I recently had the opportunity to sit down and talk to one of Citrix Consulting's most experienced desktop virtualization consultants... Doug Demskis (Sr. Architect). Doug has been involved in just about every major XenDesktop project to date, which made it so much more enticing to pick his brain. Doug spoke about one project in general where they are aggressively building a XenDesktop environment with the following specs:

• Size: 60,000-100,000 users strong
  • Virtual Desktop Types:
  • Current: 1:1 assignments
  • Future: Pooled
• Data Centers: 7-10 spread across the world
• Application Delivery:
  • XenApp delivered
  • User-installed applications based on optimized IT process

During the discussion, Doug focused on one area that many people fail to understand and plan for when doing a desktop virtualization solution: Operational Model. If you need to make a change, which group is responsible? Desktop, application, server, or networking group? This is a very interesting discussion I had with Doug and you can hear it as well with the latest Ask the Architect podcast. Also, if you or someone you know who is currently or already completed a desktop virtualization implementation, I'd be eager to hear from you.

• Doug Demskis (Citrix Consulting) Podcast
•Ask the Architect - Next-Generation Desktop
• Questions: then Ask the Architect
• Twitter: @djfeller

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions