto-add feature work. But if you want to match the names of the VMWare VM's to the PVS names you need to switch them on one at a time.

Hi,

I don't want to post my code here (messing up my AD isn't too much of problem, I don't really want to mess up yours).

Take a look at the "IADsContainer::Create Method" article on MSDN. Scripting the creation of users and machines in AD is pretty simple from VB or C++. Simply create a new Computer object in your chosen OU, and set its password to something that you can use in PVS.

Basically, you do the same thing that you do when 25 new users need AD accounts, but for computers...

P.S. Be careful, I accept no liability :)

Regards,

David L

For automatic creation in VMWare you can also use the powershell CLI.

An example for this is:

get-viserver vsphereserver

new-vm -name PCV0002 -vm W7VDITEMPLATE -datastore FCVV_04 -Location 'VDI & Desktop' -resourcepool VDI -VMhost esx13.mgmt.lan
new-vm -name PCV0003 -vm W7VDITEMPLATE -datastore FCVV_04 -Location 'VDI & Desktop' -resourcepool VDI -VMhost esx13.mgmt.lan

Thanks all, but I'm going to just hope Citrix does the right thing and releases an updated wizard that supports XD5....in the mean time I'll be keeping my XD4 farm around for rapid deployment of new machines and I'll just move them to the XD5 farm after the fact.

Hi,
I can confirm we are not only "doing the right thing", but making the tool easier to use and far more integrated into the product lines from. As such we were unable to release this functionality with XD5, but it will be coming early next year in another update, so watch this space. We'll post more on this in the coming month or so.

-----------------
Simon Plant
Senior Product Manager - XenDesktop

Good to hear...thanks a bunch. I'll look forward to it.

Any exact ETA of the tool?
Can't really do a POC if this is not working correctly.
MCS takes up to much space from my point of view.

Regards,

Henry

Can you explain why you think that MCS takes too much space?

MCS will consume the space for a copy of the master image, and then for each VM it will consume 16MB of identity disk and some space for each differencing disk (about the same amount of space as the PVS writeback cache's consume assuming that you have either NFS storage or a 'clever' block stroage SAN).

i.e. for a 24GB master image the storage used = 24GB (numVMs 16MB) (numVMs diffdisk).

The diff disks should never really grow past 2 or 3 GB is size dependant on workload, and these are cleared on every reboot for pooled machines.

I guess the only difference is that the PVS writeback cache is stored on storage local to the VM and not on the SAN.

Cheers

Ian F

I can attest that I have had to go back to using PvS also as in my situation each MCS is actually taking up or reporting to the raid device that it is taking up the exact same size for each differencing disk plus 16mb for each identity disk.

so for my case it's 34GB for master image so space = 34GB (numVM 16MB) (numVM 34GB)

This is a SAS attached raid device to a blade system and even if it thin disk it has taken the space away and it wont allow me to overcommit any space. I will have plenty of disk space just sitting there not being used at all.

De-duplication and Thin Provisioning is vital in virtual environments

I've got parallel farms now too - xd4 and xd5. We did our pilot in xd4 but upgraded to xd5 with new ddcs. We want to stick with provisioning server because we're going to eventually use it to stream a common image to our xenapp servers as well.

Is there a whitepaper yet or document on moving my provisioned standard mode xp vdisks from xd4 to xd5? I know I have to upgrade the vdagent in private mode and repoint it. I'm wondering what steps are manual, and what are automatic. I also need to create about 200 more clones of my golden image once in xd 5. We're fairly new to vdi but had a successful pilot with xd4 and are looking forward to working with xd 5.

Thanks

All,

Attached is a brief guide to using Provisioning Services with new XenDesktop 5 farms as well as farms that are being migrated from XenDesktop 4. As stated earlier on this thread a new version of the Setup Wizard will be released soon. We are targeting mid-February for this. The new wizard will integrate more tightly with the Provisioning Services console (allowing remote execution) and will be shipped initially as a "hotfix" to Provisioning Services 5.6 SP 1.

It's important to note that the attached document shows workarounds that can be used until the new Setup Wizard is available. When we release the new wizard we'll also publish updated (and hopefully simplified) process steps.

Hope this helps,

Patrick Carey
Director, Product Management
Provisioning Services

Thanks for posting, this is helpful.

Any more update on the release of this tool?

Hello,

are there any news on a release date for the unnamed tool formerly known as "XenDesktop Setup Wizard" for Provisioning Services ?

Its hard to do all the tasks manually if you manage 1300 Desktops ....

Regards, Markus