VDI Project – Not only a XenDesktop project (part.1)
VDI Project – The framework (part.2)
VDI Project – Hypervisor war (part.3)
VDI Project – Desktops and applications delivery (part.4)
VDI Project – User Environment Manager (part.5)
Beginning a new project is every time a new challenge, new team, new processes and new environment. Each customer have its own past IT history and, depend of the size, different IT, politics and complexity. This time I’m a desktop architect and I’ve been hired mostly for my Citrix skills. The challenge is the size of this new project, I will design for sure some Citrix architectures, XenDesktop, XenApp, PVS, maybe Access Gateway or Netscaler on a very large scale but I’m also responsible to design a complete workstation delivery service (automation / industrialization) and address all kind of endpoints, from the “classic” workstation to the well known iPad.
This is my largest XenDesktop 5 project, I will use XenDesktop to bring flexibility and mobility to users. I will write some blogs along the project because I think this will be a great experience to share, technical and not technical. I can’t wait to post some very technical stuff about IOPS with Citrix Provisioning Services
, XenDesktop and Machine Creation Service related with storage. I will post every major subject for ex : The Software Framework, The Hypervisor War (these two blogs are almost finished) etc etc… I also want to share the non technical subjects because this is how a project live…
Changing the way people are working in a company can be very painful, first you need to bring the idea of a change in their everyday life and then prove them they will have more time to work on more important project. Then you show they can save some money within 3 or 5 years. I can tell you this is the big part of a project and the less fun (for me) but this is a mandatory part of every project : Show the company board and managers how much they can save and explain to the IT staff they will be able to spend more time on larger scale issue and project, work more efficiently.
This is a lot of work, first administrative / politics, then technical (POC) and very technical (Global Architecture) And I always I will learn so many thing, and I’m sure it will be a great experience to work with different kind of guys from some other company.
Back to the the title of this blog, this project is not only a Citrix XenDesktop project, the more I analyze the need and issue related to the existing enthronement the more I realize that will a a global Desktop Industrialization and delivery project. It means I need to think the most efficient way to build a user space and the different way to deliver it, I will need to study the different automation software available on the market, (Altiris, Kace, Client Automation, SCMM etc..) and build around this first layer everything else (hardware and software inventory, integration process, all the different workflow etc…) Citrix XenDesktop will help me to show the ability to give a user very quickly a full environment with flexibility and mobility if needed. Citrix XenApp will provide all the applications. I think I’ll be able to bring in this project the OS migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 and I chose AppSense User Environment Manager to help me through.
As I told you, I will have to architecture many technologies and study different one to chose the best for my customer.
Of course everything I will publish will be related to the environment I’m working on and express my point of view, if you want to share your opinion on a specific subject you can post a comment, many of you are already doing it on this blog and I know how to take benefits from most of your comments, these are very valuable information and feedback I like to have and available to everyone else.
VDI Project – The Framework (part.2)
Sources :
Dilbert comic strips
