User guide

© 2011 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. Cisco Validated Design Page 18
management and automation capabilities designed to help customers create a virtual computing center, simply
upgrade to one of the enhanced versions of XenServer.
3.3.3 High-Definition User Experience (HDX)Technology
Citrix has been perfecting the virtual application delivery technology for more than two decades. These High-
Definition User Experience (HDX) technologies include software and hardware products, an advanced delivery
protocol and intelligent algorithms used to optimize end-to-end system performance. Citrix XenDesktop
incorporates the HDX technology to provide the most complete solution for high definition desktop and application
virtualization on any device over any network. Citrix HDX is the only viable solution on the market for providing
high definition multimedia content and graphics-intensive applications over the WAN, allowing businesses to
utilize employee talent in more geographies while protecting intellectual property within the datacenter. HDX
technology provides network and performance optimizations to deliver the best user experience over any network,
including low bandwidth and high latency WAN connections. These user experience enhancements balance
performance with low bandwidthanything else becomes impractical to use and scale.
3.3.4 Citrix XenDesktop Architecture Overview
The Citrix XenDesktop Hosted Shared and Hosted VDI FlexCast Delivery Technologies can deliver different types
of virtual desktops based on the performance, security and flexibility requirements of each individual user.
Although the two desktop delivery models use similar components, the over architecture is distinctly different.
3.3.5 Citrix XenDesktop Hosted VDI Overview
Hosted VDI uses a hypervisor to host all the desktops in the data center. Hosted VDI desktops can either be
pooled or assigned. Pooled virtual desktops use Citrix Provisioning Services to stream a standard desktop image
to each desktop instance upon boot-up therefore the desktop is always reverted back to its clean, original state.
Citrix Provisioning Services enables you to stream a single desktop image to create multiple virtual desktops on
one or more hypervisors in a data center. This feature greatly reduces the amount of storage required compared
to other methods of creating virtual desktops.
The high-level components of a Citrix XenDesktop architecture utilizing the Hosted VDI model for desktop delivery
are shown in Figure 18: