Exporting and importing vDisks
Citrix Provisioning exports and imports both versioned and unversioned vDisks from an existing store to another store in a different farm.
With vDisk versions, you can isolate updates to a vDisk or allow for quick revisions without affecting and copying a 30–40 GB file every time you want to make an update to your vDisk.
When working with vDisk versions, exporting the vDisk is the easiest way to move those versions to another farm. When you export a vDisk, an XML manifest file for the given vDisk is created. The XML manifest file fetches version details from SQL and/or the vhdx/avhdx files on vDisk. This can then be used to import the vDisk into the Citrix Provisioning console. An unversioned vDisk can be imported without the manifest XML file, but a versioned vDisk requires a manifest XML file before it can be imported.
Tip:
Merge differencing disks first to a base disk using third party tools if you are importing VHDs that are not exported using Citrix Provisioning. After merging them, import the new VHD base disk.
Exporting virtual disks
To export a virtual disk
- Right-click on the virtual disk in the Citrix Provisioning console, then select the Export menu option. The Export dialog appears.
- Select the version to export from the menu, then click OK. The manifest file is created in the Store.
Tip:
If you delete a virtual disk that you plan to export, Citrix recommends that you export the virtual disk first. After exporting it, copy the resulting XML file to the new location before deleting it from the original location.
Importing vDisks
A virtual disk or virtual disk chain of differencing VHD files can be imported into a store if:
- The imported VHD does not exist in the store and both the highest version number of the VHD and associated manifest files match.
- The VHD chain includes a base image, and that base image version number matches the base image version in the manifest file.
Note:
When importing a single virtual disk, no manifest file is required, however, if you import vDisks with versions you must include a manifest file.
- The VHD does exist in the store but the imported version number in the associated manifest file is greater than the existing VHD version number.
Important:
If you have an existing vDisk with the same name in other stores, and one or more of those stores either has not set the provisioning server, or the server is unreachable, the import fails. A message appears indicating
No server available to handle [other store name]. This issue occurs because the import process checks that the imported vDisk is not stored in the same location as the vDisk with the same name located in the other store.
To add or import an existing virtual disk to a site
- Copy the virtual disk and any associated properties files to shared storage, if they do not exist there.
- In the console, right-click on the Store or a vDisk Pool, then select the Add or Import Existing vDisk menu option. The Add or Import Existing vDisks dialog appears.
- Select the store to search for vDisks from the Store to search menu.
- Select the server to use to search for vDisks from the Server to use for searching menu, then click Search. All vDisks in the store display in the Add checked vDisks to the vDisk Pool.
- Check the vDisks you want added to the virtual disk pool.
- Optionally, check Enable load balancing for these vDisks to enable load balancing on provisioning servers that provide this virtual disk to target devices.
- Click Add to add the vDisk(s) to the virtual disk pool.
Adding virtual disk versions
To add a virtual disk version to a site
- Copy the virtual disk, and any associated property files, to shared storage, if they do not exist there.
- In the console, right-click on the Store or a vDisk Pool, then select the Add vDisk Versions menu option. The Add vDisk Versions dialog appears.
- Select the store to search for vDisks from the Store to search menu.
- Select the server to use to search for vDisks from the Server to use for searching menu, then click Search. All vDisks in the store display in the Add checked vDisks new versions.
- Check those virtual disk versions added to the virtual disk pool.
- Click Add to add the vDisk(s) to the virtual disk pool.