With Citrix, you just point and click, right? This is a typical user perspective. But setting up the servers is somewhat more complex. The seven authors of this book have a comprehensive range of experience in designing, managing, and teaching Citrix installations. They have put together almost 600 pages detailing why an organization might choose to use Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0 on Windows Server 2003, and how it can best go about planning, assembling, and managing such an installation.

The book begins with a brief history of Windows Terminal Services, and explores some of the capabilities of its current incarnation (as a remote desktop) in Windows Server 2003. Some limitations seen by the authors are its less-than-ideal load balancing options, its small list of supported clients, and its weak client-side functionality (with respect to drive/printer redirection, role-based application access, and so on).

An introduction to the capabilities of MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0 is provided in chapter 2. It is shown to address the remote desktop limitations cited in the previous chapter, and to provide increased levels of security and performance. Its installation manager component is discussed as a mechanism for deployment of patches from both Microsoft and Citrix.

The authors observe in chapter 3 that planning a MetaFrame deployment should be an in-depth process. A decision must be made between horizontal and vertical scaling. Other decisions must be made about disk types, redundant array of independent disks (RAID) usage, and installation methodologies. The issue of server virtualization (via VMware or otherwise) is visited, and some comments are made concerning which edition of Windows Server 2003 might be selected. The planning of farm components is also addressed, and the features of various MetaFrame editions are listed. The chapter ends with a summary of MetaFrame deployment options (manual, scripted, and so on).

Those with older versions of MetaFrame may wish to migrate to Presentation Server 3.0 to take advantage of newer features and product fixes associated therewith. The migration strategy will vary according to the starting point, and the pertinent issues are discussed in chapter 4.

Detailed steps for installing Windows 2003 Server and Presentation Server 3.0 are presented in chapters 5 and 6. Screen shots are used to illustrate each step, and sample files are shown for scripted installations. The coverage for license servers and farm membership is quite detailed, and there is a useful block diagram showing the steps in upgrading an existing MetaFrame installation.

The deployment of independent computing architecture (ICA) clients is discussed, with more screen shots, in chapter 7. The authors focus on Windows clients, but there is some coverage of clients for Macintosh, Unix, Linux, and Java machines. There are a couple of very useful pages about optimization of wireless access for mobile devices.

ICA clients can be configured to afford access to local printers. There are some provisos relating to driver names, and these are detailed in chapter 8. The authors observe that some of the driver issues can be sidestepped by using the Citrix universal print driver.

Security is an important consideration, and chapters 9 and 10 cover the available techniques for providing secure access and managing user passwords. What could otherwise be very heavy going is made easy through the liberal use of screen shots and flow diagrams.

Chapter 11, “Security and Load Management,” gives some guidelines on preventing virus and intrusion attacks through the use of external devices and MetaFrame server encryption. The use of load evaluators for balancing work between farm components is also discussed.

The remaining chapters deal with Windows and Citrix policy management, server cloning for disaster mitigation, and day-to-day administration. There are also chapters on troubleshooting, and on network management and resource monitoring. As well as screen shots, there are some short scripts illustrating clean shutdown and directory-clean mechanisms.

The book ends with an appendix about the Citrix licensing server, which has vastly simplified license management with Presentation Server 3.0; some capacity planning guidelines and report generation procedures are included.

I am happy to report that this book is both comprehensive and readable; this is good because there aren’t too many alternatives. The chapters fit together in a surprisingly seamless manner, considering the number of authors and the amount of information in them. This book is something every MetaFrame administrator should have.