Mick Hilhorst 's Tech Blog

A quick refresh on how the Citrix licensing mix and match works for Citrix Virtual Apps (CVA) and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD).

Did you know you can combine both CVA and CVAD licenses in one farm even though the GUI only one licensing option is available? This is known as ‘Multi-type Licensing’, and can be beneficial financially. You can even change the consumption to either Concurrent (CCU) and User/Device Licensing level (UD).

If you look at the ‘edit product edition’ screen in Citrix Studio this does not seem possible as we can only select Radio Buttons instead of check boxes.

Go to:
Citrix Studio -> Configuration -> Licensing -> Edit product edition

With a little bit of Powershell, you can easily change the license consumption based on the Delivery Group that is being used for the session.

Consider the following Scenario:

*CCU = Concurrent licensing
*UD = User/Device licensing
*CVA = Citrix Virtual Apps
*CVAD = Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

There is one prerequisite, the licenses must fit the mix and match matrix below.
This image has been copied from the Citrix website.

Image Source: https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/manage-deployment/licensing/multi-type-licensing.html

Okay, assuming that your Studio Product Edition is currently configured to be CVAD Advanced on ENT level:

You see that you can match this with the following:

So your match will be compatible, great!

The Powershell command to set a DeliveryGroup licensing type is quite easy.

*Note, if the parameters are not set (default) then the delivery group will contain a Null value for the parameter. In this case it will always use the Studio Edition Selection from the GUI.

Delivery Group A:

We see that we need to change the Licensing Edition to CVA and the License model already matches the farm setting.

1. First, open Powershell on the DDC and add the Citrix Snap-in:

asnp citrix*

2.Get the BrokerDesktopGroup you want to edit and check the current settings:

Get-BrokerDesktopGroup -Name “insertnamehere”

3.Check the current Licensing Model/Type (remember, empty (Null) means Studio default!)

4A.Change the value accordingly, for DeliveryGroup A the LicenseModel is OK with the default being CCU.
The product code however is incorrect. We can choose the following values for this parameter.
E.G:

Set-DesktopBrokerGroup -Name “DeliveryGroupA” -LicenseModel UserDevice -ProductCode MPS

4B. Following the Table, we need to use the MPS parameter.

Set-DesktopBrokerGroup -Name “DeliveryGroupA” -ProductCode MPS

The DeliveryGroup should now use the proper ProductCode for licensing.
You can verify this with the ‘Get-desktopbrokergroup’ command again.

In this case we would still need to set the “DeliveryGroupB” with the UserDevice license model too, but I think you get the gist.


Happy mix and matching!