Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials

 

Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials allows you to deliver Windows applications and shared hosted desktops from Microsoft Azure to any user on any device. The service combines the industry-leading Citrix Virtual Apps service with the power and flexibility of Microsoft Azure. You can also use Virtual Apps Essentials to publish Windows Server desktops.

Server OS machines run multiple sessions from a single machine to deliver multiple applications and desktops to multiple, simultaneously connected users. Each user requires a single session from which they can run all their hosted applications.

The service is delivered through Citrix Cloud and helps you to deploy your application workloads within your Azure subscription with ease. When users open applications from the workspace experience, the application appears to run locally on the user computer. Users can access their apps securely from any device, anywhere.

Virtual Apps Essentials includes the workspace experience and the Citrix Gateway service, in addition to its core management services. Your app workloads run in your Azure subscription.

Deployment architecture

The following diagram shows an architectural overview of a basic Virtual Apps Essentials cloud deployment: 

You can also allow users to connect to your on-premises data center. Connections between the Azure cloud and your on-premises data center occur through a VPN connection. Users connect through Virtual Apps Essentials to your license server, file servers, or Active Directory over the VPN connection. 

Deployment summary

Follow these steps to deploy Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials:

• Buy Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials from the Azure Marketplace.
• Prepare and link your Azure subscription.
• Create and upload your master image.
• Deploy a catalog, publish apps and desktops, and assign subscribers

What’s new

• December 2018: Cloud-hosted StoreFront removed

  Cloud-hosted StoreFront is no longer available for use with Virtual Desktops Essentials. Customers who purchased Virtual Desktops Essentials (formerly XenDesktop Essentials) before December 2017 can use Citrix Workspace as described in this article to provide subscriber access to desktops.

• August 2018: New product names

  If you’ve been a Citrix customer or partner for a while, you’ll notice new names in our products and product documentation. If you’re new to this Citrix product, you might see different names for a product or component.

  The new product and component names stem from the expanding Citrix portfolio and cloud strategy. This article uses the following names.

  • Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials: XenApp is part of our workspace strategy, where many types of apps come together in the preferred place to access work tools. As part of a unified, contextual, secure workspace, XenApp Essentials is now Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials.

  • Citrix Workspace app: The Citrix Workspace app incorporates existing Citrix Receiver technology as well as the other Citrix Workspace client technologies. It has been enhanced to deliver more capabilities to provide end users with a unified, contextual experience where they can interact with all the work apps, files, and devices they need to do their best work.

  • Citrix Gateway: The NetScaler Unified Gateway, which allows secure, contextual access to the apps and data you need to do your best work, is now Citrix Gateway.

  In-product content might still contain former names. For example, you might see instances of earlier names in console text, messages, and directory/file names. It is possible that some items (such as commands and MSIs) might continue to retain their former names to prevent breaking existing customer scripts.

  Related product documentation, other resources (such as videos and blog posts), and other sites (such as Azure Marketplace) might still contain former names. Your patience during this transition is appreciated. For more detail about our new names, see https://www.citrix.com/about/citrix-product-guide.html.

• May 2018: Building additional images from the Virtual Apps Essentials interface

  After creating a production image from the Azure Resource Manager interface, you can create additional images through Azure, as needed. Now, as an optional alternative to creating additional images through the Azure interface, you can build a new master image from the Virtual Apps Essentials interface. For details, see Prepare and upload a master image.

• May 2018: Monitor display enhancements

  The Monitor display now includes usage information about applications and top users. For details, see Monitor the service.

System requirements

Microsoft Azure

Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials supports configuring machines only through Azure Resource Manager.

Use Azure Resource Manager to:

• Deploy resources such as virtual machines (VMs), storage accounts, and a virtual network.
• Create and manage the resource group (a container for resources that you want to manage as a group).

To provision and deploy resources in Microsoft Azure, you need:

• An Azure account.
• An Azure Resource Manager subscription.
• An Azure Active Directory global administrator account in the directory associated with your subscription. The user account must have Owner permission for the Azure subscription to use for provisioning resources. For more information about how to set up an Azure Active Directory tenant, see How to get an Azure Active Directory tenant.

Citrix Cloud

Virtual Apps Essentials is delivered through Citrix Cloud and requires a Citrix Cloud account to complete the onboarding process. You can create a Citrix Cloud account on the Citrix Cloud Sign Up page before going to Azure Marketplace to complete the transaction.

The Citrix Cloud account you use cannot be affiliated with an existing Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) or Citrix Virtual Desktops Essentials service account.

Virtual Apps Essentials console

You can open the Virtual Apps Essentials administration console in the Google Chrome web browser.

Known issues

Virtual Apps Essentials has the following known issues:

• On Windows Server 2019 VDAs, some application icons might not appear correctly during configuration and in the users’ workspace. As a workaround, after the app is published, use the Change icon feature to assign a different icon that displays correctly.
• If you use Azure AD Domain Services: Workspace logon UPNs must contain the domain name that was specified when enabling Azure AD Domain Services. Logons cannot use UPNs for a custom domain you create, even if that custom domain is designated as primary.
• When you configure users for a catalog and select a domain, you can see and choose the users from the Builtin\users group.
• Creating the catalog fails if the virtual machine size is not available for the selected region. To check the virtual machines that are available in your area, see the chart at Products available by region on the Microsoft website.
• You cannot create and publish multiple instances of the same app from the Start menu at the same time. For example, from the Start menu you publish Internet Explorer. Then, you want to publish a second instance of Internet Explorer that opens a specific website on startup. To do so, publish the second app by using the path for the app instead of the Start menu.
• Virtual Apps Essentials supports linking a subscription by using an Azure Active Directory user account. Virtual Apps Essentials does not support Live.com authenticated accounts.
• Users cannot start an application if there is an existing Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) session on the VDA. This behavior only happens if the RDP session starts when no other users are logged on to the VDA.
• You cannot enter a license server address longer than server.domain.subdomain.
• If you perform multiple sequential updates to capacity management, there is a possibility that the updated settings do not properly propagate to the VDAs.
• If you use a non-English web browser, the text appears as a combination of English and the browser language.

How to buy the service

NOTE:

The information in this section is also available as a PDF. That content contains earlier product names.

Buy Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials directly from the Azure Marketplace, using your Microsoft Azure account. Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials requires at least 25 users.

The service is delivered through Citrix Cloud and requires a Citrix Cloud account to complete the onboarding process. See System requirements > Citrix Cloud for details.

