XenDesktop Methodology

Methodology

The Citrix Virtual Desktop Handbook follows the Citrix Consulting methodology. A proven methodology that has been successfully employed across thousands of desktop virtualization

projects. Each phase includes guidance on the important questions to ask, what tools to use and tips to help you succeed. The Citrix Consulting methodology consists of five phases:

1. Define – Builds the business case for desktop virtualization by creating a high-level project roadmap, prioritizing activities and estimating storage and hardware requirements.

2. Assess – Key business drivers are rated so that work effort can be prioritized accordingly. In addition, the current environment is reviewed for potential problems and to identify use cases for the

project. This information will be used to set the direction of the Citrix deployment, upgrade, or expansion.

3. Design – Define architecture required to satisfy key business drivers and success criteria identified during the assess phase. Topics such as environment scalability, redundancy and high availability are addressed.

4. Deploy – During the deploy phase, FlexCast Infrastructure is installed and configured as described in the design phase. All components of the infrastructure should be thoroughly unit and regression

tested before users are provided with access to the environment.

5. Monitor – Define architectural and operational processes required to maintain the production environment.

The Citrix Consulting methodology follows an iterative Assess > Design > Deploy process for each major initiative of your project. In doing so, your organization is left with tangible improvements to

the environment at the end of each engagement. For example, high priority user groups can progress through the assess, design and deploy phases earlier than other user groups

Note: The Virtual Desktop Handbook provides content on the Assess and Design phases of the Citrix Consulting methodology. Additional phases will be released soon