Profile Management

Persistent? Provisioned? Dedicated? Shared?

October 14, 2024

Contributed by:

C L

The types of machines that create profiles affect your configuration decisions. The primary factors are whether machines are persistent or provisioned, and whether they are shared by multiple users or dedicated to just one user.

Persistent systems have some type of local storage, the contents of which can be expected to persist when the system turns off. Persistent systems might employ storage technology such as SANs to provide local disk mimicking. In contrast, provisioned systems are created “on the fly” from a base disk and some type of identity disk. Local storage is usually mimicked by a RAM disk or network disk, the latter often provided by a SAN with a high-speed link. The provisioning technology is generally Provisioning Services or Machine Creation Services (or a third-party equivalent). Sometimes provisioned systems have persistent local storage, which might be provided by Personal vDisks. They are classed as persistent.

Together, these two factors define the following machine types:

Both persistent and dedicated - Examples are single-session OS machines with a static assignment and a Personal vDisk that are created with Machine Creation Services (in Citrix virtual desktops), desktops with Personal vDisks that are created with VDI-in-a-Box, physical workstations, and laptops
Both persistent and shared - Examples are multi-session OS machines that are created with Machine Creation Services (in Citrix virtual desktops), and Citrix virtual apps servers
Both provisioned and dedicated - Examples are single-session OS machines with a static assignment but without a Personal vDisk that are created with Provisioning Services (in Citrix virtual desktops)
Both provisioned and shared - Examples are multi-session OS machines with a random assignment that are created with Provisioning Services (in Citrix virtual desktops), desktops without Personal vDisks that are created with VDI-in-a-Box, and Citrix virtual apps servers

The following Profile Management policy settings are suggested guidelines for the different machine types. They usually work well, but you might want to deviate from them as your deployment requires.

Note: In Citrix virtual desktops deployments, Delete locally cached profiles on logoff, Profile streaming, and Always cache are enforced by the auto-configuration feature.

Policy	Both persistent and dedicated	Both persistent and shared	Both provisioned and dedicated	Both provisioned and shared
Delete locally cached profiles on logoff	Disabled	Enabled	Disabled (note 5)	Enabled
Profile streaming	Disabled	Enabled	Enabled	Enabled
Always cache	Enabled (note 1)	Disabled (note 2)	Disabled (note 6)	Disabled
Active write back	Disabled	Disabled (note 3)	Enabled	Enabled
Process logons of local administrators	Enabled	Disabled (note 4)	Enabled	Enabled (note 7)

Notes

Because Profile streaming is disabled for this machine type, the Always cache setting is always ignored.
Disable Always cache. However, you can ensure that large files are loaded into profiles as soon as possible after logon by enabling this policy and using it to define a file size limit (in MB). Any file this size or larger is cached locally as soon as possible.
Disable Active write back except to save changes in profiles of users who roam between Citrix virtual apps servers. In this case, enable this policy.
Disable Process logons of local administrators except for Hosted Shared Desktops. In this case, enable this policy.
Disable Delete locally cached profiles on logoff. This retains locally cached profiles. Because the machines are assigned to individual users, logons are faster if their profiles are cached.
Disable Always cache. However, you can ensure that large files are loaded into profiles as soon as possible after logon by enabling this policy and using it to define a file size limit (in MB). Any file this size or larger is cached locally as soon as possible.
Enable Process logons of local administrators except for profiles of users who roam between Citrix virtual apps servers. In this case, disable this policy.

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