When buying Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials, ensure that you enter correct information for all details, including address fields, to ensure fast processing of your order. Before you configure Virtual Apps Essentials, ensure that you complete the following in the Azure Marketplace:

• Provide contact information and your company details.
• Provide your billing information.
• Create your subscription.

To configure the customer and pricing:

1. In Select a customer, select the customer name.
2. Under Pricing, in Number of users, type the number of users who have access to Virtual Apps Essentials.
3. Under Price per month, select the agreement check box and then click Create.

The summary page appears and shows the details of the resource.

After your account is provisioned, click Manage through Citrix Cloud.

IMPORTANT:

Wait for Microsoft Azure to provision your service. Do not click the Manage through Citrix Cloud link until provisioning is complete. This process can take up to four hours.

When you click the link, Citrix Cloud opens in the web browser, and you can begin the configuration process described below.

Prepare your Azure subscription

Choose your Azure subscription to be the host connection for your VDAs and related resources. These resources can incur charges based on your consumption.

NOTE:

This service requires you to log on with an Azure Active Directory account. Virtual Apps Essentials does not support other account types, such as live.com.

To prepare your Azure subscription, configure the following in Azure Resource Manager:

1. Create a resource group and provide:

   • Resource group name
   • Subscription name
   • Location
2. In Azure Resource Manager, create a virtual network in the resource group and provide a name for the network. You can leave all other default settings. You create a storage account when you create the master image.
3. Use an existing domain controller or create one. If you create a domain controller:
   1. Use the A3 Standard or any other size Windows Server 2012 R2 virtual machine in the Resource Group and virtual network. This virtual machine becomes the domain controller. If you plan to create multiple domain controllers, create an availability set and put all the domain controllers in this set.
   2. Assign a private static IP address to the network adapter of the virtual machine. You can assign the address in the Azure portal. For more information, see Configure private IP addresses for a virtual machine using the Azure portal on the Microsoft documentation website.
   3. [Optional] Attach a new data disk to the virtual machine to store the Active Directory users and Groups and any Active Directory logs. For more information, see Attach a managed data disk to a Windows VM by using the Azure portal. When you attach the disk, select all the default options to complete the settings.
   4. Add the domain controller virtual machine’s private IP address to the virtual network DNS server. For more information, see Manage DNS servers used by a virtual network (Classic) using the Azure portal (Classic).
   5. Add a public DNS server in addition to the Microsoft DNS server. Use the IP address 168.63.129.16 for the second DNS server.
   6. Add the Active Directory Domain Services role to the domain controller virtual machine. When this step is complete, promote the domain controller virtual machine to a domain controller and DNS.
   7. Create a forest and add some Active Directory users. For more information, see Install a new Active Directory forest on an Azure virtual network.

If you prefer to use Azure Active Directory Domain Services instead of a domain controller, Citrix recommends reviewing the documentation Azure Active Directory Domain Services for Beginners on the Microsoft website.

Link Your Azure subscription

In Citrix Cloud, link your Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials to your Azure subscription.

1. Sign in to Citrix Cloud. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. On the Manage tab, click Azure Subscriptions.
3. Click Add Subscription. The Azure portal opens.
4. Log on to your Azure subscription with your global administrator Azure credentials.
5. Click Accept to allow Virtual Apps Essentials to access your Azure account. The subscriptions available in your account are listed.
6. Select the subscription you want to use and then click Link.
7. Return to the Virtual Apps Essentials console to see the subscription in a linked state.

After you link your Azure subscription to Virtual Apps Essentials, upload your master image.

Prepare and upload a master image

Catalog creation uses a master image to deploy VMs containing applications and desktops. This can be a master image you prepare (with applications and VDA installed), or an image prepared by Citrix. For production deployments, Citrix recommends preparing and using your own master image. Citrix-prepared images are intended only for pilot or test deployments.

The first production image must be prepared from the Azure Resource Manager interface. Later, you can create additional images through Azure, as needed.

As an alternative to creating additional images through the Azure interface, you can build a new master image from the Virtual Apps Essentials interface.

• This method uses a previously created master image. You can obtain the network settings from an existing catalog or manually specify them.

• After you use an existing master image to create a new image, you connect to the new image and customize it, adding or removing apps that were copied from the template. The VDA is already installed, so you don’t have to do that again.

• This method lets you stay with the Essentials service. You don’t need to navigate to Azure to create the new image, and then return to the Essentials service to import the image.

For example, let’s say you have a catalog named HR that uses a master image containing several HR apps. Recently, a new app released that you want to make available to the HR catalog users. Using the build-an-image feature in Virtual Apps Essentials, you select the current master image as a template to create a new master image. You also select the HR catalog so that the new master image uses the same network connection settings. After the initial image setup, install the new app on the new image. After testing, update the HR catalog with the new master image, making it available to that catalog’s users. The original HR master image is retained in the My Images list, in case it’s ever needed again.

The following sections describe how to prepare and upload a master image through the Azure interface. For details about building an image from within Virtual Apps Essentials, see Prepare a master image in Virtual Apps Essentials.

Procedure summary

1. Prepare a master image VM in Azure or Virtual Apps Essentials.
2. Install apps on the master image.
3. Install a Citrix VDA on the master image.
4. Upload the master image from Azure Resource Manager to Virtual Apps Essentials (if needed).

Citrix recommends installing the latest Current Release (CR) of the server VDA or the latest Cumulative Update (CU) for Server VDA 7.15 Long Term Service Release (LTSR) on Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2012 R2 machines. If you have a Windows Server 2008 R2 machine, you must install server VDA 7.15 LTSR (latest CU recommended), which is also available on the download page. See Lifecycle Policy for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Service to learn about the lifecycle policy for CR and LTSR VDAs.

Create a master image VM in Azure

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
2. Click Create a Resource in the navigation pane. Select or search for a Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 R2, or Windows Server 2016 entry. Click Create. 

3. On the Create virtual machine page, in panel 1 Basics:

   1. Enter a name for the VM.
   2. Select a VM disk type (optional). Create a standard disk.
   3. Enter the local user name and password, and confirm the password.
   4. Select your subscription.
   5. Create a new resource group or select an existing resource group.
   6. Select the location.
   7. Select the resource group and location.
   8. Choose whether you will use a Windows license that you already own.
   9. Click OK.

   

4. On the Create virtual machine page, in panel 2 Size, choose the virtual machine size:

   1. Select a VM type, then indicate the minimum number of vCPUs and minimum memory. The recommended choices are displayed. You can also display all choices.
   2. Choose a size and then click Select. 

