(8625,49,'2013-08-26 13:45:09','2013-08-26 17:45:09','Let me start off this blog post by saying that as much as I want to be a \'developer\', I just can\'t get my mind moving in that direction.  But the beauty with PowerShell is that it can take not even a weekend warrior of development like myself, and actually become useful with SDK\'s.  \n\nCitrix has done an excellent job in the past few years really developing and providing a very useful policy engine and structure for not only XenApp, but also XenDesktop.  Personally, I have always love the Citrix policy engine, making it very easy to get to the end results I wanted - the look, feel and usefulness of a XenApp environment.  To me, storing the policies within the IMA database always left something to be desired.  Sure, it\'s always been there, and is a core component of the XenApp infrastructure.  Let\'s take for example a farm that consists of 20 various policies - printing, Flash management, TimeZone, etc, and consider the following scenarios.\n\n<ul>\n	<li>You have a separate test farm, and you need to bring over 2 new policies to the production farm - how do you do it?</li>\n	<li>You have purchased a new company who currently runs a XenApp farm, and need to merge their policies into the main farm - how do you do it?</li>\n	<li>You want to migrate all of the XenApp IMA polices into Active Directory, for a single point of policy management - how do you do it?</li>\n</ul>\n\nThe simple answer is the XenApp SDK.  The XenApp <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/XenApp+6.5+Powershell+SDK\">SDK</a> allows for complete PowerShell management of a XenApp farm.  This blog post isn\'t intended as an overview of the full XA SDK, but will focus on the 3 scenarios from above, managing policies with the SDK.  \n\n<h2>\nBrief Overview of XenApp SDK\n</h2>\nThe XenApp SDK was released initially with XenApp 5.0, as a replacement for the MFCOM commands that were included with earlier editions of XenApp.  To be honest, MFCOM never seemed super useful with XenApp management, but with SDK and the usage of PowerShell, I started to see where the SDK was proving to give that little extra bit we were missing.  So how do we use it?  Well, every XenApp server v6.x and above includes PowerShell, so all that needs to be installed is the SDK itself (I wish Citrix would just install this as part of the XenApp install).  There are a ton of resources on the web that provide a greater background on the SDK usage, including some very excellent Farm Reports that will print out the entire farm configuration with best practices - Google is your friend…\n\nLet\'s start the SDK to see what we\'ve got available:\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.13-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 13 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.13 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"354\" />\n\nCitrix provides a good amount of cmdlets with the SDK, and includes the Citrix.Common.GroupPolicy snap in.  However, that doesn\'t give us the full spectrum of possibilities with the SDK.  There\'s an extra file needed to manage anything Policy related, whether it\'s IMA or GPO policies.  That can be found <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/download/attachments/162955822/Citrix.GroupPolicy.Commands.psm1?version=1\">here.</a>\n\n<h2>\nPolicy Management\n</h2>\nPolicy Management. Some people might say so what, we can do it from within the Citrix App Center.  Not a big deal to recreate a policy.  But why recreate manually when you can automate something?  With the SDK, the first scenario listed above can be done in 2 lines of code - <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>  and <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>.  The SDK provides a very flexible and easy method to not only export all of your policies (Think Backup here), but to also import the policies.  Let\'s take a look at exporting a XenApp policy.\n\n<em>If you\'re new to PowerShell, or just dabble in it, remember the command <strong>get-help</strong>.  Excellent details per cmdlet.  </em> \n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.30-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 30 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.30 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"225\" />\n\nExporting a XenApp policy is as simple as issuing the command <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>.  Notice from the above image on the <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet, there are a number of additional parameters that we can expose.  If you want to export a single policy (Scenario 2 from above), you can use the <em><strong>-PolicyName</strong></em> parameter.  If you want to export either the Computer or User policies, use the <em><strong>-Type</strong></em> parameter.  Very simple, but very powerful.  \n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.50-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 50 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.50 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"486\" height=\"61\" />\n\nThe results of running the export command are 3 editable .XML files, one with the policy names, one with configuration, and one with the filters.\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.51-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 51 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.51 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"597\" height=\"72\" />\n\nThe resulting .xml files could be taken to another XenApp farm, and the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet could be run, pointed to the directory of the files, and the new policies would be available in the new farm.  Simple yet powerful in my opinion. \n\nEver needed to move a policy in the App Center from #12 to #3?  That takes clicking the Higher button in App Center 9 times.  Ever needed to disable all of the user policies for troubleshooting?  The XenApp SDK can handle it.  The cmdlet <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> takes 2 parameters that allow us to change the priority of the policy, or enable/disable the policy.    \n\n<ul>\n	<li><strong><em>-Priority: </em></strong>Enter a number to change the priority</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Enabled: </em></strong>Boolean value for Enabled/Disabled.  Can use $True or $False here, or 0/1</li>\n</ul>\nWhy not just run the command <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy -Type User -Name \"PolicyName\" -Priority 3 -Type User</strong> for the above example to move from Priority of 12 to 3.  Very simple, and very efficient.   And not to be left out, you can create new policies - but no edits (<strong>New-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) and remove policies (<strong>Remove-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) thru the SDK.  \n\n<h2>\nMigrating IMA policies to AD Group Policies\n</h2>\nAt a customer site a few years back, I ran into an issue where the customer was pushing upwards of 100 policies in the IMA database, and anytime they would need to add/modify/remove a policy, either the IMA database would become corrupted, or it would be incredibly slow - even to just change the priority of a policy.  Long story short, we found that moving the policy items into Group Policies did not exhibit the same issues when the large number of policies was in place.  Great news, but how can we get all 100 policies migrated from the IMA database into Group Policies.  Sure, there is the XenApp Migration Tool, but that won\'t work here since we aren\'t migrating to a new farm.  Well, we\'ve already touched on the <strong>Export</strong> and <strong>Import CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlets and how easy it was.  Well, with a few additional commands and an additional parameter to the Export and Import commands, we can migrate policies between IMA and AD seamlessly.\n\nCitrix provides an excellent CTX article on the exporting and importing of policies <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">here,</a> and it\'s piece #1 of moving to the export/importing of policies.  \n\nTo go from IMA to AD (Or Local Server to AD/IMA), or AD to IMA policies we need to add one line to our plan, and that\'s using a PSDrive (PowerShell Drive) to allow us to navigate into the AD world.  Whether we are exporting from AD, or importing to AD, we need to use the PSDrive command to establish a \'mapped drive\' connection to an existing GPO.  \n\nRunning the following command:  <strong>New-PSDrive -Name  -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGpo </strong>\n\nWe need to know:\n<ul>\n	<li><strong>DomainGPODrive</strong> - what drive we want to use.</li>\n	<li><strong>DomainGPO</strong> - what GPO we are wanting to work against.</li>\n</ul>\nTo me, one of the really nice features of merging the XenApp policies into a Group Policy is a single point of management.  You can create a GPO with all of your Server specific settings for an OU (timeouts, start menu redirections, profile specific items, etc.), and tie specific XenApp items to that GPO as well.  One item to note though with the import of Policies from IMA to GPO.  With IMA, we have a filter option based on OU.  In some cases, an IMA Computer policy might be filtered based on OU of the server, especially if it is within a multi-site/customer AD structure.  Well, if your policies are set to filter on the OU, guess what?  The import of the policy will fail when coming into an AD GPO.  Why you ask?  That filter does not exist for a XenApp Policy derived from an AD GPO, well, because the GPO is already applied to an OU.  So for computer filter options, the only option remaining is a Worker Group.  That requirement/limitation might require some Farm modifications.  You can still filter your Worker Groups based on an OU though, so this is the easiest way to still use the OU as a baseline for filtering.\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-12.57-PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 12 57 PM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 12.57 PM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"151\" />\n\nSo to close out this post, let\'s setup an example of migrating policies from IMA into a Group Policy.  In my domain, I have my XenApp servers in a dedicated OU as per best practice, and currently I don\'t have any server specific GPO\'s applied.  In my XenApp farm, I have 3 computer and 2 user policies, and I have disabled the Unfiltered policy, as I tend not to use that.  For this example, we are going to pull over all of the Computer and User settings.\n\nTo export the IMA policies, we of course use our <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command that we ran before.  We can use those same files to import the Policies into a GPO.  To import the files to a GPO, as we already covered, a new PSDrive needs to be created.  The following statement is what we need to get our first step of integration complete:\n\n<strong>New-PSDrive -Name X -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGPO XenAppSpecific</strong>\n\n<ul>\n	<li><strong><em>-Name: </em></strong>We will use X for the drive</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-PSProvider: </em></strong>PSProvider tells what kind of drive to make.  In this case, it\'s always CitrixGroupPolicy.  You can use the Get-PSDrive command to get a list of drive providers.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Root: </em></strong>Tells what folder serves as the drive root, in our case it\'s always \\.</li> \n	<li><strong><em>-DomainGPO: </em></strong> Tells the command which GPO to use.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.41-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 41 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.41 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"80\" />\n\nNotice the issue when running our command.  If the GPO does not exist, the New-PSDrive command will fail.  Yes, it would be nice if this would have a <strong><em>-force</em></strong> or <strong><em>-create</em></strong> parameter to go along with it, but really, the assumption is that you already have a GPO that you want to add these XenApp items to.  Once the new PSDrive is established, you can navigate to it within the PowerShell session just like a standard drive, <strong>cd X:</strong> will allow you to navigate the folder structure just like DOS commands.  Although in this case, the folder structure returns either <em>Computer</em> or <em>User</em>.  Look familiar?\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.48-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 48 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.48 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"84\" />\n\nNow that our connection to the GPO has been established, all that is left is to import the .xml files we exported earlier.  The command to import is very similar, but we need to add the PSDrive  parameter for the DomainGPODrive we used in our PSDrive command.  Let\'s breakdown the command for the import - <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy -FolderPath FarmPolicies -DriveName X</strong>.\n<ul>\n	<li><strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy: </strong>We\'ve already touched on this cmdlet.  This is what drives the import of the .xml files to the desired location.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Folder Path: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command where to get the .xml files.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Drive Name: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command the location of where to put the imported files.  Remember here, we used there X drive as the PSDrive which maps to the desired GPO.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>Additional Resources</h3>\n<ul>\n	<li>Microsoft PSDrive Details - <a href=\"http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx\">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx</a></li>\n	<li>Citrix Export/Import Policies - <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625</a></li>\n	<li>Citrix Additional Export/Import - <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies\">http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies</a>\n</ul>','Managing XenApp Policies with XenApp SDK','','inherit','open','open','','8599-revision-v1','','','2013-08-26 13:45:09','2013-08-26 17:45:09','',8599,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8599-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8626,49,'2013-08-26 14:12:56','2013-08-26 18:12:56','','Image-8-26-13-at-2.09-PM.png','','inherit','open','open','','image-8-26-13-at-2-09-pm-png','','','2013-08-26 14:12:56','2013-08-26 18:12:56','',8599,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-2.09-PM.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(8627,49,'2013-08-26 14:13:00','2013-08-26 18:13:00','Let me start off this blog post by saying that as much as I want to be a \'developer\', I just can\'t get my mind moving in that direction.  But the beauty with PowerShell is that it can take not even a weekend warrior of development like myself, and actually become useful with SDK\'s.  \n\nCitrix has done an excellent job in the past few years really developing and providing a very useful policy engine and structure for not only XenApp, but also XenDesktop.  Personally, I have always love the Citrix policy engine, making it very easy to get to the end results I wanted - the look, feel and usefulness of a XenApp environment.  To me, storing the policies within the IMA database always left something to be desired.  Sure, it\'s always been there, and is a core component of the XenApp infrastructure.  Let\'s take for example a farm that consists of 20 various policies - printing, Flash management, TimeZone, etc, and consider the following scenarios.\n\n<ul>\n	<li>You have a separate test farm, and you need to bring over 2 new policies to the production farm - how do you do it?</li>\n	<li>You have purchased a new company who currently runs a XenApp farm, and need to merge their policies into the main farm - how do you do it?</li>\n	<li>You want to migrate all of the XenApp IMA polices into Active Directory, for a single point of policy management - how do you do it?</li>\n</ul>\n\nThe simple answer is the XenApp SDK.  The XenApp <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/XenApp+6.5+Powershell+SDK\">SDK</a> allows for complete PowerShell management of a XenApp farm.  This blog post isn\'t intended as an overview of the full XA SDK, but will focus on the 3 scenarios from above, essentially managing policies with the SDK.  \n<h2>\nBrief Overview of XenApp SDK\n</h2>\nThe XenApp SDK was released initially with XenApp 5.0, as a replacement for the MFCOM commands that were included with earlier editions of XenApp.  To be honest, MFCOM never seemed super useful with XenApp management, but with SDK and the usage of PowerShell, I started to see where the SDK was proving to give that little extra bit we were missing.  So how do we use it?  Well, every XenApp server v6.x and above includes PowerShell, so all that needs to be installed is the SDK itself (I wish Citrix would just install this as part of the XenApp install).  There are a ton of resources on the web that provide a greater background on the SDK usage, including some very excellent Farm Reports that will print out the entire farm configuration with best practices - Google is your friend…\n\nLet\'s start the SDK to see what we\'ve got available:\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.13-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 13 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.13 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"354\" />\n\nCitrix provides a good amount of cmdlets with the SDK, and includes the Citrix.Common.GroupPolicy snap in.  However, that doesn\'t give us the full spectrum of possibilities with the SDK.  There\'s an extra file needed to manage anything Policy related, whether it\'s IMA or GPO policies.  That can be found <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/download/attachments/162955822/Citrix.GroupPolicy.Commands.psm1?version=1\">here.</a>\n\n<h2>\nPolicy Management\n</h2>\nPolicy Management. Some people might say so what, we can do it from within the Citrix App Center.  Not a big deal to recreate a policy.  But why recreate manually when you can automate something?  With the SDK, the first scenario listed above can be done in 2 lines of code - <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>  and <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>.  The SDK provides a very flexible and easy method to not only export all of your policies (Think Backup here), but to also import the policies.  Let\'s take a look at exporting a XenApp policy.\n\n<em>If you\'re new to PowerShell, or just dabble in it, remember the command <strong>get-help</strong>.  Excellent details per cmdlet.  </em> \n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.30-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 30 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.30 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"225\" />\n\nExporting a XenApp policy is as simple as issuing the command <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>.  Notice from the above image on the <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet, there are a number of additional parameters that we can expose.  If you want to export a single policy (Scenario 2 from above), you can use the <em><strong>-PolicyName</strong></em> parameter.  If you want to export either the Computer or User policies, use the <em><strong>-Type</strong></em> parameter.  