Preface

The adoption of Cloud computing and the maturity of server virtualization have led many enterprises to consider transforming their traditional desktop infrastructures from physical to virtual. Desktop virtualization has become one of the new top priorities for IT. Many organizations are now approaching or evaluating desktop virtualization solutions. Having virtual desktops centrally maintained in your data center using desktop virtualization, your users can gain Cloud computing capabilities, such as freedom to work from anywhere and from any device at any time. This increases user productivity and overall IT operational efficiency, while reducing the total cost of ownership of the desktop infrastructure.

Citrix^® XenDesktop^® is the industry leader in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions to implement a scalable and high-performance virtual desktop environment. Citrix^® XenDesktop^® delivers end-user experience that rivals traditional physical desktop environments, while supporting most of its features, such as audio/video conferencing, media streaming, and high-end 3D graphics rendering. Whether you are new to desktop virtualization or an IT professional with expertise, as you work through this book, you will quickly learn the technical skills you need to successfully design, set up, and maintain a XenDesktop^® environment, meeting the emerging requirements for your organization and your business.

Mastering XenDesktop^® gives you a practical approach to achieve the advanced desktop virtualization requirements using XenDesktop^®. The detailed use case analysis, step-by-step instructions that are supplemented with screenshots makes it easier to understand and implement the discussed solution in real time. You'll notice that this book also covers the other Citrix^® (such as NetScaler) and non-Citrix^® technologies (such as Amazon Cloud, NVidia GRID, and so on) to the extent they are relevant to the use case with XenDesktop^®. You will be able to master both the basic functions and the advanced features and configurations of XenDesktop^®. You will also gain the strong technical skills needed to start-off or resume desktop virtualization projects using XenDesktop^® technology. As always, you should validate the advanced configurations discussed in the book in a test lab, since they involve multiple technologies.