Citrix have released a whitepaper that describes how you implement Citrix XenDesktop with the Personal vDisk.

Overview

This document provides the installation steps required to setup the personal vDisk feature of XenDesktop 5.6 with either Machine Creation Services (MCS) or Provisioning Services (PVS) running on the Citrix XenServer virtualization platform. This guide assumes the infrastructure aspects for Citrix products have been installed, including Citrix Licensing Server 11.9, Citrix XenDesktop 5.6, Provisioning Services 6.1, etc. Upon completion of the steps outlined in this document, an enterprise can provide XenDesktop virtual desktops with the personal vDisk feature enabled.

Implementing XenDesktop is not a difficult or particularly complex process. However, installing XenDesktop should not be performed in a production environment without adequate testing beforehand. It is recommended to install in a test or lab environment and conduct thorough systems and user acceptance testing to determine the optimal configuration for the enterprise environment. Success Accelerator kits are available at http://www.citrix.com/successaccelerator/to ensure XenDesktop projects delivers value to the organization.

Implementation Guide

• Prerequisites for SQL database, Citrix Licensing, XenDesktop Controller, and Provisioning Services.
• Preparing Provisioning Services vDisk to be used with personal vDisk.
• Creating a Citrix XenDesktop site with a Desktop Group featuring personal vDisks.
• Creating streamed Virtual Machines with personal vDisks using XenDesktop Setup Wizard.
• Updating the master vDisk and the personal vDisk inventory.
• Resizing the personal vDisk.
• Resetting the personal vDisk.
• Capturing personal vDisk log files.
• Preparing the base Virtual Machine to be used with personal vDisk and MCS.
• Creating pooled Virtual Machines with personal vDisks using MCS.
• Final validation steps.

Source

Read the entire Whitepaper ( Implementation Guide Citrix XenDesktop with Personal vDisk ) here (CTX133965)

Citrix Consulting have released a XenApp/XenDesktop Policy Planning Guide that is a must read for architects that design XenApp/XenDesktop solutions.

Overview

Citrix policies provide the basis to configure and fine tune your XenDesktop and XenApp environments, allowing organizations to control connection, security and bandwidth settings based on various combinations of users, devices or connection types. Correctly defining an initial baseline policy and assigning additional policies based on security requirements and specific access scenarios can be important in delivering a high definition user experience.

This planning guide is intended to be a guideline during the decision process for creating a baseline policy and additional policies based on connection, security, device and profile considerations. While it creates a baseline policy and recommendations for policy settings, it should not be assumed to be a complete configuration, or absolutely correct for every customer situation. Architects should review the recommendations contained in this document against desired outcomes within the organization to ensure requirements are met.
When making policy decisions it is important to consider both Microsoft Windows and Citrix policies as components within both policy configurations have an impact on user experience and environment optimization. Within this planning guide a base set of windows policies that can be used to optimize XenApp and XenDesktop environments is presented. For more details on specific Windows related policies, refer to the Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows and Windows Server, specifically settings related to Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7.

To help architects design a XenDesktop and XenApp solution based on real-world projects, organizations can refer to the Citrix Desktop Transformation Accelerator for step by step assessment, design and deployment guidance, and the XenDesktop Design Handbook for reference architectures, planning guides and best practices.

Read the full whitepaper here

Conclusion

Creating policies for XenDesktop and XenApp configurations involves a combination of Citrix and Microsoft Active Directory group policy settings. Correctly configuring a baseline policy configuration and keeping policy exceptions to a minimum allows organizations to create an environment that meets user experience and security requirements, while providing a policy structure that is easy to review and diagnose. This planning guide has provided a suggested set of policies as a starting point for a XenDesktop or XenApp configuration. It can be used as a basis for architects to customize an initial policy configuration for an organization.

Source

Download the Policy Planning Guide for XenApp, XenDesktop here

Citrix Worldwide Consulting Solutions have created this awesome whitepaper that i recommend you read if you are using Citrix in your organisation and want to optimize your support levels with better support methodes, tools and tier levels. This is one of the best whitepapers i have seen from Citrix Consulting and i recommend that you read the entire whitepaper and then try to build your own Operations Guide for your company where you use this whitepaper as a guide, wiki.

