Hey folks! This is the next post in the series covering the end to end process from going from zero to having a load balanced NetScaler up and running. In the previous 2 posts we covered:

Part 1: Deploying Citrix ADC onto VM Workstation 15

Part 2: Configuring Subnet IP Address and licensing Citrix ADC

In Part 3 we are going to configure basic StoreFront configuration, test it and make sure everything is OK before creating StoreFront server group to replicate the configuration settings.

StoreFront server groups allow us to make configuration changes on one single StoreFront server and then the changes can be replicated onto all the other servers. If you have multiple StoreFront servers to manage and this can make configuration easier and less chance of configuration errors occurring. However, there are a few rules which need to be adhered to:

Use only one server at a time to make configuration changes
If possible designate an update server and only make changes on that server.
Ensure that the StoreFront Management console is not running on any other servers in the configuration group.
The configuration is the StoreFront installation and IIS website settings MUST be identical.

Base StoreFront configuration

I have built 2 VM’s for this post, called StoreFront1 & StoreFront2. We are going to configure StoreFront1, create a Server Group and then replicate the config from StoreFront1 onto StoreFront2.

So on StoreFront1 we select “Create a Store”

Give the Store a name

The next step is to enter the details of your existing desktop delivery controller. I have only have single one in my lab but if you have multiple delivery controllers you would list them all here. I have also for now opted to use just HTTP. I will be switching over to HTTPS once we perform the NetScaler configuration.

The next screen is the Remote Access screen. We are only performing basic internal load balancing here I will keep it unselected. I will be covering Remote Access in a later post.

Authentication is next. This will be very specific to your environment as to how you want authentication to occur. I will be authenticating at the StoreFront logon screen so I will leave it as default. If you require any other authentication types then this is where you would configure then. For a further description see here – https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/storefront/current-release/configure-authentication-and-delegation/configure-authentication-service.html

Next up is the PNAgent configuration. Again I just selected the defaults

After clicking create you should see the Store create successfully and a summary is displayed.

After it has been created you should be able to see all the URLs that you need

And a quick test confirms that everything is working Smile

I have now changed the Base URL so its ready for our Server Group to be created. This is done via the StoreFront console.

Creating a Server Group

So now we have a single StoreFront server working need to configure a second StoreFront server. Instead of manually performing the config on the second server we can create and join the second server into a server group consisting of StoreFront1 & StoreFront2. To do this connect to StoreFront1, go to Add Server and enter the details for StoreFront2. You will see a Authorization code displayed on StoreFront 1

Log onto StoreFront2, launch the StoreFront console and select Join existing server group. You will be prompted to enter the details which are displayed on StoreFront1

If everything is OK then it should change to preparing

After a few minutes you should see that is has successfully created the group

A quick test confirms that everything is still working OK. Note that I created 2 DNS A records pointing to the IP address of the StoreFront servers for myapps. This ensures that DNS round robin is being used to load balance between the StoreFront servers.