5. On the Create virtual machine page, In panel 3 Settings:

   1. Indicate whether you want to use high availability.
   2. Provide the virtual network name, subnet, public IP address, and network security.
   3. Optionally, select extensions.
   4. Enable or disable auto-shutdown, monitoring (boot diagnostics, guest OS diagnostics, diagnostics storage account).
   5. Enable or disable backup.
   6. Click OK. 
6. In panel 4 Summary, click OK to begin creation of the VM.

Do not Sysprep the image.

Install apps on the master image

On the master image VM you just created, add the apps that will be available to users when they log on with the workspace URL. (Later, after you create the catalog that uses this master image, you’ll specify exactly which of these apps will be available to the users you specify.)

1. Connect to the master image VM after you create it and while it is running.
2. Install applications.

Install a VDA on the master image

1. Connect to the master image VM (if you’re not already connected).
2. You can download a VDA for Server OS by using the Downloads link on the Citrix Cloud navigation bar. Or, use a browser to navigate to the Citrix DaaS download page. Download a VDA for Server OS onto the VM. (See guidance above for VDA version information.)
3. Launch the VDA installer by double-clicking the downloaded file. The installation wizard launches.
4. On the Environment page, select Create a master image using MCS and then click Next.
5. On the Core Components page, click Next.
6. On the Delivery Controller page, select Let Machine Creation Services do it automatically and then click Next.
7. Leave the default settings on the Additional Components, Features, and Firewall pages, unless Citrix instructs you otherwise. Click Next on each page.
8. On the Summary page, click Install. Prerequisites begin to install. When prompted to restart, agree.
9. The VDA installation resumes automatically. Prerequisite installation completes and then the components and features are installed. On the Call Home page, leave the default setting (unless Citrix instructs you otherwise), and then click Next.
10. Click Finish. The machine restarts automatically.
11. To ensure that the configuration is correct, launch one or more of the applications you installed.
12. Shut down the VM. Do not Sysprep the image.

Upload the master image

In this procedure, you upload the master image from Azure Resource Manager to Virtual Apps Essentials.

1. If you are not already in Citrix Cloud, sign in. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops
2. On the Manage tab, click Master Images.
3. Click Add Master Image.
4. On the Add an image page, specify the location of the image by selecting the subscription, resource group, storage account, VHD, and region.
5. Enter a name for the master image.
6. Click Save.

The service verifies the master image. After verification, the uploaded image appears under Master Images > My Images.

Tip: As an alternative to uploading the master image before creating the catalog, you can import a master image from Azure Resource Manager when you create the catalog.

Prepare a master image in Virtual Apps Essentials

This method uses an existing master image as a template (and optionally, connection details from an existing catalog) to build another master image. You can then customize the new master image. This procedure is completed entirely through the Virtual Apps Essentials interface.

1. Sign in to Citrix Cloud, if you haven’t already. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. Click Manage and then select the Master Images tab.
3. Click Build Image.
4. On the Build Image page, in the Select an image panel, select a master image. Specify a name for your new image. Click Next.

5. In the Specify network connectivity settings panel, you can either use the settings from an existing catalog, or you can specify the settings. The settings are: subscription, virtual network, region, subnet, domain, and VM instance type. (If you don’t have a catalog, you must enter the settings.)

   If you select Copy settings from a catalog, select the catalog. The network connection settings display, so you can visually verify that you want to use them with your new master image. Enter your service account username and password to join the domain. Click Save.

   If you select Enter new settings, select values in the appropriate settings fields. Enter your service account username and password to join the domain. Click Save.

6. Click Start Provisioning.
7. When the new image has been created, it appears in the Manage > Master Images list with a status of Input Required. Click Connect to VM. An RDP client downloads. Use RDP to connect to the newly created VM. Customize the new image by adding or removing applications and other software. As with all master images, do not Sysprep the image.
8. When you’re done customizing your new image, return to the Manage > Master Images page and click Finish for your new master image. The new image is then sent to the verification process.
9. When the verification process completes, the new image appears in the My Images list with a status of Ready.

Later, when you create a catalog, and select Link an existing image on the Choose master image page, the new image appears among the Image Name choices.

Deploy a catalog, publish apps and desktops, and assign subscribers

A catalog lists the apps and desktops that you choose to share with selected users.

If you’re familiar with other Citrix app and desktop delivery products, a catalog in this service is similar to combining a machine catalog and a delivery group. However, the machine catalog and delivery group creation workflows in other services are not available in this service.

Deploying a catalog and sharing apps with subscribers is a multi-step process.

• Create a catalog
• Publish apps and assign subscribers for that catalog
• Test and share the workspace link your subscribers will use

Create a catalog

When creating a catalog, have Azure Active Directory account credentials and your subscription name available.

1. If you are not already in Citrix Cloud, sign in. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. On the Manage tab, click Catalogs and then Add Catalog.
3. Provide information in the following panels. Click Save when you’re done with each panel. A warning sign appears in a panel’s header if required information is missing or invalid. A check mark indicates that the information is complete.

Pick a name

1. Type a 2-38 character name for the catalog. (Letters and numbers only, no special characters.) This name is visible only to administrators.
2. Select Domain Joined if it isn’t already selected. A domain-joined deployment allows VDAs to join Active Directory. Later, you provide an Azure virtual network that is connected to your domain. If you don’t have a domain, you can use Azure Active Directory Domain services.
3. Click Save.

Link your Azure subscription

1. Select your Azure subscription. When you link a new Azure subscription, the Azure sign-in page appears for authentication of your Azure credentials. After signing in, accept the service consent to manage your subscription. Then, you can link a subscription. Virtual Apps Essentials requires you to log on with an Azure Active Directory account. Other account types (such as live.com) are not supported.
2. Select your resource group, virtual network (VNET), and subnet. The VNET determines the Azure region where your resources are deployed. The subnet must be able to reach your domain controller.
3. Click Save.

Join local domain

1. Enter domain information:

   • Fully Qualified Domain Name: Enter the domain name. The name must resolve from the DNS provided in the virtual network.
   • Organizational Unit: (optional) Ensure that Active Directory contains the specified OU. If you leave this field blank, machines are placed in the default Computers container.
   • Service Account Name, Password, and Confirm Password: Enter the User Principal Name (UPN) of the account that has permissions to add machines to the domain. Then enter and confirm the password for that account.

2. Click Save.

You can test connectivity through the virtual network by creating a VM in your Azure subscription. The VM must be in the same resource group, virtual network, and subnet that you use to deploy the catalog. Ensure that the VM can connect to the internet. Also ensure that you can reach the domain by joining the VM to the domain. You can test using the same credentials that were used for deploying this catalog.