Very simple, but very powerful.  \n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.50-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 50 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.50 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"486\" height=\"61\" />\n\nThe results of running the export command are 3 editable .XML files, one with the policy names, one with configuration, and one with the filters.\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.51-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 51 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.51 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"597\" height=\"72\" />\n\nThe resulting .xml files could be taken to another XenApp farm, and the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet could be run, pointed to the directory of the files, and the new policies would be available in the new farm.  Simple yet powerful in my opinion. \n\nEver needed to move a policy in the App Center from #12 to #3?  That takes clicking the Higher button in App Center 9 times.  Ever needed to disable all of the user policies for troubleshooting?  The XenApp SDK can handle it.  The cmdlet <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> takes 2 parameters that allow us to change the priority of the policy, or enable/disable the policy.    \n\n<ul>\n	<li><strong><em>-Priority: </em></strong>Enter a number to change the priority</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Enabled: </em></strong>Boolean value for Enabled/Disabled.  Can use $True or $False here, or 0/1</li>\n</ul>\nWhy not just run the command <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy -Type User -Name \"PolicyName\" -Priority 3 -Type User</strong> for the above example to move from Priority of 12 to 3.  Very simple, and very efficient.   And not to be left out, you can create new policies - but no edits (<strong>New-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) and remove policies (<strong>Remove-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) thru the SDK.  \n\n<h2>\nMigrating IMA policies to AD Group Policies\n</h2>\nAt a customer site a few years back, I ran into an issue where the customer was pushing upwards of 100 policies in the IMA database, and anytime they would need to add/modify/remove a policy, either the IMA database would become corrupted, or it would be incredibly slow - even to just change the priority of a policy.  Long story short, we found that moving the policy items into Group Policies did not exhibit the same issues when the large number of policies was in place.  Great news, but how can we get all 100 policies migrated from the IMA database into Group Policies.  Sure, there is the XenApp Migration Tool, but that won\'t work here since we aren\'t migrating to a new farm.  Well, we\'ve already touched on the <strong>Export</strong> and <strong>Import CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlets and how easy it was.  Well, with a few additional commands and an additional parameter to the Export and Import commands, we can migrate policies between IMA and AD seamlessly.\n\nCitrix provides an excellent CTX article on the exporting and importing of policies <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">here,</a> and it\'s piece #1 of moving to the export/importing of policies.  \n\nTo go from IMA to AD (Or Local Server to AD/IMA), or AD to IMA policies we need to add one line to our plan, and that\'s using a PSDrive (PowerShell Drive) to allow us to navigate into the AD world.  Whether we are exporting from AD, or importing to AD, we need to use the PSDrive command to establish a \'mapped drive\' connection to an existing GPO.  \n\nRunning the following command:  <strong>New-PSDrive -Name  -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGpo </strong>\n\nWe need to know:\n<ul>\n	<li><strong>DomainGPODrive</strong> - what drive we want to use.</li>\n	<li><strong>DomainGPO</strong> - what GPO we are wanting to work against.</li>\n</ul>\nTo me, one of the really nice features of merging the XenApp policies into a Group Policy is a single point of management.  You can create a GPO with all of your Server specific settings for an OU (timeouts, start menu redirections, profile specific items, etc.), and tie specific XenApp items to that GPO as well.  One item to note though with the import of Policies from IMA to GPO.  With IMA, we have a filter option based on OU.  In some cases, an IMA Computer policy might be filtered based on OU of the server, especially if it is within a multi-site/customer AD structure.  Well, if your policies are set to filter on the OU, guess what?  The import of the policy will fail when coming into an AD GPO.  Why you ask?  That filter does not exist for a XenApp Policy derived from an AD GPO, well, because the GPO is already applied to an OU.  So for computer filter options, the only option remaining is a Worker Group.  That requirement/limitation might require some Farm modifications.  You can still filter your Worker Groups based on an OU though, so this is the easiest way to still use the OU as a baseline for filtering.\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-12.57-PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 12 57 PM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 12.57 PM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"151\" />\n\nSo to close out this post, let\'s setup an example of migrating policies from IMA into a Group Policy.  In my domain, I have my XenApp servers in a dedicated OU as per best practice, and currently I don\'t have any server specific GPO\'s applied.  In my XenApp farm, I have 3 computer and 2 user policies, and I have disabled the Unfiltered policy, as I tend not to use that.  For this example, we are going to pull over all of the Computer and User settings.\n\nTo export the IMA policies, we of course use our <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command that we ran before.  We can use those same files to import the Policies into a GPO.  To import the files to a GPO, as we already covered, a new PSDrive needs to be created.  The following statement is what we need to get our first step of integration complete:\n\n<strong>New-PSDrive -Name X -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGPO XenAppSpecific</strong>\n\n<ul>\n	<li><strong><em>-Name: </em></strong>We will use X for the drive</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-PSProvider: </em></strong>PSProvider tells what kind of drive to make.  In this case, it\'s always CitrixGroupPolicy.  You can use the Get-PSDrive command to get a list of drive providers.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Root: </em></strong>Tells what folder serves as the drive root, in our case it\'s always \\.</li> \n	<li><strong><em>-DomainGPO: </em></strong> Tells the command which GPO to use.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.41-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 41 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.41 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"80\" />\n\nNotice the issue when running our command.  If the GPO does not exist, the New-PSDrive command will fail.  Yes, it would be nice if this would have a <strong><em>-force</em></strong> or <strong><em>-create</em></strong> parameter to go along with it, but really, the assumption is that you already have a GPO that you want to add these XenApp items to.  Once the new PSDrive is established, you can navigate to it within the PowerShell session just like a standard drive, <strong>cd X:</strong> will allow you to navigate the folder structure just like DOS commands.  Although in this case, the folder structure returns either <em>Computer</em> or <em>User</em>.  Look familiar?\n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.48-AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 48 AM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.48 AM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"84\" />\n\nNow that our connection to the GPO has been established, all that is left is to import the .xml files we exported earlier.  The command to import is very similar, but we need to add the PSDrive  parameter for the DomainGPODrive we used in our PSDrive command.  Let\'s breakdown the command for the import - <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy -FolderPath FarmPolicies -DriveName X</strong>.\n<ul>\n	<li><strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy: </strong>We\'ve already touched on this cmdlet.  This is what drives the import of the .xml files to the desired location.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Folder Path: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command where to get the .xml files.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Drive Name: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command the location of where to put the imported files.  Remember here, we used there X drive as the PSDrive which maps to the desired GPO.</li>\n</ul>\nAny errors with the import will be indicated in red text in the PowerShell screen.  If all is successful, you will see the results similar to the below screenshot.  The associated XenApp policies will be associated to the GPO we specified earlier, and the filter values will also be brought over. \n\n<img src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-2.09-PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 2 09 PM\" title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 2.09 PM.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"379\" />\n\nThe XenApp SDK includes some pretty powerful cmdlets, that really can help eliminate a lot of the repetitive steps with managing not just policies, but the overall XenApp farm.  This article was just a quick glimpse at some of the features provided by the SDK, and the below resources can help extend that knowledge.\n \n<h3>Additional Resources</h3>\n<ul>\n	<li>Microsoft PSDrive Details - <a href=\"http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx\">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx</a></li>\n	<li>Citrix Export/Import Policies - <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625</a></li>\n	<li>Citrix Additional Export/Import - <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies\">http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies</a>\n</ul>','Managing XenApp Policies with XenApp SDK','','inherit','open','open','','8599-revision-v1','','','2013-08-26 14:13:00','2013-08-26 18:13:00','',8599,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8599-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8628,40,'2013-08-26 15:55:33','2013-08-26 19:55:33','Let me start off this blog post by saying that as much as I want to be a \'developer,\' I just can\'t get my mind moving in that direction. But the beauty with PowerShell is that even \'weekend warriors of development\' like myself can quickly get up to speed and actually become useful with SDK\'s.\n\nCitrix has done an excellent job in the past few years developing and providing a very useful policy engine and structure for not only XenApp, but also XenDesktop. Personally, I have always loved the Citrix policy engine, making it very easy to get to the end results I wanted - the look, feel and usefulness of a XenApp environment. To me, storing the policies within the IMA database always left something to be desired. Sure, it\'s always been there, and is a core component of the XenApp infrastructure. Let\'s take, for example, a farm that consists of 20 various policies - printing, Flash management, TimeZone, and consider the following scenarios.\n<ul>\n	<li>You have a separate test farm, and you need to bring over two new policies to the production farm - how do you do it?</li>\n	<li>You have purchased a new company who currently runs a XenApp farm, and need to merge their policies into the main farm - how do you do it?</li>\n	<li>You want to migrate all of the XenApp IMA polices into Active Directory, for a single point of policy management - how do you do it?</li>\n</ul>\nThe simple answer is the XenApp SDK. The XenApp <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/XenApp+6.5+Powershell+SDK\">SDK</a> allows for complete PowerShell management of a XenApp farm. This blog post isn\'t intended as an overview of the full XA SDK, but will focus on the three scenarios from above, essentially managing policies with the SDK.\n<h2>Brief Overview of XenApp SDK</h2>\nThe XenApp SDK was released initially with XenApp 5.0, as a replacement for the MFCOM commands that were included with earlier editions of XenApp. To be honest, MFCOM never seemed super useful with XenApp management, but with SDK and the usage of PowerShell, I started to see where the SDK was proving to give that little extra bit we were missing. So how do we use it? Well, every XenApp server v6.x and above includes PowerShell, so all that needs to be installed is the SDK itself (I wish Citrix would just install this as part of the XenApp install). There are a ton of resources on the web that provide a greater background on the SDK usage, including some very excellent Farm Reports that will print out the entire farm configuration with best practices (Google is your friend!).\n\nLet\'s start the SDK to see what we\'ve got available:\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.13 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 13 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.13-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"354\" border=\"0\" />\n\nCitrix provides a good amount of cmdlets with the SDK, and includes the Citrix.Common.GroupPolicy snap in. However, that doesn\'t give us the full spectrum of possibilities with the SDK. There\'s an extra file needed to manage anything Policy related, whether it\'s IMA or GPO policies. That can be found <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/download/attachments/162955822/Citrix.GroupPolicy.Commands.psm1?version=1\">here.</a>\n<h2>Policy Management</h2>\nSome people might say, \"So what, we can do it from within the Citrix App Center. Not a big deal to recreate a policy. But why recreate manually when you can automate something?\" With the SDK, the first scenario listed above can be done in two lines of code - <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> and <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. The SDK provides a very flexible and easy method to not only export all of your policies (Think Backup here), but to also import the policies. Let\'s take a look at exporting a XenApp policy.\n\n<em>If you\'re new to PowerShell, or just dabble in it, remember the command <strong>get-help</strong>. Excellent details per cmdlet. </em>\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.30 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 30 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.30-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"225\" border=\"0\" />\n\nExporting a XenApp policy is as simple as issuing the command <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. Notice from the above image on the <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet, there are a number of additional parameters that we can expose. If you want to export a single policy (Scenario 2 from above), you can use the <em><strong>-PolicyName</strong></em> parameter. If you want to export either the Computer or User policies, use the <em><strong>-Type</strong></em> parameter. Very simple, but very powerful.\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.50 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 50 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.50-AM.png\" width=\"486\" height=\"61\" border=\"0\" />\n\nThe results of running the export command are 3 editable .XML files, one with the policy names, one with configuration, and one with the filters.\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.51 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 51 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.51-AM.png\" width=\"597\" height=\"72\" border=\"0\" />\n\nThe resulting .xml files could be taken to another XenApp farm, and the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet could be run, pointed to the directory of the files, and the new policies would be available in the new farm. Simple yet powerful in my opinion.\n\nEver needed to move a policy in the App Center from #12 to #3? That takes clicking the Higher button in App Center 9 times. Ever needed to disable all of the user policies for troubleshooting? The XenApp SDK can handle it. The cmdlet <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> takes 2 parameters that allow us to change the priority of the policy, or enable/disable the policy.\n<ul>\n	<li><strong><em>-Priority: </em></strong>Enter a number to change the priority</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Enabled: </em></strong>Boolean value for Enabled/Disabled. Can use $True or $False here, or 0/1</li>\n</ul>\nWhy not just run the command <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy -Type User -Name \"PolicyName\" -Priority 3 -Type User</strong> for the above example to move from Priority of 12 to 3. Very simple, and very efficient. And not to be left out, you can create new policies - but no edits (<strong>New-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) and remove policies (<strong>Remove-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) thru the SDK.\n<h2>Migrating IMA policies to AD Group Policies</h2>\nAt a customer site a few years back, I ran into an issue where the customer was pushing upwards of 100 policies in the IMA database, and anytime they would need to add/modify/remove a policy, either the IMA database would become corrupted, or it would be incredibly slow - even to just change the priority of a policy. Long story short, we found that moving the policy items into Group Policies did not exhibit the same issues when the large number of policies was in place. Great news, but how can we get all 100 policies migrated from the IMA database into Group Policies? Sure, there is the XenApp Migration Tool, but that won\'t work here since we aren\'t migrating to a new farm. Well, we\'ve already touched on the <strong>Export</strong> and <strong>Import CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlets and how easy it was. Well, with a few additional commands and an additional parameter to the Export and Import commands, we can migrate policies between IMA and AD seamlessly.\n\nCitrix provides an excellent CTX article on the exporting and importing of policies <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">here,</a> and it\'s piece #1 of moving to the export/importing of policies.\n\nTo go from IMA to AD (Or Local Server to AD/IMA), or AD to IMA policies we need to add one line to our plan, and that\'s using a PSDrive (PowerShell Drive) to allow us to navigate into the AD world. Whether we are exporting from AD, or importing to AD, we need to use the PSDrive command to establish a \'mapped drive\' connection to an existing GPO.\n\nRunning the following command: <strong>New-PSDrive -Name -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGpo </strong>\n\nWe need to know:\n<ul>\n	<li><strong>DomainGPODrive</strong> - what drive we want to use.</li>\n	<li><strong>DomainGPO</strong> - what GPO we are wanting to work against.