This whitepaper applies to XenApp, XenDesktop, Provisioning.

/Poppelgaard

Summary

When implementing Citrix environments, support and maintenance aspects for new farms often get overlooked. Effectively maintaining a Citrix environment necessitates reliable systems be in place to ensure smooth day to day operations. This document covers main duties involved in maintaining of Citrix infrastructures.

This white paper covers the following 3 sections:

• Support – When problems arise, technical support often is the first point of contact for issue resolution.  This section addresses the proper staffing, organization,  training, and tools utilized in effective support organizations.

• Testing and Change Control – Regular upgrades are required to ensure a farm environment is up to date. Change management processes are critical to ensure improvements are properly approved, tested, and validated by appropriate parties.  This section covers the proper processes that ensure changes in production environments are deliberate, proven, and accountable.

• Ongoing Operations – Maintenance, issue prevention and resolution are core responsibilities in running a Citrix infrastructure. When the responsibilities and assignments are structured properly, friction is kept to a minimum, reducing issues and their resolution times. This section discusses routine operations that Citrix environments require for optimal performance.

Source

Read the full Citrix whitepaper – Operations Guide : Support and Maintenance here.

Citrix have released this Performance Benchmark Report  where Citrix demonstrates how powerfull Citrix Branch Repeater is combined with XenDesktop / XenDesktop.

** Note that the results is made with Branch Repeater v. 5.7 and the current version thats out is v 6.0.5 so with latest Branch Repeater + XenDesktop 5.6 and Receiver 3.2 you should get even better results.
Enjoy /Poppelgaard

Executive Summary

Desktop virtualization has grabbed the attention of the global IT community like never before. Server and desktop virtualization let IT simultaneously offer lower costs and greater access to the employees. The Bring Your Own PC (BYOC) movement, along with technologies such as XenDesktop and XenClient provide an opportunity to use any device – even computers owned by the employee – and work on the corporate desktop from anywhere, anytime.

The convenience and cost benefits of “work-shifting”come with its own set of challenges for corporate IT—two of those being security and user-experience. A significant number of remote users access virtual services from insecure locations, such as coffee-shops, airports, hotels and homes. These internet connections often have lower speeds, higher latency, and packet loss. Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp use the HDX™ technology to ensure high definition user-experience, no matter where the user works.

HDX WAN Optimization powered by Citrix Branch Repeater and HDX SmartAccesspowered by Citrix Access Gateway are integrated into the XenDesktop solution. Using the Repeater plug-in together with the Access Gateway plug-in, mobile users enjoy accelerated, secure remoteaccess to XenDesktop and XenApp. This paper describes the enhanced experience enjoyed with this “turbocharged Citrix” environment.

Citrix Consulting have released this awesome whitepaper that is a most read if you are an consultant, architect, administrator or you would like to learn how to design, implement XenApp / XenDesktop with the best practise advise from citrix consulting.

Overview

The foundation of any good XenDesktop or XenApp enterprise design should be adherence to a collection of best practices which are based upon knowledge gathered from previous enterprise deployments, lab validations, and lessons learned in the field. Such best practices are just a starting point for a design, as an organization’s specific design requirements will often necessitate deviation from the recommended path. By using the following recommendations as a starting point, the foundation of the design will be robust enough to support many different deployment scenarios.

This document consolidates and summarizes the best practices for XenApp and XenDesktop environments. As products evolve, best practices also change, which is why each best practice discussed in this document is associated with a specific product and version, which includes the
following:

• XenDesktop 5.0, 5.5, 5.6
• XenApp 6.0, 6.5

Additional best practices are provided for those products which provide complimentary functionality to both XenDesktop and XenApp, including:

• Citrix Provisioning Services
• Citrix XenServer
• Citrix Profile Manager
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• VMware vSphere

For further guidance and more detailed information, please refer to the XenDesktop Design Handbook.
The recommendations provided within this document may not be appropriate for every environment. Therefore, all best practices within this document should be evaluated in an isolated test environment prior to being implemented in production.

Caution: Some of the best practices in this document will require you to edit the registry. Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that might require you to reinstall your operating system. Citrix cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Be sure to back up the registry before you edit it

Source

Download Best practise whitepaper on XenDesktop / XenApp here