About The Author

Paul Wilson began with Citrix Systems in 1999. Paul specializes in the XenDesktop and Password Manager product lines. He started as a test engineer for MetaFrame 1.0. He worked on the farm scalability team (System II) for MetaFrame XP/Presentation server for the next three years. From the scalability team he moved to the development team for Password Manager, where he spent another three years as the test release lead and test architect for the first four releases of Password Manager.

Paul then moved into the field and started what eventually became known as the Emerging Products group to help the field and partners learn the new Citrix Technologies. During this time, Paul was responsible for training both Citrix field engineers and partner resources on the new Citrix Technologies, including Password Manager, EdgeSight, SmartAuditor, Provisioning Server, and XenDesktop.

After that Paul worked as a XenDesktop Architect on the Worldwide Consulting Solutions team for Citrix Consulting assigned to global Systems Integrators such as HP and Fujitsu. Paul spent nine months focused on large-scale deployments of XenDesktop and Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2. From there Paul moved to focus on supporting the large System Integrators such as Microsoft, Cisco, HP, and Dell. Paul now works as an independent virtualization consultant.  Follow Paul on twitter @pwilson98.

Citrix Resources

The Designing a Scalable XenDesktop Farm speaker notes and powerpoint slides are now available. The notes include all the hyperlinks and resources referenced during the webinar. The full webinar can be watched on Citrix TV by clicking here.

Scalability of XenDesktop 4 on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V has now been released. This 78-page report includes the key findings and detailed performance analysis from my recent testing at HP where I successfully completed 3500 Windows 7 desktops on the Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V platform using a HP BL460 blades and an HP P4500 iSCSI SAN.This paper is co-branded with both HP and Microsoft.

XenDesktop Design Guide for Microsoft Hyper-V This document provides hypervisor-specific guidance for XenDesktop 4 deployments and is intended to be used with other documents such as the Modular Reference Architecture and the Design Handbook referenced below. If the Modular Reference is considered a 30,000-foot view of XenDesktop design, then this document would represent a 10,000-foot view. Also available in Japanese - XenDesktop????????Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

XenDesktop Modular Reference Architecture: This document presents a simple architectural approach that uses scalable modules as building blocks for large (50,000+) XenDesktop deployments. In essence, this document provides a 30,000-foot view of how the different Citrix technologies can be combined to provide a stable large-scale environment.

Migrating Users to XenDesktop: This whitepaper provides best practices for migrating users from a physical workstation to a virtual desktop.

XenDesktop Design Handbook: This handbook is a collection of best practices for designing and deploying XenDesktop in any environment.

Other Resources

Check out this new blog site where topics such as storage IOPS, XenDesktop, and Provisioning Services are discussed. A must-visit website for those of you planning large-scale XenDesktop deployments.

Do you need some practical hands-on experience installing XenDesktop 4 on Microsoft Hyper-V R2 but do not have any spare equipment to sacrifice to such a worthy cause? Well, worry no longer. If you have about 90 minutes Microsoft has released their new Technet Virtual Lab: Implementing Citrix XenDesktop 4 on Hyper-V R2. You don't even have to use your own equipment (well, except for a web browser) and best of all the lab is available for no charge. How can you pass that up?

A VBScript generator for Optimizing Windows 7 in an VDI environment has been released by the Deployment Guys on the TechNet forum. This tool provides a GUI window similar to the XenConvert optimizer that Citrix offers. After selecting the optimizations you want to apply to the computer or user, it outputs a VBS script that can be run from a command-line to apply the necessary settings. This script can be integrated into the build process for templates or vDisk images. Check it out!

RD Virtualization Host Capacity Planning in Windows 2008 R2: This is a Microsoft whitepaper comparing the performance of different processors, RAM, and operating systems running on Hyper-V. Even though they use their own internally developed test tool and RD broker, the results are valid for the single-server scalability of Hyper-V with Windows 7 and Windows XP.

