Virtualizing XenDesktop and XenApp in the Cloud

Have you considered putting XenDesktop Shared-Hosted desktops (formerly known as XenApp) in the cloud? Well, I have just spent the last six months designing, building, and scripting the configuration of XenDesktop/XenApp in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud for Citrix. This has been one of the most interesting projects I have worked on in my life.

The AWS cloud offers the ability to generate resources nearly on demand while providing a linear cost model. In fact, in some cases the enterprises can get users into the cloud for as little as $0.01 USD per hour.

Since Citrix has been contracting with me to get XenApp in the Amazon Web Services Cloud, I have been writing whitepapers and blogs around what I have learned and developed with Peter Bats from Citrix. One of the key things was the development of a CloudFormation template that automates the instance creation and installation of XenApp within the cloud, allowing you to effectively create a 4-10 server farm with supporting infrastructure in about three hours.

Unfortunately, due to my contractual agreement with Citrix, I cannot repost any of my blogs on this site. I can however can provide links to them for your convenience, so read the blogs below to find out more about what I have been up to:

Jumpstarting your XenDesktop Farm in AWS with a CloudFormation Template

How to Build a XenDesktop Farm Using a CloudFormation Template – Video demonstration

Scaling Citrix XenDesktop Hosted-shared desktops on Amazon

Watch for future Citrix blogs under Peter’s account such as multi-region/zone aware CloudFormation scripts, the AWS cost estimation spreadsheet, and the 1000-users in AWS scalability testing results.

Also, let me apologize for not blogging over the past eight months. Several times I have started blogs, but just never had the time to finish them. I will try to take some time and provide some of that information back to you as soon as possible here over the next few months.

If you found this information, and would like to be notified of future blog postings, please follow me on twitter @pwilson98. Also, feel free to comment on this blog and even post suggestions of future topics that you would like to know more about.