by Andrew Wood, CTP, UK CUGC Steering Committee

It is common to be asked, “Is there a good blog or document that covers the subjects of migration, integration and configuration of Citrix Cloud deployments?“

There are, indeed, a number of excellent resources around – here’s a recommended list to get you started. By all means drop me a line if you find (or create) something new.

Getting Started With Citrix Cloud

Here’s a useful session presented at Citrix Synergy 2017  “What’s new with Citrix Cloud and what’s to come ” showing what Citrix Cloud features are available as of this time: how Citrix Cloud components integrate, where they can fit and what is coming next. 

Then there is a focused summary specifically on Citrix Essentials from Marius Sandbu Citrix Moving Forward with Citrix Cloud and Essentials Package ; with a link to a useful article on the Citrix Smart Tool SmartScale to limit resource utilisation: Citrix SmartScale and Microsoft Azure

From that, I’d move on to a curated Citrix Cloud How To – XA/XD leverage services like Azure, and linking Cloud Connectors: this has a number of other resources you can follow up on.

Then I’d put the kettle on, and invest in a whole packet of biscuits (Hob-Nobs if you can get them – great for stamina) for the two hours of Citrix Cloud Master Class 101 – Part 1: which talks about and through a number of services including Citrix’s Customer Success Management service. Lots of key Citrix people delivering this; a long, useful resource. Part 2 should be out Sept 13/14th

Assess, Connect, Build

I had the opportunity to shadow RDS Gurus when they test drove XenApp Essentials;  which they wrote up here Test-Driving XenApp Essentials which includes a walkthrough of getting the service up and running, and which followed up on handy A Beginner’s Guide to XenApp and XenDesktop on Azure

In terms of delivery – a cloud hosted service is little different in terms of recognised overall project steps from any XA/XD implementation: you’re going to do some form of assessment, you going to put the resource in place and then build it out – before you go on to manage and monitor. There’s a good session from Synergy 2017 on this process for  XenApp/XenDesktop in Azure talking about architecture, concepts and design decisions and some lessons learned (e.g.D2v2 instance is the most optimal for XA which gets @ 19 task, 15 knowledge user (YMMV) )  – SYN318 A to Z: best practices for delivering XenApp, XenDesktop  

Then there’s Nick Rintalan’s blog on Citrix Scalability in a Cloud World which has links to performance benchmarks on AWS and Azure using LoginVSI. 

There is a XenApp and XenDesktop on Azure Cost Calculator with a spreadsheet version for Citrix AWS Calculator 

In terms of security, check out Aaron Parker’s post on Integrating Citrix NetScaler with Azure AD and Conditional Accessa

If not Cloud, then What?

You might also be thinking “given all this information, is my on-premises deployment of Citrix Software still relevant?” In which case, read fellow CTP Chris Rogers’ blog On Prem is Dead. Long Live on Prem!

Always Learning

There are, of course, a number of forums and user groups you can attend. Don’t forget the Design and Architecture forum on Citrix User Group Community and attending your local @mycugc event. If you’ve additional information, or questions – as I said, please do add to the comments and discussions: it is good to share.  

There are a number of webinar resources you can make use of – Delivering and Optimizing Citrix from Microsoft Azure by CTPs David Brett and Marius Sandbu for example, recorded on 20th July – you can watch it here.