The following content is a brief and unofficial prerequisites guide to setup, configure and test XenMobile Enterprise 8.5, 8.6, 8.7 and 9.0 prior to deploying in a PoC, Pilot or Production environment by the author of this entry. The views, opinions and concepts expressed are those by the author of this entry only and do not necessary conform to industry descriptions or best practises.
Shortened Names
XENMOBILE DEVICE MANAGER – xdm
XENMOBILE APPCONTROLLER – xac
NETSCALER GATEWAY – nsg
FIREWALL – f/w
CERTIFICATE – cert
ACTIVE DIRECTORY – ad
INFRASTRUCTURE-AS-A-SERVICE – IaaS
ENTERPRISE MOBILITY MANAGEMENT – emm
Preparation & Pre-requisites (DRAFT & MAY CONTAIN ERROR(S))
0: Never use a production NetScaler or NetScaler Gateway for PoC why? When you upload the trial licenses it will require a reboot which cannot be completed in a production environment without a planned maintenance window. Also you may want to use the latest NS(G) during the PoC for best results & optimal performance likewise some versions require a e release of NS(G) which will mean a firmware upgrade to your production NS(G) eventually.
1: If you don’t understand all the components of XenMobile Enterprise then I would suggest researching and reading (Data sheets of each) to understand what the XenMobile Device Manager, XenMobile AppController, XenMobile NetScaler Connector, XenMobile Mail Manager, NetScaler (Gateway) and finally what ShareFile StorageZone Connectors are all capable of individually as integrated as part of a Mobility Solution. XenMobile Enterprise can also include the delivery of hosted shared and VDI desktops, hosted published Windows apps delivered from XenApp, XenDesktop as part of the overall EMM Solution.
2: XenMobile Enterprise is an integration of a number of the Citrix products mentioned above deployed together to form a complete EMM solution.
3: Identify and visually understand where potentially all the components/products sit within the whole overall mobility solution. Here is a great visual reference that is clean and clear to understand – http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/images/info-graphics/xenmobile_architecture_86.png?accessmode=direct.
4: Review the pre-requites and checklists if available for each product that you wish to deploy within XenMobile. I have listed a few here for you starting with all the required ports – http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenmobile-prepare/xmob-deploy-component-port-reqs-n-con.html, for the checklist – http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenmobile-prepare/xmob-prepare-xenmobile-checklist-con-.html, for or XDM – http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenmobile-prepare/xmob-deploy-device-manager-sys-reqs-con.html, for XAC – http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenmobile-prepare/xmob-appc-sysreqs-wrapper-con.html, for NSG – http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenmobile-prepare/xmob-deploy-netscaler-gateway-reqs-con.html, for SF – http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/sharefile-storagezones-22/sf-storage-center-sys-reqs.html and for XD – http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xendesktop-71/cds-system-requirements-71.html.
5: Now that you have an understanding of the requirements for each and you should by now know and understand each product a little more read through the XenMobile 8.6 Reference Architecture – http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/products-solutions/citrix-reference-architecture-for-xenmobile-86.pdf.
6: Deploying the XenMobile Solution – http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX139235 as well as download a copy of the XenMobile MDXToolKit Documentation v1.0 – http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX140458.
Pre & Post Discovery Meeting (DRAFT & MAY CONTAIN ERROR(S))
1: Ensure that you educate the organisation as to what XenMobile is and is capable of doing re MDM, MAM and MIM.
2: Setup 2-3 GoToMeeting sessions. The first is to answer any Q&A that the organisation has for you re the pre-requites and ensure that they have started to prepare any external dependencies e.g iOS Enterprise Developer Account. The second is to ensure that all the pre-requites have been completed prior to the installation onsite for the PoC and to answer any further Q&A the organisation has. If the organisation has not completed the pre-requites then proceed with the third GoToMeeting and if the pre-requites have not being completed I would strongly advise escalating to managers on both that your PoC will more than likely be unsuccessful as your need ports opened, servers build, software downloaded, certificates e.t.c and you will need to focus on installing and then configuring the products to be integrated together and into mgmt infrastructure e.g (s)LDAP and finally configure policies and if applicable wrapping Worx, ShareFile *.ipa and *.apk files to become *.mdx to provide secure sandboxed, internet and intranet browsing (WorxWeb) + e-mail (WorxMail) and data sharing (ShareFile).
3: Decide on a database platform note that Postgres SQL is built-in to the XDM software package and is great for PoC’s or alternatively you can use MS SQL.
4: Decide upon the XDM management addr for mobile devices you can use either an IP Addr 10.10.100.200 for FQDN e.g mdm.axendatacentre.com, however I would recommend a FQDN. Why? When you install and configure the XDM your creating and configuring a CA if use used an IP addr and you decided to move the XDM server from one subnet to another and could not provide the exact IP or you move from one ISP to another you’ll get a new IP addr range you will break the CA and all enrolled devices will become unmanaged so install using an FQDN and you can always adjust the underlying IP addr of the XDM’s serves FQDN this not compromising/breaking the XDM’s CA and all devices will remain managed and connected to the XDM. Remember changing an IP addr of an external FQDN does and will require 24 hours for DNS to propagate through out the internet.
5: Login to your Citrix My Account at – http://www.citrix.com/ locate and click Partner Central (Opens a new tab) then once the web page loads click Sales in the navigation menu bar and click on SalesIQ (Opens a new tab) then once loaded click on PoC Central scroll down and download the XenMobile PoC kit. Note only valid Citrix Partners may download content from Citrix SalesIQ.
PoC Notes & Tips
1: Deploy your first few XenMobile 8.7 PoC’s using single NIC’s.
2: Stick with 2-3 devices during a PoC to maximise your PoC success and remember a PoC is designed to prove a concept or a technology.
3: If your deploying ShareFile On-Prem SZ remember to back SZKeys.txt in the root of your ShareFile data CIFS share.
4: Your PoC should run smoothly provided that you can confirm that all the perquisites for XenMobile Enterprise are successfully completed prior to arriving onsite and this should also potentially include having a basic customer defined MDM, MDX policy agreement so that you can setup and configure these policies post successfully deploying the XenMobile components so that you can begin your initial testing to check that everything is operating as expected thereafter you demonstrate that the deployment is active and working as expected. At this stage you can either define what MDM, MDX policies you wish to trial or test during the PoC however hopefully this has too also been previously agreed and you can begin defining the policies by platform and for any Worx or 3rd party signed MDX mobiles apps.
5: XDM clustering for high-availability in XenMobile 9.0 has changed so please refer to this blog article – which will help your understand what Tomcat configuration changes are required prior to performing an in place upgrade from XenMobile Device Manager 8.7 to 9.0. This changes also means that your XDM cluster can now reside in alternatively data centres ref – .
Support NetScaler Gateway (Builds + Versions) for XM 9.0
1: 10.5.53.9; 10.5.52.11; 10.5.52.1115.e; 10.5.51.1017.e; 10.5.51.10; 10.1.129.1105.e; 10.1.128.8003.e; 10.1.127.1007.e; 10.1.126.1203.e; 10.1.124.1308.e ref – http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/worx-mobile-apps/xmob-10-understand-compatibilitymatrix-con.html.
