Moving to the cloud can be a daunting task, especially if you’re managing a large on-premises setup. And because it tends to be specific to your use case, you often must write custom automation to migrate to the cloud.

Citrix is pleased to announce the global availability of Automated Configuration for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. This tool is designed to automate migration of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops configuration (policies, applications, catalogs, and more) from one or more on-premises site(s) to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop service on Citrix Cloud. You also can use it to migrate configuration between different cloud regions or tenants.

Citrix has leveraged DevOps industry standard configuration-as-code mechanism to help automate the migration process. With this tool, we discover and export one or more on-premises sites as a collection of configuration files and use custom commands to import configuration in stages into Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service. Admins can also run the tool multiple times, enabling them to achieve the desired configuration between on-premises site(s) and Cloud site easily.

The tool is not limited to the use case of migration from on-premises to cloud. Our vision is to automate all configuration management in the cloud, hence the name Automated Configuration. You can leverage it for automating day-to-day configuration operations and backup and also for cloud site-to-site synchronization. This is key for keeping multiple dev/test cloud sites in sync with the cloud production site, backing up existing configurations as well as automating disaster recovery.

Real World Customer Feedback

Since the announcement of our tech preview, we have seen great adoption by customers who have been actively using the tool to help with migration and automate configuration management in the cloud. Customers like Reliance Steel and Aluminum have seen real world benefits using the tool.

“The tool saved us hundreds of work hours we would need if we had to manually recreate more than 1,200 published apps along with several dozens of machine catalogs and delivery groups,” “said Frane Braljkas, Senior Systems Engineer at Reliance. “A year or longer project was done in a couple months,”

Deepak Mohan, Platform Specialist with Loblaw, said his company has directly benefited from the tool. “The migration tool was a perfect example for automation in work where in it was able to migrate all my on-prem configs to the cloud site with ease. What would have taken months got completed in 35 minutes, which was amazing,” he said. “Without your team’s dedication and commitment in getting the tool to this perfection, our migration would have been a Himalayan task with thousands of applications to migrate.”

We’ve created a step-by-step guide on Citrix Tech Zone to help you get started today. Here are some highlights that show how easy it is to get started:

Simple to Download and Install

Download the tool and install the MSI by using the prompts as shown below. An icon for “Auto config” would be created.

Migrate Configuration from On-Premises Site(s) into Cloud

Migrating configuration consists of two parts: exporting configuration from on-premises and importing it into cloud. Let’s explore them both.

Export configuration from your on-premises setup

Run a simple export command from your ddc or a domain-joined machine with POSH SDK installed and .NET >=7.2. The entire site configuration will be discovered as a collection of .yml files and available at %HOMEPATH%\Documents\Citrix\AutoConfig.

Export-CvadAcToFile

Import configuration into Cloud

After basic pre-requisites such as Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service provisioning, resource location setup, and cloud connection details are taken care of, run the command below.

You can access the detailed report of what’s imported, as well as fixups, at %HOMEPATH%\Documents\Citrix\AutoConfig. You can also spot check the cloud studio to check the configuration imported.

Please note, there are many variants of the Import command (merging with objects already existing in cloud, making cloud an exact replica of the on-premises site or creating only new objects).

Merge-CvadAcToSite

 

Importing Configuration in Stages Using Object Names or Object Types

The tool is very flexible and enables you to import by object types (catalogs, policies, tags, etc.) or by object names. For more info check out our granular migration cmdlet parameters documentation.

Importing configuration by object names – The `IncludeByName` and `ExcludeByName` flags enable inclusion and exclusion of component members by name. The input for these flags could be a comma separated list of names or a file path containing the names and can also contain one or more wildcards. You can also use other custom flags like `ByDeliveryGroupName` to import applications by delivery group name.

Merge-CvadAcToSite –DeliveryGroups $true –IncludeByName DgSite1*,*Home2*

Merge-CvadAcToSite –Applications $true –ByDeliveryGroupName   <DG_name>

Importing configuration using object types – The tool supports importing by object types (for example, you want to export only policies or applications). All the objects can be imported in this fashion if their upstream dependent objects already exist (For more info check our import order and component dependency documentation).

Merge-CvadAcToSite -GroupPolicies $true

Moving Configurations from One Cloud Account to Another

The tool allows you to automate day-to-day operations in your cloud or multi-cloud setup. Some of the use cases include:

  • Moving configuration from one GEO to another
  • Breaking setup into multiple cloud setups
  • Automate moving configuration from dev/test cloud account to production cloud account
  • Automating disaster recovery.

Backup the source Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops cloud site (same pre-requisites as importing into cloud) – Backup-CvadAcToFile

Restore to the destination Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops cloud site (same pre-requisites as importing into cloud) – Restore-CvadAcToSite -RestoreFolder <folder path of the backup files>

Be sure to check our detailed documentation for migrating from cloud to cloud.

At Citrix, we’re committed to helping our customers move to the cloud with confidence with tools like the Automated Configuration for Virtual Apps and Desktops. In addition to the step-by-step guide, we’ve also created additional support items to help guide you, including a customer discussion forum and an easy way to download the tool and get started today.