Joining Additional XenApp 6.0 Servers to a XenApp Farm Using Microsoft SQL Server Express Data Store

Recently, someone posted on Experts Exchange a problem they were having joining additional XenApp 6.0 servers to a farm that used a Microsoft SQL Server Express data store.  I have installed XenApp 6.0 numerous times using a Microsoft SQL Server Express data store and never ran into the issues this person had.  This is my attempt to document what the person needed to do to successfully join additional XenApp 6.0 servers to an existing XenApp 6.0 farm.  There were no issues reported with installing XenApp 6.0, just in configuring XenApp 6.0 to join the farm so I will not cover XenApp 6.0 installation in this article.

I installed XenApp 6.0 onto fully patched, as of 24-Nov-2012, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 servers.  These are the steps I took for the FIRST XenApp 6.0 server that will hold the Microsoft SQL Server Express data store database.

After the installation completed, I clicked Configure (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Click on Create a new server farm (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Enter a New XenApp Server farm name and click Next.  The farm name has a maximum length of 32 characters.  By default, the account used to install XenApp 6.0 becomes a full farm administrator.  Figure 3 shows a workgroup account and Figure 4 shows a domain account.

Figure 3

Figure 4

I always create a Citrix policy that contains the Citrix License Server information.  Click Next (Figure 5).

Figure 5

Click New database  and click Next (Figure 6).

Figure 6

A prompt appears for the database credentials .  Figure 7 shows a local account and Figure 8 shows an Active Directory (AD)  domain account.  Enter the necessary credentials and click OK.

Figure 7

Figure 8

Click Next (Figure 9).

Figure 9

The decision made on the Configure shadowing screen cannot be changed without reinstalling XenApp 6.0.  For this article, click Next (Figure 10).

Figure 10

You will need to go through the four sections on the Specify advanced server settings screen and make the changes necessary for your environment.  Click Next (Figure 11).

Figure 11

Review the configuration in Figure 12 and if needed, click Back to make any necessary changes.  Click Apply.

Figure 12

As shown in Figure 13, Microsoft SQL Server Express is installed and the data store is created.

Figure 13

Click Finish (Figure 14).

Figure 14

Click Reboot (Figure 15).

Figure 15

Click Yes to restart the server (Figure 16).

Figure 16

After the first XenApp server restarts, login but don’t do anything at this time on this server.

Now go to the next XenApp server to add to the XenApp farm.

Click Configure (Figure 17).

Figure 17

Click Join an existing server farm (Figure 18).

Figure 18

Click Existing Microsoft SQL Server Express database  and click Next (Figure 19).

Figure 19

Enter the name or IP address of the first XenApp 6.0 server (Figure 20) and click Next.  This is the server where Microsoft SQL Server Express was installed.  If your servers are in a workgroup you will need to setup entries in each servers hosts  file to allow name resolution of each server.  In an AD domain environment, the servers should already be setup in DNS.

Note: In my opinion, if the only way this works is by using the IP address of the first XenApp server then you need to fix your name resolution issues.

Figure 20

Enter the same credentials used on the first XenApp server for the database and click OK.  Figure 21 shows using local credentials and Figure 22 shows using AD Domain credentials.

Figure 21

Figure 22

Click Test Connection (Figure 23).

Figure 23

Click OK on the popup (Figure 24).

Figure 24

Click Next (Figure 25).

Figure 25

Click Next (Figure 26).

Figure 26

You will need to go through the five sections on the Specify advanced server settings screen and make the changes necessary for your environment (the same information entered for Figure 11).  Click Next (Figure 27).

Figure 27

Click Apply (Figure 28).

Figure 28

The new XenApp server has now joined the existing XenApp server farm.  Click Finish (Figure 29).

Figure 29

Click Reboot (Figure 30).

Figure 30

Click Yes (Figure 31).

Figure 31

After the server completely restarts and is sitting at the CTRL + ALT + DELETE logon screen, return to the first XenApp server.  Click on Start -> All Programs -> Citrix -> Management Consoles -> Citrix Delivery Services Console (Figure 32).

Figure 32

Click Next (Figure 33).

Figure 33

Unselect Single Sign-On and click Next (Figure 34).

Note: If Single Sign-On is not used, the Citrix Single Sign-On Console 4.8  can be uninstalled.

Figure 34

Click Add Local Computer (Figure 35).

Figure 35

Click Next (Figure 36).

Figure 36

Click Next (Figure 37).

Figure 37

Click Finish (Figure 38).

Note: If you get an error, double-click the error message to see what the error is.  More than likely, if you are in a workgroup environment, the additional XenApp server could not be found.  This is a name resolution issue.  On the first XenApp server, add an entry to the hosts file for the additional XenApp server.

Figure 38

Expand the Farm (Figure 39).

Figure 39

Expand the Servers node and you will see both XenApp servers are in the farm (Figure 40).

Figure 40

That is it.  Use the process starting at Figure 17 for each additional XenApp 6.0 server that needs added to the farm.

Note: Make sure you use CTX129229 and apply the recommended patches to all the XenApp servers in the farm.