</li>\n</ul>\nTo me, one of the really nice features of merging the XenApp policies into a Group Policy is a single point of management. You can create a GPO with all of your Server specific settings for an OU (timeouts, start menu redirections, profile specific items, etc.), and tie specific XenApp items to that GPO as well. One item to note though with the import of Policies from IMA to GPO. With IMA, we have a filter option based on OU. In some cases, an IMA Computer policy might be filtered based on OU of the server, especially if it is within a multi-site/customer AD structure. Well, if your policies are set to filter on the OU, guess what? The import of the policy will fail when coming into an AD GPO. Why you ask? That filter does not exist for a XenApp Policy derived from an AD GPO, well, because the GPO is already applied to an OU. So for computer filter options, the only option remaining is a Worker Group. That requirement/limitation might require some Farm modifications. You can still filter your Worker Groups based on an OU though, so this is the easiest way to still use the OU as a baseline for filtering.\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 12.57 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 12 57 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-12.57-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"151\" border=\"0\" />\n\nSo to close out this post, let\'s setup an example of migrating policies from IMA into a Group Policy. In my domain, I have my XenApp servers in a dedicated OU as per best practice, and currently I don\'t have any server specific GPO\'s applied. In my XenApp farm, I have three computer and two user policies, and I have disabled the Unfiltered policy, as I tend not to use that. For this example, we are going to pull over all of the Computer and User settings.\n\nTo export the IMA policies, we of course use our <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command that we ran before. We can use those same files to import the Policies into a GPO. To import the files to a GPO, as we already covered, a new PSDrive needs to be created. The following statement is what we need to get our first step of integration complete:\n\n<strong>New-PSDrive -Name X -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGPO XenAppSpecific</strong>\n<ul>\n	<li><strong><em>-Name: </em></strong>We will use X for the drive</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-PSProvider: </em></strong>PSProvider tells what kind of drive to make. In this case, it\'s always CitrixGroupPolicy. You can use the Get-PSDrive command to get a list of drive providers.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Root: </em></strong>Tells what folder serves as the drive root, in our case it\'s always \\.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-DomainGPO: </em></strong> Tells the command which GPO to use.</li>\n</ul>\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.41 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 41 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.41-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"80\" border=\"0\" />\n\nNotice the issue when running our command. If the GPO does not exist, the New-PSDrive command will fail. Yes, it would be nice if this would have a <strong><em>-force</em></strong> or <strong><em>-create</em></strong> parameter to go along with it, but really, the assumption is that you already have a GPO that you want to add these XenApp items to. Once the new PSDrive is established, you can navigate to it within the PowerShell session just like a standard drive, <strong>cd X:</strong> will allow you to navigate the folder structure just like DOS commands. Although in this case, the folder structure returns either <em>Computer</em> or <em>User</em>. Look familiar?\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.48 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 48 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.48-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"84\" border=\"0\" />\n\nNow that our connection to the GPO has been established, all that is left is to import the .xml files we exported earlier. The command to import is very similar, but we need to add the PSDrive parameter for the DomainGPODrive we used in our PSDrive command. Let\'s breakdown the command for the import - <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy -FolderPath FarmPolicies -DriveName X</strong>.\n<ul>\n	<li><strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy: </strong>We\'ve already touched on this cmdlet. This is what drives the import of the .xml files to the desired location.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Folder Path: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command where to get the .xml files.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Drive Name: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command the location of where to put the imported files. Remember here, we used there X drive as the PSDrive which maps to the desired GPO.</li>\n</ul>\nAny errors with the import will be indicated in red text in the PowerShell screen. If all is successful, you will see the results similar to the below screenshot. The associated XenApp policies will be associated to the GPO we specified earlier, and the filter values will also be brought over.\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 2.09 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 2 09 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-2.09-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"379\" border=\"0\" />\n\nThe XenApp SDK includes some pretty powerful cmdlets, that really can help eliminate a lot of the repetitive steps with managing not just policies, but the overall XenApp farm. This article was just a quick glimpse at some of the features provided by the SDK, and the below resources can help extend that knowledge.\n<h3>Additional Resources</h3>\n<ul>\n	<li>Microsoft PSDrive Details - <a href=\"http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx\">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx</a></li>\n	<li>Citrix Export/Import Policies - <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625</a></li>\n	<li>Citrix Additional Export/Import - <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies\">http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies</a></li>\n</ul>','Managing XenApp Policies with XenApp SDK','','inherit','open','open','','8599-autosave-v1','','','2013-08-26 15:55:33','2013-08-26 19:55:33','',8599,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8599-autosave-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8630,40,'2013-08-26 15:41:59','2013-08-26 19:41:59','Let me start off this blog post by saying that as much as I want to be a \'developer,\' I just can\'t get my mind moving in that direction. But the beauty with PowerShell is that even \'weekend warriors of development\' like myself can quickly get up to speed and actually become useful with SDK\'s.\n\nCitrix has done an excellent job in the past few years developing and providing a very useful policy engine and structure for not only XenApp, but also XenDesktop. Personally, I have always loved the Citrix policy engine, making it very easy to get to the end results I wanted - the look, feel and usefulness of a XenApp environment. To me, storing the policies within the IMA database always left something to be desired. Sure, it\'s always been there, and is a core component of the XenApp infrastructure. Let\'s take, for example, a farm that consists of 20 various policies - printing, Flash management, TimeZone, and consider the following scenarios.\n<ul>\n	<li>You have a separate test farm, and you need to bring over two new policies to the production farm - how do you do it?</li>\n	<li>You have purchased a new company who currently runs a XenApp farm, and need to merge their policies into the main farm - how do you do it?</li>\n	<li>You want to migrate all of the XenApp IMA polices into Active Directory, for a single point of policy management - how do you do it?</li>\n</ul>\nThe simple answer is the XenApp SDK. The XenApp <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/XenApp+6.5+Powershell+SDK\">SDK</a> allows for complete PowerShell management of a XenApp farm. This blog post isn\'t intended as an overview of the full XA SDK, but will focus on the 3 scenarios from above, essentially managing policies with the SDK.\n<h2>Brief Overview of XenApp SDK</h2>\nThe XenApp SDK was released initially with XenApp 5.0, as a replacement for the MFCOM commands that were included with earlier editions of XenApp. To be honest, MFCOM never seemed super useful with XenApp management, but with SDK and the usage of PowerShell, I started to see where the SDK was proving to give that little extra bit we were missing. So how do we use it? Well, every XenApp server v6.x and above includes PowerShell, so all that needs to be installed is the SDK itself (I wish Citrix would just install this as part of the XenApp install). There are a ton of resources on the web that provide a greater background on the SDK usage, including some very excellent Farm Reports that will print out the entire farm configuration with best practices - Google is your friend…\n\nLet\'s start the SDK to see what we\'ve got available:\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.13 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 13 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.13-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"354\" border=\"0\" />\n\nCitrix provides a good amount of cmdlets with the SDK, and includes the Citrix.Common.GroupPolicy snap in. However, that doesn\'t give us the full spectrum of possibilities with the SDK. There\'s an extra file needed to manage anything Policy related, whether it\'s IMA or GPO policies. That can be found <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/download/attachments/162955822/Citrix.GroupPolicy.Commands.psm1?version=1\">here.</a>\n<h2>Policy Management</h2>\nPolicy Management. Some people might say so what, we can do it from within the Citrix App Center. Not a big deal to recreate a policy. But why recreate manually when you can automate something? With the SDK, the first scenario listed above can be done in 2 lines of code - <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> and <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. The SDK provides a very flexible and easy method to not only export all of your policies (Think Backup here), but to also import the policies. Let\'s take a look at exporting a XenApp policy.\n\n<em>If you\'re new to PowerShell, or just dabble in it, remember the command <strong>get-help</strong>. Excellent details per cmdlet. </em>\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.30 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 30 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.30-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"225\" border=\"0\" />\n\nExporting a XenApp policy is as simple as issuing the command <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. Notice from the above image on the <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet, there are a number of additional parameters that we can expose. If you want to export a single policy (Scenario 2 from above), you can use the <em><strong>-PolicyName</strong></em> parameter. If you want to export either the Computer or User policies, use the <em><strong>-Type</strong></em> parameter. Very simple, but very powerful.\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.50 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 50 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.50-AM.png\" width=\"486\" height=\"61\" border=\"0\" />\n\nThe results of running the export command are 3 editable .XML files, one with the policy names, one with configuration, and one with the filters.\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.51 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 51 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.51-AM.png\" width=\"597\" height=\"72\" border=\"0\" />\n\nThe resulting .xml files could be taken to another XenApp farm, and the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet could be run, pointed to the directory of the files, and the new policies would be available in the new farm. Simple yet powerful in my opinion.\n\nEver needed to move a policy in the App Center from #12 to #3? That takes clicking the Higher button in App Center 9 times. Ever needed to disable all of the user policies for troubleshooting? The XenApp SDK can handle it. The cmdlet <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> takes 2 parameters that allow us to change the priority of the policy, or enable/disable the policy.\n<ul>\n	<li><strong><em>-Priority: </em></strong>Enter a number to change the priority</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Enabled: </em></strong>Boolean value for Enabled/Disabled. Can use $True or $False here, or 0/1</li>\n</ul>\nWhy not just run the command <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy -Type User -Name \"PolicyName\" -Priority 3 -Type User</strong> for the above example to move from Priority of 12 to 3. Very simple, and very efficient. And not to be left out, you can create new policies - but no edits (<strong>New-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) and remove policies (<strong>Remove-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) thru the SDK.\n<h2>Migrating IMA policies to AD Group Policies</h2>\nAt a customer site a few years back, I ran into an issue where the customer was pushing upwards of 100 policies in the IMA database, and anytime they would need to add/modify/remove a policy, either the IMA database would become corrupted, or it would be incredibly slow - even to just change the priority of a policy. Long story short, we found that moving the policy items into Group Policies did not exhibit the same issues when the large number of policies was in place. Great news, but how can we get all 100 policies migrated from the IMA database into Group Policies. Sure, there is the XenApp Migration Tool, but that won\'t work here since we aren\'t migrating to a new farm. Well, we\'ve already touched on the <strong>Export</strong> and <strong>Import CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlets and how easy it was. Well, with a few additional commands and an additional parameter to the Export and Import commands, we can migrate policies between IMA and AD seamlessly.\n\nCitrix provides an excellent CTX article on the exporting and importing of policies <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">here,</a> and it\'s piece #1 of moving to the export/importing of policies.\n\nTo go from IMA to AD (Or Local Server to AD/IMA), or AD to IMA policies we need to add one line to our plan, and that\'s using a PSDrive (PowerShell Drive) to allow us to navigate into the AD world. Whether we are exporting from AD, or importing to AD, we need to use the PSDrive command to establish a \'mapped drive\' connection to an existing GPO.\n\nRunning the following command: <strong>New-PSDrive -Name -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGpo </strong>\n\nWe need to know:\n<ul>\n	<li><strong>DomainGPODrive</strong> - what drive we want to use.</li>\n	<li><strong>DomainGPO</strong> - what GPO we are wanting to work against.</li>\n</ul>\nTo me, one of the really nice features of merging the XenApp policies into a Group Policy is a single point of management. You can create a GPO with all of your Server specific settings for an OU (timeouts, start menu redirections, profile specific items, etc.), and tie specific XenApp items to that GPO as well. One item to note though with the import of Policies from IMA to GPO. With IMA, we have a filter option based on OU. In some cases, an IMA Computer policy might be filtered based on OU of the server, especially if it is within a multi-site/customer AD structure. Well, if your policies are set to filter on the OU, guess what? The import of the policy will fail when coming into an AD GPO. Why you ask? That filter does not exist for a XenApp Policy derived from an AD GPO, well, because the GPO is already applied to an OU. So for computer filter options, the only option remaining is a Worker Group. That requirement/limitation might require some Farm modifications. You can still filter your Worker Groups based on an OU though, so this is the easiest way to still use the OU as a baseline for filtering.\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 12.57 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 12 57 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-12.57-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"151\" border=\"0\" />\n\nSo to close out this post, let\'s setup an example of migrating policies from IMA into a Group Policy. In my domain, I have my XenApp servers in a dedicated OU as per best practice, and currently I don\'t have any server specific GPO\'s applied. In my XenApp farm, I have 3 computer and 2 user policies, and I have disabled the Unfiltered policy, as I tend not to use that. For this example, we are going to pull over all of the Computer and User settings.\n\nTo export the IMA policies, we of course use our <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command that we ran before. We can use those same files to import the Policies into a GPO. To import the files to a GPO, as we already covered, a new PSDrive needs to be created. The following statement is what we need to get our first step of integration complete:\n\n<strong>New-PSDrive -Name X -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGPO XenAppSpecific</strong>\n<ul>\n	<li><strong><em>-Name: </em></strong>We will use X for the drive</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-PSProvider: </em></strong>PSProvider tells what kind of drive to make. In this case, it\'s always CitrixGroupPolicy. You can use the Get-PSDrive command to get a list of drive providers.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Root: </em></strong>Tells what folder serves as the drive root, in our case it\'s always \\.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-DomainGPO: </em></strong> Tells the command which GPO to use.</li>\n</ul>\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.41 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 41 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.41-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"80\" border=\"0\" />\n\nNotice the issue when running our command. If the GPO does not exist, the New-PSDrive command will fail. Yes, it would be nice if this would have a <strong><em>-force</em></strong> or <strong><em>-create</em></strong> parameter to go along with it, but really, the assumption is that you already have a GPO that you want to add these XenApp items to. Once the new PSDrive is established, you can navigate to it within the PowerShell session just like a standard drive, <strong>cd X:</strong> will allow you to navigate the folder structure just like DOS commands. Although in this case, the folder structure returns either <em>Computer</em> or <em>User</em>. Look familiar?\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.48 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 48 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.48-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"84\" border=\"0\" />\n\nNow that our connection to the GPO has been established, all that is left is to import the .xml files we exported earlier. The command to import is very similar, but we need to add the PSDrive parameter for the DomainGPODrive we used in our PSDrive command. Let\'s breakdown the command for the import - <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy -FolderPath FarmPolicies -DriveName X</strong>.\n<ul>\n	<li><strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy: </strong>We\'ve already touched on this cmdlet. This is what drives the import of the .xml files to the desired location.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Folder Path: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command where to get the .xml files.