1. Shane Broomhall APAC Readiness
Desktop Director 2.1
Shane Broomhall
APAC Readiness

2. Overview of Desktop Director

3. What is Desktop Director?
Is a web-based administration tool
Was introduced with XenDesktop 5 (Rhone)
Designed for daily operations such as monitoring, performing routine tasks and user troubleshooting
Displays session details
Role based access control
Desktop Director is a tool that will utilize role-based permission sets to support the daily usage of Citrix products.
It enables support teams to perform basic maintenance tasks and to monitor and troubleshoot system issues.
Desktop Director 1.0 was introduced with XenDesktop 5 and Desktop Director 2.0 supports troubleshooting XenApp sessions.
Role-based access control – assign appropriate permissions to specific roles to perform certain operation. Full administrator can view all and make changes. Read-only administrator can view all but cannot perform tasks. Help desk administrator can perform day-to-day monitoring and maintenance tasks (restarting desktops or logoff sessions).

4. Information displayed in Desktop Director 2.0
Site Management View
User Troubleshooting View
Machine
List
User
Details
Dashboard
Desktop
Group
Machine
Details
XD Session
Details
XA Session
Details
The figure shows the pages available in Desktop Director 2.0. These pages are categorized into two views:
“Site Management View” and “User Troubleshooting View”
The Site Management View is only for XD administration. XD full/assignment/machine/read-only administrators can access this view and the User Troubleshooting view. XD help desk administrator can only access the user troubleshooting view and search users.
The User Details page has the “Session Switcher” dropdown or “View All” handle if the searched user has multiple desktop/XA session. Administrators can switch between user’s sessions if the user has multiple sessions.

5. Changes in Desktop Director 2.1

6. Support for Personal vDisk
Reset Personal vDisk task
Personal vDisk status
Available in:
Machine Details page
User Details page
XenDesktop Session Details page
Machine Details
Using Desktop Director2.1, admins can view the personal vDisk status and perform the reset task so that the applications for all uses assigned to the machine are returned to factory settings (note that the vdisk for profile is not affected).
“Reset Personal vDisk task” and “Personal vDisk status” are available on:
Machine Details page
User (XenDesktop Session) Details page
All the XenDesktop administrators (other than Read-only admin) can perform the reset personal vDisk task.

7. Support for Personal vDisk
User (XenDesktop Session) Details page
User Details
A captured image of User (XD Session) Details page for a pooled desktop (without PvD). “Reset Personal vDisk task” and “Personal vDisk status” are there but not available.

8. Support for Personal vDisk
Machines without Personal vDisk
User Details
This is a screen capture of a User (XD session) details page for a pooled desktop. This desktop does not have personal vDisk, so the status displays “- not available -”.

9. Personal vDisk status Personal vDisk state Personal vDisk profile size
Running or an error - Error details will be shown on a mouseover of the error icon
Personal vDisk state
Personal vDisk profile size
Personal vDisk profile used
Personal vDisk app size
Personal vDisk app used
“Personal vDisk state” shows whether Running or an error. For error, details will appear with a mouse hover.
Some possible error messages:
"Image update failed. Error code: %d."
"Unable to find the Personal vDisk inventory."
"Personal vDisk reset failed."
"Personal vDisk encountered an internal status error. Status code: [%d] Error code: [0x%X]"
The threshold for used vDisk space can be changed in the Desktop Director “web.config” file (C:\inetpub\wwwroot\DesktopDirector\web.config). Change the value of the key below.
<add key="UI.HighVDiskUsageThreshold" value="75" />
Reflects the amount of disk space used and turns to red when it goes over 75%(default)

10. HDX panel changes
2.1
2.0
The previous HDX panel was confusing for customers (Disabled, Enabled and Active status was confusing with the Alert status) and did not properly report correct status of HDX channels.
With this version, the UI looks similar to HDX Monitor summary view with Alert status still on the left (Error, warning and OK) and top 2 properties for each channel to the right. Also the information reported for each channel is improved.

11. Installation and Upgrade

12. Installation and configuration
Install Desktop Director 2.1 using the XenDesktop 5.6/stand-alone installer
Assign XenDesktop administrative rights through Desktop Studio for the Desktop Director users
Check the WinRM/Remote Assistance configuration and permissions for VDA(see CTX127301, CTX and eDocs)
Install Flash Player if it is not present on the machine where the browser to access Desktop Director is running
Log on to Desktop Director with delegated administrator’s credentials
server IP>/DesktopDirector/
This slides explains the steps required for XD environment. For XenApp. it is required to configure a firewall exception for TCP port These are the same procedure as of Desktop Director 2.0.

13. Upgrade
Use XenDesktop 5.6 iso or Desktop Director 2.1 iso and just follow the instructions
The upgrade retains the existing configuration settings
The captured screens are taken during an upgrade of Desktop Director 2.0 to 2.1 using the XD 5.6 iso.

14. Requirements Component Version(s) XenDesktop
XenDesktop 5 SP1/5.5/5.6 (*1) (*2)
XenApp
XenApp 6.5
Web browser
Internet Explorer 8/9
Firefox 7 for Windows/Mac
Flash
Flash 10
The server-side requirements are same as those of the listed XenDesktop and XenApp versions.
(*1) Personal vDisk is not supported for XenDesktop 5 SP1 or XenDesktop 5.5
(*2) The HDX information display is not supported for XenDesktop 5 SP1

15. Resources