Upgrade Metaframe XP FR3 to PS4 1

[mccalia1]

Hi

I have 4 Server Citrix Metaframe XP FR3 Farm running on Windows 2000 Server. Until now, our primary application did not support PS4 or Windows 2003.

Things have now changed and we're in a position to upgrade. I have bought 4 new HP Servers to use up last years budget. I'm debating on how I should upgrade. At the moment, we use the Web Interface as our only method of connecting to the servers.

Management have highlighted the upgrade of our farm to PS4 as a priority. The published app is critical so I want to minimise the disruption to the business.

I was thinking of upgrading our Metaframe XP farm and servers to PS4 to begin with as the hardware is pretty good and it meets managements objective on ensuring we are on PS4. I'd eventually bring up the new servers on Windows 2003, configure the app, migrate the PS4 licensing service from the old Windows 2000 server to new Windows 2003 then gradually decommision the previous Windows 2000 servers from the farm.


Whats everyones thoughts? Any better idea's?

 

[enigma99]

mccalia1,
If you are going to stick with Win2k...here is what I would do:
1. Bring up a Win2k Server with PS4 and joing it to the farm.
2. Install your application on it and do some QA to ensure that all is working properly. Publish it out to yourself and try to connect to it to make sure Citrix licensing is working properly.
3. If all is working well...add it to the load-balanced application and let it run.
4. From here you can start removing the old XP servers from the farm...doing an upgrade to PS4 and adding them back to the load-balanced application.

No down time for users....no staying late doing an upgrade because you can do it during the day...win/win situation =)

One thing that you do need to remember....is to upgrade your Licensing server and you might want to do a PS4 WI (But this is not required).

Another gotcha...if you are going to Win2k3, you will need to purchase all new TSCals for Win2k3. =(

Hope that helps.

 

[mccalia1]

Hi Enigma99

Thanks for your response, it's proved invaluable.

Regarding the adding a W2K Server with PS4 to the farm, this could be a problem as we don't have the expertise to configure the application on a new box, we'd need to wait until the next application upgrade when a consultant attends site to do that.

How about this...the application is based on 2 servers which are citrix load balanced, could I uninstall/remove XP from one server (leaving one server for users to connect to) install PS4 and then join it back to the farm? Then do the same to the other one?

I also have two test servers configured the same as live but not load balanced. I could effectively upgrade them first to test my upgrade plan?

How's my angle? or am I way off target? The problem is the configuration of the application.

thanks for your help!

 

[enigma99]

mccalia1,
Sounds like a plan.
Here are some other suggestions if you are going to do it this way.

Why don't you get those two test servers out of that XP farm and create a PS4.0 farm and name it EXACTLY like your XP farm. This way your Datastore will be created and you can get all of your Citrix licenses squared away.

This will not cause any kind of outage to your end-users because they are still being pointed to the XML servers on your XP farm via Web Interface.

If your tests pass....get your NON-datacollector production server and uninstall XP from it. Then just simply run the PS4 install and join it to your new PS4 farm.

Configure your published application like you have it in the XP farm and then point your web interface XML pointer to these new servers.

Once you have those up and running.....finish your upgrade by doing the last server. And if you prefer that server being your Preferred Data Collector----just set it in the farm preferences and add that to your XML pointer in Web Interface.


Hope that helps.

 

[mccalia1]

Thanks enigma99

Your response has gone way beyond what I was expecting in terms of help from a newsgroup.

 

[mccalia1]

Enigma99

Just thinking about your response, when you say:

"Why don't you get those two test servers out of that XP farm and create a PS4.0 farm and name it EXACTLY like your XP farm"

Would that mean I'd need to uninstall XP from the Test Servers and then install PS4 and create a new PS4 Farm with exactly the same name?

How does that affect my existing SQL IMA database. Do I need to create another database for the new PS4 farm or can I use the existing IMA database?

 

[enigma99]

mccalia1,
You would uninstall XP from those servers (which will remove it from your current XP farm) and install PS4.0 and do the "Create new farm" option.
Make sure you type it in EXACTLY how it is in your current production environment. If you have it all CAPS...then you have to create your farm with all CAPS (you know what I mean).

I would just create a new datastore for your PS4.0 farm and publish out your prod application on those test servers (should be easy to create the published app...just copy all the settings you have in your existing XP application). Give it a shot and if it works...then add the second test server to the PS4.0 farm.

Then add the non-data collector production server to the PS4.0 farm and add it to the published application for load-balancing. Try to connect to it to make sure its all good.

Then modify your Web Interface XML pointers to the new PS4.0 farm and uninstall XP from your last production server. Install PS4.0 on it and then add it to the load-balanced application. At this point you can assign it the "Most Preferred" option so it will be the datacollector for that zone. (If you want to set your Web Interface configuration back to the way it was..you can do it at this point.)

One thing you need to get done before all of this....is to make sure you get all of your Citrix licenses setup and working. Make sure your Citrix License Server is setup right and download your Citrix license file to that License Server. then you can start doing all of those steps.

ALSO......You need to have these things installed prior to installing Citrix PS4.0

Windows Installer version 3.1
Mirosoft .NET Runtime version 1.1
Java Runtime version 1.4.2.06 or higher

Good luck!