Connect to a resource location

Each resource location must have two or more Cloud Connectors, which communicate with Citrix Cloud. The service handles the Cloud Connector deployment automatically when a catalog deploys. The two Windows Server VMs are created in Azure Resource Manager and then a Cloud Connector is installed automatically on each server. If the selected resource location is available, connection occurs automatically. Simply click Save. To create a resource location, enter a name for it.

• To create Cloud Connectors in a specific Azure resource group, click Edit next to Azure Resource Group to change the resource location. Otherwise, the service uses the resource group you specified when you linked your Azure subscription.
• To put the Cloud Connectors into a separate OU, click Edit next to Organizational Unit to change the OU. Otherwise, Virtual Apps Essentials uses the resource group you specified when you linked your Azure subscription.

Choose a master image

1. Select one of the following:

   • Link an existing image: Use this option if you previously imported a custom image and want to use it with this catalog. Select the image and optionally, a region.
   • Import a new image: Use this option if you want to use a custom image with this catalog, but have not yet imported it. Select the subscription, resource group, storage account, and VHD. Enter a friendly name for the image.
   • Use a Citrix prepared image: Use this option to test the service without using your own custom image. These images are suitable only for demonstration environments, and are not recommended for production. Select a prepared image.

2. Click Save.

Pick storage and compute type

1. Configure the following items:

   • Standard or premium disks: Standard disks (HDD) are backed by magnetic drives. They are preferable for applications where data is accessed infrequently. Premium disks (SDD) are backed by solid state drives. They are ideal for I/O-intensive applications.
   • Use Azure Managed Disks or unmanaged disks: Learn more about Azure Managed Disks at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/managed-disks-overview.

   • Azure Hybrid Use Benefit: Select whether or not to use existing on-premises Windows Server licenses. Enabling this feature and using existing on-premises Windows Server images uses Azure Hybrid Use Benefits (HUB). For details, see https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/hybrid-use-benefit/.

     HUB reduces the cost of running VMs in Azure to the base compute rate, because it waives the price of additional Windows Server licenses from the Azure gallery. You need to bring your on-premises Windows Servers images to Azure to use HUB. Azure gallery images are not supported. On-premises Windows Client licenses are currently not supported. See Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server on the Microsoft web site.

   • Pick a virtual machine size: Select a worker role (for example, task, office, knowledge, power). The worker role defines the resources used. When you specify a worker role, the service determines the correct load per instance. You can select an option or create your own custom option.

2. Click Save.

Manage costs with power management settings

1. Enter the following information:

   • Scale settings:

     • Minimum number of running instances: The service ensures that this many VMs are powered on all the time.
     • Maximum number of running instances: The service does not exceed this number of VMs.
     • Maximum concurrent users: The service does not allow concurrent users beyond this limit.

     • Capacity buffer: Enables extra sessions to be ready for demand spikes, as a percentage of current session demand. For example, if there are 100 active sessions and the capacity buffer is 10%, the service provides capacity for 110 sessions.

       As the total session capacity changes, the number of running instances for this catalog scales up or down. The number of running instances always stays within the configured minimum and maximum values. A lower capacity buffer percentage can result in a decreased cost. However, it might also result in some sessions having an extended logon time if several sessions start concurrently.

   • Schedule for peak time: Select this option if you want a different number of VMs running during peak times than in non-peak times. Select the days of the week for the peak time, start and end times, and time zone. Specify the minimum number of running instances during peak time.

   • Idle or disconnected session time-out: Set the time for when the session ends. User sessions end automatically if the session remains idle or is disconnected for the specified time period. Shorter time-out values allow unused VDAs to power off and save costs.

2. Click Save.

Deploy the catalog

After you complete the configuration panels, click Start Deployment to start the catalog creation. Creating a catalog can take 1 to 2 hours (or longer, if you specified a large number of VMs).

When a catalog is created:

• A resource group (and a storage account in that resource group) for the workload machines are created automatically in Azure.
• The VMs are named Xenappxx-xx-yyy, where xx is derived from an environmental factor and yy is an ordinal number.

Publish apps and assign subscribers for a catalog

To complete the catalog after it is deployed, you must publish one app or desktop, and assign at least one subscriber.

The image you used to create the catalog includes the applications (or desktop) that you can publish. You can select applications from the Start menu or specify a directory path on the machine.

1. If you are not already in Citrix Cloud, sign in. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. On the Manage tab, click Catalogs.
3. In the ellipsis menu (…) for the catalog that was created, select Manage Catalog.

4. Select Publish Apps and Assign Subscribers. The following page displays.

   

5. In the Publish Apps and Assign Subscribers dialog box, click Publish. The Publish to catalog-name page contains three choices. Complete at least one. Optionally, you can then choose another (for example, to publish both apps and desktops using this catalog).
6. To publish apps located on the Start menu:
   1. Select Publish from Start Menu.
   2. Select the applications from the list. 
7. To publish apps by specifying their location and other information:
   1. Select Publish using Path.
   2. Enter each application’s name and path (for example, c:\Windows\system1\app.exe).
   3. Optionally, enter a description that will appear in the user’s workspace, command line parameters, and working directory.
   4. To change the icon that represents the published app, click Change icon and then navigate to the location of the icon. A message appears if the selected icon cannot be extracted. In that case, you can retry or continue using the existing icon.

   5. Click Publish App.

      

8. To publish a desktop:
   1. Select Publish desktop.
   2. Enter the name of the desktop.
   3. Optionally, enter a description that will appear in the user’s workspace.

   4. Click Publish Desktop.

      

   After you add apps or desktops, they appear in the list under the selectors. To delete an app or desktop you added, select the button to the left of the entry (or click the trash icon next to the entry) and then click Remove. Later, if you want to unpublish an app or desktop, select the button to the left of the entry and then click Unpublish.

9. In the Publish Apps and Assign Subscribers dialog box, click either Manage App Subscribers or Manage Desktop Subscribers.

   

10. Select a domain and then search for a user or user group.

11. User assignments for apps and desktops are separate. To assign a user access to both apps and desktops, assign that user with Manage App Subscribers and with Manage Desktop Subscribers.

    After you add a user or group, it appears in the list under the selectors. To delete a user or group you selected, click the trash can icon next to the entry and click Remove. Later, if you want to remove users, select the button to the left of the entry and then click Remove Selected.

Test and share the workspace link

After you deploy a catalog, publish apps, and assign subscribers, you’re provided the link that your subscribers use to access the apps and desktops you published for them.

