XenApp Reading List
This is a very personal recommendation of what to read to become and stay an expert in Citrix XenApp.
Learning the Basics
Terminal Services for Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Advanced Technical Design Guide
Brian Madden and Ron Oglesby
Available online free of charge
By far the best resource to learn about Terminal Services. This should be the first thing you read. Even though the cover is ugly and “Windows Server 2003” sounds dated, the book definitely is not – most concepts still apply and you won’t find better explanations of the key concepts anywhere.
The second thing to read could be Carl Webster’s 7-part series Learning the Basics of Citrix XenApp 5 for Windows Server 2003 which introduces you to the world of Citrix.
Up until XenApp 5 Citrix published comprehensive Administrator’s Guides, PDF manuals one could read from beginning to end and claim to have a solid understanding of the product afterwards. Beginning with XenApp 6 the Admin Guides have been replaced with eDocs, a smorgasbord of pages with information on all kinds of topics, good for looking up specific information, but impossible to use as learning material.
Farm Administration and Design
Articles explaining how to architect, size and maintain XenApp farms:
- Rick Dehlinger and Roddy Rodstein: Citrix XenApp Reference Design
- Wilco van Bragt: Basic principles of designing XenApp environments (part 1 and part 2)
- Citrix: XenApp Planning Guide – Virtualization Best Practices
- Citrix: Introduction to Storage Technologies
- Citrix: XenApp 6.5 Enterprise Scalable XenApp Deployments
- Citrix: Technical Guide for Upgrading/Migrating to XenApp 6.5
- Brian Madden: Terminal Server and Citrix MetaFrame Server Sizing Techniques
Independent Blogs
Blogs with content relevant to XenApp in no particular order:
- Original blogs on brianmadden.com
- Carl Webster’s blog
- Simon Bramfitt’s blog
- Jason Conger’s blog
- Thomas Kötzing’s blog
- Nicholas Dille’s blog
- Citrix Things!
- XenAppBlog
- Andrew Morgan’s blog
- Archy.net by Stéphane Thirion
- Neil Spellings’ blog
- Kees Baggerman’s blog My Virtual Vision
(Mostly) Tools
Sites with free admin tools:
Syndicated News
Sites that aggregate news from around the web:
- Syndicated Industry Blogs from around the Web at brianmadden.com
- Virtualization and Cloud Computing News at dabcc.com
- Ervik.as (Alex also writes original articles)
- Wilco van Bragt (Wilco also writes articles and reviews)
Company Blogs
Official vendor blogs:
How to Get on This List
- I only considered content relevant to Citrix XenApp
- Blogs were considered only if still maintained and updated regularly
- Only English content was considered
If you have content that matches these criteria let me know by commenting below.
