Citrix UPM or User Profile Manager is a component that was added to the Citrix line of products a few years back.
Citrix UPM (C-UPM) has three distinct components:
1. The Administrative Component
Option A – An ADM template that contains all the settings that can be managed via GP.
and
Option B – An ini file that contains pretty much the same settings as the GP option.
You can use use option A or option B to administer C-UPM or you can use both simultaneously to manage C-UPM.
The vast majority of Administrators who use the C-UPM solution use ADM template via GP management option; INI management is considered Old School of management and not used as much any longer. I would think the ADM template used via GP is indeed a better option.
2. The Service or Agent Component
Every server or end point device that is managed by C-UPM has an agent/service installed called Citrix Profile Management (via a process called userprofilemanager.exe). So, for example: If you have 10 XenApp servers in the environment and you install the service in 8 servers and don’t install on the other two, when users logon on to these 8 server their profiles will be managed by the C-UPM settings and when they logon into the other two servers their profiles will be managed by the default Windows Profile management solution (one of the 4 types of Windows profiles: Roaming, Mandatory, Local or temporary)
NOTE: a good way of troubleshooting profile issues with UPM in the picture is to disable this service. So if you disable this service and the profile issue persists you know it is not the C-UPM causing the issue, but if the issue doesn’t reproduce whe n the UPM service is disabled then you know the C-UPM is the culprit.
3. The Profile Store
Usually a network location where the profiles are stored. This location needs to be specified in the C-UPM GP ADM template, so UPM knows where to grab the profile when the user logs on and where to save it when user logs off.
In a nutshell this is the essence of Citrix UPM.
More information about Citrix UPM here
