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Desktop Transformation e-Book: Assess, Design, Deploy

Desktop Transformation e-Book | White Paper

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citrix.com

Desktop Transformation e-Book | White Paper

Desktop virtualization is a top strategic business initiative for IT. While its value is understood, many IT managers are wondering, “How do I get started?” “What stages will my company go through?” and “What are the best practices?” The Desktop Transformation e-Book: Assess, Design, Deploy answers your questions.

Organized into three sections, this e-book delves into the technical details to help you get started with a desktop transformation project, and best practices to optimize your virtual desktop deployment. The sections include:

• Roadmap to Desktop Transformation

• 3 Steps to Accelerate Your Desktop Transformation

• Optimize Your Desktop Transformation

In addition, free, step-by-step desktop transformation guidance customized for your organization can be accessed by visiting the Desktop Transformation Accelerator at www.citrix.com/successaccelerator/. Create a project today.

Assess – Identify business priorities, segment users into groups and select the right desktop delivery model/s

Design – Architect the virtual desktop

delivery system using step-by-step

best practices

Deploy – Roll out virtual desktops in planned phases;

deliver new capabilities to even the most demanding users

www.citrix.com

Roadmap to Desktop Transformation

Citrix Desktop Transformation | White Paper

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Introduction Desktop Virtualization is becoming a mainstream way of delivering desktops and applications to users. While IT leaders have a choice in vendors and technologies, they must carefully map out the business priorities and then align specific technologies to each user group, all the while keeping costs, technical complexity, and risk in mind.

As the question on how to eat an elephant is best answered by “one bite at a time,” the recently introduced Desktop Transformation Model (DTM) provides actionable steps IT leaders and architects can take to ensure that they are well prepared to address IT and business priorities by transforming traditional desktops into optimally managed, transformed desktop computing resources. DTM is a staged approach for making a smooth and successful transition from a device-centric, distributed computing model to a user-centric, virtual desktop computing model. The three phases of DTM include Assess, Design, and Deploy that simplify the desktop transformation projects.

This whitepaper focuses on the details of Assess phase, first of the three DTM steps and is based on Citrix Consulting Services’ real world implementation experience with virtual desktop solutions.


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Assess your environment The first stage of the Desktop Transformation Model contain a process for selecting a user group based on business priorities, time to value, and the organization’s technology roadmap. During the assess phase, that select user group is evaluated in detail and information associated with their current desktop environment, infrastructure, and community is analyzed.

Assessing the existing infrastructure and environment is key as it brings clarity to overall strategic imperatives. Before any organization delves into the technical details associated with a desktop virtualization implementation, it must consider the following steps when embarking on the road to desktop transformation:

1. Identify business priorities. To the best way to leverage desktop virtualization, organizations must identify and prioritize their immediate and future business requirements, including areas such as business agility, virtual work styles and cost reduction. They must also account for end-user and IT attitudes towards change, new technologies and new approaches to computing.

2. Establish time to value. Once an organization establishes its priorities, it must map out how quickly the business priorities can be addressed. Establishing the time to value of desktop virtualization begins at user segmentation and then assesses the complexities of implementing the right technology for each user group. To gain a quick, highly visible win, organizations should start with high impact user groups that promise a relatively short time to value. Once an initial project has been implemented, adding additional users with similar requirements becomes faster, simpler and more reliable.

3. Define the technology roadmap. With the previous exercises complete, IT leaders can start prioritizing and planning the individual projects. Organizations must spend time on project planning to set realistic goals, adhere to milestones and avoid missing important project dependencies.


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Identify business priorities IT leaders must get clarity on the business’s overall strategic imperatives in order to prioritize a multitude of possible virtualization initiatives. Organizations can leverage the Desktop Transformation Business Survey on www.citrix.com/desktoptransformation to map out business priorities driving the desktop transformation: reducing costs, increasing security, enabling virtual work styles, increasing business agility, and achieving greater device independence. It is important that this exercise is done jointly with IT decision makers and the representatives of the various business units in the organizations. The results can be depicted in a spider chart.

Consider the example of Worldwide Co., a global provider of business services, including outsourcing services for back office transactions and customer care. Worldwide Co is headquartered in the greater Atlanta, GA area and has employees in various locations in the continental United States. Susan, a seasoned IT professional at Worldwide Co, completed the Desktop Transformation Business Survey together with her CIO and several decision makers. The results of her survey are depicted here:

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

Reducing Costs

Virtual Workstyle

Increasing Security Business Agility

Device Independence


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In reviewing the chart, Susan confirms the following assumptions:

• Leadership will probably require her to deliver more IT services without incremental funding (note the high scores along the “Reducing Cost” axis).

• A pending off-shoring and work-from-home initiative will require her to respond to the growing demand of enabling virtual work styles (high scores in that category).

• The Worldwide Co. leadership continues to express concerns for data security.

These are the three strongest dimensions on the chart. Susan will refer back to it to help her identify which groups to target first, which specific technologies she will need to get the job done, and how she will expand Worldwide Co.’s desktop transformation initiative. For the time being, she shifts her focus to estimate the time her team would require to bring the value of desktop virtualization into the organization.

Establish time to value Understanding the time and effort needed is key when selecting potential projects to meet the business priorities – and leaders must consider the time to value of each project. Many factors are affecting how quickly a potential benefit can be realized. They include the following two steps:

• User Segmentation. Clearly identify the needs of users and establish common requirements that can drive common technical solutions.

• Identification of desktop transformation model architectures. IT architects can design a variety of different virtual desktop models. Each model is characterized by varying degrees of complexity in its implementation, varying changes in IT business practices and is associated with varying levels of capital and operational expenses. Picking the right desktop delivery model that meets the user’s business needs is critical to the long term success of the project and user satisfaction.

User segmentation In high level discussions, users are often classified as “task workers”, “branch office workers”, “mobile workers” and the like. For IT decision makers, this classification is too broad to offer meaningful segmentation. Many real users can simultaneously be described as task workers, mobile workers, and branch office workers, so a better definition is required:

User Segmentat ion is the activity that classifies IT users along common requirements that lead to common technical solutions.


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That way, the proper infrastructure can be built out in manageable IT projects that minimize risk and maximize the chance for project success.

