Jeff's Citrix certification preparation blog

I am moving Citrixxperience to jeffrohrer.com. The new site is going to give it a much needed design update and is more powerful and configurable from a webmaster point of view. View my progress on the new Citrix certification exam preparation web site. Be aware that I am still in the very early stages of design and development.

Please note that the 1Y0-259 exam is titled Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 and XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2003: Administration. It is not for Windows Server 2008.

There is also a note on Citrix Education’s web site stating that the new exam, 1Y0-A23 Citrix XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2003: Administration, will replace the 1Y0-259 and will include material based on Feature Pack 2.

As mentioned in my last post, the 1Y0-259 will be discontinued after 3/31/2010, but will still count towards certification.

From Citrix Education’s web site: Exam 259 will be discontinued on 3/31/2010 and will be replaced by exam A23 (scheduled to be released in Q1 2010).

Carl Webster has written the most informative 3-part series of articles on preparing for Citrix certification. Start with part 1 of the series here.

Carl (or as he prefers to be called, Webster) has many more great Citrix and virtualization articles at DABCC and his own web site.

After reading his article which gives a peek inside of his own virtualization lab environment, I am excited to rebuild my own.

I am glad to be returning to writing Citrix exam prep products after a brief and unexpected hiatus. I am creating the 1Y0-A08 Advanced XenApp for Windows 2008 prep products, which you should expect to be available in early 2010. After that, 1Y0-A14 Implementing XenDesktop 3.

Thanks for all of your support over the years. I’m look forward to continuing assisting in you in your Citrix certification pursuits.

Follow my progress on Twitter.

Citrix Education announced today that they will be delivering CCA and CCSP certifications electronically. The certifications will be sent via email one day after completing certification.

Citrix hopes to help in the cause of reducing carbon footprint in the environment by printing less paper certifications. The certification holder can still print the electronic certification from their own printer.

Citrix Education says that CCEE, CCEA, CCIA and CCI certifications will still be delivered via a paper certificate.

More information can be obtained in the Citrix certification FAQ.

The path for the CCEE (Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer) certification can be found on Citrix Education’s site, but I will give a brief overview of the requirements here:

Step 1: Attain an administrator series certification for each of the following: Citrix XenApp, Citrix XenServer and Citrix XenDesktop.

Step 2: Pass the 1Y0-A08 Advanced Administration for Citrix XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2008 exam.

Step 3: Pass the 1Y0-A15 Engineering a Citrix Virtualization Solution exam.

Step 4: Agree to the CCEE for Virtualization program agreement that is available in Certification Manager.

So that’s the nutshell explanation of obtaining a Citrix CCEE certification. For more info, see Citrix Education.

Now available via Citrix Education’s 1Y0-A14 study page, the 1Y0-A14 Implementing Citrix XenDesktop 3 Exam Preparation Guide.

According to best practices in the Citrix Provisioning Server Administrator’s Guide, page 187, there are two prerequisites to integrating Active Directory and Provisioning Server 5. These prereqs are:

1. Prior to integrating Provisioning Server with Active Directory, the Disable Machine Account Password Changes option must have been selected in the image optimization wizard.

and….

2. The Master Target Device must have been added to the domain AFTER building the vDisk.

Will this be on the 1Y0-A06 Implementing Provisioning Server 5.0 exam? I don’t know, but there is an objective in the 1Y0-A06 Exam Enablement Guide that “Given an environment with Microsoft Active Directory, determine how to configure Active Directory to function with Provisioning Server 5.0.”

I figure it can’t hurt to know it.

One objective in the 1Y0-A06 Implementing Citrix Provisioning Server 5 Exam Enablement Guide states that you should know how to “view vDisk properties using the Console”. So here are three ways to do so:

To view the properties of a vDisk using the Console:

1) Highlight a vDisk and select Properties from the Action menu.

2) Right-click on a vDisk and select Properties.

3) Double-click on a vDisk in the details pane.

Not rocket science, but knowing these will more than likely come in helpful on at least one question on the 1Y0-A06 exam.