1. If you are not already in Citrix Cloud, sign in. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. On the Manage tab, click Catalogs.
3. In the ellipsis menu (…) for the catalog, select Manage Catalog.
4. Select Test and Share Workspace Link.

In the following graphic, the workspace link appears in the circled area. Share this link with your subscribers. The right portion of the page lists the workspace URL, plus information about the catalog’s master image, resource location, Azure subscription, and domain.

See Workspace experience for more information.

Update master images and catalogs

To update or add applications, update the virtual machine that you used to create the catalog’s master image.

Update the master image

1. Power on the master image VM. Powering on the machine does not affect the master image installed in Azure Resource Manager.
2. Install any updates or applications on the VM.
3. Shut down the VM.
4. In the Virtual Apps Essentials console, add the new image that includes the path to the VM’s VHD image.

Update a catalog with a new image

1. If you are not already in Citrix Cloud, sign in. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. On the Manage tab, click Catalogs.
3. Click the ellipsis menu for the catalog and then click Update Catalog Image.
4. Select either Link an existing image or Import a new image. Enter the information that is appropriate for your choice.
5. In Time until automatic log-off, choose the amount of time before the session ends.
6. Click Update.

When you start the catalog update, users can continue to work until the initial processing completes. Then, users receive a warning message to save their work and close applications. After closing all active sessions on the VDA, the update finishes on that VDA. If users do not log off in the amount of time given, the session closes automatically.

Update the number of VDAs in a catalog

1. If you are not already in Citrix Cloud, sign in. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. Click the Manage tab.
3. On the Catalogs tab, select a catalog.
4. On the Capacity tab, under Select scale settings, click Edit.
5. Change the Maximum number of running instances value to the desired VDA count for the catalog.
6. Click Save.

Monitor machine states

When you select a catalog, the Machines tab on the catalog summary page lists all of the machines in that catalog. The display includes each machine’s power and registration states, and the current session count. 

You can turn maintenance mode on or off for a machine. Turning on maintenance mode prevents new connections from being made to the machine. Users can connect to existing sessions, but they cannot start new sessions. You might want to place a machine in maintenance mode before applying patches.

If you turn on maintenance mode for one or more machines, Smart Scale is temporarily disabled for all machines in that catalog. Either of the following actions will enable Smart Scale again:

• Click Enable Smart Scale in the warning at the top of the screen. This action automatically turns off maintenance mode for all machines in the catalog that have maintenance mode turned on.
• Explicitly turn off maintenance mode for each machine that currently has maintenance mode turned on.

Monitor the service

1. If you are not already in Citrix Cloud, sign in. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. Click the Monitor tab.

Session information

To monitor the overall performance of Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials:

1. Select the catalog that you want to monitor. You can view information on sessions, logon duration, and other information.

2. Choose a session and then:

   • Disconnect the session
   • Log off from the session
   • Send a message

3. Click each session to view extra details about the session such as processes, applications running, and more.

Usage information

Usage information shows aggregated data for all catalogs (rather than a specified catalog).

• Usage Overview displays the total number of application launches and the number of unique users who launched apps over the past six weeks.
• Top Apps lists the most frequently used apps for the current and previous months. Hovering over an entry displays the number of times that application was launched.
• Top Users lists the top ten users for the current and previous months, with the number of times they launched applications.

Weekly data intervals are Monday (UTC 00:00) through the query time. Monthly data intervals are the first day of the month (UTC 00:00) through the query time.

Profile Management

Profile Management ensures that personal settings apply to users’ virtual applications, regardless of the location of the user device.

Configuring Profile Management is optional.

You can enable Profile Management with the profile optimization service. This service provides a reliable way for managing these settings in Windows. Managing profiles ensures a consistent experience by maintaining a single profile that follows the user. It consolidates automatically and optimizes user profiles to minimize management and storage requirements. The profile optimization service requires minimal administration, support, and infrastructure. Also, profile optimization provides users with an improved log on and log off experience.

The profile optimization service requires a file share where all the personal settings persist. You must specify the file share as a UNC path. The path can contain system environment variables, Active Directory user attributes, or Profile Management variables. To learn more about the format of the UNC text string, see To specify the path to the user store.

You configure Profile Management in Citrix Cloud.

To configure Profile Management

1. If you are not already in Citrix Cloud, sign in. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. On the Manage tab, click Catalogs.
3. Click the name of the catalog.
4. Click More Settings.
5. In Set up Profile Management in Azure subscription, enter the path to the profile share. For example, \fileserver\share#sAMAccountName#
6. Click Save.

When enabling Profile Management, consider further optimizing the user’s profile by configuring folder redirection to minimize the effects of the user profile size. Applying folder redirection complements the Profile Management solution. For more information, see Microsoft Folder Redirection.

Configure the Microsoft RDS License Server

Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials accesses Windows Server remote session capabilities that would typically require a Remote Desktop Services client access license (RDS CAL). The VDA must be able to contact an RDS license server to request RDS CALs. Install and activate the license server. For more information, see Activate the Remote Desktop Services License Server. For proof of concept environments, you can use the grace period provided by Microsoft.

With this method, you can have Virtual Apps Essentials apply the license server settings. You can configure the license server and per user mode in the RDS console on the master image. You can also configure the license server using Microsoft Group Policy settings. For more information, see License your RDS deployment with client access licenses (CALs).

To configure the RDS license server using Group Policy settings

1. Install a Remote Desktop Services License Server on one of the available VMs. The VM must always be available. The Citrix service workloads must be able to reach this license server.
2. Specify the license server address and per user license mode using Microsoft Group Policy. For details, see Specify the Remote Desktop Licensing Mode for an RD Session Host Server.
3. If you purchased CAL licenses from Microsoft Remote Access, you do not have to install the licenses. You can purchase licenses from Microsoft Remote Access in the Azure Marketplace, along with Virtual Apps Essentials.

To configure the RDS license server

1. If you are not already in Citrix Cloud, sign in. In the upper left menu, select My Services > Virtual Apps and Desktops.
2. On the Manage tab, click Catalogs.
3. Select the catalog and then select More Settings.
4. In Enter the FQDN of the license server, type the fully qualified domain name of the license server.
5. Click Save.

Technical Brief for Microsoft Azure Arc on ThinkAgile MX

 

Hybrid, Edge and Multi-Cloud Management On-Premises

Customer IT environments have become very complicated with many applications running on diverse infrastructure spread over on-premises data centers, on the edge, and in multiple clouds. With different tools and frameworks in use and multiple technologies like DevOps and Kubernetes, these IT resources have become hard to view, manage and secure. With the ever-increasing adoption of cloud services, cloud service providers are doing most of their innovation in the cloud today.