User segmentation dimensions

To capture the right user attributes that allow technical IT staff to execute a well-defined virtualization project, decision makers must take technical requirements into account. The significant dimensions in many proven virtualization projects are:

1. Required application set

2. User locations

3. Mobility requirements

4. Physical endpoint requirements

Applications

Capturing all applications is a critical step because applications are what users need to perform their jobs. While the analysis of most of these dimensions is a straightforward exercise, enumerating the required applications is a tougher step to perform. In many organizations, the corporate IT department does not actively manage all of the departmental applications. Many users are allowed to install their own applications onto their end-point device, often as a result of IT not having the resources or high lead times to support requested applications.

The simplest way to enumerate a department’s applications is to administer a survey where department managers name the apps that their users require to perform their jobs. In large organizations, even that exercise can become very cumbersome. Several Citrix Technology partners such as Liquidware Labs, Lanamark, Novell, Matrix 42, RES, etc. offer tools and processes that gather data directly on user end-points or over the network, and report any running application back to a central database. Should the project involve a change in operating system (rolling out Windows 7 or leveraging Windows Server 200x), application compatibility assessments can become an important step.

IT may find itself in the situation of having to manage previously unmanaged applications. In the simplest case, existing application management tools, such as Active Directory or Microsoft System Center can be used to deploy application packages into virtual desktops; Citrix XenApp and Microsoft App-V may be used to virtualize applications. Note that the specific application delivery mechanism is not important at this point in time. It is only important to capture all applications that are required for the users to perform their job.

Citrix AppDNA offers solution to accelerate the migration of Windows and browser apps to new platforms and perform rapid portfolio analysis to provide a quick overview of effort required for portfolio migration. AppDNA allows IT to quickly determine application compatibility across a


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number of platforms and technologies (64-bit, Win7, RDS/XA, App-V, etc.) and automates physical and virtual application preparation thereby simplifying and reducing time to delivery.

Locations

A user’s primary location is used as a distinguishing attribute as well. While the infrastructure required in a datacenter may be entirely independent of the end-user’s location (a feat that is a major benefit of desktop virtualization in the first place), IT leaders may find that network connections, the need for remote access and WAN optimization solutions, and location-specific infrastructure can be significantly different from location to location. Therefore, IT leaders who seek to minimize project complexity may wish to treat otherwise identical users groups differently based on their primary location.

Mobility requirements

While two different sets of users may have similar job titles and both work from their home offices, their mobility requirements may be different, which can increase the complexity of any desktop virtualization project. Offline use cases and a distinction of mobile access scenarios, such as access from a corporate branch office versus. a hotel or airport lobby, can drive different technical requirements.

User endpoints

A wide variety of endpoints can be leveraged in desktop virtualization. In most cases, delivering virtual desktops with XenDesktop is as easy as providing the proper Citrix Receiver for the end point platform. However, if the IT executive plans on replacing traditional PCs with thin clients to reduce cost and complexity on the users’ desks, the specification of the end point may need to meet minimum requirements, for example to be used with HDX video re-direction modalities.


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To illustrate this user segmentation process, we’ll revisit the use case of Worldwide Co.

Susan is now going through the user segmentation exercise and completes the following matrix:

Segmentation Dimension

Alpharetta Ticketing Call Center

Offshore Developers Executives

Applications • Microsoft Office • Internet Explorer 7 • Reflections Terminal

Emulator • CTI application for call

routing

• Microsoft Visual Studio • .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 • Internet Explorer 7 • Internet Explorer 8 • Mozilla Firefox • Google Chrome • “EMC2” – an in-house

developed source code control application

• Standard office apps, including a variety of user installed applications. Further analysis required.

User Location • Alpharetta, GA • Hyderabad, India • New York, NY

Mobility Requirements

• None. Users all work out of the Alpharetta office

• None. All users will work out of the Hyderabad office.

• High. Executives travel extensively and will require access from other corporate offices and public networks.

End points • Mostly traditional PCs. Possibly phasing the PCs out in favor of thin clients in the future

• Thin Clients • Variety of PC’s, laptops, iPads and smartphones.

Potential Desktop Virtualization Model

• Optimally Managed • Centrally Delivered – VDI based

• Transformed

Although a detailed technical design has not been completed yet, Worldwide Co. has determined that a relatively simple VDI model with assigned desktops for each individual user will be implemented for the offshore developers.

For the call center users, Susan plans on implementing an optimally delivered desktop. It will likely consist of desktops leveraging single image management and a separate application virtualization layer. These attributes will help to contain capital and operational expenses required for this user group.


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Readers may notice that Susan did not have the opportunity to enumerate all applications for the executives. This is due to the fact that Worldwide Co has traditionally allowed employees at the Senior Director level and above to install their own applications on their PCs and laptops.

As Susan thinks about a longer-term plan to transform desktop delivery for more and more users, she realizes that once a particular technology has been implemented for one user group, the environment can simply be expanded with more capacity for any other user groups that have similar requirements. Therefore, it is important to design the technical solutions with growth and a clear strategy in mind, and to adhere to established best practices.

Define the technology roadmap In order to establish a technology and project roadmap IT leaders must consider the two previously discussed dimensions:

Business impact First, the business impact of the desktop virtualization for each user group must be considered. The virtualization of the desktops of high business impact users maps best to the business dimensions identified in the Business Prioritization exercise introduced earlier. It is not necessarily the users who provide the most value to the company’s core business, but those with a specific need or use case that is difficult to address with today’s desktop computing environments.

Time to value Second, the time to value of each project must be evaluated. IT leaders are encouraged to think about the time needed for the technical implementation of the infrastructure, the amount of testing required (which can increase significantly for business critical user groups), and the conceptual changes on the organizational chart that such a project brings with it.

To minimize initial apprehension about desktop virtualization, Citrix Consulting recommends that IT organizations do not introduce too many changes into the existing IT processes at once. If an organization has only limited experience with desktop virtualization, it is recommended to tackle the central delivery of desktops first, and then build out the capability for optimal management at a later point.

After an initial user group is successfully reached, IT organizations can expand their desktop virtualization capabilities and offerings based on business priorities – again, referring to the graph obtained in the prioritization exercise described earlier. Once a particular technology has been implemented, additional user groups can be added to the environments by simply adding capacity and performing the actual user transition activities. Implementation and support get easier as organizations build out their competencies in the different desktop virtualization modalities, and costs per user are often reduced as more users are added to the existing infrastructure.


