Accelerate your Citrix Virtual Demo Center Experience with Branch Repeater!

Introduction to Branch Repeater

Citrix Branch Repeater accelerates, controls and optimizes servicesdesktops, applications and multimedia for branch and mobile users. Branch Repeater provides user-centric prioritization and acceleration of XenApp, XenDesktop, Web Interface and other application specific traffic and protocols. Comprising Branch Repeater, Branch Repeater with Windows Server, Repeater Data Center Appliances, Branch Repeater VPX and Repeater Plug-in; the Branch Repeater product family addresses an array of enterprise acceleration needs especially when users are at the end of low bandwidth or highly latent WAN connections.

What is the Repeater Plug-in?

The Repeater Plug-in is a software-based solution designed to provide much of the same optimization, acceleration and compression that a pair of Branch Repeater appliances can, without the need of an appliance on the client side. The Repeater Plug-in is intended for the remote user that may be connecting to a central environment from a number of locations; home office, public hot spot, internet caf, 3G/4G modem, etc. The Repeater Plug-in transparently inserts itself into the path of network traffic, improving file transfer performance, application responsiveness and the overall end user experience of applications.

Why do I want to use the Repeater Plug-in with the Citrix Virtual Demo Center?
When accessing your provisioned environment within the Citrix Virtual Demo Center over a slow, distant, or highly latent connection, the performance and responsiveness of your environment may suffer. The Repeater Plug-in can serve to alleviate the negative effects of these network conditions and provide a fast LAN-like experience regardless of connection. Note: If the Repeater Plug-in is being used on high speed, short distance, low latency connections, the perceived effect of acceleration may be minimal. The technologies within Branch Repeater and the Repeater Plug-in are designed to deal with network conditions that can cause slow application performance such as packet loss, latency and jitter. The absence of these conditions can often result in the use of the Repeater Plug-in virtually un-noticeable.

What are the system requirements?

The Repeater Plug-in is supported on the following operating systems: Windows 7 (all 32-bit and 64-bit versions) Windows Vista (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate) Windows XP Professional Windows XP Home Recommended hardware requirements are: Pentium 4-class CPU 1 GB of RAM 2 GB of free disk space Minimum hardware requirements are: GHz CPU 512 MB RAM 350 MB free disk space

How do I get Started?

1. Download and Install the latest 32-bit or 64-bit Branch Repeater Plug-in from MyCitrix (download link provided below in the Resources and Tools section).

2. If you have Citrix Receiver installed, then skip to step #6.

3. When installation is complete, the Repeater Plug-in will automatically start. Once started, you will see the blue Citrix Acceleration icon appear on your task bar icons. 4. Right click on the icon and select Manage Acceleration.

5. Skip to step #7.

6. Right click the Citrix Receiver icon in your system tray, and select Preferences.

7. From the Preferences menu, select Plug-in status, and then Right click Citrix Acceleration Plug-in, and then select Manage Acceleration.

8.

The Citrix Acceleration Manager will appear. Click on the Configuration tab.

9. In the Signaling Address text box, enter the Branch Repeater Signaling Address that was included in your Citrix Virtual Demo Center welcome email. Note: Your Citrix Acceleration Manager interface may differ from the images shown here. 10. Click Save. 11. Your Repeater Plug-in will attempt to contact the Virtual Demo Centers shared Branch Repeater. Once connected, a series of acceleration rules will be downloaded. This process may take several minutes. Note: Your Citrix Acceleration Manager interface may differ from the images shown here. 12. Click on the Diagnostics tab. There should be at least one connection indicated under All Accelerated Connections. Click on the More button next to these connections. 13. The Accelerated Connections list box should appear. In the list there should be one connection indicated as the Signaling Connection. Click OK. 14. The Citrix Acceleration Plug-in Manager can be closed by clicking on the red X in the upper right corner.

15. Continue connecting to your provisioned environment by following the instructions included in your Citrix Virtual Demo Center welcome email.

Troubleshooting I cannot connect to the Signaling Connection?

If you attempt to complete the configuration steps above and do not see a successful signaling connection as described in step #13 try these troubleshooting steps; Ensure your client device has access the Internet by opening a Web browser and connecting to https://dev.mycitrixcloud.net. Ensure that the signaling address DNS name is entered correctly. Try pinging the signaling address DNS name from a command prompt window. If you receive no reply, try clearing your DNS resolver cache and then attempt steps 9-13 above again. The Windows DNS resolver cache is cleared from the command prompt with the IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS command. Ensure you have no client side anti-virus, anti-spyware, or firewall blocking access to your signaling address. Post a detailed description of your issue along with your system specifications to the Virtual Demo Center Forum on Citrix.com (link provided below in the Resources section).

I successfully configured my signaling connection however I cannot seem to create any connections that are accelerated?
Ensure you have no client side anti-virus, anti-spyware, or firewall that would be stripping TCP options for connections from your client device. Ensure that your client device is not sitting behind a hardware firewall that would be stripping TCP options for connections from your client device. Open the Citrix Acceleration Manager as described in step #4 (or step #7 if you have Receiver installed) above. Click on the Diagnostics tab. Click on the More button next to the Unaccelerated Connections counter. If connection details are listed in the Unaccelerated Connections list, note the destination TCP port of the connection(s) you are attempting. If the destination port(s) indicated are other than 20, 21, 80, 1494, 2598 or 3389, your connection will not be accelerated. Note: the destination port will be the port number after the second IP address. For example, in this connection example the destination port is port 80: 192.168.89.51:49484 => 65.55.175.186:80.

Open the Citrix Acceleration Manager as described in step #4 (or step #7 if you have Receiver installed) above. Click on the Diagnostics tab. Click on the More button next to the Unaccelerated Connections counter. If connection details are listed in the Unaccelerated Connections list, note the reason indicated. Copy to the clip board the connection details and include them along with a detailed description of your issue and your system specifications in a post to the Virtual Demo Center Forum on Citrix.com (link provided below in the Resources section).

Resources and Tools

Citrix Virtual Demo Center Forum Citrix Virtual Demo Center Login Page Forgot your Virtual Demo Center Password? Need to create a new MyCitrix login? Download the latest Repeater Plug-in (NetScaler Branch Repeater Acceleration Plug-in/Repeater Plug-in for Citrix Receiver) http://forums.citrix.com/category.jspa?categoryID=193&utm_source=V DC&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=vdc-page-vdc-forum https://dev.mycitrixcloud.net/Login.aspx https://www.citrix.com/English/myCitrix/loginFYP.asp https://www.citrix.com/English/myCitrix/loginNewUser.asp http://download.citrix.com