Andy Baker
-
Simplified VDI Architecture
There’s a perception that VDI is complicated. I’m far from being a rocket scientist, and I’ve managed to implement many successful VDI projects over the past ten years. I truly believe that VDI is one of those things that is only as complicated as you make it. It’s like saying that driving is complicated. You’d have to be crazy to take your first lesson in ...
-
Virtual Desktops: 32-bit or 64-bit Desktop Operating Systems?
One of the key decisions during a XenDesktop design is whether to use the 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) version of the Windows desktop operating system. I’ve seen a few projects falter because they’ve opted for the 64-bit version without really thinking this decision through and I want to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you. Question: What’s the benefit from implementing a 64-bit desktop ...
-
Everything that you need to know about user segmentation!
You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole and you can’t expect people to use a specific type of virtual desktop without considering their needs. It’s all about finding the right balance between key business drivers (increased security, reduced management, etc.) and providing people with a virtual desktop that allows them to be successful in their job (work offline, install applications, run resource ...
-
XenApp 6.5 Hosted Shared Desktop sizing example
In this blog series I’m taking a look at scalability considerations for XenApp 6.5 Hosted Shared Desktops, specifically: How to estimate XenApp 6.5 Hosted Shared Desktop scalability What’s the optimal XenApp 6.5 VM specification? XenApp 6.5 Hosted Shared Desktop sizing example My last post provided guidance on the optimal XenApp virtual machine specification. Now in the last post of the series, I’m going to walk through an example sizing ...
-
What’s the optimal XenApp 6.5 VM configuration?
In this blog series I’m taking a look at scalability considerations for XenApp 6.5, specifically: How to estimate XenApp 6.5 Hosted Shared Desktop scalability What’s the optimal XenApp 6.5 VM specification? XenApp 6.5 Hosted Shared Desktop sizing example My last post provided guidance on how to estimate XenApp density based on processor specification and user workload. In the second post of the series, I’m taking a look at the ...
-
Hyper-V 2008 R2 Planning Guide for XenDesktop 5.6 – Now Available
A key advantage of XenDesktop is that it works with three of the most common virtualization products on the market today – Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere. However, each of these Hypervisors has a different architecture and feature set. Since each XenDesktop design will vary according to the Hypervisor chosen, we’ve created three separate Planning Guides: CTX134944: XenDesktop Planning Guide – Integration with Microsoft ...
-
Estimating XenApp 6.5 Hosted Shared Desktop Scalability
In this blog series I’m going to take a look at some of the scalability considerations for XenApp 6.5, including: Estimating XenApp 6.5 Hosted Shared Desktop scalability What's the optimal XenApp 6.5 VM specification? XenApp 6.5 Hosted Shared Desktop sizing example So first, let’s look at how you can estimate XenApp 6.5 Shared Desktop scalability. In an ideal world, every project would include time for scalability testing so that the right ...
-
Using AppDNA to Streamline Desktop Transformation
I recently wrote a seven part blog series on the desktop transformation process. Step two of the DTA - “Application Assessment” - involves a manual review of the application estate and determines the most appropriate delivery mechanism(s) for each application. Since writing this blog post, I’m pleased to say that AppDNA has joined the Citrix team and has quickly become a key component of the ...
-
Hardware & Storage Calculator
During your desktop transformation project, you’ll need to estimate hardware and storage requirements so that project costs can be calculated and the infrastructure can be ordered. To provide an accurate estimate you’ll need to consider many different factors - including virtual desktops per host, virtual desktops per site, desktops per controller, users per XenApp Server, XenApp Servers per host, users per farm, hosts per resource ...
-
Desktop Transformation – High-Level Project Plan
The Desktop Transformation Assessment (DTA) forms an integral part of the overall Desktop Transformation Model (DTM) by providing clear guidance on how to turn “Wow” into “How.” During this series of blog posts, I’ve been discussing the seven key phases that make up the DTA. And in the last blog post of this series, it’s time to discuss the last step of the DTA: Define Business ...