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To illustrate this final planning step we will visit Susan at Worldwide Co. again:

Enabling the remote software developers maps perfectly to three of the previously identified business priorities. It increases security by placing the computing resources and data into the datacenter at home, sets the stage for enabling virtual work styles and impacts the company’s labor costs, Therefore, Susan categorizes a virtualization initiative for that user group as “high impact”. The time to value is considered relatively low. Going from traditionally managed desktops to a central VDI model limits the changes to existing business practices. The system testing, go-live and initial support of this environment can be accomplished with a reasonable amount of resources as a possible outage of the systems does not affect Worldwide Co.’s core business.

Susan repeats the assessment of business impact and time to value for the other user groups and completes the following 2x2 matrix:

Based on this matrix, it is easy to understand that organizations are best advised to work from the top left to the bottom right of this chart. Accordingly, Susan decides with her stakeholders to tackle the remote developers first, the Alpharetta Ticketing Call Center users second and a select group of executives third.


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Planning the project implementation Just like a perfect landing of an aircraft is preceded by a cleanly executed and stabilized approach, IT leaders are well advised to spend some time on project planning. Project managers can develop and execute Gantt charts that establish the individual milestones and project dependencies.

It is important that IT leaders enlist help from desktop virtualization professionals in order to stick to timelines and avoid potential implementation pitfalls. Citrix Consulting Services, various System Integrators such as CSC, Fujitsu, IBM, Cap Gemini, HP, and members of the Global Network of Citrix Partners have the technical expertise and project execution experience to lead the transformation. Project implementation typically follows a planning methodology. An example is the Citrix Consulting methodology, which revolves around the following four core phases:

• Analysis: Assess and describe business priorities and segment users. During each implementation project, analyze business and technical requirements in detail, assess existing infrastructure and processes, and, if necessary, conduct scalability testing.

• Design: Design the technical solution in detail.

• Build / Test: Build out the infrastructure and conduct tests to ensure that the design meets all of the requirements and is free of unexpected behavior.

• Rollout: Go-live planning, change in support procedures and IT operations, user go-live and initial support.

Next steps and additional resources To realize the benefits of desktop virtualization, IT leaders should work with representatives from the major business units in their organizations to better understand the organization’s business priorities.

IT leaders should also become familiar with the Desktop Transformation model concept, and the steps they need to take to turn a desktop virtualization strategy into reality. Citrix and the leading Desktop Transformation players have and will continue to create tools and resources to help organizations with various aspects of desktop transformation:

• Desktop Transformation website: http://www.citrix.com/desktoptransformation

• Citrix Architects discuss best practices: http://www.citrix.com/askthearchitect

• The Virtual Desktop design kit: http://bitly.com/xdhandbook


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www.citrix.com

3 Steps to Accelerate Your Desktop Transformation


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Introduction When looking at desktop virtualization, it may be confusing to try to determine where to start when there are a variety of options and deployment scenarios. In an effort to help simplify the virtual desktop adoption process and provide IT organizations with a new vision for the future of enterprise desktop computing, Citrix has formed the Desktop Transformation Model. The model focuses on providing IT organization with practical guidance for actually making that transition into a virtual desktop environment.

As part of this process, the Citrix Consulting Solutions team has applied their proven methodology to help guide an IT organization through the process of moving from a traditional, distributed physical desktop environment and into the very first phase of the Desktop Transformation Model known as centrally delivered. Centrally delivered desktops provide an IT organization with an easy, simple method for pursuing a virtual desktop solution and set the stage to pursue the other later phases of the Desktop Transformation Model.

The Desktop Transformation Model Citrix created the Desktop Transformation Model to illustrate the transition of enterprise desktop computing from the traditional desktop computing model into a completely transformed user-centric, on-demand service model. The following figure provides a high-level overview of the model, for a complete overview please visit www.citrix.com/desktoptransformationmodel.

Assess

The first stage of the Desktop Transformation Model contain a process for selecting a user group based on business priorities, time to value, and the organization’s technology roadmap. During the analysis phase, that select user group is evaluated in detail and information associated with their current desktop environment, infrastructure, and community is analyzed.


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Design

The design phase will produce a plan for the physical and virtual architecture that will be used to host the virtual desktop environment. This involves a detailed architecture design, a breakdown of the individual software components and the final determination for overall hardware requirements. It includes the process of implementing the design through obtaining and implementing the physical hardware and network, installing and configuring the software components of the virtual desktop solution, and preparing the base virtual desktop image. Functional and unit testing is completed during this phase to validate environment functionality.

Deploy

The deploy phase consists of end user testing through a pilot and full production rollout to all targeted users. This phase includes the go-live planning, support procedures and IT operations, and end-user training. Time is also allotted during this phase to gather feedback and implement relevant changes.

The goal of this paper is to provide practical guidance to help an IT organization make the migration from a traditional, distributed desktop environment and into a centrally delivered desktop environment through the application of the Citrix Consulting methodology. Transformation Guidance

The first transition within the Desktop Transformation Model is the change from a traditional, distributed desktop management environment, which most organizations currently use as their mainstream desktop offering, into a centrally delivered desktop environment. A centrally delivered environment offers IT organizations the ability to enable virtual work environments while maintaining data security. When looking to make the transition, it is best to utilize the Citrix Consulting methodology to gather the necessary information required to identify success criteria, create a detailed design, and develop a project plan all targeted at providing a successful deployment, positive end-user experience and operational guidance for continued support after the environment is released into production.

For the purposes of this paper, the migration process in adherence with the Citrix Consulting methodology for the select user group as identified through the review of business priorities, time to value, and an organization’s technology roadmap. Within this paper the select user group is making the simplest transition from a traditional, distributed desktop environment into a hosted VDI virtual desktop environment. In the hosted VDI virtual desktop environment, each user will have an assigned, dedicated virtual desktop just as they currently have an assigned, dedicated physical desktop. Although, the centrally delivered migration offers other virtual workplace options such as a hosted shared desktop or centrally delivered virtual applications through XenApp, the hosted VDI solution represented in this paper provides a simple, clean transition between a distributed desktop into a centrally delivered desktop that enables a secure, centralized virtual workplace without requiring a large scale desktop management process redesign.


