Citrix Virtualization Design & Implementation

The design and implementation of xenDesktop 5.5 and XenApp 6.5 supported thousands of end users across hospital shifts and multiple other locations

The IntelliSuite Citrix Solution:

Designed and implemented a XenDesktop 5.5 / XenApp 6.5 solution in two data centers to support over 4,000 end users across multiple hospital shifts in multiple locations. Tasks included active-active infrastructure design between two data centers to assure business continuity in case of a site failure. Below is a summary of tasks accomplished:

• Created two independent active-active XenDesktop 5.6 sites in two separate data centers to provide workload redundancy and business continuity in case of a data center outage
• Created two independent XenApp 6.5 farms in two separate data centers to publish Windows applications to hosted desktops
• Created two independent Web Interface 5.4 sites in two separate data centers to provide secure web access to the Windows 7 VDIs and published Windows applications. Within each data center, the web interface servers are load balanced by Citrix NetScaler MPX 7500 appliances. Between the two data centers, the web interface sites load-balanced by F5 GSLB for single URL access. F5 implementation handled by client team.
• Citrix NetScaler MPX 7500 was used to provide XML load balancing between the XenApp and XenDesktop controllers, for use by the web interface sites
• Created two independent Provisioning Services 6.1 farms in two separate data centers to provide single image management to the Windows 7 VDIs and XenApp Session Host servers
• Created two independent Desktop Director 2.0 sites in two separate data centers to troubleshoot and monitor performance of the Windows 7 VDIs. The two independent Director 2.0 sites are accessible via a single URL, load-balanced by Citrix NetScaler
• Created an EdgeSight 5.3 solution to monitor the XenApp 6.5 workloads
• Created Active Directory Group Policy Objects to streamline and optimize the virtual environment
• Deployed Citrix and Remote Desktop Licensing servers across two data centers in a redundant design
• Deployed the entire infrastructure on two independent VMware vSphere 5 clusters in two separate data centers, using distributed EMC VPLEX SAN and EMC VNX NAS
• Conducted knowledge transfer sessions with client team

Business Results:

• Healthcare locations within the hospital system are able to access consistent set of information, thereby enhancing patient quality of care
• The Client no longer has a single point of failure in their Citrix environment, and has the peace of mind of knowing that they have fail over in place between two data centers for business continuity, allowing them to continue to provide care to patients.
• The centralization and virtualization of computer systems has optimized security of ePHI across their network.  

Technologies used include:

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Windows 7, Citrix XenDesktop 5.6, Citrix XenApp 6.5, Citrix Web Interface 5.4, Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1 (PVS), Citrix NetScaler MPX 7500, and VMware ESX vSphere 5.

Learn more about IntelliSuite NetScaler and Citrix Consulting Services