Implementing Citrix
We are currently publishing Citrix through our aging Firepass and we are looking for a way to publish it through the Big-IP. I know a lot of you are going to say, "Hey, use the iApp" but there are some caveats to our implementation.
We use F5 to deliver our applications to our field repair technician's who are usually in hospitals. Some of you may know the security in hospitals is a really big deal. Getting them to open exceptions for Citrix is next to impossible. One of the neat things about our Firepass is how closely it integrated with Citrix. All our users had to do was click a button after logging in and the Firepass would open an app tunnel connect to Citrix AND open the ICA file.
I'm able to publish Citrix using an AppTunnel but the process isn't seamless and the users have to jump through some hoops to get their app(s) started. I tried using the iApp to publish Citrix, APM displayed the apps directly on the portal page which was nice, that integration is a requirement from our users. It seems though the iApp doesn't do anything with AppTunnels (or maybe I missed it) and the users end up trying to hit the external IPs of the Citrix farm. This creates a problem because we can't get the hospitals they are stationed at to open any exceptions for them to access Citrix.
Am I missing something with the iApp? Is there a way to create these AppTunnels in the background for using to Citrix bypass these security constraints?