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In the following sections each phase of the Citrix Consulting methodology will be laid out in detail as it specifically relates to the migration into a hosted VDI desktop environment. The specific tasks associated with each phase will be provided and then a use case example of a real-world customer will be added for context. The use case example will assess how Worldwide Co. utilized the hosted VDI migration plan outlined in this document to provide its off-shore developers with an assigned, dedicated virtual desktop that is centrally delivered. Assess

As previously mentioned, prior to the Assess phase a select user group was identified to make the transition to a centrally delivered virtual desktop environment. The first part of the assess process for that user group is to gain a detailed understanding of the user requirements and existing environment configurations. It is also very important to gain the support of the end-user community affected by the migration. Explaining the benefits of the hosted VDI environment can be very beneficial here, as a group that’s excited about the new functionality will be much more receptive to the project and simplify all aspects of the process. When analyzing this user group, the following items needs to be clarified:

• Applications and Work Styles. Understanding which applications are used by this group and how they are used will be important in ensuring that users have a seamless transition.

• Data Storage & Profiles. Determine what end-user and application data is currently stored on local devices, network shares and within user profiles. If data is stored locally on the user’s current physical desktop, a data migration process between the physical and virtual environment should be designed in the next phase.

• Mapped Network Drives and Logon Scripts. Actions that occur at logon should generally be replicated in a VDI environment to ensure that the end-user has the same, if not better, experience that they are currently having with their physical environment. In addition, this information is critical for understanding what type of data is being stored on local desktops from a security perspective.

• Remote Access Requirements. Understand how users access their environment from inside and outside the office. Remote access requirements may affect firewall and network configurations.

• Network Bandwidth and High Fidelity Requirements. Applications that may require video and audio will require higher bandwidth – understanding these requirements and ensure that the network can support them. This will be critical for ensuring a positive end-user experience and developing XenDesktop HDX requirements.

• Antivirus & Security Requirements. The current antivirus software deployment process, end-point scans and security requirements for the existing environment should be understood. Some security requirements can be simplified or eliminated as a result of going to VDI, such as encrypted hard drives since the desktops are now protected in the datacenter.


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• Software Deployment. The IT organization most likely has a process for updating and patching existing IT supported applications, but this process should also be reviewed for departmental applications.

• Network. Details regarding network configurations such as network printer access, DHCP scope, email servers, and domain membership are all important to have defined before creating new virtual desktop base images.

• Environment Support. Understand how the end-users currently escalate issues for support. This will help when developing the operational guides and training for both the end-user and helpdesk.

Finally, one other thing to consider in the assess phase is how to move users to the new environment. Assuming that the existing environment is Windows XP, there are three common scenarios that are often seen in desktop virtualization implementations:

• 1-to-1 Migration. Users existing machines are copied to the virtual environment. All user settings, programs and data are directly migrated. Time to migrate scales directly to the number of users being migrated, and any configurations on the machine, good or bad, are transferred with the rest of the programs.

• Clean Migration with IT-base Image. Users are given a clean virtual desktop with the standard IT image. No harmful content that the user might have installed on the current physical desktop is transferred into the datacenter, and all virtual desktops are fully configured with the latest, most-secure corporate image from IT. However, users may have to customize their new virtual desktop and data may need to be transferred from local physical devices based on existing storage configurations. Migration time is more of a fixed value than the one-to-one migration as base images can quickly be replicated for multiple users.

• Clean Migration to Windows 7. Moving to Windows 7 is a major driver for a virtual desktop migration, as many companies have hardware that cannot support the new operating system, and a virtual desktop solution can extend the life of the physical devices. However, depending on the maturity of Windows 7 in the organization, this can introduce significant complexities, such as profile migration, application compatibility testing, and end user training. The Windows 7 migratoin can also be a significant selling point to business units – offering Windows 7 in a virtual desktop model.

Each of the above paths has its benefits and costs, and deciding which method will depend largely on each IT organization and the needs of the business unit. That being said, starting with any of the methods will greatly reduce the difficulty of moving to a new OS or subsequent phase of the Desktop Transformation Model in the future given that a base foundation is now in place.


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Design

The design phase includes architecting the solution from both the software and hardware point of view. Using estimates gathered from the assess phase and best practice architecture documents, appropriate hardware for infrastructure and virtual desktop hypervisors can be requisitioned. The goal of the design phase is to have a workable design to execute in the build and test phase.

The following typical actions take place during the design phase:

• Virtual Desktop Requirements. For a Hosted VDI virtual desktop model with assigned desktops, the virtual desktop image configurations should be standardized across the identified user group. The desktop image should at least meet the minimum requirements for the desired operating system and best practices recommend providing provisions for performance and future growth. For example, if Windows 7 has a minimum requirement of 1 GB, it might be worthwhile based on the application activities of the end user to provide 1.5 GB or 2 GB of RAM for performance and future application requirements. Virtual desktop requirements for RAM, CPU, and hard drives will determine the number of virtual desktops per physical server.

• Hypervisor. Citrix XenDesktop is hypervisor agnostic and can support Microsoft Windows Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer and VMware vSphere. If the organization already has a hypervisor in-house and expertise, the design will be simplified if the new Hosted VDI environment can leverage the existing hypervisor.

• Hardware Estimation. Based on the virtual desktop requirements, number of users, and available space on existing hypervisors, if available, then the hardware estimations for a Hosted VDI environment can be calculated.

Worldwide Co. Example Use Case: Assess

Susan, a project manager for Worldwide Co, previously identified that the offshore developer group at Worldwide Co. is best situated for a Hosted VDI-‐based virtual desktop solution given the company’s business priorities and technology roadmap. This group only requires a limited number of applications including development tools (Microsoft Visual Studio 2007) along with several browsers and Microsoft Office. Users are all located at one site in Hyderabad, India and do not work from home. During the assess phase, Susan assessed the existing environment for the offshore developers. Current developers use aging Windows XP desktops with 1-‐1.5 gigabytes of memory and occasionally run into memory issues. Data security is a concern for the offshore developers, so Susan understands that she will need to design policies that will prevent information loss. Based on all the criteria Susan identified an assigned, dedicated virtual desktop will provide each offshore developer with a dedicated virtual desktop capable of supporting Windows 7.


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o Scalability Testing. If there are significant questions around the amount of hardware required to support virtual desktops, scalability testing can be performed to determine the hardware requirements more accurately. For details on scalability testing, reference Citrix eDocs.

• Security & Anti-Virus. While most security tools will continue to work in a similar manner, anti-virus should be optimized in the environment, as a standard antivirus definition (such as one with an identically scheduled full drive scan across all desktops) may extend the storage beyond acceptable capacities.

• Storage. The decision of whether to use local storage or SAN storage should be decided, and existing references should be used to ensure enough resources exist to support the environment.

