We’re going to start off this blog with something that everyone wants. Shutting down your XenApp 6.5 Delivery Controllers for good! If you haven’t moved on from XenApp 6.5 at this point, you should definitely start thinking about it.

Before you move ahead, you need to first work on migrating all of your VDAs to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7. Or you can just decommission the VDAs instead. Of course, only if you don’t need them anymore. If you haven’t done this yet, you shouldn’t
be reading this. If you decommission your Xenapp 6.5 environment before you migrate or decom your VDAs, you’re going to have a bad time. Once you’re sure that all apps and VDAs have either been migrated or decommissioned, you may proceed.

• NOTE: As with any Citrix maintenance, you should make sure your License server is up to date. I don’t see how an outdated license server could cause a problem, but you never know. Better safe than sorry.

Now, first things first…Whatever you do, DON’T start by removing the Delivery Controllers from the Citrix Gateway. You must first remove the Delivery controllers from Web Interface and/or Storefront. Otherwise you’re going to have a bad time. And YES, I’m speaking from experience.

Citrix Web Interface: If “Citrix Web Interface” is not being used, lucky you! Skip ahead to Citrix Storefront.

1. Log into your Web interface servers (all of them) and launch Citrix Web Interface Management console. These steps must be performed manually on each server.
2. Under “XenApp Web Sites”, select each individual site and perform the following.
3. Right Click and select “Server Farms”.
4. Select the farm you are retiring and click “Remove”
5. Click OK to return to the main console.
6. Right click and select “Secure Access”.
7. If using the access method “Gateway Direct”, click “Next” twice. Otherwise click “Cancel” and skip to step 10.
8. Select the Delivery controllers you are removing and Click “Remove”.
9. Click Finish.
10. Repeat from step 2 for each “XenApp Web Site” and “XenApp Services Site”.
11. Don’t forget to repeat these steps on your second Web Interface server.

Citrix Storefront: Log into one of the Citrix StoreFront servers. These steps only need to be done on one server, but must be propagated to the second server by selecting “Server Group” and clicking “Propagate Changes”. Also, make sure no other administrators are making changes.

1. Launch “Citrix Storefront”.
2. Under each store right click and select “Manage Delivery Controllers”.
3. Select the farm to be decommissioned and click “Edit”.
4. Add the new DDC’s FQDN to the list of Servers.
5. Click Ok twice.
6. Do this for all Stores.
7. On the right-hand “Action Pane” select “Manage NetScaler Gateways”.
8. Select the appropriate gateway and click “Edit”.
9. Choose the “Secure Ticket Authority” tab on the left.
10. Make sure your XA6.5 delivery controllers are not listed here.
11. Do this for all Gateways that use this DDC, if any.
12. Don’t forget to propagate the changes to the other Storefront node.

Great. Now all requests directed to either Storefront or Web Interface will all be handled by your Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 Farm. Now we just need to update Citrix Gateway’s STAs or “Secure Ticket Authority”.

Citrix Gateway: Once all of the references to the XenApp 6.5 environment have been removed from Web Interface and/or storefront, it is safe to remove the Delivery controllers from the Citrix Gateway.

1. Go to “Citrix Gateway > Virtual Servers” and select your Gateway.
2. Scroll down until you find the “Published Applications” section. Click on “# STA Servers”
3. Select the Delivery controllers you are decommissioning and click “Unbind”.
4. Be sure that you didn’t break anything at this point by thoroughly testing your environment. Test launching apps directly from storefront, web interface, and Citrix Gateway. Make sure they all work individually.
5. Commit your changes.

Congratulations. You can now safely shutdown your delivery controllers. If you are still using EdgeSight, you can shut this down as well. I recommend holding off a few days to a week before completing the decom process. Although, I’m sure any issues will become apparent fairly quickly when you shutdown the Delivery Controllers. Once you’re comfortable, follow your organizations Decommissioning process. This typically would include deleting the VM, deleting the AD account, and DNS entries, etc.