Citrix GIS Application Migration: Lessons Learned for Developers and Users

1. Citrix GIS Application Migration: Lessons Learned for Developers and Users John Zastrow, Tetra Tech; Chris Jacobson, Forest Service; Jay Frankland, Forest Service;

2. Consolidation Background • What is Citrix? • Allows remote users to operate applications installed on a remote computer • Results in applications looking and behaving as though installed on local machine • Benefits • Reduce agency infrastructure and application support costs • Increases tools available for many users • Allows parallel processing through virtual instances

3. GIS Migration Project • Created process to evaluate and migrate desktop GIS (and related) tools to central environment • Collected tools from broad user base and made them available to all users • Processed tools that meet selection criteria and pass testing for production

4. Initial GIS Submission Evaluation Considerations for Centralization • Tool is not more appropriately a desktop resource (e.g. data loggers, GPS utilities) • Tool functions in conjunction with or in support of ArcGIS and/or Geospatial data • Equivalent functionality is not provided elsewhere in a more robust or comprehensive tool • A commercial or freeware license could be unequivocally obtained • No technical or performance issues preclude installation (such as occurred with Erdas Imagine and ArcGIS Image Analyst, due to their graphic-intensive nature)

6. Process Responsibilities • Tool sponsor is involved throughout process • Step 1: GIS Migration team and later the eGIS Support team • Step 2: Independent Tester Team • Step 3: QA Assurance Group • Step 4: Change Management Board • There is a process available for requesting servers imaged at PHE available through the Enterprise Operations group for development

7. Forest Service Centralized GIS Local Site Data Center File Server (EFS) Oracle Content Database Local Printers and Plotters Citrix Server Farm Oracle and ArcSDE Desktop PCs ArcGIS Server

8. Environments • Albuquerque, NM • Development environment (PHE) - testing and software developers • Pre-production (PRP) - quality assurance testing before deployment into production • Kansas City, MO • Forest Service Enterprise Data Center (FSEDC) production data center

9. Status • All FS regions submitted GIS-related tools • 110 unique tools evaluated in Step 1 • ~ 50 progressed into testing (ArcGIS 9.2 sp4 and sp6) • 10 failed due to compatibility with Citrix itself • Others suffer a variety of issues • ~ 40 tools in production under 9.2sp6 • Almost done 9.3 testing • Some tools are replaced by native 9.3 functions • 4 previously working tools break under 9.3

10. Lessons Learned: Issues • Surprising Few, but Many are Blocking • Application Issues: • Hard coded paths • Customizations outside of common environment variables • File extension collisions for specialized applications • Packaging Issues: • Some applications do not support “silent” install mode

11. Lessons Learned: Best Practices • Application Configuration • Avoid requirements to read/write from local path – DO NOT hardcode paths • DO NOT hardcode environment variables (directories, user settings) • Reduce space disk usage: limited space on profile areas (FS specific issue) • Assume that you cannot access anything on c:\ (except maybe profile space)

12. Lessons Learned: Best Practices • Packaging for Submittal • Create .msi installers • Have the installer register the extension – loading from files causes problems in Citrix • Document your application: • Dependencies, known issues, service pack requirements • Create a user guide: helps users and testers • Provide sample data (inputs and expected outputs)

13. Contact Chris Jacobson ISO Data Center Migration Program, GIS Tools/Citrix Team Leader Email: cjacobson@fs.fed.us