User guide

© 2011 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. Cisco Validated Design Page 51
For the purposes of the validation represented in this document, the following two virtual desktop were validated.
Each of the sections provides fundamental design decisions for each respective environment. The
aforementioned hosted, server-based desktop is referred to as Hosted Shared, and the hosted virtual desktop as
Hosted VDI.
4.1.1 Hosted Shared Design Fundamentals
Citrix XenApp 6 can be used to virtualize both desktops and applications. The following are some high-level
design considerations to evaluate when deploying a server-based desktop XenApp 6 deployment:
4.1.1.1 Citrix XenApp Policies
Citrix XenApp 6 policies and server settings have been added to Active Directory group policies enabling
administrators to manage XenApp policies using their AD infrastructure. The policies can be created and
configured both using Group Policy Managed console and/or directly out of the Citrix Delivery Service Console.
This simplifies customer environments and enables administrators to leverage all the Group Policy features when
administering Citrix policies.
Citrix XenApp Policies control configurations such as the ability to map client drives within a virtual desktop
session and administrative tasks such as configuring the Citrix License Server FQDN for all servers in the
XenApp farm. When deploying a Hosted Shared desktop on XenApp, closely assess the XenApp policies for the
following configurations:
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Configure farm settings such as Virtual IP, Health Monitoring and Recovery, and multimedia acceleration
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Control sound quality for client devices
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Allow users to access the Documents folder on their local client device
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Allow or prevent remote users from being able to save to their hard drives from a session
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Allow or prevent users from accessing the Windows clipboard
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Set a required encryption level for Citrix plug-ins
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Set the session importance level, which, along with the application importance level, determines resource
allotment for Preferential Load Balancing
4.1.1.2 Worker Groups
Worker groups allow similar XenApp servers to be grouped together to greatly simplify the management of
XenApp farms. Worker groups simplify application workload management and help ensure that all the servers in a
worker group have the same applications and policies, thus eliminating ―configuration drift.‖
4.1.1.3 Load Managed Groups
Load managed groups are created to focus a set of XenApp servers on a particular set of applications or
desktops. This is done for numerous business and technical reasons including update frequency, business unit
server ownership, criticality, regional access, and language requirements.
When creating a load managed group, each group must provide enough redundancy to be capable of supporting
all users in the event of a server failure. This results in an N+1 scenario where there is at least one additional
XenApp server per load managed group. In many situations, organizations implement an N+10% strategy where
an additional 10 percent of XenApp servers per load managed group are allocated in order to allow for multiple
server failures or maintenance.
4.1.2 Hosted VDI Design Fundamentals
Citrix XenDesktop can be used to deliver a variety of virtual desktop configurations. The following are some high-
level design considerations when evaluating a Hosted VDI deployment: