Tips - Citrix scenarios
Citrix scenarios are governed by Newtest’s Windows client environment. There are two types of Citrix application: the fat client and the remote client. In both cases, the client is aimed at a Citrix server farm. It is vital for these servers to be configured uniformly: OS configuration, versions of distributed applications, language and so forth. Display settings, particularly screen resolution and color depth of the fat client are configured on the client itself, while settings for remote clients are configured via a browser, as they are for each probe running a Citrix scenario. In the event of unavailability of Citrix scenarios, it is possible to kill the processes used by the client. Nevertheless this method leaves an open user session which is not restored on the Citrix server that was doing the serving. Good practice would require that the Citrix administrator attribute rights to Newtest accounts with the Citrix administration tool so as to allow the sessions left open to be killed. There also exists a way to "tidy up" on the server side. This implies the involvement of the Citrix administrator, who, on the Citrix platform, should set up rights to the Newtest account(s), which will be able to delete the accounts/sessions in question. In this way your scenarios can run linearly from the start without being hampered by sessions.

Consulting - Virtualized environments
Virtualized environments such as VMware are increasingly used by our clients. Having completed a variety of such projects for some customers, not to mention the skills acquired in-house at ip-label.newtest, our consultants now possess the required know-how to integrate the Newtest Enterprise Portal solution into such an environment.
While our recommendations are based upon a VMware technical platform, the same principles can be also applied to other virtualization software. Essential functions are now available, including:

- Easy installation of a technical platform in line with our recommendations for installing the NEP solution.
- Creation of a backup strategy for infrastructures with specific tools (VMware, VMFS, VMotion, HA, VMtools etc.)
- To control and manage the platform, a variety of indicators/alerts can be propagated via VM’s administration tools. For Newtest, ‘Storage I/O Resource Settings’ is an essential indicator to monitor due to the fact that our solution uses a DBMS on a MS SQL Server technical platform.

We therefore have sound experience of the risks and best practices regarding the integration of Newtest products into a virtualized environment. We offer this experience to our customers and for any POCs we are called upon to carry out.