Comments on: Changing a Production XenDesktop 7.1 Site to use SQL Mirroring

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 18:51:17 +0000

In reply to Steven Cochrane. Just use File Explorer (or similar) to just copy the backup files to the other server(s). It is as easy as that. Webster

By: Steven Cochrane

Steven Cochrane — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 18:49:01 +0000

I know this thread is from 2015, etc Similar to the post from Goran Jozic

I was planning to do cutover from a standalone SQL server to new SQL servers that would represent the three site DB’s.

The only difference is that your post was including the standalone that that ALSO became the Primary in the Mirror.

What I don’t have any record of is copying the backup files to the two new sql servers that were not part of the site previously. If I had to take a guess this process could also still be completed? That wouldn’t require a new site to be created would it? For just copying the DB to new Primary server name?

BTW – Your post is fantastic. I saved it for reference.

By: François Gagné

François Gagné — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 12:43:00 +0000

Hi Carl,
terrific post !

I’have maybe found two errors In the last part of your post when you configure the logging Db and monitoring Db,
line7 in the script “–DBConnection” is missing.
and
line10 and 11
in my opinion you should specify the Site Db instead the logging and monitoring db because without Datastore parameter the default datastore is Site.

for example “Set-LogDBConnection –DBConnection $xxx” is the same as “Set-LogDBConnection -datastore Site –DBConnection $xxx”

So I think this is the best usage:
Set-LogDBConnection –DBConnection $cs –AdminAddress $controller
Set-MonitorDBConnection –DBConnection $cs –AdminAddress $controller

I also add Set-LogSite commandlet to disable and enable logging before and after performing Set-LogDBConnection.

Set-LogSite -State Disabled –AdminAddress $controller
Set-LogDBConnection blabla blabla
Set-LogSite -State Enabled –AdminAddress $controller

Anyway your post is amazing, and it helped me to understand a lot of things.

keep going

François

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 10:28:25 +0000

In reply to Datta. Thanks for the very kind words. Webster

By: Datta

Datta — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 04:35:33 +0000

Your in depth technical information with a simple way to make any citrix admin understand the functionality, hatsoff to you carl. By referring the articles published, i have setup the lab environment and also have made our production environment more robust and highly available.

Keep continuing the good work, You are making many more Citrix admins through out the world. The best Mentor and teacher

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 21:59:53 +0000

In reply to Knight. The AlwaysOn Availability Group Listener is the magic key. That is what you enter for what my article calls the mirror server. Are you really still on 7.1? This article is not applicable to any version after 7.1. Webster

By: Knight

Knight — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 15:11:12 +0000

In my case I am migrating from a standalone SQL Server to Always On Availability Group

What steps and additional considerations are required for ensuring a smooth migration?
So far I have:
1. DDC Accounts on SQL (Need to Match)
2. When re-conecting use the Listener´s name.

Thanks

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Tue, 17 May 2016 15:00:23 +0000

In reply to Michael Dyer.

Can you connect to your desktops or servers? Follow this article to make sure the connection string is correct.

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX139222

Webster

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Tue, 17 May 2016 14:51:34 +0000

In reply to Fred. I am not a SQL guy so I have no help for you. In all the mirror setups I have done, they all failed over and were ready for use in less than one minute. Webster

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 12 May 2016 19:44:56 +0000

This page has been very useful in helping me create the mirroring. My one problem that I am still encountering though is when failing over to the 2nd SQL Server, I still am not able to run the command “Get-BrokerController” which gives the PermissionDenied error…even though both logins have been added to the mirrored server and 5 minutes passed before I even attempt to run the command.

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 12:09:31 +0000

In reply to Kyle Woodbury. I have updated the article to reflect your comments. Webster

By: Kyle Woodbury

Kyle Woodbury — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 20:57:58 +0000

We used this last night to attempt a 7.6 DB mirror, and it corrupted our DDCs due to the following from CTX escalation:
If the db strings on a 7.x broker are nulled out in the wrong order, there is a high probability, and looks like was the case here based on the DAS errors you experienced, you can lock yourself out of the farm and fall into a outage situation. http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX140319 outlines the appropriate process correctly for 7.6, there are several other blog posts that discuss a similar process but instructions are incomplete, this is because of the versions of XD they were written for, even through the title says 7.x, if the body of the document was written for versions earlier than 7.5/7.6 then they did not account for the analytics/Delegated admin services and these are the services that get our users into trouble.

