Users have been using a single URL for access to all their web applications and now the backend for just one is moved to another server to avoid end of life? If you’re where I am now users are sent a new URL and told to use it if that application is needed.
It is accessed via Citrix and I don’t understand Citrix architecture well I have to say. However the users of this app apparently don’t use any other app via Citrix.
In the meeting about the change I wondered out loud whether users could just be redirected? No need to learn a new URL, no need to know when or if to use it. Just send the apps’ users to the new URL when they attempt to use the app.
The response was, “no, can’t do that”, “don’t have wild card certificates”, “can’t install existing certificates on other servers”, “can’t change DNS”, “can’t send people from the old site to the new site”, and so on…
My reasoning was to simplify the user experience. Why make people learn something new if there’s a way to get them to the new webapp without learning a new URL? As a technologist I feel VERY strongly my job and the job of others like me is to enable people to do their work and not force them to understand or learn technology that is not relevant to that.
Back to the objections. A DNS name can have its network address updated periodically. This very website has a dynamic address and can still be found by name even after an address change. The server is running a job to monitor the public address and update DNS when it changes. Automatic. Hands off.
No certificate changes required. If siteA and siteB are continuing to operate as siteA and siteB and each has their own valid certificate then no change in certificate needed. When someone browses to the site the browser requests a secure connection. The trustworthiness of the connection is determined by information the site provides and certificate authorities the browser trusts. No need to move certificates anywhere. Even if there were that can be done without renewing certificates.
Sending people from one site to another, in its simplest (as far as I know) form only requires a Redirect. For wesiteA and websiteB, if visitors to websiteA should actually be going to websiteB tell websiteA’s webserver to redirect browsers to websiteB. When somebody browses to websiteA the webserver sends a message back to the user’s web browser which says you need to ask for websiteB instead. Then the browser does just that and ends up at websiteB even if it’s on a different server in a different country.
I actually set up Redirect on this server to test my understanding and be certain it would work the way I thought. It did. Visiting one of my webhosts on this server automatically directed me to workAppA and visiting another webhost went automatically to workAppB.
In doing the reading to get Redirect set up I learned it could be as granular as by user or program on an Apache server. I suppose it’s possible Citrix doesn’t have a way to support that. But I don’t believe it. I know Citrix apps can be secured by login so userA and userB don’t see all the same apps. I’ve written powershell to report what security groups are associated with which published apps on a Citrix server.
In this case telling end users YOU HAVE TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW to keep doing your job the same way strikes me as IT not doing its job!