</li>\n	<li><strong><em>-Drive Name: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command the location of where to put the imported files. Remember here, we used there X drive as the PSDrive which maps to the desired GPO.</li>\n</ul>\nAny errors with the import will be indicated in red text in the PowerShell screen. If all is successful, you will see the results similar to the below screenshot. The associated XenApp policies will be associated to the GPO we specified earlier, and the filter values will also be brought over.\n\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 2.09 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 2 09 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-2.09-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"379\" border=\"0\" />\n\nThe XenApp SDK includes some pretty powerful cmdlets, that really can help eliminate a lot of the repetitive steps with managing not just policies, but the overall XenApp farm. This article was just a quick glimpse at some of the features provided by the SDK, and the below resources can help extend that knowledge.\n<h3>Additional Resources</h3>\n<ul>\n	<li>Microsoft PSDrive Details - <a href=\"http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx\">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx</a></li>\n	<li>Citrix Export/Import Policies - <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625</a></li>\n	<li>Citrix Additional Export/Import - <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies\">http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies</a></li>\n</ul>','Managing XenApp Policies with XenApp SDK','','inherit','open','open','','8599-revision-v1','','','2013-08-26 15:41:59','2013-08-26 19:41:59','',8599,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8599-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8629,40,'2013-08-26 15:40:31','2013-08-26 19:40:31','Let me start off this blog post by saying that as much as I want to be a \'developer,\' I just can\'t get my mind moving in that direction. But the beauty with PowerShell is that even \'weekend warriors of development\' like myself can quickly get up to speed and actually become useful with SDK\'s.\r\n\r\nCitrix has done an excellent job in the past few years developing and providing a very useful policy engine and structure for not only XenApp, but also XenDesktop. Personally, I have always loved the Citrix policy engine, making it very easy to get to the end results I wanted - the look, feel and usefulness of a XenApp environment. To me, storing the policies within the IMA database always left something to be desired. Sure, it\'s always been there, and is a core component of the XenApp infrastructure. Let\'s take, for example, a farm that consists of 20 various policies - printing, Flash management, TimeZone, and consider the following scenarios.\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li>You have a separate test farm, and you need to bring over 2 new policies to the production farm - how do you do it?</li>\r\n	<li>You have purchased a new company who currently runs a XenApp farm, and need to merge their policies into the main farm - how do you do it?</li>\r\n	<li>You want to migrate all of the XenApp IMA polices into Active Directory, for a single point of policy management - how do you do it?</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nThe simple answer is the XenApp SDK. The XenApp <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/XenApp+6.5+Powershell+SDK\">SDK</a> allows for complete PowerShell management of a XenApp farm. This blog post isn\'t intended as an overview of the full XA SDK, but will focus on the 3 scenarios from above, essentially managing policies with the SDK.\r\n<h2>Brief Overview of XenApp SDK</h2>\r\nThe XenApp SDK was released initially with XenApp 5.0, as a replacement for the MFCOM commands that were included with earlier editions of XenApp. To be honest, MFCOM never seemed super useful with XenApp management, but with SDK and the usage of PowerShell, I started to see where the SDK was proving to give that little extra bit we were missing. So how do we use it? Well, every XenApp server v6.x and above includes PowerShell, so all that needs to be installed is the SDK itself (I wish Citrix would just install this as part of the XenApp install). There are a ton of resources on the web that provide a greater background on the SDK usage, including some very excellent Farm Reports that will print out the entire farm configuration with best practices - Google is your friend…\r\n\r\nLet\'s start the SDK to see what we\'ve got available:\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.13 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 13 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.13-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"354\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nCitrix provides a good amount of cmdlets with the SDK, and includes the Citrix.Common.GroupPolicy snap in. However, that doesn\'t give us the full spectrum of possibilities with the SDK. There\'s an extra file needed to manage anything Policy related, whether it\'s IMA or GPO policies. That can be found <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/download/attachments/162955822/Citrix.GroupPolicy.Commands.psm1?version=1\">here.</a>\r\n<h2>Policy Management</h2>\r\nPolicy Management. Some people might say so what, we can do it from within the Citrix App Center. Not a big deal to recreate a policy. But why recreate manually when you can automate something? With the SDK, the first scenario listed above can be done in 2 lines of code - <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> and <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. The SDK provides a very flexible and easy method to not only export all of your policies (Think Backup here), but to also import the policies. Let\'s take a look at exporting a XenApp policy.\r\n\r\n<em>If you\'re new to PowerShell, or just dabble in it, remember the command <strong>get-help</strong>. Excellent details per cmdlet. </em>\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.30 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 30 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.30-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"225\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nExporting a XenApp policy is as simple as issuing the command <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. Notice from the above image on the <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet, there are a number of additional parameters that we can expose. If you want to export a single policy (Scenario 2 from above), you can use the <em><strong>-PolicyName</strong></em> parameter. If you want to export either the Computer or User policies, use the <em><strong>-Type</strong></em> parameter. Very simple, but very powerful.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.50 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 50 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.50-AM.png\" width=\"486\" height=\"61\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nThe results of running the export command are 3 editable .XML files, one with the policy names, one with configuration, and one with the filters.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.51 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 51 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.51-AM.png\" width=\"597\" height=\"72\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nThe resulting .xml files could be taken to another XenApp farm, and the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet could be run, pointed to the directory of the files, and the new policies would be available in the new farm. Simple yet powerful in my opinion.\r\n\r\nEver needed to move a policy in the App Center from #12 to #3? That takes clicking the Higher button in App Center 9 times. Ever needed to disable all of the user policies for troubleshooting? The XenApp SDK can handle it. The cmdlet <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> takes 2 parameters that allow us to change the priority of the policy, or enable/disable the policy.\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Priority: </em></strong>Enter a number to change the priority</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Enabled: </em></strong>Boolean value for Enabled/Disabled. Can use $True or $False here, or 0/1</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nWhy not just run the command <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy -Type User -Name \"PolicyName\" -Priority 3 -Type User</strong> for the above example to move from Priority of 12 to 3. Very simple, and very efficient. And not to be left out, you can create new policies - but no edits (<strong>New-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) and remove policies (<strong>Remove-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) thru the SDK.\r\n<h2>Migrating IMA policies to AD Group Policies</h2>\r\nAt a customer site a few years back, I ran into an issue where the customer was pushing upwards of 100 policies in the IMA database, and anytime they would need to add/modify/remove a policy, either the IMA database would become corrupted, or it would be incredibly slow - even to just change the priority of a policy. Long story short, we found that moving the policy items into Group Policies did not exhibit the same issues when the large number of policies was in place. Great news, but how can we get all 100 policies migrated from the IMA database into Group Policies. Sure, there is the XenApp Migration Tool, but that won\'t work here since we aren\'t migrating to a new farm. Well, we\'ve already touched on the <strong>Export</strong> and <strong>Import CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlets and how easy it was. Well, with a few additional commands and an additional parameter to the Export and Import commands, we can migrate policies between IMA and AD seamlessly.\r\n\r\nCitrix provides an excellent CTX article on the exporting and importing of policies <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">here,</a> and it\'s piece #1 of moving to the export/importing of policies.\r\n\r\nTo go from IMA to AD (Or Local Server to AD/IMA), or AD to IMA policies we need to add one line to our plan, and that\'s using a PSDrive (PowerShell Drive) to allow us to navigate into the AD world. Whether we are exporting from AD, or importing to AD, we need to use the PSDrive command to establish a \'mapped drive\' connection to an existing GPO.\r\n\r\nRunning the following command: <strong>New-PSDrive -Name -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGpo </strong>\r\n\r\nWe need to know:\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong>DomainGPODrive</strong> - what drive we want to use.</li>\r\n	<li><strong>DomainGPO</strong> - what GPO we are wanting to work against.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nTo me, one of the really nice features of merging the XenApp policies into a Group Policy is a single point of management. You can create a GPO with all of your Server specific settings for an OU (timeouts, start menu redirections, profile specific items, etc.), and tie specific XenApp items to that GPO as well. One item to note though with the import of Policies from IMA to GPO. With IMA, we have a filter option based on OU. In some cases, an IMA Computer policy might be filtered based on OU of the server, especially if it is within a multi-site/customer AD structure. Well, if your policies are set to filter on the OU, guess what? The import of the policy will fail when coming into an AD GPO. Why you ask? That filter does not exist for a XenApp Policy derived from an AD GPO, well, because the GPO is already applied to an OU. So for computer filter options, the only option remaining is a Worker Group. That requirement/limitation might require some Farm modifications. You can still filter your Worker Groups based on an OU though, so this is the easiest way to still use the OU as a baseline for filtering.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 12.57 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 12 57 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-12.57-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"151\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nSo to close out this post, let\'s setup an example of migrating policies from IMA into a Group Policy. In my domain, I have my XenApp servers in a dedicated OU as per best practice, and currently I don\'t have any server specific GPO\'s applied. In my XenApp farm, I have 3 computer and 2 user policies, and I have disabled the Unfiltered policy, as I tend not to use that. For this example, we are going to pull over all of the Computer and User settings.\r\n\r\nTo export the IMA policies, we of course use our <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command that we ran before. We can use those same files to import the Policies into a GPO. To import the files to a GPO, as we already covered, a new PSDrive needs to be created. The following statement is what we need to get our first step of integration complete:\r\n\r\n<strong>New-PSDrive -Name X -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGPO XenAppSpecific</strong>\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Name: </em></strong>We will use X for the drive</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-PSProvider: </em></strong>PSProvider tells what kind of drive to make. In this case, it\'s always CitrixGroupPolicy. You can use the Get-PSDrive command to get a list of drive providers.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Root: </em></strong>Tells what folder serves as the drive root, in our case it\'s always \\.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-DomainGPO: </em></strong> Tells the command which GPO to use.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.41 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 41 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.41-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"80\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nNotice the issue when running our command. If the GPO does not exist, the New-PSDrive command will fail. Yes, it would be nice if this would have a <strong><em>-force</em></strong> or <strong><em>-create</em></strong> parameter to go along with it, but really, the assumption is that you already have a GPO that you want to add these XenApp items to. Once the new PSDrive is established, you can navigate to it within the PowerShell session just like a standard drive, <strong>cd X:</strong> will allow you to navigate the folder structure just like DOS commands. Although in this case, the folder structure returns either <em>Computer</em> or <em>User</em>. Look familiar?\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.48 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 48 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.48-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"84\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nNow that our connection to the GPO has been established, all that is left is to import the .xml files we exported earlier. The command to import is very similar, but we need to add the PSDrive parameter for the DomainGPODrive we used in our PSDrive command. Let\'s breakdown the command for the import - <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy -FolderPath FarmPolicies -DriveName X</strong>.\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy: </strong>We\'ve already touched on this cmdlet. This is what drives the import of the .xml files to the desired location.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Folder Path: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command where to get the .xml files.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Drive Name: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command the location of where to put the imported files. Remember here, we used there X drive as the PSDrive which maps to the desired GPO.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nAny errors with the import will be indicated in red text in the PowerShell screen. If all is successful, you will see the results similar to the below screenshot. The associated XenApp policies will be associated to the GPO we specified earlier, and the filter values will also be brought over.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 2.09 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 2 09 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-2.09-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"379\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nThe XenApp SDK includes some pretty powerful cmdlets, that really can help eliminate a lot of the repetitive steps with managing not just policies, but the overall XenApp farm. This article was just a quick glimpse at some of the features provided by the SDK, and the below resources can help extend that knowledge.\r\n<h3>Additional Resources</h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li>Microsoft PSDrive Details - <a href=\"http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx\">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx</a></li>\r\n	<li>Citrix Export/Import Policies - <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625</a></li>\r\n	<li>Citrix Additional Export/Import - <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies\">http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies</a></li>\r\n</ul>','Managing XenApp Policies with XenApp SDK','','inherit','open','open','','8599-revision-v1','','','2013-08-26 15:40:31','2013-08-26 19:40:31','',8599,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8599-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8631,40,'2013-08-26 15:44:23','2013-08-26 19:44:23','Let me start off this blog post by saying that as much as I want to be a \'developer,\' I just can\'t get my mind moving in that direction. But the beauty with PowerShell is that even \'weekend warriors of development\' like myself can quickly get up to speed and actually become useful with SDK\'s.\r\n\r\nCitrix has done an excellent job in the past few years developing and providing a very useful policy engine and structure for not only XenApp, but also XenDesktop. Personally, I have always loved the Citrix policy engine, making it very easy to get to the end results I wanted - the look, feel and usefulness of a XenApp environment. To me, storing the policies within the IMA database always left something to be desired. Sure, it\'s always been there, and is a core component of the XenApp infrastructure. Let\'s take, for example, a farm that consists of 20 various policies - printing, Flash management, TimeZone, and consider the following scenarios.\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li>You have a separate test farm, and you need to bring over two new policies to the production farm - how do you do it?</li>\r\n	<li>You have purchased a new company who currently runs a XenApp farm, and need to merge their policies into the main farm - how do you do it?</li>\r\n	<li>You want to migrate all of the XenApp IMA polices into Active Directory, for a single point of policy management - how do you do it?</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nThe simple answer is the XenApp SDK. The XenApp <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/XenApp+6.5+Powershell+SDK\">SDK</a> allows for complete PowerShell management of a XenApp farm. This blog post isn\'t intended as an overview of the full XA SDK, but will focus on the three scenarios from above, essentially managing policies with the SDK.