• Windows 7 Migration Considerations. Some additional considerations should be taken into account if migrating from a Windows XP to Windows 7 environment – this includes profile settings as well as application compatibility in the new environment.

Products generally included in this stage of design will be a Desktop Controller (XenDesktop) infrastructure that manages the VDI environment, a SQL server and a hypervisor that hosts the virtual desktops. If an existing XenServer, Hyper-V or VMware environment already exist, this environment can be leveraged or expanded to be used in the VDI environment.

Additionally, including a remote access solution is highly recommended in this scenario as it will offer some of the largest benefits over a physical desktop to end users. Either an existing VPN solution can be utilized, or Access Gateway can be used to provide secure, integrated access to the virtual desktop environment.

The information gathered around application sets and desktop image customizations during the assess phase can be utilized here to ensure that all applications will perform as expected. Design decisions around USB mapping, audio, video redirection, graphics intensive applications such as CAD applications and others should be discussed here and included in the design.


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Worldwide Co. Example Case: Design

Armed with the information gathered during the assess phase, Susan moves forward with the methodology and engages her IT architecture team to develop a design for the environment. In order to save on expenses, the IT team has determined that all the developers will continue to use their existing computers to save on costs, but will lock them down completely to convert them to essentially thin clients. The new Windows 7 virtual machine will have 2GB of RAM, 50 GB of hard drive, and 1vCPU which is a substantial improvement over their current environment. There are currently 45 developers located in the India office and open head count for 5 more. The developers are currently using a mandatory profile, so there aren’t any personalized user profile settings to migrate between XP and Windows 7. Susan's team confirmed that the locked down version of XP they are using supports XenDesktop HDX, and she's done some basic bandwidth testing to ensure that they have enough bandwidth, so no network changes need to occur. Knowing the requirements, Susan’s team decided to purchase two servers with 64GB of RAM, dual quad-‐core Intel X5550 Processors, and 2x72GB drives. She also purchased a 1TB storage array for direct attached storage between the two servers to support future growth, the virtual machine infrastructure for the environment and the ability to gradually add other non-‐developer users later on. Susan’s team already had XenServer experience, so the decision was made to utilize XenServer with XenDesktop. All the users will have a dedicated, assigned desktop to keep the migration process simple. Application updates are already deployed via SMS. Active Directory membership and operating system updates are handled via their Windows Server Update Services. McAfee antivirus and firewall will continue to be used, but the scheduled scans will be staggered so that they don't all occur at the same time. The only additional change that will occur to the end-‐user thin client is the installation of the Citrix Receiver. The following picture shows a high-‐level overview of the architecture:


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Deploy During the deploy phase, hardware is deployed, operating systems are configured, and software is installed. Basic functional testing is completed to ensure that the environment is operating correctly. The goal of this phase is to have a fully functional environment to present to end users to test.

Once the environment has been built and tested at a functional level, business owners that will be transitioning to the new environment should be responsible for validating that all applications are available and working as expected. Time should be allotted for making any requisite updates based on business unit feedback.

Finally, load testing is recommended to ensure that the environment can support the full user set before making the final cut over to production.

The rollout of the first group can be critical to the success and future delivery of virtual desktops throughout an organization. A smooth rollout can pave the way for future groups to easily encourage adoption. To accomplish this, Citrix Consulting recommends starting off with a pilot group – approximately 10% of the user base testing 100% of the functionality with basic training on how to access the environment and anything they need to consider. Time should be allotted to both gather the feedback and implement the changes.

Depending on the extent of the changes required and feedback received, either a more extensive pilot or a move into production is required. A question Citrix Consulting often receives is whether to allow users to keep using their endpoints as is, or to lock them down to thin client mode. Consulting has seen successes with both methods, though the most effective transition for most companies comes when companies announce that desktop virtualization will be the primary method

Worldwide Co. Example Case: Deploy

Susan’s team took the design decisions from the previous phase and used these to build out a solid architecture. Once all of the components for XenServer and XenDesktop were installed, a base image was created with all of Worldwide Co.'s core applications and settings. Susan's team tested the image first to fix any obvious issues, then confirmed that the installed applications including Visual Studio worked as expected on Windows 7. Susan then asked the development managers to select representatives to confirm that the image had all of the required software and worked as expected. During this time, Susan's team tested the XenDesktop functionality of managing and connecting to the environment to ensure that the XD infrastructure and HDX functionality worked as expected.


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for business application access, but either way the recommendation is to allow the end-users to access to their existing physical environment during the transition period to ensure that users are properly trained and comfortable within the new system.

Worldwide Co. Example Case: Deploy

With the architecture implemented and the business owners satisfied with the validation testing, Susan’s team moved to the pilot phase. Since the developer managers do not want to impact the overall performance with one massive change, Susan’s team took approximately 10% of the current developers and asked them to use the environment exclusively for one week as a pilot. She requested that they communicate any issues that they experienced to a single contact person that would compile the information. At the end of the pilot, she asked everyone to provide information on their experience. With the results of the pilot, Susan went to her team to ensure that the virtual desktops had the problems resolved. With the pilot testing complete, Susan felt confident that she could roll out the desktops to all of the developers and have them start working immediately.

Now that Susan has a working environment for XenDesktop and a certified base image, she can now roll out virtual desktops to new user groups. Susan’s team took every precautionary measure they could identify to ensure that the helpdesk was trained on the migration and available to escalate issues, the migration was scheduled during an off-‐hour, and a complete rollback plan was put in place just in case of an emergency.

Susan knew that having demonstrated a successful deployment with one user group would make it much easier for additional user groups to buy-‐in and integrating additional features to optimize the environment now becomes much simpler as the environment is centralized in one location on one hardware stack.


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Conclusion The transition from a physical to virtual desktop can be simple and impactful at the same time. By taking this simplified approach to desktop virtualization IT organizations can truly assess the greater impact of the solution and begin the exploration into desktop virtualization. Through the process of identifying a group that is best situated for an assigned virtual desktop, organizations can easily begin the transition to a Hosted VDI model with minimal cost, minimal turn-around time and maximum impact. The migration from a distributed desktop is the first piece of the puzzle, and by taking a gradual approach to desktop virtualization the overall end goal of a completely transformed desktop as a service model will be much easier to attain.

www.citrix.com

Optimize Your Desktop Transformation


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Introduction With any desktop virtualization strategy, one of the simplest ways to get started is by moving the desktop into the datacenter by deploying a 1-to-1, static virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). This method allows an IT department to quickly get experience with the new technologies involved while realizing a quick win by leveraging existing tools and processes.

