Citrix App Layering 4.x: PVS Image Management

Some customers that integrate with PVS have asked for a mechanism to reduce possible errors when deploying new versions of vDisks. In PVS there are a few ways to modify the vDisk assigned to PVS targets. You can edit the properties of a target and select a vDisk from the store. You can drag and drop a vDisk on a PVS collection and all the targets in the collection will be updated with the new vDisk reference or if you use PVS versioning you can“promote” all the targets using a vDisk to a different version.

The PVS Image Management Utility allows customers to manage updating targets using a safer process than drag and drop that is easier than changing every target manually.

Using this utility it is possible to choose an image, then list all the targets using that image optionally filtering on one ore more collections, then “promote” the image to all selected targets.

The utility provides an easy way to assign images to both test and production targets easily. If you would prefer to use PVS versioning we are working on a script that will add published images as a new rebased version within PVS. A new PVS connector is being developed that allows for scripts to be run following the image being published.

Using the script and the new connector images published to PVS can be managed fully using PVS versioning. When this is available the documentation will be modified appropriately on how to implement and use this functionality.

The following infrastructure components/configurations are required:

• The utility is installed on a system with the PVS console. Normally one of the PVS servers.
• The User running the utility must be a local admin and PVS admin.
• The System must have the PVS PowerShell modules installed and configured for use

The utility is easy to install. Download the Zip, edit the properties of the zip and unblock it, unzip the files into a folder and create a shortcut to run the PVSImageMgmt.exe executable.

Install the utility in a folder with no space off the root of any local drive.

For example: c:\PVSImageMgmt.

Click on Setup and enter the IP or FQDN of your ELM appliance. Then click Save.

The utility is easy to use. First click “Get Images”. This will query the ELM appliance to get a list of images defined in your environment.

Then select an Image from the drop down list. This will load the details for the image and get any vDisks made from the image.

Next click “Get Collections” if you have never done that before. This will query PVS to get a list of collections. Repeat this step whenever you need to refresh the list.

Next click on “Get Targets”. The utility will retrieve a list of all target that are currently using the selected image. If desired the target list can be filtered by one or multiple collections.

Click on the collections to include in the search for targets.

The collection filter is commonly used to filter a “testing” collection. That makes it easy to update only test targets first for testing. Then later its easy to select all targets for the image

and update them.

Lastly click on the desired vDisk to promote, check the target list to ensure it makes sense.

Then click “Promote vDisk” to update the selected targets to the selected vDisk.

Note the targets that get selected are those that match the image not a particular vDisk version.

If you had different targets using different versions of the same image, they would all be selected for update based only on the collection filter being used.

Also of note if you click to filter to a set of collections and change your mind, you must uncheck all the specific collections in order to be able to check “All Collections”.