CTX136079 includes a download link for PVSDataCollector 2.5.2.1. This utility is used to collect information about the Provisioning Services Farm and is often required when dealing with support. Unfortunately, with 7.8 and 7.9 there is an issue – upon running the utility, you receive an error and it does not […]
There are times where you need to configure the bootstrap information (or re-configure) for the servers in the farm. The bootstrap information can be updated in a few different ways. The first place you will encounter the bootstrap information screen is in the configuration wizard while configuring Provisioning Services if […]
Provisioning Services works by streaming an operating system over the network. This very basic premise empowers administrators to tackle incredibly powerful use cases, reduce storage costs and scale to phenomenal levels at a reasonable cost. However, in order to accomplish this, some “magic” needs to happen in order to get […]
In an environment where security is delegated, you may need to know at a granular level just which permissions are needed to accomplish tasks within Provisioning Services. This is often the case when working in larger environments where the vCenter admin may be separate from the AD Team and Citrix […]
Provisioning Services has included support for a Boot Device Manager (BDM) Partition since version 7.0. There are some use cases where it is preferable to choose the BDM partition, and it is simple to do when provisioning machines using the XenDesktop Setup Wizard within the Provisioning Services Console. One limitation […]
There are definitely pros and cons to using the various PVS boot options. If you aren’t familiar or need a refresher, here they are: TFTP (with DHCP or PXE options) Create a Boot Device (BDM) using the included utility Let PVS XenDesktop Setup Wizard create a BDM partition/drive For the […]
If you’re like me, you enjoy a good challenge. One thing I’ve always been interested in with regard to PVS is exactly what is in the .PVP file. From various whitepapers and blogs I’ve read over the years, I understood it to be a collection of outside of the VHD, […]
A lot of content out there on PVS has become somewhat “stale” but it is still good info. I figured I would rehash some notes from the field that are relevant after brushing up on PVS for a recent project. In no particular order below, here are some handy tips. […]
In Provisioning Services, you can configure the stream service to skip the vDisk boot menu to select the default option for target devices. This feature can be useful when configuring a dedicated maintenance or test target device, bypassing the need to select the boot option when using vDisk versioning. If […]
For those of you using PVS, I urge you to take a look at CTX140875. This hotfix pack includes a number of fairly significant updates to problems that may be affecting your environment. In my mind, notably, are the fixes for the BDM/ARP issue, the SOAP server reliability, and vDisk […]