However, a 1:1 static VDI model both brings in the existing problems of any desktop environment, and has significant capital costs when scaling up from a proof of concept or small group to tens of thousands of users. As an organization looks to scale up from a small VDI deployment there are many opportunities to optimize the experience and create a flexible and maintainable environment for the additional groups to utilize virtual desktops.

Citrix created the Desktop Transformation Model to illustrate the transition of enterprise desktop computing from the traditional desktop computing model into a completely transformed user-centric, on-demand service model. The following figure provides a high-level overview of the model, for a complete overview please visit www.citrix.com/desktoptransformationmodel.

The goal of this paper is to provide IT organizations a guideline for building out an optimally delivered virtual desktop environment, which is characterized by single image management, operating system / application separation, highly available storage, profile management and remote access considerations. This paper assumes that organization has some experience with VDI, either in pilots or small production deployments. And this paper looks at changing, updating, simplifying or excluding some of those processes through the use of additional technologies, thereby resulting in operational and capital savings. Such changes allows for reduced management and storage costs while increasing the scalability of the system to much higher levels.


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Optimized approach to virtual desktops

After identifying characteristics of ideal user groups to start on desktop virtualization, select a group with desired characteristics can greatly reduce the complexity of an initial project. This will result in highly visible gains and smooth the path for future groups to be migrated to a desktop virtualization project. Additionally, you need to look at some of the factors that need to be considered and steps that should to be taken to complete assess, design and deploy phases. Not all of these characteristics are required to be considered as each environment is different, though equivalently optimized processes should be in place to ease scaling upwards.

These characteristics include:

• Single Image Management. Managing and updating hundreds or thousands of desktop images through laborious patch processes and application updates can require significant time, especially considering rollback procedures are difficult in the case of a failed update. Using a single image (or several shared images customized to groups) can greatly reduce update management requirements and prevent help desk calls due to user damaged desktops.

• Streamed / Remote Applications. Separating the application layer from the operating system layer greatly reduces the complexity of compatibility testing and single image management. Combining strategies of remote, stream and installed applications into a single environment allows advantages of each method to be utilized fully, resulting in simplified base images, faster application provisioning, and additional benefits such as reduced licensing costs.

• Profile Considerations. A more advanced solution than local profiles is recommended for a successful deployment. Roaming profiles with remapped user folders may suffice in some environments, while others may require some more advanced profile management technology to ensure the end user’s requirements are met.

• Storage Considerations. In line with profile considerations, data should not be stored as part of the local image, but rather on network storage to allow access via any virtual desktop or remote application. Such access will allow SLAs to be set according to company requirements for data backup, and generally allow significant improvements over current data retention and backup procedures.

• Branch Office & Remote Access. Having a centralized, optimized environment may greatly simplify access for both branch offices and remote users. Interactions with large documents, data sets and databases will occur as if local as opposed to traveling over high-latency lines. Users will additionally, if permitted, easily be able to access their desktops from outside the organization, resulting in higher productivity and morale, as tasks that may have


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been impossible to do from home and required a trip to a physical office can quickly be resolved.

Common Image Management Employing technology to use common images, such as Provisioning (PVS) or Machine Creation (MCS) services, will significantly reduce the time required to manage images and improve rollback possibilities. However, with such a new technology, there are considerations that need to be taken into account.

Pooled vs. Static (Assigned) vs. Dedicated

One decision involves what type of desktop to assign to users. Generally, desktops can fall into three categories: pooled, static (AKA assigned) or dedicated. As a general rule, the best benefits come from having them pooled – the least amount of resources are used, desktops launch nearly instantly, and server, storage and disaster recovery design are greatly simplified. However, there may be some situations where assigned or dedicated desktops are required – a few applications require a unique and static hostname to last in between sessions, or track a user by IP address, or users may have very unique application sets. These may require a small subset of users to have an assigned or dedicated desktop, though the majority can still benefit from a pooled desktop.

• Pooled. In a pooled scenario, all desktops in a desktop group are identical. A small set of desktops are online and ready to be used, allowing users to almost instantly access their workspace without waiting for boot-time. Users are always directed to either to an existing session or the first available computer, so they are not tied to a specific machine. This allows the bulk of unused machines to remain powered off, reducing hardware resources and power consumption, and automatically providing desktop high availability in the case of a hypervisor crash.

• Static (Assigned). Statically assigned desktops have the benefit of a user always connecting to the same machine, though the common image is the same across the board. This allows applications that require the user and the hostname to connected to function, and opens the possibility of customizing the desktop slightly – such as adding an additional static local disk, or modifying the CPU/RAM resources available to the desktop. However, this results in either the machine having to power on when the user wants to access it (increasing logon time), or having all machines online, increasing resource requirements and power consumption.

• Dedicated. Dedicated machines are similar to static machines, in that users will access the same machine each time. However, dedicated machines differ in that any changes made to them are persistent. This can either be done by providing each user with a full machine and local disk, or through XenDesktop’s Machine Creation services, which allows users to build on a common read-only disk. This allows users with very unique application sets or high


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customization requirements to modify their desktop and install applications as they see fit, though this approach requires that desktops and anti-virus are still updated through traditional methods, and storage is recommended to be highly available, such as SAN, in case of hypervisor failure.

Number of images

The number of base images can vary greatly from organization to organization depending on applications, requirements, and technologies used. If not using streaming or remote application technology, a vDisk will have to exist for each unique user group/application set. This will reduce the number of components by not requiring a XenApp deployment, but will significantly increase the number of vDisks required to manage.

By incorporating XenApp and moving some applications, as appropriate to remote published or streamed, an organization can drastically reduce the number of vDisks. While most organizations will still require more than one vDisk, due to requirements of significant operating system customizations, the number becomes significantly more manageable with the addition of a tool that separates the application layer from the operating system layer.

Using XenApp, by either publishing or streaming applications, not only reduces the number of vDisks necessary to be managed, but also simplifies license management. Whether an organization chooses to implement XenApp or not depends on specific organizational requirements, such as the diversity of user groups and applications, licensing costs around applications, and whether the operating system needs deep application integrations, such as programs that alter the behavior of the file system.

