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...

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.

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:

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...

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:

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.