\r\n<h2>Brief Overview of XenApp SDK</h2>\r\nThe XenApp SDK was released initially with XenApp 5.0, as a replacement for the MFCOM commands that were included with earlier editions of XenApp. To be honest, MFCOM never seemed super useful with XenApp management, but with SDK and the usage of PowerShell, I started to see where the SDK was proving to give that little extra bit we were missing. So how do we use it? Well, every XenApp server v6.x and above includes PowerShell, so all that needs to be installed is the SDK itself (I wish Citrix would just install this as part of the XenApp install). There are a ton of resources on the web that provide a greater background on the SDK usage, including some very excellent Farm Reports that will print out the entire farm configuration with best practices (Google is your friend!).\r\n\r\nLet\'s start the SDK to see what we\'ve got available:\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.13 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 13 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.13-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"354\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nCitrix provides a good amount of cmdlets with the SDK, and includes the Citrix.Common.GroupPolicy snap in. However, that doesn\'t give us the full spectrum of possibilities with the SDK. There\'s an extra file needed to manage anything Policy related, whether it\'s IMA or GPO policies. That can be found <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/download/attachments/162955822/Citrix.GroupPolicy.Commands.psm1?version=1\">here.</a>\r\n<h2>Policy Management</h2>\r\nPolicy Management. Some people might say so what, we can do it from within the Citrix App Center. Not a big deal to recreate a policy. But why recreate manually when you can automate something? With the SDK, the first scenario listed above can be done in 2 lines of code - <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> and <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. The SDK provides a very flexible and easy method to not only export all of your policies (Think Backup here), but to also import the policies. Let\'s take a look at exporting a XenApp policy.\r\n\r\n<em>If you\'re new to PowerShell, or just dabble in it, remember the command <strong>get-help</strong>. Excellent details per cmdlet. </em>\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.30 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 30 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.30-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"225\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nExporting a XenApp policy is as simple as issuing the command <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. Notice from the above image on the <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet, there are a number of additional parameters that we can expose. If you want to export a single policy (Scenario 2 from above), you can use the <em><strong>-PolicyName</strong></em> parameter. If you want to export either the Computer or User policies, use the <em><strong>-Type</strong></em> parameter. Very simple, but very powerful.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.50 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 50 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.50-AM.png\" width=\"486\" height=\"61\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nThe results of running the export command are 3 editable .XML files, one with the policy names, one with configuration, and one with the filters.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.51 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 51 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.51-AM.png\" width=\"597\" height=\"72\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nThe resulting .xml files could be taken to another XenApp farm, and the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet could be run, pointed to the directory of the files, and the new policies would be available in the new farm. Simple yet powerful in my opinion.\r\n\r\nEver needed to move a policy in the App Center from #12 to #3? That takes clicking the Higher button in App Center 9 times. Ever needed to disable all of the user policies for troubleshooting? The XenApp SDK can handle it. The cmdlet <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> takes 2 parameters that allow us to change the priority of the policy, or enable/disable the policy.\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Priority: </em></strong>Enter a number to change the priority</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Enabled: </em></strong>Boolean value for Enabled/Disabled. Can use $True or $False here, or 0/1</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nWhy not just run the command <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy -Type User -Name \"PolicyName\" -Priority 3 -Type User</strong> for the above example to move from Priority of 12 to 3. Very simple, and very efficient. And not to be left out, you can create new policies - but no edits (<strong>New-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) and remove policies (<strong>Remove-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) thru the SDK.\r\n<h2>Migrating IMA policies to AD Group Policies</h2>\r\nAt a customer site a few years back, I ran into an issue where the customer was pushing upwards of 100 policies in the IMA database, and anytime they would need to add/modify/remove a policy, either the IMA database would become corrupted, or it would be incredibly slow - even to just change the priority of a policy. Long story short, we found that moving the policy items into Group Policies did not exhibit the same issues when the large number of policies was in place. Great news, but how can we get all 100 policies migrated from the IMA database into Group Policies. Sure, there is the XenApp Migration Tool, but that won\'t work here since we aren\'t migrating to a new farm. Well, we\'ve already touched on the <strong>Export</strong> and <strong>Import CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlets and how easy it was. Well, with a few additional commands and an additional parameter to the Export and Import commands, we can migrate policies between IMA and AD seamlessly.\r\n\r\nCitrix provides an excellent CTX article on the exporting and importing of policies <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">here,</a> and it\'s piece #1 of moving to the export/importing of policies.\r\n\r\nTo go from IMA to AD (Or Local Server to AD/IMA), or AD to IMA policies we need to add one line to our plan, and that\'s using a PSDrive (PowerShell Drive) to allow us to navigate into the AD world. Whether we are exporting from AD, or importing to AD, we need to use the PSDrive command to establish a \'mapped drive\' connection to an existing GPO.\r\n\r\nRunning the following command: <strong>New-PSDrive -Name -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGpo </strong>\r\n\r\nWe need to know:\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong>DomainGPODrive</strong> - what drive we want to use.</li>\r\n	<li><strong>DomainGPO</strong> - what GPO we are wanting to work against.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nTo me, one of the really nice features of merging the XenApp policies into a Group Policy is a single point of management. You can create a GPO with all of your Server specific settings for an OU (timeouts, start menu redirections, profile specific items, etc.), and tie specific XenApp items to that GPO as well. One item to note though with the import of Policies from IMA to GPO. With IMA, we have a filter option based on OU. In some cases, an IMA Computer policy might be filtered based on OU of the server, especially if it is within a multi-site/customer AD structure. Well, if your policies are set to filter on the OU, guess what? The import of the policy will fail when coming into an AD GPO. Why you ask? That filter does not exist for a XenApp Policy derived from an AD GPO, well, because the GPO is already applied to an OU. So for computer filter options, the only option remaining is a Worker Group. That requirement/limitation might require some Farm modifications. You can still filter your Worker Groups based on an OU though, so this is the easiest way to still use the OU as a baseline for filtering.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 12.57 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 12 57 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-12.57-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"151\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nSo to close out this post, let\'s setup an example of migrating policies from IMA into a Group Policy. In my domain, I have my XenApp servers in a dedicated OU as per best practice, and currently I don\'t have any server specific GPO\'s applied. In my XenApp farm, I have 3 computer and 2 user policies, and I have disabled the Unfiltered policy, as I tend not to use that. For this example, we are going to pull over all of the Computer and User settings.\r\n\r\nTo export the IMA policies, we of course use our <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command that we ran before. We can use those same files to import the Policies into a GPO. To import the files to a GPO, as we already covered, a new PSDrive needs to be created. The following statement is what we need to get our first step of integration complete:\r\n\r\n<strong>New-PSDrive -Name X -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGPO XenAppSpecific</strong>\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Name: </em></strong>We will use X for the drive</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-PSProvider: </em></strong>PSProvider tells what kind of drive to make. In this case, it\'s always CitrixGroupPolicy. You can use the Get-PSDrive command to get a list of drive providers.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Root: </em></strong>Tells what folder serves as the drive root, in our case it\'s always \\.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-DomainGPO: </em></strong> Tells the command which GPO to use.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.41 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 41 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.41-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"80\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nNotice the issue when running our command. If the GPO does not exist, the New-PSDrive command will fail. Yes, it would be nice if this would have a <strong><em>-force</em></strong> or <strong><em>-create</em></strong> parameter to go along with it, but really, the assumption is that you already have a GPO that you want to add these XenApp items to. Once the new PSDrive is established, you can navigate to it within the PowerShell session just like a standard drive, <strong>cd X:</strong> will allow you to navigate the folder structure just like DOS commands. Although in this case, the folder structure returns either <em>Computer</em> or <em>User</em>. Look familiar?\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.48 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 48 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.48-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"84\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nNow that our connection to the GPO has been established, all that is left is to import the .xml files we exported earlier. The command to import is very similar, but we need to add the PSDrive parameter for the DomainGPODrive we used in our PSDrive command. Let\'s breakdown the command for the import - <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy -FolderPath FarmPolicies -DriveName X</strong>.\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy: </strong>We\'ve already touched on this cmdlet. This is what drives the import of the .xml files to the desired location.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Folder Path: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command where to get the .xml files.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Drive Name: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command the location of where to put the imported files. Remember here, we used there X drive as the PSDrive which maps to the desired GPO.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nAny errors with the import will be indicated in red text in the PowerShell screen. If all is successful, you will see the results similar to the below screenshot. The associated XenApp policies will be associated to the GPO we specified earlier, and the filter values will also be brought over.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 2.09 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 2 09 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-2.09-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"379\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nThe XenApp SDK includes some pretty powerful cmdlets, that really can help eliminate a lot of the repetitive steps with managing not just policies, but the overall XenApp farm. This article was just a quick glimpse at some of the features provided by the SDK, and the below resources can help extend that knowledge.\r\n<h3>Additional Resources</h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li>Microsoft PSDrive Details - <a href=\"http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx\">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx</a></li>\r\n	<li>Citrix Export/Import Policies - <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625</a></li>\r\n	<li>Citrix Additional Export/Import - <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies\">http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies</a></li>\r\n</ul>','Managing XenApp Policies with XenApp SDK','','inherit','open','open','','8599-revision-v1','','','2013-08-26 15:44:23','2013-08-26 19:44:23','',8599,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8599-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8632,40,'2013-08-26 15:56:12','2013-08-26 19:56:12','Let me start off this blog post by saying that as much as I want to be a \'developer,\' I just can\'t get my mind moving in that direction. But the beauty with PowerShell is that even \'weekend warriors of development\' like myself can quickly get up to speed and actually become useful with SDK\'s.\r\n\r\nCitrix has done an excellent job in the past few years developing and providing a very useful policy engine and structure for not only XenApp, but also XenDesktop. Personally, I have always loved the Citrix policy engine, making it very easy to get to the end results I wanted - the look, feel and usefulness of a XenApp environment. To me, storing the policies within the IMA database always left something to be desired. Sure, it\'s always been there, and is a core component of the XenApp infrastructure. Let\'s take, for example, a farm that consists of 20 various policies - printing, Flash management, TimeZone, and consider the following scenarios.\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li>You have a separate test farm, and you need to bring over two new policies to the production farm - how do you do it?</li>\r\n	<li>You have purchased a new company who currently runs a XenApp farm, and need to merge their policies into the main farm - how do you do it?</li>\r\n	<li>You want to migrate all of the XenApp IMA polices into Active Directory, for a single point of policy management - how do you do it?</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nThe simple answer is the XenApp SDK. The XenApp <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/XenApp+6.5+Powershell+SDK\">SDK</a> allows for complete PowerShell management of a XenApp farm. This blog post isn\'t intended as an overview of the full XA SDK, but will focus on the three scenarios from above, essentially managing policies with the SDK.\r\n<h2>Brief Overview of XenApp SDK</h2>\r\nThe XenApp SDK was released initially with XenApp 5.0, as a replacement for the MFCOM commands that were included with earlier editions of XenApp. To be honest, MFCOM never seemed super useful with XenApp management, but with SDK and the usage of PowerShell, I started to see where the SDK was proving to give that little extra bit we were missing. So how do we use it? Well, every XenApp server v6.x and above includes PowerShell, so all that needs to be installed is the SDK itself (I wish Citrix would just install this as part of the XenApp install). There are a ton of resources on the web that provide a greater background on the SDK usage, including some very excellent Farm Reports that will print out the entire farm configuration with best practices (Google is your friend!).\r\n\r\nLet\'s start the SDK to see what we\'ve got available:\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.13 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 13 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.13-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"354\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nCitrix provides a good amount of cmdlets with the SDK, and includes the Citrix.Common.GroupPolicy snap in. However, that doesn\'t give us the full spectrum of possibilities with the SDK. There\'s an extra file needed to manage anything Policy related, whether it\'s IMA or GPO policies. That can be found <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/download/attachments/162955822/Citrix.GroupPolicy.Commands.psm1?version=1\">here.</a>\r\n<h2>Policy Management</h2>\r\nSome people might say, \"So what, we can do it from within the Citrix App Center. Not a big deal to recreate a policy. But why recreate manually when you can automate something?\" With the SDK, the first scenario listed above can be done in two lines of code - <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> and <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. The SDK provides a very flexible and easy method to not only export all of your policies (Think Backup here), but to also import the policies. Let\'s take a look at exporting a XenApp policy.\r\n\r\n<em>If you\'re new to PowerShell, or just dabble in it, remember the command <strong>get-help</strong>. Excellent details per cmdlet. </em>\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.30 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 30 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.30-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"225\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nExporting a XenApp policy is as simple as issuing the command <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>. Notice from the above image on the <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet, there are a number of additional parameters that we can expose. If you want to export a single policy (Scenario 2 from above), you can use the <em><strong>-PolicyName</strong></em> parameter. If you want to export either the Computer or User policies, use the <em><strong>-Type</strong></em> parameter. Very simple, but very powerful.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.50 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 50 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.50-AM.png\" width=\"486\" height=\"61\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nThe results of running the export command are 3 editable .XML files, one with the policy names, one with configuration, and one with the filters.