Application data

Some applications require user-specific settings or allow end users to heavily customize them. Many applications, including legacy, home-grown and small vendor applications, do not use the registry to store this critical data but rather in a configuration file of some sort. This may require that the application is customized with a startup script to copy a configuration from the profile and back to it at logoff. Some profile management tools can be configured to complete these tasks automatically, otherwise, manual scripting may be required.

User data

User data is a critical issue in a virtual desktop deployment, as users may move from desktop to desktop and server to server. Ensuring that their data is always available is paramount to ensuring productivity and acceptance of the new tool. If users have already been trained to place files in network share, this will simplify the process. However, even untrained users can still use redirected folders such as My Desktop and My Documents, though they will need to know that placing files in the C: root or Program Files will result in those files disappearing. Appropriate Active Directory permission restrictions on these non-redirected folders can prevent data loss issues. It is important


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to understand user data storage requirements, and provide enough space in redirected folders to store all important user data.

If using roaming profiles or similar technology, it is also important to occasionally check on the size of these profiles to ensure that all folders are being redirected properly and no application is overusing the profile. Some applications may not behave well and may bloat the profile, causing longer logon times to desktops and published applications.

User personalization and effects

Allowing users to personalize their desktop and keeping more attractive effects can have slight performance and resource costs, but may greatly increase the user experience. User effects such as having a desktop background or maintaining the look and feel of Windows 7 windows and menus may greatly outweigh the costs and help adopt migration.

Anti-virus best practices

Anti-virus configurations are a common cause of concern in both VDI and common image environments. Having a full scheduled anti-virus scan can negatively impact the storage and performance of an entire environment. In virtual desktop environments, these kinds of scans are necessary, but should be staggered during off hours.

However, in common image environments, full scans are no longer necessary during run-time, as any changes to the image are discarded on power-off, and a clean version of the image comes up. It is considered best practice to scan the common image after it’s updated for viruses and malware before it’s assigned to users.

Despite the benefits of a common image, anti-virus is still an important part of any desktop solution, as there still needs to be protection against self-replicating viruses and users running malicious programs within a session. Some other considerations include whether to scan only on write or on reads as well (generally, writes are enough), and whether to monitor running processes. Things like network drives should most likely be ignored as multiple users scanning the same network drive can have a negative impact on the network drive storage, network utilization, and desktop CPU usage.

As all new information is wiped on a reboot, one common concern is how anti-virus updates work. Since most anti-virus updates are relatively frequent and small in size, allowing updates to occur after boot will have little network or CPU impact. Additionally, during updates of the image, virus definitions can be updated as well.

One newer option that some anti-virus vendors are now providing includes hypervisor-based scanning appliances, simplifying the scanning process and reducing the footprint. Additional information can be provided about these types of appliances from the organization’s anti-virus vendor, if they provide one.


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Application Deployment Understanding what applications are required and how to deploy them is a critical, and one of the most time consuming steps in scaling up a large environment.

Gathering applications and requirements

Application requirements can be gathered in several ways, and often will require a combination of several methods. End users and business units can be interviewed, or tools such as EdgeSight, PlateSpin Recon and others may provide automated outputs.

Application deployment models

Different deployment methods will be ideal for different applications. Using the best delivery method for each application will greatly improve the environment. Installing applications into the base image or delivering as a remote application via XenApp are the recommended methods, with streaming as a primary fallback and VM Hosted as a last resort. Following this general methodology for application deployment will result in the best balance between reduced overall complexity for management and best resource utilization.

• Common Image Installed. These applications are those that are universally licensed or considered birthright applications and used by most or all users (such as Microsoft Office). Alternately, they can be applications that alter the behavior of the operating system, such as WinZip or 7zip.

• Published Remotely. Some applications may have concurrent or named licenses requirements, which point towards XenApp as the ideal deployment choice. Generally any less than universally used application with licensing costs should be attempted to be deployed on XenApp.

• Common Image Streamed. Some applications may be limited to a few users due to organization requirements or named licensing. These applications can be streamed into the desktop and exist in the same memory space as installed applications. Good applicants for streaming are those that are not multi-user friendly, have large resource requirements or memory leaks, or cannot coexist with base installed applications.

• VM Hosted. Some applications may perform poorly in a Terminal Services environment, may have memory leaks, not be friendly to being streamed, or require static hostnames. Such problematic applications may be VM hosted so that multiple users can access over the course of several sessions. Other common issues may include incompatibility with Windows 7 or Internet Explorer 8. Due to resource requirements and management costs, this option should generally be considered a last resort.


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Licensing Considerations

Licensing rules may significantly alter the deployment method, as using the best deployment method can greatly reduce costs. Depending on the license type, if an application isn’t universally used by a user group, certain methods may be more cost effective than others.

• Per User (Concurrent): This licensing type lends itself to be remotely published (or, if necessary, VM Hosted). Installing it locally will likely cause significant additional costs as each user who is assigned to the vDisk will need to be licensed.

• Per User (Named): This points toward any option other than common image, as named licenses are easily managed for remotely published, streamed, or, if the other options fail, VM Hosted.

• Per Machine: This generally indicates that remote publishing or VM hosted are the best options, as the application will in each case reside on a single machine and be able to serve multiple users. With VM hosted, each VM will be able to serve one user at a time.

Additional licensing methods or caveats may exist depending on the EULAs and ELAs agreed to.

Number of Users

The number of users who regularly use the application may also heavily impact the design decision. If all users have access to the application, it points toward being installed into the base image as a primary option. If a significant percentage of users use it, whether publishing it remotely through XenApp or installing it into the base image depends on a number of factors, including licensing costs and performance requirements. If only a few users use it, streaming becomes a preferable option.

Application Complexity

Complex applications may require more testing to determine the best application delivery method. Whether the method to use is installed into the image, published from XenApp, streamed, or hosted in a separate VM can depend significantly on application behavior and requirements.

Additional Considerations Additional factors play into the centralization of an environment. These include storage & profile architecture, and may include remote access as well.

Storage considerations

Storage is a critical part of any desktop virtualization deployment. While for most large scale deployments, enterprises tend to go with a SAN, other options exist. Storage is required primarily


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for three things: profile / redirected folders, common image storage, and a temporary write cache for the vDisk.

For profile solutions, network-attached storage is often employed, though it is very important to ensure that the load on the server and the load on the network does not cause delays, as it can greatly affect the user experience and logon times.

