PVS streamed Win2012R2 /Win7 and NIC fail over.

In this video I am trying to show how NIC speed varies for windows 2012R2 vs Win7. As you know , HyperV support PXE on legacy nic at the speed of 100MB. Streaming VM’s over 100MB would be really challenging .  Windows 2012R2 VM does fail over the network from legacy NIC to Synthetic NIC as shown over the video whereas Windows7 only use synthetic nic for VM traffic and streaming continue over legacy network. In this video, I tried copying file to PVS streamed  windows 7 and all the activity happening over synthetic NIC whereas streaming continue over legacy NIC.

PVS streamed machine showing error: Network_Boot_Duplicate_Address

PVS environment has been setup using following post . When windows 2012R2 targets where booted it throws error “NETWORK_BOOT_DUPLICATAE_ADDRESS”

Since we had two DHCP server, we thought this may be the reason why it is having duplicate IP issue. But found CTX132133 explain similar issue with PVS 6.1. Decided to try the work around mention in CTX.

This worked.

Reviewed by me: Getting Started with Citrix® Provisioning Services 7.0

I had been approached by Packt  Publishing to review the book  “Getting Started with Citrix® Provisioning Services 7.0” . The book explain each and every feature of PVS 7.0 which is most exciting product from Citrix. Author Puthiyavan Udayakumar has done justice to the interesting product from Citrix .

 

About me mention in this box by publisher

So what all you are going to learn from the book :

• Install Citrix Provisioning Services
• Configure Citrix Provisioning Services
• Create and manage Vdisks
• Prepare a Master Target device
• Manage farms, stores, sites, and the Provisioning server
• Upgrade farms and Vdisks

You can download the book in various format including PDF and kindle

Post reading please do provide your review at Amazon.

Thanks for reading

DHCP failover scope : Please delete the scope from the relationship

I was trying to remove scope and it was throwing error “Scope is part of failover relationship . Please delete the scope from the relationship”

I tried removing from the scope but there were no option to do so.

If one has to remove the failover scope, it has to be done from IPV4 properties and Failover

After removing the relationship , I also have to do the same from secondary server as well. Post which I was able to remove the scope without any issue.

Build high availability PVS 7.1 server using windows 2012R2 & NetScaler

While we had been creating HA for PVS for a while. Here I am going to discuss HA for PVS 7.1 at every level. For that I have consider new feature of DHCP 2012 called scope level fail over . I am also explaining new inbuilt feature of NetScaler to load balance TFTP. For  PVS data store  we have used CIFS share directly from storage.  When we have two DHCP server ensure that both the IP address is added as an IP helper in the targets VLAN or else target won’t get IP address. I have created multi-homed PVS , one dedicated for TFTP and other for DHCP traffic. PVS is virtual with 16GB of memory.

To start with we have used two PVS server and install TFTP/DHCP role on it. After creation of scope we configure it for failover. Right click on DHCP scope and then you will get an option to configure failover.

This will bring info about scope

This will prompt for other DHCP server we need to create scope level fail over. Do remind you scope is created on first server and its get replicated to second server. While adding it will list all the authorized DHCP server. In our case we will choose second PVS server.

Once partner is selected

It will prompt for using existing relationship. In my case I wanted to configure DHCP in  “Load Balance ”  mode rather than “Hot Standby “ mode. This way I want to direct traffic to both the DHCP (PVS ) server.

Once this done it will present summary of what its going to configure

Post finishing config it will congratulate you  

Make changes on one DHCP scope its get replicated by itself or you have an option to replicate the change manually

Now take a route to load balance NetScaler . There are ton’s of method exist and has been documented like this or CTX116337 or wonderful blog from Nick . But with version 10.1 TFTP load balancing had became damn easy. Few click and all done. How about  Citrix  providing  some wizard for this as well…you lazy guys.

To start with create server under  Traffic management . Here give IP address of  PVS server. Incase PVS is multi homed then we need to supply IP of streaming network. Both the PVS server has been added and green shows SNIP is able to communicate with PVS server.

Now configure service for those PVS server and here don’t forget to choose protocol as TFTP . Under server both the PVS server will be listed which has been created in previous step. Rest all are default. Here green shows all well with service.

Now create vServer and map both the services which we have created in previous step. IP address mention here will be used in DHCP option 66. Rest all setting will be default. I love Round Robin so I have chosen that. That’s it , IP will be ready to be configured under DHCP scope.

Modify the 66 option  under scope and you will be ready to test TFTP HA 

In the last part I will show how we configure CIFS share to be used as datastore for PVS. On a storage create CIFS share and then create folder as per store create folder. I have create folder by name CTX_ADMIN and mapped it store with same name. Once this is mapped to both the PVS end to end HA can be tested.

When I boot my target its boot fine.