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 10.51 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 10 51 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-10.51-AM.png\" width=\"597\" height=\"72\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nThe resulting .xml files could be taken to another XenApp farm, and the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlet could be run, pointed to the directory of the files, and the new policies would be available in the new farm. Simple yet powerful in my opinion.\r\n\r\nEver needed to move a policy in the App Center from #12 to #3? That takes clicking the Higher button in App Center 9 times. Ever needed to disable all of the user policies for troubleshooting? The XenApp SDK can handle it. The cmdlet <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> takes 2 parameters that allow us to change the priority of the policy, or enable/disable the policy.\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Priority: </em></strong>Enter a number to change the priority</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Enabled: </em></strong>Boolean value for Enabled/Disabled. Can use $True or $False here, or 0/1</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nWhy not just run the command <strong>Set-CtxGroupPolicy -Type User -Name \"PolicyName\" -Priority 3 -Type User</strong> for the above example to move from Priority of 12 to 3. Very simple, and very efficient. And not to be left out, you can create new policies - but no edits (<strong>New-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) and remove policies (<strong>Remove-CtxGroupPolicy</strong>) thru the SDK.\r\n<h2>Migrating IMA policies to AD Group Policies</h2>\r\nAt a customer site a few years back, I ran into an issue where the customer was pushing upwards of 100 policies in the IMA database, and anytime they would need to add/modify/remove a policy, either the IMA database would become corrupted, or it would be incredibly slow - even to just change the priority of a policy. Long story short, we found that moving the policy items into Group Policies did not exhibit the same issues when the large number of policies was in place. Great news, but how can we get all 100 policies migrated from the IMA database into Group Policies? Sure, there is the XenApp Migration Tool, but that won\'t work here since we aren\'t migrating to a new farm. Well, we\'ve already touched on the <strong>Export</strong> and <strong>Import CtxGroupPolicy</strong> cmdlets and how easy it was. Well, with a few additional commands and an additional parameter to the Export and Import commands, we can migrate policies between IMA and AD seamlessly.\r\n\r\nCitrix provides an excellent CTX article on the exporting and importing of policies <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">here,</a> and it\'s piece #1 of moving to the export/importing of policies.\r\n\r\nTo go from IMA to AD (Or Local Server to AD/IMA), or AD to IMA policies we need to add one line to our plan, and that\'s using a PSDrive (PowerShell Drive) to allow us to navigate into the AD world. Whether we are exporting from AD, or importing to AD, we need to use the PSDrive command to establish a \'mapped drive\' connection to an existing GPO.\r\n\r\nRunning the following command: <strong>New-PSDrive -Name -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGpo </strong>\r\n\r\nWe need to know:\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong>DomainGPODrive</strong> - what drive we want to use.</li>\r\n	<li><strong>DomainGPO</strong> - what GPO we are wanting to work against.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nTo me, one of the really nice features of merging the XenApp policies into a Group Policy is a single point of management. You can create a GPO with all of your Server specific settings for an OU (timeouts, start menu redirections, profile specific items, etc.), and tie specific XenApp items to that GPO as well. One item to note though with the import of Policies from IMA to GPO. With IMA, we have a filter option based on OU. In some cases, an IMA Computer policy might be filtered based on OU of the server, especially if it is within a multi-site/customer AD structure. Well, if your policies are set to filter on the OU, guess what? The import of the policy will fail when coming into an AD GPO. Why you ask? That filter does not exist for a XenApp Policy derived from an AD GPO, well, because the GPO is already applied to an OU. So for computer filter options, the only option remaining is a Worker Group. That requirement/limitation might require some Farm modifications. You can still filter your Worker Groups based on an OU though, so this is the easiest way to still use the OU as a baseline for filtering.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 12.57 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 12 57 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-12.57-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"151\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nSo to close out this post, let\'s setup an example of migrating policies from IMA into a Group Policy. In my domain, I have my XenApp servers in a dedicated OU as per best practice, and currently I don\'t have any server specific GPO\'s applied. In my XenApp farm, I have three computer and two user policies, and I have disabled the Unfiltered policy, as I tend not to use that. For this example, we are going to pull over all of the Computer and User settings.\r\n\r\nTo export the IMA policies, we of course use our <strong>Export-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command that we ran before. We can use those same files to import the Policies into a GPO. To import the files to a GPO, as we already covered, a new PSDrive needs to be created. The following statement is what we need to get our first step of integration complete:\r\n\r\n<strong>New-PSDrive -Name X -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Root \\ -DomainGPO XenAppSpecific</strong>\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Name: </em></strong>We will use X for the drive</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-PSProvider: </em></strong>PSProvider tells what kind of drive to make. In this case, it\'s always CitrixGroupPolicy. You can use the Get-PSDrive command to get a list of drive providers.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Root: </em></strong>Tells what folder serves as the drive root, in our case it\'s always \\.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-DomainGPO: </em></strong> Tells the command which GPO to use.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.41 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 41 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.41-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"80\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nNotice the issue when running our command. If the GPO does not exist, the New-PSDrive command will fail. Yes, it would be nice if this would have a <strong><em>-force</em></strong> or <strong><em>-create</em></strong> parameter to go along with it, but really, the assumption is that you already have a GPO that you want to add these XenApp items to. Once the new PSDrive is established, you can navigate to it within the PowerShell session just like a standard drive, <strong>cd X:</strong> will allow you to navigate the folder structure just like DOS commands. Although in this case, the folder structure returns either <em>Computer</em> or <em>User</em>. Look familiar?\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 11.48 AM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 11 48 AM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-11.48-AM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"84\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nNow that our connection to the GPO has been established, all that is left is to import the .xml files we exported earlier. The command to import is very similar, but we need to add the PSDrive parameter for the DomainGPODrive we used in our PSDrive command. Let\'s breakdown the command for the import - <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy -FolderPath FarmPolicies -DriveName X</strong>.\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy: </strong>We\'ve already touched on this cmdlet. This is what drives the import of the .xml files to the desired location.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Folder Path: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command where to get the .xml files.</li>\r\n	<li><strong><em>-Drive Name: </em></strong>This tells the <strong>Import-CtxGroupPolicy</strong> command the location of where to put the imported files. Remember here, we used there X drive as the PSDrive which maps to the desired GPO.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nAny errors with the import will be indicated in red text in the PowerShell screen. If all is successful, you will see the results similar to the below screenshot. The associated XenApp policies will be associated to the GPO we specified earlier, and the filter values will also be brought over.\r\n\r\n<img title=\"Image 8-26-13 at 2.09 PM.png\" alt=\"Image 8 26 13 at 2 09 PM\" src=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Image-8-26-13-at-2.09-PM.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"379\" border=\"0\" />\r\n\r\nThe XenApp SDK includes some pretty powerful cmdlets, that really can help eliminate a lot of the repetitive steps with managing not just policies, but the overall XenApp farm. This article was just a quick glimpse at some of the features provided by the SDK, and the below I\'ve included resources which can help extend that knowledge.\r\n<h3>Additional Resources</h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li>Microsoft PSDrive Details - <a href=\"http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx\">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176915.aspx</a></li>\r\n	<li>Citrix Export/Import Policies - <a href=\"http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625\">http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128625</a></li>\r\n	<li>Citrix Additional Export/Import - <a href=\"http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies\">http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Exporting+and+Importing+XenApp+Group+Policies</a></li>\r\n</ul>','Managing XenApp Policies with XenApp SDK','','inherit','open','open','','8599-revision-v1','','','2013-08-26 15:56:12','2013-08-26 19:56:12','',8599,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8599-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8637,40,'2013-08-27 12:43:09','2013-08-27 16:43:09','As everyone is talking about the <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;tbm=nws&amp;authuser=0&amp;q=VMworld&amp;oq=VMworld&amp;gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.42534.43599.0.43735.7.2.0.5.5.0.67.129.2.2.0...0.0...1ac.1.rcs8WuhVo6I\" target=\"_blank\">news from VMworld</a> and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=vmworld&amp;src=typd\" target=\"_blank\">Twittering on about buzz</a> happening from the show floor, we polled a few of our team members for their thoughts. Here\'s a quick Q&amp;A.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=31347442&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=0Nc9&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575759327&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=2747&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575759327%2CVSRPtargetId%3A31347442%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Ian Jones</b></a><b>: </b>Ian manages a diverse team of <a href=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/what-we-do/services/application-services/\">Application &amp; Data Services</a> Engineers focused on BI, Data Warehousing &amp;Data Analytics at eGroup. Ian will be presenting at VMworld this year.\r\n\r\n<b> <img alt=\"\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 38188 characters]\" /></b>\r\n\r\n<b>Chad Lanman (CL):</b> Ian, this is your second consecutive trip to SF for VMworld. How does this year compare to last year\'s event?\r\n\r\n<b>Ian Jones (IJ): </b>VMware dedicated a lot of time to explaining the vision for the software defined data center (SDDC) last year, but this year there is greater substance around the specifics and how that vision will play out. The acquisition of Nicira provided a catalyst for VMware in the software defined networking (SND) space and has accelerated the advancement for VMware in the area of heterogeneous infrastructure environments and clouds. Expect to see similar advancements and acquisitions in storage.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> <a href=\"https://vmworld2013.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5369\" target=\"_blank\">Tell us about your speaking session with</a> Ed Ricks (CIO at Beaufort Memorial Hospital) scheduled for later today (Tuesday, August 27).\r\n\r\n<strong>IJ: </strong>Sure - it\'s titled, \"Beaufort Memorial Hospital Enhances Patient Care with Secure Mobile Solutions. We\'ll be discussing how secure, one-touch roaming sessions helped to encourage use of electronic medical records (EMR) and pave the way for CPOE at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. What\'s intersting is that even though the move to EMR was a foregone conclusion from the start, PHI security and improved patient outcomes were substantial, the immediate impact on caregiver workflow had the potential to turn clinicians away. But by rethinking the way clinicians access the data they need, the IT team was able to develop an electronic system that delivered faster workflows and higher efficiency. Through a combination of virtual desktops, single sign-on and strong authentication, BMH clinicians today have secure, one-touch access to roaming sessions that follow them throughout their shifts.\r\n\r\nEd and I will describe the path that his team took to reach Stage 1 Meaningful Use and how they won over doctors and nurses by redefining the parameters of access to PHI.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL: </strong>What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?\r\n\r\n<strong>IJ:</strong> As a member of eGroup’s leadership team, I don’t spend a lot of time attending sessions, but do dedicate the majority of my time to speaking with key customers, vendors, and partners. The relationships that are fostered and strengthened at VMworld are invaluable to eGroup’s success. I very much enjoyed the time spent with Pat Gelsinger and other senior VMware leadership in several meetings during VMworld in that it helps to understand the vision and direction of VMware in the years to come. The partner ecosystem is strong and a valuable part of eGroup’s offering.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> Ian, where have you been so far? What places would you recommend for others at the event this week or planning future trips to the Bay?\r\n\r\n<strong>IJ:</strong> San Francisco offers a wide variety of world-class restaurants. eGroup organized several dinners for valued customers and partners while at VMworld that included venues in the SOMA, Financial District, and Fisherman’s Wharf areas. A particular favorite is The House of Shields which has existed in its current location since 1908. It has a fun and relatively quiet atmosphere that allows for great interaction.\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>*</b><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=66145774&amp;locale=en_US&amp;trk=tyah\"><b>Daniel Navarro</b></a><b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>(Daniel has been with eGroup for 3.5 years. Daniel began his career working with VMware in 2010 on the eGroup Inside Sales Team and now works as a territory Account Executive covering the SC &amp; Eastern NC markets). </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- I believe this is your first VMworld, correct? Imagine all of us have never been before... How would you describe the event, the venue and the crowd? </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>Yes, this is my first time to VMworld! I am pumped.  The event is filled with a wealth of knowledge around the VMware technology, strategic vision &amp; partner ecosystem.</i>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n<i>There are ample events &amp; sessions constantly running outside of the main exhibitor floor.   Until now, I haven\'t experienced many events yet other than the welcome reception on Sunday night, which was very cool!  Numerous booths with many companies I have never heard of.  I learned a lot and even ran into one of our valued customers (Phillip from Williams and Fudge) and I somehow managed to spill some beer on his shirt! Haha! Events I am going to this week include – Trend Micro Data Protection on Monday, EMC - Cisco focused sessions on Tuesday &amp; VMworld 2013 main party Wednesday!</i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?  </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>Attacking the high cost of Desktop Virtualization . The speaker is Gartner Analyst, Gunner Berger (Gunner used to work at eGroup as an Engineer) </i>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https://vmworld2013.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5369\"><i>Beaufort Memorial Hospital Enhances Patient Care with Secure Mobile Solutions</i></a><i> - speakers Ed Ricks (CIO) and Ian Jones (eGroup Application/Data Services Manager)</i>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n<i>I am really interested in sessions around cloud (building a hybrid cloud) and how that will apply to eGroup and our offerings…</i>\r\n\r\n<i>Self service backup and DR for IaaS : the service you can not live without. How to build your hybrid cloud and consume the public cloud</i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- You mentioned big plans to explore The Bay Area. Where do you think you will spend most of your free time? Any recommendations for others that will be in San Fran this week?  </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>The only exploring I have done thus far is the area surrounding the </i><a href=\"http://www.moscone.com/site/do/index\"><i>Moscone Center</i></a><i> &amp; </i><a href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/neighborhoods/sf/marina/\"><i>the Marina District</i></a><i> – I definitely recommend the Marina District.  I really would like to visit Fisherman’s Wharf!</i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<b>*</b><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=183782044&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=xn95&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575801025&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=1653&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575801025%2CVSRPtargetId%3A183782044%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Chris Ermis</b></a><b> – </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>(Chris recently joined the eGroup team in early 2013 and works out of the eGroup HQ office in Mt. Pleasant, SC as aCoastal SC Technical Consultant providing Pre-Sales Engineering, Design and Architecture Support for the field sales teams.)</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Chris, You have years of experience working with VMware\'s technology dating back to your time working in the Public Sector with SunGard. What is the single most important takeaway you are trying to obtain while at VMworld this year?</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>I am looking forward to seeing what new and innovative ideas startups are implementing in order to simplify data center administration. </i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/virtualization/vmware-launches-software-defined-data-ce/240160406\"><i>NSX. Software Defined networking</i></a><i>. One of the last untamed frontiers of Virtualization. </i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Tell us the most interesting fact, story or piece of the Bay Area during your time there so far.