Microsoft Azure Arc is a set of technologies that allows customers to view and manage both their on-premises and cloud resources with a single pane of glass. With Azure Arc you can manage both your VMs in Azure and VMs on-premises, apply security policies to both and provide tough governance easily through a self-service portal. This paper will highlight the innovative and advanced Azure services enabled by Azure Arc on-premises on Lenovo ThinkAgile MX systems.

 

 

 

With Azure Arc, you can:

• Manage your entire environment together by projecting your existing non-Azure and/or on-premises resources into Azure Resource Manager.
• Manage virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, and databases as if they are running in Azure.
• Use familiar Azure services and management capabilities, regardless of where they live.
• Continue using traditional ITOps while introducing DevOps practices to support new cloud native patterns in your environment.
• Configure custom locations as an abstraction layer on top of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters and cluster extensions.

Why Azure Arc Service on Azure Stack HCI?

Azure Stack HCI provides enterprise customers with a highly available, cost-efficient, flexible platform to run high-performance workloads. These workloads could run within traditional virtual machines or within containers, ensuring you get the best utilization from your hyperconverged infrastructure. While Azure Stack HCI provides a flexible hyperconverged infrastructure to modernize on-premises environments, Azure Hybrid Service and Azure Arc provide the latest security, performance and feature updates. Bringing them together, Windows Admin Center allows you to remotely manage and enable your Azure Services.

In many organizations, there are legacy workloads that cannot be moved - or that the business has decided are not going to the cloud. In other organizations, there are data privacy regulations, intellectual property (IP) concerns, or application entanglement that requires an on-premises presence. In these situations, a hybrid cloud environment is needed – one with consistency across the different environments. A hybrid cloud environment where you can connect back to the cloud and take advantage of the control plane and cloud practices.

A single control plane. Azure Arc provides the governance control, via a control plane, that gives you a common view and a single way to do it. Additionally, Azure Arc also provides you with the ability to run Azure services anywhere and to start leveraging the portability of Kubernetes. In that way, IT end-developers can start leveraging the same skills and same technology everywhere.

Push governance on-premises. Hybrid is much larger than the single pane. The ARM Control plane is designed for hybrid, from the beginning: inventory, governance, configuration management, policy aspects, security. This enables push governance down into on-premises environments. Some examples include:

• Email applications like Office365 are covered by rules and regulations. With the appropriate governance rules in place through Azure Arc, you should be able to pass when an auditor comes to check the environment. The same should be true when you start using the governance practices from the cloud in your on-premises environment.
• A simple (real-time) inventory can be run if you are using the cloud to govern your on-premises environment instead of an outdated configuration management database (CMDB) application. You can use Resource Graph to query the Azure resources and on-premises resources. You can use the same Azure Policies for your cloud resources and what is on-premises as well.

Scalability. Finally, another important benefit of hybrid solutions is scalability. When computing and processing demand is cyclical and increases beyond an on-premises datacenter’s capabilities, businesses can use the cloud to instantly scale capacity up to support the business. Moreover, it allows them to avoid the time and cost of purchasing, installing, and maintaining new servers that may not always be needed.

 

Before You Get Started

The following summarizes, at a high-level, what you will need to run Azure Arc.

To use Arc, you must deploy an Azure Arc resource bridge (preview) in your ThinkAgile MX environment. The resource bridge provides an ongoing connection between your ThinkAgile MX servers and Azure. Once you've connected your ThinkAgile MX server to Azure, components on the resource bridge discover your ThinkAgile MX inventory. You can enable them in Azure and start performing virtual hardware and guest OS operations on them using Azure Arc.

• An Azure subscription with the appropriate permissions.
• Any ThinkAgile MX server running Azure Stack HCI 22H2 with ethernet access.
• You need a Azure AD account that can: Read all inventory.
• Deploy and update VMs to all the resource pools (or clusters), networks, and VM templates that you want to use with Azure Arc.
• For the Arc-enabled ThinkAgile MX solution, the resource bridge has the following minimum virtual hardware requirements:
  • 16 GB of memory
  • 4 vCPUs
  • An external virtual switch that can provide access to the internet directly or through a proxy. If internet access is through a proxy or firewall, ensure these URLs are allow-listed.
• Deploying the Connected Machine agent on a machine requires that you have administrator permissions to install and configure the agent. On Linux this is done by using the root account, and on Windows, with an account that is a member of the Local Administrators group.
• Before you get started, be sure to review the agent prerequisites and verify the following:
  • Your target machine is running a supported operating system.
  • Your account has the required Azure built-in roles.
  • Ensure the machine is in a supported region.
  • Confirm that the Linux hostname or Windows computer name doesn't use a reserved word or trademark.
  • If the machine connects through a firewall or proxy server to communicate over the Internet, make sure the URLs listed are not blocked.

Deploying Azure Arc Service on Azure Stack HCI on Lenovo Servers

The first step in the process is to obtain and setup your Lenovo server that will support Azure Stack HCI.

Step 1: Hardware and OS configuration for Azure Arc Service on Azure Stack HCI

Lenovo certified Azure Stack HCI solutions can be found at this link – ThinkAgile MX.

Lenovo rack systems feature innovative hardware, software and services that solve customer challenges today and deliver an evolutionary fit-for-purpose, modular design approach to address tomorrow’s challenges. These servers capitalize on best-in-class, industry-standard technologies coupled with differentiated Lenovo innovations to provide the greatest possible flexibility in x86 servers. Key advantages of deploying Lenovo rack servers include:

• Highly scalable, modular designs to grow with your business
• Industry-leading resilience to save hours of costly unscheduled downtime
• Expansive storage capacity and flexible storage configurations for optimized workloads

With fast flash technologies for lower latencies, quicker response times and smarter data management in real-time for cloud deployments, database, or virtualization workloads, trust Lenovo racks for world-class performance, power-efficient designs and extensive standard features at an affordable price.

