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Citrix XenApp 7.5 Desktop Virtualization Solutions
Citrix XenApp 7.5 Desktop Virtualization Solutions

Citrix XenApp 7.5 Desktop Virtualization Solutions: Plan, design, optimize, and implement your XenApp solution to mobilize your business

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Citrix XenApp 7.5 Desktop Virtualization Solutions

Chapter 2. Defining Your Desktop Virtualization Environment

In the previous chapter, we explored the building blocks of a virtual desktop infrastructure. We looked at different VDI components and models, including desktop- and server-based solutions. We also discussed the various layers of a VDI model.

Now that we understand the basic layers, we can begin defining our business requirements and driving factors for our solution. This strategy is a critical factor to successful deployment. Although this is a non-technical element, it will drive our technical discussions and decisions.

In this chapter, you will:

  • Understand your end users
  • Understand your applications
  • Define your use cases
  • Plan your strategy

Understanding your end users

Understanding the end users of a target environment is the first major step in a successful virtual desktop design. Who are the users? What do they use? How do they use it? A successful desktop solution must meet the needs of the users and be useful. It does no good to design a solution that goes unused or does not fit the needs of the target audience.

When understanding users, it is best to start with basic classifications. In most organizations, this is done by worker-type or department members. In the graph presented in the following diagram, you can see that our fictional organization has six different classifications of users: Customer Support, Case Managers, Finance, Legal, IT, and HR. Using a simple pie chart to represent our user populations helps us see that Customer Support and Case Managers make up the vast majority of our user population. When designing our environment, they will be the most likely candidates to target for analysis and design. Remember...

Understanding applications

Understanding your applications is the next step in a virtual desktop design. Which applications are installed? Which applications are actually in use? Which applications are critical to core business operations? Which applications require backend data? Virtualization design is all about the applications. If a user cannot use the applications they need, they will not be able to do their job successfully.

The first step is to create a comprehensive list of applications currently in use. This will create the basis to determine which applications should be included in the virtual desktop solution. Once the application list is compiled, you will need to verify application compatibility and interoperability. There might be certain applications that require other supporting applications, specific resources, or are only licensed for certain operating systems. Understanding these constraints will come into play when developing your final use cases.

There are multiple ways...

Understanding devices

Endpoints are all client devices that the users operate to access the virtual desktop or applications. These include devices such as thin clients, corporate-owned computers, user-owned computers, tablets, and smartphones. This also includes the associated operating system. Defining what is supported, or what needs to be supported, may partially drive the design. Understanding devices will aid in the technical architecture as well as user testing.

Environments with standardized endpoints will only require limited testing. However, organizations with a broad array of devices will need to test against all platforms to ensure the delivered solution is operational.

Endpoints

When defining endpoints, the following factors should be considered:

  • Who owns the device (company, contracting agency, or end user)
  • Operating system of the device (Wyse ThinOS, Windows, or Apple iOS)
  • Security parameters (Active directory membership and time out requirements)
  • Connected peripherals
  • Number of...

Defining your use cases

Once you have identified and organized your users, applications, and devices into logical groupings, the next step is to clearly define your use cases. This is an iterative process. Some groups might be too broad and should be split into multiple different use cases; other groups might be too tightly focused and can be combined with other use cases. You might also find that two different groups of users have a high rate of commonality and can be merged into a single case, as demonstrated in the following figure:

Defining your use cases

Creation of a use case

The idea is to minimize the number of unique use cases. There should be as many use cases as necessary, but as few as possible. The more unique use cases that are defined, the more iterations of testing will be required. This will carry forward to image design, which we will cover in detail in Chapter 6, Designing Your Virtual Image Delivery.

In Chapter 1, Planning Desktop Virtualization, we presented several different scenarios to determine...

Planning your strategy

We outlined what it takes to understand your users, applications, and devices. You saw various tools and methods to capture and catalog data. The next step is to plan your analysis and design strategy. Once you collect your data through surveys, automation, or a mix of methods, you will need to analyze the data. You can process the raw data into useful information by creating your defined use cases. Once you define your use cases, you need to define your strategy further.

Which use cases will you tackle first? Do you design for everyone or for a few? Where do you start? How long will it take? What is most important? These are all the important questions to ask and ultimately answer. Consider the following methods:

  • 80-20 rule: According to the Pareto principle, 80 percent of issues are owned by 20 percent of the user population. This 20 percent are your potential problem users or high-demand users. To gain rapid acceptance and early success, focus on the other 80 percent...

Summary

In this chapter, we looked at defining our use cases. This included looking at sample use cases, then discussing how to construct our own. To create use cases, we need to understand our user, application, and device environment. Understanding our environment will help us in laying out the business requirements and criteria for success. We also looked at various software tools that can help us in our assessment and definition process. Finally, we discussed formulating a strategy to plan and execute our virtual desktop design.

In the next chapter, we will begin designing our infrastructure. Now that we have a plan in place, we can begin translating it into a reference architecture and high-level design of our infrastructure components, including our virtualization layer, hardware layer, network layer, and storage layer.

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Description

If you are a Citrix® engineer, a virtualization consultant, or an IT project manager with prior experience of using Citrix XenApp® and related technologies for desktop virtualization and want to further explore the power of XenApp® for flawless desktop virtualization, then this book is for you.

What you will learn

  • Plan your virtualization infrastructure
  • Develop your application and desktop delivery strategies
  • Design your user Access layer
  • Implement Citrix solutions effectively by performing Capacity planning and Load testing, and User Acceptance Testing
  • Design your Citrix XenApp farms
  • Manage your image delivery and control change process

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Oct 21, 2014
Length: 328 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849689687
Vendor :
Citrix

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Product Details

Publication date : Oct 21, 2014
Length: 328 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849689687
Vendor :
Citrix

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Table of Contents

10 Chapters
1. Planning Desktop Virtualization Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Defining Your Desktop Virtualization Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Designing Your Infrastructure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Designing Your Access Layer Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Designing Your Application Delivery Layer Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Designing Your Virtual Image Delivery Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Designing Your Supporting Infrastructure Components Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Optimizing Your XenApp® Solution Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Implementing Your XenApp® Solution Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

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Gary Mercado Feb 21, 2015
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Great book, great content and well written.
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N. Mohammed May 02, 2015
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Great
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Amazon Customer Feb 14, 2015
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Excellent book for architects, good for a variety of citrix knowledge levels.
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Mr Neil Heppenstall Mar 26, 2015
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A good book for architects but lacks information for administrators/technical support engineers
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Sharon Mar 07, 2015
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Does the job, but really wanted an admin manual so some chapters not relevant.
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