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 17:45:01 +0000

In reply to Luciano. No I do not. Sorry, only so many hours in a day and week. Webster

By: Luciano

Luciano — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 16:37:30 +0000

Great post, do you have a similar procedure but for XenApp 6.5 and 7.5?
I’m looking for a procedure to migrate the datastores of 6.5 and 7.5 (currently on a single sql 2008 server) to a SQL 2014 cluster.
Thanks.

By: Michael Dyer

Michael Dyer — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 10:48:50 +0000

Hi Carl

I got a warning message during the mirroring process for the security group used for the Service account portion of the mirror configuration. “SQL Server cannot create domain\sqlserver”. (Microsoft. SqlServer.Smo)

The mirror worked just want to ensure its been configured correctly.

All three servers are members of the SQL Server security group. Do this group need rights on the database server? Did I miss a step

Thanks again for your time.

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 13:11:00 +0000

In reply to Salim.

That is explained in the article. Do you have the computer accounts added to both SQL servers? Did you wait long enough for the failover to settle down?

Thanks

Webster

By: Salim

Salim — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 08:52:10 +0000

Hi Carl,

Great Article…

All above steps i have completed SQL Mirroring

When I failback to principal server and when I go back to DDC1 in opened Powershell Get-BrokerController command fails and gives me below error

PS C:\Users\administrator.SKLAB> Get-BrokerController
Get-BrokerController : Insufficient administrative privilege
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-BrokerController
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : PermissionDenied: (:) [Get-BrokerController], SdkOperationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Citrix.XDPowerShell.Broker.AccessDenied,Citrix.Broker.Admin.SDK.GetBrokerControllerComma
nd

PLease help me in abve ….

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 14:15:54 +0000

In reply to Goran Jozic.

Yes, it is MUCH better and easier if you setup the mirror databases from the beginning.

Thanks

Webster

By: Goran Jozic

Goran Jozic — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 14:10:26 +0000

Hello Carl,
Wonderful post.
We have XD 7.6 farm and rather than creating new farm from scratch I just used your steps and moved POC to production. (with few other additional steps 🙂 )
I just wanted to share one thing that worked for me.

When it came to splitting off Monitoring and Logging DG from Site DB I did things little bit differently.
I first created LOGDB and MONITORDB manually (with proper collation and recovery model) and configured mirroring. Then went to Studio and pointed Monitoring and Logging DB to those two new databases I had just created. After few seconds Studio recognized both: new DBs and mirrored instances.

Again, thank you very much for all your contributions to the community.

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 21:14:02 +0000

In reply to Magnus.

There are there for me:

PS C:\MigrationScript> get-command test-* -module citrix*

CommandType Name ModuleName
———– —- ———-
Cmdlet Test-AcctDBConnection Citrix.AdIdentity.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-AcctIdentityPoolNameAvailable Citrix.AdIdentity.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-AdminAccess Citrix.DelegatedAdmin.Admin.V1
Cmdlet Test-AdminDBConnection Citrix.DelegatedAdmin.Admin.V1
Cmdlet Test-AnalyticsDBConnection Citrix.Analytics.Admin.V1
Cmdlet Test-BrokerAccessPolicyRuleNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerAppAssignmentPolicyRuleNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerAppEntitlementPolicyRuleNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerApplicationNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerAssignmentPolicyRuleNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerCatalogNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerDBConnection Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerDesktopGroupNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerEntitlementPolicyRuleNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerLicenseServer Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerMachineNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerPowerTimeSchemeNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-BrokerRemotePCAccountNameAvailable Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-ConfigDBConnection Citrix.Configuration.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-ConfigServiceInstanceAvailability Citrix.Configuration.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-CtxAppVServer Citrix.AppV.Admin.V1
Cmdlet Test-EnvTestDBConnection Citrix.EnvTest.Admin.V1
Cmdlet Test-HypDBConnection Citrix.Host.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-HypHostingUnitNameAvailable Citrix.Host.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-HypHypervisorConnectionNameAvailable Citrix.Host.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-LogDBConnection Citrix.ConfigurationLogging.Admin.V1
Cmdlet Test-MonitorDBConnection Citrix.Monitor.Admin.V1
Cmdlet Test-ProvDBConnection Citrix.MachineCreation.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-ProvSchemeNameAvailable Citrix.MachineCreation.Admin.V2
Cmdlet Test-SfDBConnection Citrix.Storefront.Admin.V1
Cmdlet Test-UserProfileShare Citrix.UserProfileManager.Admin.V1

Are you loading all the snapins?

add-pssnapin *citrix*

Webster