Citrix Provisioning

Provisioning vGPU-enabled Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop machines

XenServer (formerly Citrix Hypervisor)/ESX hypervisor supports NVIDIA virtual GPU (vGPU) solutions that consist of NVIDIA data center GPUs and vGPU software licensing components. The underlying data center GPUs in the XenServer host is unknown to Citrix Provisioning. Citrix Provisioning only uses the vGPU software settings in the template and propagates it to the VMs provisioned by the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard.

Requirements

  • An NVIDIA vGPU certified server capable of hosting XenServer and NVIDIA vGPU software.
  • Supported hypervisors: Nutanix AHV, Citrix XenServer 6.2 or newer, or vSphere 6.0 or newer.
  • NVIDIA vGPU software: NVIDIA vApps, vPC or RTX Virtual Workstation.
  • NVIDIA drivers: NVIDIA Graphics Driver or NVIDIA RTX Enterprise Driver.
  • The Citrix Provisioning release that corresponds to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops release you are using. The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard only supports the corresponding Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops controller.
  • To provision machines using the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard, you must use Citrix Provisioning 1912 LTSR or later.

Note:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops supports power management for virtual machine (VM) catalogs, but not for physical machine catalogs.

Provisioning procedures

Prepare the master VM

  1. Prepare the master VM with vGPU enabled.
  2. Install the NVIDIA drivers.
  3. Join the machine operating system to Active Directory.
  4. Install the Citrix Provisioning target device software.
  5. Using the Citrix Provisioning Imaging Wizard, create a master virtual disk image. If you plan to use the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard to provision machines, select the Target Device Optimizer option.
  6. Create a template from the master to use during provisioning, using the CVAD Setup Wizard.

Prepare the template VM

Use the information in this section to set up a template VM for provisioned targets. When preparing the template VM, consider:

  • the template uses an attached write cache. This cache is small, approximately 8–16 MB, and can be used for environments requiring a workaround for the SAN policy method.
  • the write cache can also be used in environments applying the UseTemplateCache method.
  • the attached disk ensures that the provisioned target device recognizes the storage controller.
  • booting a VM is a verification process ensuring that the VM used as a template functions with the virtual disk. If the template VM does not boot, the failure is recognized quickly without waiting to provision more VMs.

To prepare the template VM:

  1. Create a template VM with the same properties as the master VM. Assign a hard drive to the template VM to use for write cache.
  2. Create a device record in the Citrix Provisioning database with the MAC address of the template VM.
  3. Assign the virtual disk to the template VM, and then set the device to boot from virtual disk.
  4. PXE boot the VM.
  5. Format the write-cache disk.

Install the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Virtual Delivery Agent

  1. Using the Citrix Provisioning console, set the virtual disk image mode to Private Image.
  2. Install the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) and point the VDA to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Server during the installation. Note: Alternatively, you can install both the VDA and the target device software before creating the virtual disk image. Both install methods require the new template VM to have a formatted write-cache hard drive.
  3. Reboot the VM, and then shut the VM down.
  4. Convert the VM to a template.

Create Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VMs

  1. Using the Citrix Provisioning console, set the virtual disk image mode to Standard Image.
  2. Choose the preferred write cache method.
  3. Select from the following provisioning methods:
    • Deploying virtual desktops to VMs using the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard
    • Using the Streamed VM Setup Wizard

Create Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops machine catalogs

When choosing between creating physical or virtual/blade server machine catalogs, it is important to consider the different advantages and requirements. For example, VM machine catalogs allow for power Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops management while physical machine catalogs do not.

Physical machine catalogs

Device names must exist in Citrix Provisioning device collection and in Active Directory.

Tip:

The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops host record is not required and the VM record names are not verified.

  1. Start the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Machine Catalog Setup Wizard, then select Windows Desktop OS on the Operating System page.
  2. On the Machine Management page, for This Machine Catalog uses select Machines that are not power managed, for example, physical machines.
  3. For Deploy machines using: select Citrix Provisioning. Power management is not provided by Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.
  4. For User Experience select Users connect to a random desktop each time they log on.
  5. Enter the provisioning server’s IP address for the device collection.
  6. Identify the domain where all device Active Directory records are stored and the VDA version level, then click Connect.
  7. In the structure that appears, select the Citrix Provisioning device collection where all the vGPU devices are located, and then click Next. Device records are stored in an exclusive device collection.
  8. Enter a machine catalog name and description, and then click Finish.

Create a Delivery Group and associate it with the machine catalog

For details on creating a Delivery Group, see the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops documentation.

Citrix Provisioning and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops cloud considerations

Within a cloud, you create a machine catalog and deploy it to those machines using Citrix Provisioning by pointing the catalog to a provisioning collection. If you use Citrix Provisioning with a cloud, all the machines within the provisioning collection must be associated with Active Directory accounts.

For more information, see Citrix Provisioning managed by Citrix Cloud.

Provisioning vGPU-enabled Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop machines