VHD Performance: This is a Microsoft whitepaper comparing performance characteristics of the different types of VHD storage formats.

Virtual Reality Check Phase II: This whitepaper reviews vSphere 4.0, XenServer 5.5 and Hyper-V 2.0 running on HPDL380G6 with Intel ?Nehalem? processor.

How-to Guide for HP NIC Teaming Software and Microsoft Hyper-V: This document describes the proper installation techniques when using HP NIC teaming drivers with Hyper-V. Read this before installing Hyper-V if you plan on using NIC teaming.

Free Microsoft Training on App-V: Check out the new free Technet virtual training labs available for App-V, System Center, and Operations Manager.

TechTalk: Designing a Scalable XenDesktop Farm

Considering a XenDesktop farm of more than 1000 desktops? This Tech Talk shares some of the key design considerations that affect large-scale environments. Watch this recorded webinar to learn the secrets, best practices, and tricks of deploying XenDesktop for larger environments. This TechTalk provides architecture guidance in the following areas:

? Server Sizing
? Provisioning Services
? Boot and Login Storms
? Desktop Groups
? Storage and IOPS

Click here to watch the webinar on Citrix TV for no cost, though registration may be required. Running time: 63 minutes.

TechTalk: Best Practices for Scaling Virtual Desktops

In this webinar Paul Wilson discusses the results of his landmark 3500 Windows 7 Desktops on Hyper-V scalability test at HP's Solution Center in sunny Houston, TX. In this 60-minute webinar you will learn the following:

• The HP Blade hardware used to build the environment
• The HP storage solution and configuration used to support the environment
• Results of the large-farm test runs
• Results of the single-server test runs
• Best practices for scaling with Hyper-V

Click here to view this recorded webinar for no cost though registration may be required. Running time: 60 minutes.

TechTalk: Hyper-V Planning for XenDesktop

If you are planning on deploying XenDesktop on Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2, this webinar is a must see. In this webinar, Paul Wilson the XenDesktop on Microsoft architect discusses some of the key planning decisions and surprises when running XenDesktop with Hyper-V. In this webinar you will learn about the following:

• What hardware features help XenDesktop on Microsoft Hyper-V 20008 R2
• What XenDesktop components virtualize well on Hyper-V
• What steps can save you time and which ones cost you time.
• When it makes sense to use Microsoft clustering
• What unexpected surprises can affect your design

Click here to view this recorded webinar on Citrix TV. Running time: 60 minutes.

Synergy Session 332: To 10,000 Virtual Desktops and Beyond

This is a recorded session from Synergy 2010 in San Francisco. In this session you will hear from Rana Kanaan (Sr. Director XenDesktop Product Management), Manjnath Ajiampur (Microsoft Principal Technology Specialist), and Paul Wilson (Architect). The session focuses on how to build a XenDesktop architecture using building blocks of smaller sizes. In the session you will hear about the following:

• The modular architecture that allows you to scale XenDesktop
• Microsoft Hyper-V R2 and new features of the upcoming SP1
• The technical details and findings of our Windows 7 on Hyper-V scalability tests.

Click here to view this recorded session on Citrix TV. Running time: 50 minutes.

About this site

Citrix and Microsoft have quite a history together and Citrix is committed to supporting the Microsoft products with XenDesktop. My goal is to make this the "go to" site for XenDesktop and Microsoft.

This site is dedicated to providing the latest information available for integrating XenDesktop with all the Microsoft technologies, including Hyper-V 2008 R2, Windows 7, App-V, and System Center. As I gain experience, find web resources or determine best practices that are relevant to XenDesktop and Microsoft, that information will be posted on this site. Although this site is hosted by Citrix, I intend to include any resource or links that will be helpful to architects, engineers, partners, or customers that are planning to design a XenDesktop deployment using Microsoft technologies.

The site has just started, so the content is fairly limited at this point, but expect that to change over the next few months. If you have suggestions for content or comments on this site, please email them to AskTheArchitect@citrix.com.