For more information, see Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 Administrator’s Guide, Page 86.

Follow Citrixxperience on Twitter where at least once a week I will give out discount codes of 10% off or better of Citrixxperience exam prep products.

To win, be the first person to answer a specific question correctly. The question can be asked anytime during the week and will be on the subject of the prep product that I am currently working on. I will pre-empt the questions with something like “For a 15% discount code:”

For about the next week or so, I am working on the 1Y0-A06 Implementing Citrix Provisioning Server 5.

Be sure to follow Citrixxperience because I also ask a question of the day almost every day of the week.

One of the objectives in the 1Y0-A06 Implementing Provisioning Server 5.0 Exam Enablement Guide states that you should know how to create a vDisk. Following are the steps to create a new vDisk in the Provisioning Server Console:

1. Right-click a store or vDisk pool, and click Create vDisk.

2. Select the site that will contain the vDisk.

3. Select the server to use to create the vDisk.

4. Type a filename and optional description.

5. Type the size in MB of the vDisk.

6. Select either a fixed or dynamic format for the vDisk.

7. Click Create vDisk.

You can find this information on page 158 of the CPV-200-1I Implementing Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 courseware or page 92 of the Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 Administrator’s Guide.

It’s well known that in all Citrix exams you need to have a few ports memorized. I’ll cover a couple of them today that you’ll need for the 1Y0-A06 Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 exam.

DHCP and Proxy DHCP can use the same port or separate ports, depending on if they are on the same server or separate servers. Below are three different configurations you should know for the exam.

Configuration 1 –> DHCP stand alone with no PXE Service — uses port 67

Configuration 2 –> DHCP and Proxy DHCP hosted on the same server — DHCP uses port 67, Proxy DHCP uses port 4011

Configuration 3 –> DHCP and Proxy DHCP hosted on separate servers — both DHCP and Proxy DHCP use port 67

Remember to open those ports on the firewall if there is a firewall between the DHCP / Proxy DHCP server(s) and target devices!

According to the 1Y0-A06 Exam Enablement Guide – “Given a description of an environment, determine whether to set a vDisk to standard or private image mode” - this should come in handy for at least one question. Probably a couple.

There are three mode options for vDisks in Provisioning Server. I’m only going to elaborate on two of them. You can find more information on all of them in the Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 Administrator’s Guide on pages 32 – 36:

Standard Image Mode: The vDisk is set to read-only, allowing multiple target devices use of a single vDisk at one time. By using Standard Image mode, there is a big reduction in the requirements for storage space and management. The downsides are: Users can’t personalize their applications and desktops, and administrators must determine the best place to store the write cache (not really a big deal).

Private Image Mode: The vDisk is set to read-write, allowing only one target device to use the vDisk at a time. This creates a big increase in the Provisioning Server load and vDisk storage space. Some upsides include: Users can install and personalize their own applications, hard drive failures are eliminated and better security than PC hard drives.

Different Disk Image Mode: Allows for the saving of changes between reboots.

In Citrix Provisioning Server, administrative roles determine what permissions an administrator has in the Provisioning Server farm. The following are the roles and the permissions with each role, as described in the CPV-200-1I Implementing Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 courseware:

Device Operator: View properties of a vDisk assigned to a target device, view target device properties, boot target devices, shut down target devices, and send messages to target devices.

Device Administrator: The same tasks as Device Operator and: Assign and unassign vDisks to a target device, modify properties of a target device and device collection, modify device templates for a device collection, move a target device from one device to another within a site, remove a target device from a device collection, and delete a target device from a device collection.

Site Administrator: The same tasks as Device Administrator and: Manage all objects within a site,  and manage Device Administrator and Device Operator memberships.

Farm Administrator: The same tasks as Site Administrator and: Manage all objects within a farm and manage role memberships throughout the farm.

This information is useful for the Planning a Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 Implementation section of the 1Y0-A06 exam, according to the 1Y0-A06 Exam Enablement Guide, Section 5.4, Exam Objectives.