For common image storage, this can generally fall on any type of storage. If using Provisioning Services, the common images are loaded into memory, reducing the requirements for IOPs and fast disks. It is recommended for Provisioning Services to provide ample memory to allow caching of the disks and provide prime performance. A formula for finding the recommended Provisioning server memory is provided in the PVS Planning Guide in the XenDesktop Design Handbook. Reducing the number of active images reduces the recommended size of the Provisioning Server’s memory.

For the write cache in Provisioning Services, multiple options exist, including server-side, SAN storage, memory storage and local disk. Redundancy is a consideration, though for most deployments (especially pooled) the data stored in the write cache is not critical and does not need to be backed up. All critical data should be stored in the profile or redirected folders. In most pooled environments, redundancy is built into other architectural components, removing the need for write-cache storage redundancy.

The storage options include, for the delta storage:

• Stored on the Provisioning services server: This option is generally not recommended for large scale environments, as it requires writes and some reads to traverse the network, reducing scalability.

• SAN storage. This allows all features, such as migration, to be enabled, though at a fairly high cost. The SAN generally needs to be a high performance device as well to sustain the reads and writes of the workload. While many customers believe that SAN storage is a requirement for high availability, an environment can be designed to be highly available without one. Network storage can be used for profile and user data, and local disks can store both the write cache and synced vDisks across Provisioning servers. If a hypervisor hosting desktops crashes, users will be disconnected and have to reconnect, which they’ll be able to do immediately, though any unsaved data will be lost (just as with a regular desktop machine). This is the same scenario that would occur with a SAN – as long as user data and profiles are highly available, they’ll be able to access their data immediately and without realizing they’re on a new desktop. The major advantage of SAN storage is the ability to migrate machines prior to planned hardware downtime.

• Memory Storage. Write cache information can be stored directly in memory as well, which can increase security and produce a high performance environment, while requiring less


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management. However, this may also be one of the most expensive methods of storing the write cache, as large amounts of additional memory will need to be loaded into servers.

• Local storage. Using an array of disks or a single solid state drive (SSD) can be a more cost-effective solution. It is important that the speed of the disks can handle the sustained writes of the environment, and a RAID cache is in place to match bursts of activity. As delta data is non-critical for the most part, SSD drives can be used without a redundant pair, greatly reducing the cost burden. As SSDs come down in price, this will become a more and more viable option.

For both SAN storage and local storage, it is recommended to have a RAID cache to store information in the case of boot storms and temporary increases in activity. Even a small RAID cache can greatly improve performance for end users, and reduce costs by allowing the SAN and local storage to plan for sustained IOPs rather than burst IOPs.

Profile considerations

Profiles are a critical portion of any desktop virtualization solution. Using a good profile solution can greatly enhance the end user experience and make them feel like they’re using a personalized desktop, greatly increasing adoption rates. However, poor profile management can result in things such as large profiles, causing long desktop logon and application launch times, corrupt profiles, lost application settings and general user frustration.

It is strongly recommended to redirect all possible user folders to ensure that user data is not lost. This will help ensure the user experience is identical across desktops and servers.

Desktop logon times and remote application launch times can be heavily affected by the size of the profile, so ensuring that profiles stay relatively clean can be beneficial. While roaming profiles do not have this functionality built in, other tools, such as Citrix’s User Profile Manager, AppSense Profile Management, Liquidware Labs Profile Unity and other advanced profile solutions will allow pruning and maintaining the profile to prevent bloat. Please see the Desktop Transformational Model website for additional profile vendors and information.

Additionally, advanced profile managers can help prevent profile corruption, which can be a frequent headache for the help desk and users when using virtual desktops and remote applications. Corruption can occur when users make changes to their profile on multiple desktops, and if the write-backs on logoff conflict with each other, difficult to diagnose issues can occur.

Finally, many applications do not write settings changes to the user registry or profile, and as a result are not captured by Microsoft’s roaming profile. Instead, they may write to local configuration files, which will not transfer from device to device.

Finding a profile solution, therefore, is highly recommended.


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Branch offices and remote access

With branch offices, additional considerations need to be made. One of the primary concerns is whether the network has enough bandwidth and a low enough latency to have good desktop performance from a centralized location. Ideally, infrastructure should limited to as few locations as possible as this will ease management. Network optimizers, such as Branch Repeaters, may help in this situation, though if bandwidth is extremely limited, some pieces of infrastructure (the hypervisor, the common image provider), need to be replicated locally. Additional information on bandwidth requirements can be found in the Consulting Solution’s document “Performance Assessment and Bandwidth Analysis for Delivering XenDesktop to Branch Offices.”

Additionally, providing remote access, from home or while traveling, can greatly increase end-user efficiency and morale by allowing users to access critical documents and perform time-sensitive tasks from wherever they are, without requiring a trip to the office.

Conclusion With planning and the proper tools, a basic virtual desktop infrastructure can be built to scale up to a much higher size without a similar increase in management time or similar costs. By implementing new technologies and processes into the environment, flexibility can be increased while reducing both long-term operational and capital expenditures.


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Additional resources

A number of additional resources are available to organizations pursuing a centralized, optimized virtual desktop infrastructure.

Desktop Transformational Model

The DTM provides a methodology for an organization to move an organization from a traditional desktop approach to desktop-as-a-service model using a phased approach. For more information, please see the Desktop Transformational Model page. www.citrix.com/desktoptransformation

Consulting Services

Citrix Consulting has been engaged on hundreds of large-scale XenApp and XenDesktop deployments. Using the expertise of consulting services, either through Citrix Consulting or a partner consulting company, can greatly assist in initial deployments of a virtual desktop infrastructure. www.citrix.com/consulting

XenDesktop Best Practices Kit

Using knowledge from internal testing and real-world experiences, Citrix Consulting has organized technical knowledge and best practices for XenDesktop deployments. Subscribing to the XenDesktop kit via an RSS feed will allow for regular updates. bit.ly/xdhandbook

Ask the Architect

The Ask the Architect programs offers directed, real-world technical advice through webinars, blog posts, whitepapers and other communication methods. Find more information at the Ask the Architect site. community.citrix.com/p/ata

About Citrix Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the company transforming how people, businesses and IT work and collaborate in the cloud era. With market-leading cloud, collaboration, networking and virtualization technologies, Citrix powers mobile workstyles and cloud services, making complex enterprise IT simpler and more accessible for 260,000 enterprises. Citrix touches 75 percent of Internet users each day and partners with more than 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2011 was $2.21 billion. Learn more at www.citrix.com.

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