</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>I have been most impressed with the public transportation system – design &amp; architecture... Trains, busses, trams, and bicycles. Very well thought out and executed!</i>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>*</b><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=92525439&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=Azgf&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575826164&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=1367&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575826164%2CVSRPtargetId%3A92525439%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Dave Strum</b></a><b> – </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>(Dave works out of the Columbia, SC office as an Application Services Engineer specializing in End-User Computing and Virtual Environments. Previously, Dave worked as a Distributed Support Engineering Lead for Aetna.)</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Dave, what events have you attended previously in your career that compare to VMworld?</b><b></b>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.citrixsynergy.com/\">Citrix Synergy</a> in 2011.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?</b>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/features-drs-dpm\"><i>DRS</i></a><i>: New Features, Best Practices and Future Directions - DRS is awesome because of what it does. It has the ability to monitor your clusters in order to optimize host and vm performance.  DRS/vMotion technology is what made me fall in love with virtualization technology. </i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Being a long distance runner... Help us understand the best running routes that you have mapped throughout the city for this week.</b>\r\n\r\n<i>I have a few maps made up for this week. The coolest is the route from Moscone Center to the </i><a href=\"http://www.golden-gate-park.com/\"><i>Golden Gate Park</i></a><i>. If I feel adventurous, I might take the challenge to cross the bridge!</i>','eGroup Descends on SF for VMworld','','inherit','open','open','','8634-revision-v1','','','2013-08-27 12:43:09','2013-08-27 16:43:09','',8634,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8634-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8635,40,'2013-08-27 12:30:46','2013-08-27 16:30:46','As everyone is our market is talking about the <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;tbm=nws&amp;authuser=0&amp;q=VMworld&amp;oq=VMworld&amp;gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.42534.43599.0.43735.7.2.0.5.5.0.67.129.2.2.0...0.0...1ac.1.rcs8WuhVo6I\" target=\"_blank\">news from VMworld</a> and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=vmworld&amp;src=typd\" target=\"_blank\">Twittering on about buzz</a> happening from the show floor, we polled a few of our team members for their thoughts. Here you go!\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=31347442&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=0Nc9&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575759327&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=2747&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575759327%2CVSRPtargetId%3A31347442%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Ian Jones</b></a><b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> <img alt=\"\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 38188 characters]\" /></b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>(Profile: Ian manages a diverse team of </b><a href=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/what-we-do/services/application-services/\"><b>Application &amp; Data Services</b></a><b> Engineers focused on BI, Data Warehousing &amp;Data Analytics at eGroup. Ian will be presenting at VMworld this year.)</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Ian, this is your second consecutive trip to SF for VMworld. How does this year compare to last years event?</b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<i>VMware dedicated a lot of time to explaining the vision for the software defined data center (SDDC) last year, but this year there is greater substance around the specifics and how that vision will play out. The acquisition of Nicira provided a catalyst for VMware in the software defined networking (SND) space and has accelerated the advancement for VMware in the area of heterogeneous infrastructure environments and clouds. Expect to see similar advancements and acquisitions in storage.</i><b><i></i></b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>- Tell us about your speaking session with </b><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=11351285&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=vnfG&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575926429&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=182&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575926429%2CVSRPtargetId%3A11351285%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Ed Ricks</b></a><b> (CIO at Beaufort Memorial Hospital) scheduled for later today … </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<i>EUC5369 -</i> <a href=\"https://vmworld2013.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5369\"><i>Beaufort Memorial Hospital Enhances Patient Care with Secure Mobile Solutions</i></a><i> </i>\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li><i>o</i><i>   Moscone 2005 – 8/27 4pm PST</i></li>\r\n	<li><i>o</i><i>   Attend this session to learn how secure, one-touch roaming sessions helped to encourage use of electronic medical records (EMR) and pave the way for CPOE at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. The move to EMR was a foregone conclusion from the start at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. Yet, while the long-term benefits that a paperless environment would have on hospital efficiency, PHI security and improved patient outcomes were substantial, the immediate impact on caregiver workflow had the potential to turn clinicians away. New online systems would introduce more complex passwords to users already overburdened with remembering credentials. Multiple log ins/out, user lock-outs and time spent calling the help desk could frustrate users and jeopardize the EMR project. Any technology that reduced the amount of time spent caring for patients would be resisted by clinicians, and it was clear that electronic engagement was going to be a challenge, particularly with physicians. For Ed Ricks, Beaumont Memorial Hospital’s VP and CIO, understanding the physicians’ requirements and presenting a flexible solution that actually improved their productivity - while at the same time securing patient data - was key to their engagement, and ultimately attesting for Meaningful Use. By rethinking the way clinicians access the data they need, the IT team was able to develop an electronic system that delivered faster workflows and higher efficiency. Through a combination of virtual desktops, single sign-on and strong authentication, clinicians today have secure, one-touch access to roaming sessions that follow them throughout their shifts. Users access data at standalone office PCs, generic shared workstations, and virtual roaming desktops. They log in once at the start of their shifts, and move throughout their day during a predefined grace period, logging in and out of their sessions with a simple tap of their employee ID badges. In this presentation, Ricks will describe the path that his team took to reach Stage 1 Meaningful Use and how they won over doctors and nurses by redefining the parameters of access to PHI.</i></li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>- What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?</b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<i>As a member of eGroup’s leadership team, I don’t spend a lot of time attending sessions, but do dedicate the majority of my time to speaking with key customers, vendors, and partners. The relationships that are fostered and strengthened at VMworld are invaluable to eGroup’s success. I very much enjoyed the time spent with Pat Gelsinger and other senior VMware leadership in several meetings during VMworld in that it helps to understand the vision and direction of VMware in the years to come. The partner ecosystem is strong and a valuable part of eGroup’s offering.</i>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>- Ian, where have you been so far? What places would you recommend for others at the event this week or planning future trips to the Bay?</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<i>San Francisco offers a wide variety of world-class restaurants. eGroup organized several dinners for valued customers and partners while at VMworld that included venues in the SOMA, Financial District, and Fisherman’s Wharf areas. A particular favorite is The House of Shields which has existed in its current location since 1908. It has a fun and relatively quiet atmosphere that allows for great interaction.</i><i></i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>*</b><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=66145774&amp;locale=en_US&amp;trk=tyah\"><b>Daniel Navarro</b></a><b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>(Daniel has been with eGroup for 3.5 years. Daniel began his career working with VMware in 2010 on the eGroup Inside Sales Team and now works as a territory Account Executive covering the SC &amp; Eastern NC markets). </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- I believe this is your first VMworld, correct? Imagine all of us have never been before... How would you describe the event, the venue and the crowd? </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>Yes, this is my first time to VMworld! I am pumped.  The event is filled with a wealth of knowledge around the VMware technology, strategic vision &amp; partner ecosystem.</i>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n<i>There are ample events &amp; sessions constantly running outside of the main exhibitor floor.   Until now, I haven\'t experienced many events yet other than the welcome reception on Sunday night, which was very cool!  Numerous booths with many companies I have never heard of.  I learned a lot and even ran into one of our valued customers (Phillip from Williams and Fudge) and I somehow managed to spill some beer on his shirt! Haha! Events I am going to this week include – Trend Micro Data Protection on Monday, EMC - Cisco focused sessions on Tuesday &amp; VMworld 2013 main party Wednesday!</i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?  </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>Attacking the high cost of Desktop Virtualization . The speaker is Gartner Analyst, Gunner Berger (Gunner used to work at eGroup as an Engineer) </i>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https://vmworld2013.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5369\"><i>Beaufort Memorial Hospital Enhances Patient Care with Secure Mobile Solutions</i></a><i> - speakers Ed Ricks (CIO) and Ian Jones (eGroup Application/Data Services Manager)</i>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n<i>I am really interested in sessions around cloud (building a hybrid cloud) and how that will apply to eGroup and our offerings…</i>\r\n\r\n<i>Self service backup and DR for IaaS : the service you can not live without. How to build your hybrid cloud and consume the public cloud</i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- You mentioned big plans to explore The Bay Area. Where do you think you will spend most of your free time? Any recommendations for others that will be in San Fran this week?  </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>The only exploring I have done thus far is the area surrounding the </i><a href=\"http://www.moscone.com/site/do/index\"><i>Moscone Center</i></a><i> &amp; </i><a href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/neighborhoods/sf/marina/\"><i>the Marina District</i></a><i> – I definitely recommend the Marina District.  I really would like to visit Fisherman’s Wharf!\r\n\r\n</i>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<b>*</b><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=183782044&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=xn95&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575801025&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=1653&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575801025%2CVSRPtargetId%3A183782044%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Chris Ermis</b></a><b> – </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>(Chris recently joined the eGroup team in early 2013 and works out of the eGroup HQ office in Mt. Pleasant, SC as aCoastal SC Technical Consultant providing Pre-Sales Engineering, Design and Architecture Support for the field sales teams.)</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Chris, You have years of experience working with VMware\'s technology dating back to your time working in the Public Sector with SunGard. What is the single most important takeaway you are trying to obtain while at VMworld this year?</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>I am looking forward to seeing what new and innovative ideas startups are implementing in order to simplify data center administration. </i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/virtualization/vmware-launches-software-defined-data-ce/240160406\"><i>NSX. Software Defined networking</i></a><i>. One of the last untamed frontiers of Virtualization. </i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Tell us the most interesting fact, story or piece of the Bay Area during your time there so far.</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>I have been most impressed with the public transportation system – design &amp; architecture... Trains, busses, trams, and bicycles. Very well thought out and executed!</i>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>*</b><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=92525439&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=Azgf&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575826164&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=1367&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575826164%2CVSRPtargetId%3A92525439%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Dave Strum</b></a><b> – </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>(Dave works out of the Columbia, SC office as an Application Services Engineer specializing in End-User Computing and Virtual Environments. Previously, Dave worked as a Distributed Support Engineering Lead for Aetna.)</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Dave, what events have you attended previously in your career that compare to VMworld?</b><b></b>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.citrixsynergy.com/\">Citrix Synergy</a> in 2011.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?</b>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/features-drs-dpm\"><i>DRS</i></a><i>: New Features, Best Practices and Future Directions - DRS is awesome because of what it does. It has the ability to monitor your clusters in order to optimize host and vm performance.  DRS/vMotion technology is what made me fall in love with virtualization technology. </i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Being a long distance runner... Help us understand the best running routes that you have mapped throughout the city for this week.</b>\r\n\r\n<i>I have a few maps made up for this week. The coolest is the route from Moscone Center to the </i><a href=\"http://www.golden-gate-park.com/\"><i>Golden Gate Park</i></a><i>. If I feel adventurous, I might take the challenge to cross the bridge!</i>','eGroup Descends on SF for VMworld','','inherit','open','open','','8634-revision-v1','','','2013-08-27 12:30:46','2013-08-27 16:30:46','',8634,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8634-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8636,40,'2013-08-28 13:01:24','2013-08-28 17:01:24','As everyone is talking about the <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;tbm=nws&amp;authuser=0&amp;q=VMworld&amp;oq=VMworld&amp;gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.42534.43599.0.43735.7.2.0.5.5.0.67.129.2.2.0...0.0...1ac.1.rcs8WuhVo6I\" target=\"_blank\">news from VMworld</a> and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=vmworld&amp;src=typd\" target=\"_blank\">Twittering on about buzz</a> happening from the show floor, we polled a few of our team members for their thoughts. Here\'s a quick Q&amp;A.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=31347442&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=0Nc9&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575759327&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=2747&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575759327%2CVSRPtargetId%3A31347442%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Ian Jones</b></a><b>: </b>Ian manages a diverse team of <a href=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/what-we-do/services/application-services/\">Application &amp; Data Services</a> Engineers focused on BI, Data Warehousing &amp;Data Analytics at eGroup. Ian will be presenting at VMworld this year.\r\n\r\n<b> <img alt=\"\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 38188 characters]\" /></b>\r\n\r\n<strong>Chad Lanman (CL): </strong>Ian, this is your second consecutive trip to SF for VMworld. How does this year compare to last year\'s event?\r\n\r\n<strong>Ian Jones (IJ): </strong>VMware dedicated a lot of time to explaining the vision for the software defined data center (SDDC) last year, but this year there is greater substance around the specifics and how that vision will play out. The acquisition of Nicira provided a catalyst for VMware in the software defined networking (SND) space and has accelerated the advancement for VMware in the area of heterogeneous infrastructure environments and clouds. Expect to see similar advancements and acquisitions in storage.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> <a href=\"https://vmworld2013.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5369\" target=\"_blank\">Tell us about your speaking session with</a> Ed Ricks (CIO at Beaufort Memorial Hospital) scheduled for later today (Tuesday, August 27).\r\n\r\n<strong>IJ: </strong>Sure - it\'s titled, \"Beaufort Memorial Hospital Enhances Patient Care with Secure Mobile Solutions. We\'ll be discussing how secure, one-touch roaming sessions helped to encourage use of electronic medical records (EMR) and pave the way for CPOE at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. What\'s intersting is that even though the move to EMR was a foregone conclusion from the start, PHI security and improved patient outcomes were substantial, the immediate impact on caregiver workflow had the potential to turn clinicians away. But by rethinking the way clinicians access the data they need, the IT team was able to develop an electronic system that delivered faster workflows and higher efficiency. Through a combination of virtual desktops, single sign-on and strong authentication, BMH clinicians today have secure, one-touch access to roaming sessions that follow them throughout their shifts.\r\n\r\nEd and I will describe the path that his team took to reach Stage 1 Meaningful Use and how they won over doctors and nurses by redefining the parameters of access to PHI.