Many organizations are looking for a better way to manage and deliver desktops to their end-users, and increasingly look to desktop virtualization as an alternative to traditional desktop deployment. When designing a desktop virtualization solution, IT organizations need to decide how to create an infrastructure pairing hypervisor technology with desktop delivery technology. With the release of XenDesktop 5.5 and VMware vSphere 5, Citrix Consulting Solutions is providing a first look at the high-level architecture of a XenDesktop 5.5 and vSphere 5 solution by showing how the two components fit together to create a desktop delivery solution that provides end users with key functionality such as:

• Through Citrix Receiver, IT organizations are able to provide users with access to their virtual desktop environment from any client, including Windows, Mac and Linux workstations and the latest iOS, Android, RIM and webOS tablets and smartphones.
• Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 release, including XenApp 6.5 provides the virtual desktop users with the best-in-class user experience through Citrix HDX technologies. Including over 150 new HDX features, Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 delivers high performance personal desktops and applications with all the flexibility, performance and user experience of a PC even over challenging network conditions.

The paper focuses on a component overview and setup considerations required to build such a solution, and incorporates technologies to deliver three types of virtual desktops; existing, pooled , and streamed, as highlighted in the Citrix FlexCast Hosted VDI Desktop model in Figure 1 (for more information regarding this and other Citrix FlexCast models, visit https://flexcast.citrix.com).

Click here to download the Citrix XenDesktop and VMware vSphere Architecture Overview