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Merchandising Server – Citrix’s little distribution secret! |
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It’s certainly not a secret, but I have found Merchandising Server to be one of Citrix’s least known products. During all my visits to the Citrix website, I never noticed Merchandising Server prominently display like their core product line. Most of the people I ask about it seem to have the same problem. They know it is out there, but not too much about it. After finally spending some time with it, I have found Merchandising Server to be quite the nifty virtual appliance.
Once downloaded from Citrix, there is very little setup other than entering IP information and making a DNS entry for the box. Being a Linux-based device the 1GB of RAM almost seems a bit high, but it is ready for a large user load. But what exactly does this little, 8GB-of-storage-requiring-appliance do? Why it handles all your Citrix client distribution needs!
Citrix has a tendency to change product names quite often, but for a while their client has had a receiver/plug-in model. This is more obvious once you work with Merchandising Server. The Citrix Receiver does not provide any ICA connectivity itself. It is more of a manager for all of the Citrix plug-ins. When you go to download the current client from Citrix, you will see that you are getting some version of the “Online plug-in.” That plug-in is what provides the actual ICA connectivity. The Merchandising Server will provide the Citrix Receiver so the two can work together to provide plug-ins to the end user.
After the Citrix Receiver is installed, the user logs in and plug-ins are automatically downloaded using a delivery created by the administrator. For instance, one delivery may include the online plug-in, secure access plug-in, and ScrewDrivers v4 client plug-in. The Merchandising Server uses rules to determine what delivery a user receivers, such as username, AD group, OS type, and others. Those deliveries also contain information on how often to check back with the server for updates. When an update is found, it is downloaded and installed on the client machine. The days of updating files on the web interface are extinct!
If you have not tried Merchandising Server, I definitely recommend that you do. triCerat offers Merchandising Server metadata files for both our Windows and Mac ScrewDrivers clients. Contact support for these XML files or keep an eye on our website, www.tricerat.com, for the launch of our Merchandising Server support section.
Adam Oliver - triCerat Engineer
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