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL: </strong>What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?\r\n\r\n<strong>IJ:</strong> As a member of eGroup’s leadership team, I don’t spend a lot of time attending sessions, but do dedicate the majority of my time to speaking with key customers, vendors, and partners. The relationships that are fostered and strengthened at VMworld are invaluable to eGroup’s success. I very much enjoyed the time spent with Pat Gelsinger and other senior VMware leadership in several meetings during VMworld in that it helps to understand the vision and direction of VMware in the years to come. The partner ecosystem is strong and a valuable part of eGroup’s offering.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> Ian, where have you been so far? What places would you recommend for others at the event this week or planning future trips to the Bay?\r\n\r\n<strong>IJ:</strong> San Francisco offers a wide variety of world-class restaurants. eGroup organized several dinners for valued customers and partners while at VMworld that included venues in the SOMA, Financial District, and Fisherman’s Wharf areas. A particular favorite is The House of Shields which has existed in its current location since 1908. It has a fun and relatively quiet atmosphere that allows for great interaction.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=66145774&amp;locale=en_US&amp;trk=tyah\"><b>Daniel Navarro</b></a><strong>:</strong> Daniel has been with eGroup for nearly four years. He began his career working with VMware in 2010 on the eGroup Inside Sales Team and now works as a territory Account Executive covering the SC &amp; Eastern NC markets.\r\n\r\n<b> <img alt=\"\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 40704 characters]\" /></b>\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> I believe this is your first VMworld, correct? Imagine all of us have never been before... How would you describe the event, the venue and the crowd?\r\n\r\n<strong>Daniel Navarro (DN):</strong> Yes, this is my first time to VMworld! I am pumped. The event is filled with a wealth of knowledge around the VMware technology, strategic vision &amp; partner ecosystem.\r\n\r\nThere are ample events and sessions constantly running outside of the main exhibitor floor. Until now, I haven\'t experienced many events yet other than the welcome reception on Sunday night, which was very cool! Numerous booths with many companies I have never heard of. I learned a lot and even ran into one of our valued customers (Phillip from Williams and Fudge) and I somehow managed to spill some beer on his shirt - oops! I plan to attend the following this week – Trend Micro Data Protection on Monday, EMC - Cisco focused sessions on Tuesday  and VMworld 2013 main party Wednesday, among others.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?<b>  </b>\r\n\r\n<strong>DN:</strong> Attacking the high cost of Desktop Virtualization. The speaker is Gartner Analyst, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/gunnarwb\" target=\"_blank\">Gunnar Berger</a> (Gunnar used to work at eGroup as an Engineer). <a href=\"https://vmworld2013.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5369\">Beaufort Memorial Hospital Enhances Patient Care with Secure Mobile Solutions</a> with speakers Ed Ricks (CIO) and Ian Jones (eGroup Application/Data Services Manager). I am really interested in sessions around cloud (building a hybrid cloud) and how that will apply to eGroup and our offerings.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> You mentioned big plans to explore The Bay Area. Where do you think you will spend most of your free time? Any recommendations for others that will be in San Fran this week?\r\n\r\n<strong>DN:</strong> The only exploring I have done thus far is the area surrounding the <a href=\"http://www.moscone.com/site/do/index\">Moscone Center</a> &amp; <a href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/neighborhoods/sf/marina/\">the Marina District. </a>I definitely recommend the Marina District. I really would like to visit Fisherman’s Wharf if I have time!\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=183782044&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=xn95&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575801025&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=1653&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575801025%2CVSRPtargetId%3A183782044%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Chris Ermis</b></a><strong>:</strong> Chris joined the eGroup team in early 2013 and works out of the eGroup HQ office in Mt. Pleasant, SC as a Coastal SC Technical Consultant providing Pre-Sales Engineering, Design and Architecture Support for the field sales teams.\r\n\r\n<img alt=\"\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 35992 characters]\" />\r\n\r\n<b>CL: </b>Chris, you have years of experience working with VMware\'s technology dating back to your time working in the Public Sector with SunGard. What is the single most important takeaway you are trying to obtain while at VMworld this year?\r\n\r\n<strong>Chris Ermis (CE):</strong> I am looking forward to seeing what new and innovative ideas that startups are implementing in order to simplify data center administration.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> What session are you looking forward to the most and why?\r\n\r\n<strong>CE:</strong> There are so many! But definitely looking forward to <a href=\"http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/virtualization/vmware-launches-software-defined-data-ce/240160406\">NSX. Software Defined networking, o</a>ne of the last untamed frontiers of Virtualization.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> Tell us the most interesting fact, story or piece of the Bay Area during your time there so far.\r\n\r\n<strong>CE:</strong> I have been most impressed with the public transportation system – design and architecture. Trains, buses, trams, and bicycles. Very well thought out and executed!<i></i>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=92525439&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=Azgf&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575826164&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=1367&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575826164%2CVSRPtargetId%3A92525439%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Dave Strum</b></a><b>:</b> Dave works out of the Columbia, SC office as an Application Services Engineer specializing in End-User Computing and Virtual Environments. Previously, Dave worked as a Distributed Support Engineering Lead for Aetna.\r\n\r\n<img alt=\"\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 61144 characters]\" />\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> Dave, what events have you attended previously in your career that compare to VMworld?\r\n\r\n<strong>Dave Strum (DS):</strong> <a href=\"http://www.citrixsynergy.com/\">Citrix Synergy</a> in 2011.\r\n\r\n<b>CL: </b>What session are you looking forward to the most and why?\r\n\r\n<strong>DS:</strong> <a href=\"http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/features-drs-dpm\">DRS</a>: New Features, Best Practices and Future Directions - DRS is awesome because of what it does. It has the ability to monitor your clusters in order to optimize host and vm performance. DRS/vMotion technology is what made me fall in love with virtualization technology.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> Being a long distance runner, help us understand the best running routes that you have mapped throughout the city for this week.\r\n\r\n<strong>DS:</strong> I have a few maps made up for this week. The coolest is the route from Moscone Center to the <a href=\"http://www.golden-gate-park.com/\">Golden Gate Park</a>. If I feel adventurous, I might take the challenge to cross the bridge!','eGroup Descends on SF for VMworld','','inherit','open','open','','8634-autosave-v1','','','2013-08-28 13:01:25','2013-08-28 17:01:25','',8634,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8634-autosave-v1/',0,'revision','',0),(8638,40,'2013-08-27 12:53:34','2013-08-27 16:53:34','As everyone is talking about the <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;tbm=nws&amp;authuser=0&amp;q=VMworld&amp;oq=VMworld&amp;gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.42534.43599.0.43735.7.2.0.5.5.0.67.129.2.2.0...0.0...1ac.1.rcs8WuhVo6I\" target=\"_blank\">news from VMworld</a> and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=vmworld&amp;src=typd\" target=\"_blank\">Twittering on about buzz</a> happening from the show floor, we polled a few of our team members for their thoughts. Here\'s a quick Q&amp;A.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=31347442&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=0Nc9&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575759327&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=2747&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575759327%2CVSRPtargetId%3A31347442%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Ian Jones</b></a><b>: </b>Ian manages a diverse team of <a href=\"http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/what-we-do/services/application-services/\">Application &amp; Data Services</a> Engineers focused on BI, Data Warehousing &amp;Data Analytics at eGroup. Ian will be presenting at VMworld this year.\r\n\r\n<b> <img alt=\"\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 38188 characters]\" /></b>\r\n\r\n<b>Chad Lanman (CL):</b> Ian, this is your second consecutive trip to SF for VMworld. How does this year compare to last year\'s event?\r\n\r\n<b>Ian Jones (IJ): </b>VMware dedicated a lot of time to explaining the vision for the software defined data center (SDDC) last year, but this year there is greater substance around the specifics and how that vision will play out. The acquisition of Nicira provided a catalyst for VMware in the software defined networking (SND) space and has accelerated the advancement for VMware in the area of heterogeneous infrastructure environments and clouds. Expect to see similar advancements and acquisitions in storage.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> <a href=\"https://vmworld2013.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5369\" target=\"_blank\">Tell us about your speaking session with</a> Ed Ricks (CIO at Beaufort Memorial Hospital) scheduled for later today (Tuesday, August 27).\r\n\r\n<strong>IJ: </strong>Sure - it\'s titled, \"Beaufort Memorial Hospital Enhances Patient Care with Secure Mobile Solutions. We\'ll be discussing how secure, one-touch roaming sessions helped to encourage use of electronic medical records (EMR) and pave the way for CPOE at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. What\'s intersting is that even though the move to EMR was a foregone conclusion from the start, PHI security and improved patient outcomes were substantial, the immediate impact on caregiver workflow had the potential to turn clinicians away. But by rethinking the way clinicians access the data they need, the IT team was able to develop an electronic system that delivered faster workflows and higher efficiency. Through a combination of virtual desktops, single sign-on and strong authentication, BMH clinicians today have secure, one-touch access to roaming sessions that follow them throughout their shifts.\r\n\r\nEd and I will describe the path that his team took to reach Stage 1 Meaningful Use and how they won over doctors and nurses by redefining the parameters of access to PHI.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL: </strong>What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?\r\n\r\n<strong>IJ:</strong> As a member of eGroup’s leadership team, I don’t spend a lot of time attending sessions, but do dedicate the majority of my time to speaking with key customers, vendors, and partners. The relationships that are fostered and strengthened at VMworld are invaluable to eGroup’s success. I very much enjoyed the time spent with Pat Gelsinger and other senior VMware leadership in several meetings during VMworld in that it helps to understand the vision and direction of VMware in the years to come. The partner ecosystem is strong and a valuable part of eGroup’s offering.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> Ian, where have you been so far? What places would you recommend for others at the event this week or planning future trips to the Bay?\r\n\r\n<strong>IJ:</strong> San Francisco offers a wide variety of world-class restaurants. eGroup organized several dinners for valued customers and partners while at VMworld that included venues in the SOMA, Financial District, and Fisherman’s Wharf areas. A particular favorite is The House of Shields which has existed in its current location since 1908. It has a fun and relatively quiet atmosphere that allows for great interaction.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=66145774&amp;locale=en_US&amp;trk=tyah\"><b>Daniel Navarro</b></a><strong>:</strong> Daniel has been with eGroup for nearly four years. He began his career working with VMware in 2010 on the eGroup Inside Sales Team and now works as a territory Account Executive covering the SC &amp; Eastern NC markets.\r\n\r\n<b> <img alt=\"\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 40704 characters]\" /></b>\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> I believe this is your first VMworld, correct? Imagine all of us have never been before... How would you describe the event, the venue and the crowd?\r\n\r\n<strong>Daniel Navarro (DN):</strong> Yes, this is my first time to VMworld! I am pumped. The event is filled with a wealth of knowledge around the VMware technology, strategic vision &amp; partner ecosystem.\r\n\r\nThere are ample events and sessions constantly running outside of the main exhibitor floor. Until now, I haven\'t experienced many events yet other than the welcome reception on Sunday night, which was very cool! Numerous booths with many companies I have never heard of. I learned a lot and even ran into one of our valued customers (Phillip from Williams and Fudge) and I somehow managed to spill some beer on his shirt - oops! I plan to attend the following this week – Trend Micro Data Protection on Monday, EMC - Cisco focused sessions on Tuesday  and VMworld 2013 main party Wednesday, among others.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?<b>  </b>\r\n\r\n<strong>DN:</strong> Attacking the high cost of Desktop Virtualization. The speaker is Gartner Analyst, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/gunnarwb\" target=\"_blank\">Gunnar Berger</a> (Gunnar used to work at eGroup as an Engineer). <a href=\"https://vmworld2013.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5369\">Beaufort Memorial Hospital Enhances Patient Care with Secure Mobile Solutions</a> with speakers Ed Ricks (CIO) and Ian Jones (eGroup Application/Data Services Manager). I am really interested in sessions around cloud (building a hybrid cloud) and how that will apply to eGroup and our offerings.\r\n\r\n<strong>CL:</strong> You mentioned big plans to explore The Bay Area. Where do you think you will spend most of your free time? Any recommendations for others that will be in San Fran this week?\r\n\r\n<strong>DN:</strong> The only exploring I have done thus far is the area surrounding the <a href=\"http://www.moscone.com/site/do/index\">Moscone Center</a> &amp; <a href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/neighborhoods/sf/marina/\">the Marina District. </a>I definitely recommend the Marina District. I really would like to visit Fisherman’s Wharf if I have time!\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=183782044&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=xn95&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575801025&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=1653&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575801025%2CVSRPtargetId%3A183782044%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Chris Ermis</b></a><strong>:</strong> Chris joined the eGroup team in early 2013 and works out of the eGroup HQ office in Mt. Pleasant, SC as a Coastal SC Technical Consultant providing Pre-Sales Engineering, Design and Architecture Support for the field sales teams.\r\n\r\n<img alt=\"\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,[encoded data, 35992 characters]\" />\r\n\r\n<b>CL: </b>Chris, You have years of experience working with VMware\'s technology dating back to your time working in the Public Sector with SunGard. What is the single most important takeaway you are trying to obtain while at VMworld this year?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>I am looking forward to seeing what new and innovative ideas startups are implementing in order to simplify data center administration. </i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/virtualization/vmware-launches-software-defined-data-ce/240160406\"><i>NSX. Software Defined networking</i></a><i>. One of the last untamed frontiers of Virtualization. </i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Tell us the most interesting fact, story or piece of the Bay Area during your time there so far.</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<i>I have been most impressed with the public transportation system – design &amp; architecture... Trains, busses, trams, and bicycles. Very well thought out and executed!</i>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<i> </i>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>*</b><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=92525439&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=Azgf&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=149251911377575826164&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=1367&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A149251911377575826164%2CVSRPtargetId%3A92525439%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary\"><b>Dave Strum</b></a><b> – </b>\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b> </b>\r\n\r\n<b>(Dave works out of the Columbia, SC office as an Application Services Engineer specializing in End-User Computing and Virtual Environments. Previously, Dave worked as a Distributed Support Engineering Lead for Aetna.)</b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Dave, what events have you attended previously in your career that compare to VMworld?</b><b></b>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.citrixsynergy.com/\">Citrix Synergy</a> in 2011.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- What session are you looking forward to the most &amp; why?</b>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/features-drs-dpm\"><i>DRS</i></a><i>: New Features, Best Practices and Future Directions - DRS is awesome because of what it does. It has the ability to monitor your clusters in order to optimize host and vm performance.  DRS/vMotion technology is what made me fall in love with virtualization technology. </i>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<b>- Being a long distance runner... Help us understand the best running routes that you have mapped throughout the city for this week.</b>\r\n\r\n<i>I have a few maps made up for this week. The coolest is the route from Moscone Center to the </i><a href=\"http://www.golden-gate-park.com/\"><i>Golden Gate Park</i></a><i>. If I feel adventurous, I might take the challenge to cross the bridge!</i>','eGroup Descends on SF for VMworld','','inherit','open','open','','8634-revision-v1','','','2013-08-27 12:53:34','2013-08-27 16:53:34','',8634,'http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/2013/08/8634-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
