Migrating published applications with FASe
This is a little step by step planning on how to migrate your published applications using the Gourami FASe.
Scenario:
FarmA - The old presentation server 4.0 Farm
FarmB - The new XenApp 4.5/5.0 farm
You need two FASe licenses for both FarmA and FarmB. In this scenario we assume that both XenApp farm reside in the same Active Directory Domain. This is very important for the associated Domain groups.
1 Backup
a-Make a full backup of your Datastore, consult your DBA-er. (database administrator)
b-Make a full backup of all your XenApp servers
2 Document the old XenApp/Presentation Server farm
a-Document your entire old environment with Farm Reporter. This will give you a detailed HTML report on every aspect of your XenApp farm. Save this document in a save place. Also mind, that in very large environments (50+ servers/100+ published applications) it best to save each aspect of the farm in a separate HTML document, otherwise you end up with one huge/slow HTML file.
b-For overview purposes you can also use Farm Documentor to generate a Drawing of your old environment. This gives you a nice overview of how the servers are spread true the zones. If some elements of your farm fail during documentation, run dsmaint.
3 Clean up the old farm
a-Save all published applications using PAU.
a-delete all unnecessary old published applications, and delete decommissioned servers
b-Run a DSMaint (a tool which comes with XenApp) to clear datastore errors. More information: http://support.citrix.com/search/basic/?searchQuery=dsmaint&searchbtn.x=0&searchbtn.y=0
4 Clean up part 2, skip this if your new XenApp farm is in the same Domain.
a-Back up all published applications using PAU
a-If migrating to a different Active Directory domain you have to remove all associated domain users and groups, this can easily be done with PAU.
5 Save the Published Applications
a-Use PAU to save the published applications, use this set to import later. Due to XenApp limits it's not possible to directly save published applications to a network share. Save it to a local disc first, then copy it to a network location.
b-Examine PAu's log (in my documents) closely to see if the operation was successful.
6 Building the new Farm
a-Install FASe on the new farm
b-Load the published apps saved in step 5, again check the log to see if there are any errors.
c-Use PAU to fine-tune the application settings
Notes
I its best not to grand separate users access to published applications. It's all ways better and faster to associate an AD group with a published application. This is based on the AGLP/AGDLP more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGDLP
II Old application servers can be moved to the new Farm with chfarm command. This can be use full for application which only runs on legacy platforms as Windows Server 2000. http://support.citrix.com/search/basic?searchQuery=chfarm&Submit=