The following Lenovo servers have been certified for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI and are equipped to support 4 to 64-core processors, up to 4TB of memory and over 100TB of storage:

• Lenovo ThinkAgile MX3530 Integrated systems / MX3531 validated nodes (based on ThinkSystem SR650 V2)
• Lenovo ThinkAgile MX3330 Integrated systems / MX3331 validated nodes (based on ThinkSystem SR630 V2)
• Lenovo ThinkAgile MX3520 Integrated systems / MX validated nodes (based on ThinkSystem SR650)
• Lenovo ThinkAgile MX1020 Integrated systems / MX1021 validated nodes (based on ThinkSystem SE350)
• Lenovo ThinkSystem SR630 validated nodes
• Lenovo ThinkSystem SR665 validated nodes
• Lenovo ThinkSystem SR655 validated nodes
• Lenovo ThinkSystem SR645 validated nodes
• Lenovo ThinkSystem SR635 validated nodes
• Lenovo ThinkEdge SE450 validated nodes

With your Lenovo servers racked, configured, and connected, you are ready to deploy the Azure Stack HCI OS. The first step in deploying Azure Stack HCI is to download Azure Stack HCI and install the operating system on each server that you want to cluster. You can deploy Azure Stack HCI using your preferred method – this could be via USB, network deployment, ISO boot over a dedicated OOB management port, etc. Step through the simple Azure Stack HCI OS installation wizard, and once complete, you should be at the Server Configuration Tool (SCONFIG) interface. If you need to, make any simple changes here, but all that should be required is a single NIC with an IP address on your management network.

 

Step 2: Deploy and Configure Windows Admin Center

With your Azure Stack HCI nodes deployed, and accessible over the network, the next step is to deploy the Windows Admin Center. If you haven’t already, download the Windows Admin Center software. This should be installed on a Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016/2019 machine. This machine should also be joined to your management domain. This should be the same domain that your Azure Stack HCI nodes will be joined to.

Step 3: Create an Azure Stack HCI Cluster

With the Windows Admin Center installed, open the Windows Admin Center, and step through the process of creating an Azure Stack HCI cluster.

The wizard will walk you through selecting your nodes, joining the nodes to the domain, installing required roles and features, and updates, before moving on to configuring the physical and virtual networks, clustering and software defined storage. When the wizard is complete, you should see your new cluster in your All connections view within Windows Admin Center.

 

Step 4: Check the registration of the cluster

With your Azure Stack HCI cluster under dashboard of Windows Admin Center, the next step is to check that the status of the Azure Connection.

 

Step 5: Deploy a new virtual machine on your Azure Stack HCI infrastructure and join it to a domain

You can easily create a new VM using Windows Admin Center.

 

• On the Windows Admin Center home screen, under All connections, select the server or cluster you want to create the VM on.
• Under Tools, scroll down and select Virtual machines.
• Under Virtual machines, select the Inventory tab, then select Add and New.

 

• Under New virtual machine, enter a name for your VM.
• Select Generation 2 (Recommended).
• Under Host, select the server you want the VM to reside on.
• Under Path, select a preassigned file path from the dropdown list or click Browse to choose the folder to save the VM configuration and virtual hard disk (VHD) files to. You can browse to any available SMB share on the network by entering the path as \server\share.
• Under Virtual processors, select the number of virtual processors and whether you want nested virtualization enabled for the VM. If the cluster is running Azure Stack HCI, version 21H2, you'll also see a checkbox to enable processor compatibility mode on the VM.
• Under Memory, select the amount of startup memory (4 GB is recommended as a minimum), and a min and max range of dynamic memory as applicable to be allocated to the VM.
• Under Network, select a virtual switch from the dropdown list.
• Under Network, select one of the following for the isolation mode from the dropdown list:
  • Set to Default (None) if the VM is connected to the virtual switch in access mode.
  • Set to VLAN if the VM is connected to the virtual switch over a VLAN. Specify the VLAN identifier as well.
• Set to Virtual Network (SDN) if the VM is part of an SDN virtual network. Select a virtual network name, subnet, and specify the IP Address. Optionally, select an access control list that can be applied to the VM.
• Set to Logical Network (SDN) if the VM is part of an SDN logical network. Select the logical network name, subnet, and specify the IP Address. Optionally, select an access control list that can be applied to the VM.
• Under Storage, click Add and select whether to create a new empty virtual hard disk or to use an existing virtual hard disk. If you're using an existing virtual hard disk, click Browse and select the applicable file path.
• Under Operating system, do one of the following:
  • Select Install an operating system later if you want to install an operating system for the VM after the VM is created.
  • Select Install an operating system from an image file (*.iso), click Browse, then select the applicable .iso image file to use.
• When finished, click Create to create the VM.
• Under State, verify that the VM state is running.

Step 6: Enable Azure ARC on the Virtual Machine on Azure Stack HCI

Launch the Azure Arc service in the Azure portal by clicking All services, then searching for and selecting Servers - Azure Arc.

 

 

1. On the Servers - Azure Arc page, select Add at the upper left.
2. On the Select a method page, select the Add servers using interactive script tile, and then select Generate script.
3. On the Generate script page, select the subscription and resource group where you want the machine to be managed within Azure. Select an Azure location where the machine metadata will be stored. This location can be the same or different, as the resource group's location.
4. On the Prerequisites page, review the information and then select Next: Resource details.
5. On the Resource details page, provide the following:
   • In the Resource group drop-down list, select the resource group the machine will be managed from.
   • In the Region drop-down list, select the Azure region to store the servers' metadata.
   • In the Operating system drop-down list, select the operating system that the script be configured to run on.
   • If the machine is communicating through a proxy server to connect to the internet, specify the proxy server IP address or the name and port number that the machine will use to communicate with the proxy server. Enter the value in the format http://(proxyURL):(proxyport).
   • Select Next: Tags.
6. On the Tags page, review the default Physical location tags suggested and enter a value, or specify one or more Custom tags to support your standards.
7. Select Next: Download and run script.
8. On the Download and run script page, review the summary information, and then select Download. If you still need to make changes, select Previous.
9. Log in to the server.
10. Open an elevated 64-bit PowerShell command prompt.
11. Change to the folder or share that you copied the script to and execute it on the server by running the ./OnboardingScript.ps1 script.

On the Azure platform the Machine will appear under the Azure Arc systems as connected.

 

 

Microsoft Azure – Introduction to Azure Arc

In this article, we will learn how to get started with Azure Arc in the Azure Portal. Azure Arc is a set of offerings that allow you to bring Azure management anywhere. And you can basically take resources that don’t run on Azure like Kubernetes clusters or virtual machines or what you can bring them into Azure us familiar tools and management to take care of them. 

Implementation:

While you are starting out with Azure Arc, you’ll likely want to find more information to start evaluating it as a solution for your business. Through search, Azure surface several results. Solution specific views, if you jump in the Arc center if you’re looking for understanding Azure Arc all up or comprehensive views of all Arc resources. 

