Assess Overview

Assess Overview

Creating a desktop virtualization solution begins with a proper assessment. Architects that fail to properly assess the current environment find that they require the assess information later on, forcing them to backtrack, which can potentially stall and put the project at risk. 

By gathering all of the information from the outset, the architect will gain an appreciation for the current environment and be able to work from the beginning on properly aligning business and user requirements with the overall solution.

The assess phase is a five-step, simple to follow process:

1 - Define Organization

2 - Assess Environment

3 - Define User Groups

4 - Define Applications

5 - Plan Project

Step 1: Define the Organization

The first step in your virtual desktop project should be to understand and prioritize the strategic imperatives of the organization. This enables the project management team to define success criteria

and allows the design team to create a tailored and optimized architecture. 

Requirements can be captured during meetings or by distributing questionnaires. Meetings are more time consuming, but allow for follow-up questions to be asked and help to simplify the prioritization process. It is important that this exercise be completed jointly by both business managers and IT decision makers since both groups will have significantly different viewpoints. Take thefollowing examples of what certain organizations faced, which drove their selection of desktop virtualization.

Experience from the Field

Finance – A large financial institution had a base of operations in the city designated as the host city for an upcoming G8 summit. As these types of meetings historically include riots, protests and other

issues that can disrupt business and the safety of their employees, the financial organization needed an alternative allowing their users to work from the safety of their homes. 

Agriculture – Due to thin margins, an agriculture organization wanted to save money by extending the life of desktop PCs while still being able to run the latest applications. 

Healthcare – A large healthcare organization was in need of a solution to simplify application updates as the main application required updates on a weekly basis. Due to the distributed nature of the endpoint devices, the organization was in need of a better application delivery solution. 

These are just a few examples, but they demonstrate how organizations think about their priorities. Most organizations do not focus on technology, they focus on the needs of the user and of the organization. These needs can be met with technical solutions but it is imperative the team understands the “Why” of the project. 

In addition to the three real-world examples, the table on the next page identifies a few other priorities often stated from many organizations 

The prioritization process should be completed in collaboration with the project team, business managers and IT managers so that all views are considered. 

Early on, organizations often need to estimate the hardware required to support the new solution. Citrix Project Accelerator provides a fast and accurate way to estimate hardware and storage requirements: