Citrix App Layering – Basis configuration 4.2 – Part 4

Part 4 – Creating the OS Layer

1. Click on “Layers” in the top menu
2. Click on 
3. On the right on “Create OS Layer”                                             
4. Under “Layer Details” fill in the name of the wished OS Layer, in my case it is Windows Server 2016 and it is version 1. 
5. Click on “New” to add a connection to your hypervisor. I will add XenServer in this example.
6. Select your hypervisor type in the dropdown box and click “New”
7. Fill in the details of your XenServer as shown below. Remember to check credentials 
8. Below the XenServer details you need to fill in the template machine on the XenServer. Select the template in the dropdown box and also select the storage repository. Click on “Test” to verify all is OK. Click on “Save”
9. Mark the new connection and continue to the next section.
10. Click on “Select Virtual Machine”
11. Select your reference machine to add into your Citrix App Layering as OS Layer. 
12. Verify that you have the correct VM and continue to the next section. 
13. Select an icon, I just selected one of the defaults but you can also upload one.
14. Verify that everything is OK and click on “Create Layer” to start the layer creation.
15. In the bottom you can see that the task has started.
16. On my server it takes around 40 mins to complete. The creation is done on a consumer HDD that is a few years old so I expect it will be a lot faster on SSD or NVME.

I hope that is guide will help you getting started with Citrix App Layering as it is a awesome piece of software that can ease your XenApp / XenDesktop environment. I plan on expanding this series to also include what is needed to be done on the client/server side of the layering proces.