NetApp has released a whitepaper titled: Deployment Guide for Citrix XenDesktop 5 on VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer on NetApp Storage. The paper which contains 62 pages, provides guidance on how to install Citrix’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution XenDesktop 5 on top of either the VMware vSphere 4.1.0 or Citrix XenServer 5.6.0. virtualization solutions using NetApp Storage.
The document focuses on hosted VDI desktops providing a step-by-step guide and best practices for leveraging Citrix Machine Creation Services (MCS) and the NetApp Virtual Storage Console (VSC) 2.0.1P1. Focus is at achieving multiple levels of storage effiency and performance acceleration and not on maximizing the number of virtual desktops that can be placed on a storage controller.
The paper contains the following items:
- Citrix XenDesktop introduction, providing use cases, provisioning methods and catalogs.
- Solution Architecture, detailing the purpose and scope, the needed licenses and scalability considerations.
- Network Setup and Configuration of Cisco Nexus Network Series, Storage VLANs for NFS, Virtual Machine Network, Setup of NetApp Storage Controller and configuration of NFS VIF.
- NetApp Storage Controller Setup, including intelligent read caching, flash cache and flexscale, volume creation, and configuring optimal performance for NFS.
- Install and Configure XenDesktop 5 by configuring Active Directory, the Master Virtual Machine and installation of XenDesktop 5.0
- Deploy Assigned Desktops using the Virtual Storage Console (VSC)