The Arc center helps you find everything Azure Arc-related in one spot, so you can read the latest documentation, stay up to date with new releases, start to bring your hybrid edge or multi-cloud resources into Azure, and even manage them.

In the documentation,  you can learn more about Azure Arc as well as the use of installation guides. You can look for Azures blue to learn more links to get directed into specific articles or head to the additional resources tab where Azure has compiled useful links. Azure has its documentation hub, Azure’s jumpstart repo, relevant training and demos, and hybrid architecture examples. Azure jumpstart repo is a great place to get started with Arc, especially if you are a beginner and do not prefer UI. 

Updates are where you will be able to keep tabs on our latest new releases. You will be able to learn about new functionality available for Azure Arc technology as soon as they announce it. 

Cost and pricing are where you find pricing information. You come here to learn how pricing in Azure Arc works and how much you can expect to spend using it. Azure also includes a link to their handy dandy Azure pricing calculator to help with estimations here, especially where other Azure services are involved.

 Now, head over to overview. Azure infrastructure tab. Within Arc Center, Azure provides a catalog of the Azure Arc infrastructure offerings that you are able to leverage. You can sign up for some previews to get access to the latest in development before it’s released to the public. These items have a preview tag appended to them, and if you are not able to see them. It means you’re not signed up for previews yet. Azure has the same catalog view for our data services, so these are all of  Azure Arc-enabled data services. 

If you click into servers, you will be taken to a create, which will help to bring on-premises VM into Azure for management. This page takes you through a bunch of prerequisites that you need to make sure you have squared away before proceeding. On this page, you are asked to provide a bit of information. And, you can also optionally use these physical location tags to represent where this resource lives outside of Azure. 

You basically can download and run this script to complete the connection process connecting on-premises VM to Azure for management. 

 To view the resource you just created and can head to  Azure Arc resources view. Here you can sort by type, filter on location. You also have resource-specific views at your disposal. If you head to the servers’ view, this shows all of the servers within the subscriptions that you have selected and access to. You can click into a specific one to inspect it and make any modifications or changes that you would like to.

 Once you get your services set up, you’ll probably interact with them directly from the spots that you’d normally expect to in Azure. For example, you’ll likely actually manage ARC servers from the ARC servers page. Arc server.  As an example, this is the same ARC server-specific view that you have just seen within Arc Center with all the same functionality available, you can add, manage the view, edit the columns, and so on. 

 

Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions -​ HANA Data Size Extension

The cost of cloud based VMs for hosting SAP HANA workloads can form a significant proportion of your overall cloud spend. The default sizing and configuration of SAP HANA systems or incorrect sizing can easily lead to unnecessarily large VMs and higher than expected cloud compute costs.

You may have a new greenfield implementation of SAP S/4HANA or an established implementation of SAP ECC on HANA. Either way, over the coming months it will inevitably grow and at some point, approach the VM memory limit. You will then need to consider options to either increase the VM size (with the associated increase in compute spend), archive data or configure SAP HANA to manage the data differently.

By way of an example, the following graph shows a sample of Azure VM sizes for hosting SAP HANA workloads and how the cost of these VMs can escalate without proper planning and attention. While Azure is already considering new VM sizes between 6TB and 12TB, there are ways in the meantime to better plan and manage costs as the HANA database grows.

As an IT Manager responsible for the Azure platform but with limited access to SAP tools, you want to be able to assess the growth of data within your SAP HANA systems to:

1. validate that the VM size is appropriate
2. budget for future growth
3. understand which tables are contributing to the data growth

Wouldn’t it be useful to have access to a tool that provided this level of information with the additional ability to predict when your most important ERP system is approaching the virtual machine limit? Fortunately, the Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions (AMS) now has this functionality built in.

Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions (AMS)

Overview of AMS

Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions (AMS) is an Azure native monitoring tool designed to monitor connected SAP systems in your SAP estate. You can collect various infrastructure, SAP, and database metrics in one central location. Some of these metrics offer near real-time information on which alerts can be triggered; other metrics are more useful for gaining an insight into trends over longer periods of time. AMS can monitor different components such as Linux OS via Prometheus, Pacemaker clusters, SAP HANA, SAP NetWeaver, and SQL Server.

Aliter Consulting recently collaborated with Microsoft Engineering to provide an extension to AMS to monitor HANA columnar data and in-memory usage. This extension collects HANA column store monitoring data every 6 hours and stores it in the log analytics workspace of your choice.

Reporting of the various AMS metrics is then performed against the collected log analytics data in pre-defined workbooks visualizations.

For an overview of the AMS, please look at the following Microsoft documentation Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions Overview and Architecture.

Deploying AMS

Deployment of the AMS to start collecting SAP HANA data size information over the coming months would be beneficial to any company wanting to be proactive with capacity planning and cloud spend tracking. For instructions on how to deploy AMS in your Azure subscription, please follow the instructions in Microsoft documentation Deploy Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions with the Azure Portal.

Creating HANA Providers for AMS

Since HANA 2.0, all systems are multitenant with a minimum of the SYSTEMDB and the first application tenant database. The standard AMS “HANA Provider” wizard recommends connecting to the SYSTEMDB. To provide table level information an, AMS “HANA Provider” needs to be configured for the SYSTEMD DB and each database tenant running on the instance.

For details on creating AMS HANA providers, please follow the instructions in Microsoft documentation Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions Providers.

Analysing Collected Data

Once you’ve connected all your tenant databases, AMS will start collecting the relevant metrics to support the log analytics analysis but to see meaningful data and predictions, wait for a few days whilst enough data about your systems is collected. You’ll then be able to analyse the collected data in your AMS resource by selecting the SAP HANA monitoring node. The HANA Data Size extension is available on the right-most tab.

After some time, you’ll start to see a picture emerging about the growth of your systems in the workbook and even predict when capacity limits might be reached based on the knowledge AMS currently has.

The next section in the workbook provides a list of the top 10 columnar tables by size with a trend line to predict any tables that could reach the row-limit of 2 billion rows per partition within the next 12 months.

By selecting an individual entry, you can drill down to see a more detailed graph for number of rows (records) in the table and a second graph that shows the size of the table, the loaded size of the table and a trend-line for loaded size growth.

In the final section of the workbook, we see all the filesystems used by HANA. These metrics come from HANA, not the operating system. Again, by selecting an individual entry, you can drill down to a graph showing the historical growth of data on disk.

As part of our “SAP on Azure: Run” service, we can help you deploy AMS to start collecting data in relation to HANA capacity planning and management and help you make the right decisions as your systems continue to grow and approach capacity.