The document discusses the complexities and challenges involved in migrating from traditional desktop environments to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and cloud solutions. It emphasizes the importance of performance baselines, total visibility, and rightsizing for achieving successful migrations that meet user expectations and operational requirements. Additionally, real-world case studies demonstrate the successful application of these principles in various organizations undertaking significant IT transformations.

1. Presenters
Dennis Callaghan (451 Research)
Rick Ruskin (VDX)
BalaVaidhinathan (eG Innovations)
Citrix & Desktop
Migration Success
The 3 Secrets to
User Satisfaction
and ROI

2. • Migration and related challenges
• Keys to Successful Migration
• Real world case-studies
• Q & A
Agenda

3. • User experience issues
• Lack of visibility across silos
• Complex and/or slow issue identification
• Proactive problem solving
• Lack of representative baselines
Poll: What Are Your Biggest
Migration Performance Challenges?

4. Migration Challenges
Dennis Callaghan
Senior Analyst
451 Research
Dennis.Callaghan@451Research.com

5. Significant change underway in today’s IT environments:
• Traditional desktop to virtual desktop (including upgrade XenApp
4.5 to 6.5, 6.5 to 7.5, Windows XP to Windows 7/8)
• Physical to cloud migration, including hybrid cloud. Don’t forget
software!
• Virtualization of infrastructure and app layers—some legacy apps not
designed for virtualization
• Moving off Windows Server 2003 and AIX. They’re still out there!
Users expect the same or better performance after the migration
as they had before the migration. And when performance
problems occur, the migration is blamed first.
Migration Trends

6. • Migration increases complexity of underlying IT
platforms—Dependencies discovered the hard way.
• Migration project delays due to unexpected
performance and availability issues
• Migration project cost overruns due to new
hardware and software demands/requirements
greater than original design
• Legacy applications running on legacy
infrastructure. Don’t know where to start.
• Configuration Drift: ITSM issue that leads to
performance issues
Common Migration Challenges

7. Where the puck’s going

8. Challenges ahead
• Where does my application reside? What services/infrastructure
does it depend on?
• Will my current monitoring tools work in new environments my
applications/infrastructure are moving to?
• Can I get a true “single pane of glass” of performance levels
from multiple monitoring tools?
• Can I maintain configuration integrity when changes are
constantly made?
• Can I maintain a consistent view of end-user experience as
applications and infrastructure migrate, especially with more
applications being accessed by mobile devices?
• Can I foster more collaboration/cooperation between developers
and operations teams (DevOps)

9. Keys to Successful Migration
BalaVaidhinathan
CTO, eG Innovations
bala@eginnovations.com

10. Migration Considerations
Configuration
• Configuration at the hardware/OS/app layers
• Physical  Virtual / 32 Bit  64 Bit
• App/OS Compatibility
• App/OS Dependencies
• Private/Public Cloud dependencies & setup
• Assessments

11. Migration Considerations
Performance
• Performance Baselines of pre-migration environment.
• Total performance visibility into the post migrated
environment
• User Experience tracking
• Identifying Bottlenecks, Peak Usage, Capacity
• Critical when it comes to migration, but often
overlooked

12. 3 Keys to Success
Citrix & Desktop Migration

13. 1
Citrix & Desktop Migration
Performance
Baselines

14. Performance Baselines
• How is the user experience in the pre-upgrade
environment?
• What are the current usage patterns in the pre-upgrade
environment?
• What are the consumption patterns in the pre-upgrade
environment?
• What are the baselines for the pre-upgrade environment
for user/app/OS/infrastructure performance?
• Ability to track all of the above in the post-upgrade
environment and compare
• Key to success is to get equal or better user experience
without compromising other KPIs

15. Understand User Experience
Know how
user
experience is
impacted
Know when
and where it is
impacted

16. Understand User Behavior
Know usage patterns and trends for effective capacity
planning.
Top Users
based on
activity and
impact on
resources

17. Understand Applications
Usage
Understand application usage patterns and trends to
effectively size the environment and maximize resources

18. Baseline
Actual Metric
Multi-level auto-baselining of the environment helps you
automatically identify trends and pro-actively isolate
performance issues.
Automatic Baselining

19. Event Analysis
Event analysis gives you a perspective of the type and
frequency of Performance Issues in theVDI environment

20. Understand Peak Utilization
Identify Peak demand and the
time of demand

21. VDI Demand vs Consumption
Understanding Desktop Demand vsVDI infrastructure
resource consumption during peak Demand

22. Use Case – Successful Migration
Performance before migration Performance after migration
XenApp 4.5 to 6.5
XenApp 6.5 to 7.5
XenDesktop 5 to 7.5

23. 2
Citrix & Desktop Migration
Total Visibility

24. WhoWhat How
User complaints are about
the “service”, not about
individual tiers.
Total Visibility

25. WhoWhat How
To troubleshoot user
service performance
issues, end-to-end
visibility is required.
Performance Management

26. WhoWhat How
Profile
Management
Sharefile
Control
Device
Manager
Citrix
Performanc
e
Managemen
t
Citrix & VDI performance
management must cover
the non-Citrix tiers as well.
Total Visibility

27. A Real-World Example
without Total Visibility
08:00
User to the helpdesk – “my application access is very
slow. I am not able to work properly.”
8:00AM
Helpdesk
We will
get on
it right
away!

28. A Real-World Example
The helpdesk has received many calls that application
access is slow. The Citrix admin is called to look at the issue.
9:00AM
Things
look
normal
from
here …
Citrix Service
Manager
The load is not unusually high –
there are 5 active sessions.
Logon times are ok.

29. Citrix Service
Manager
A Real-World Example
Director’s availability
monitoring of the
infrastructure also
shows nothing wrong.
9:30AM
09:30
Basic infrastructure status checks don’t reveal
problems.

30. Citrix Service
ManagerA Real-World Example
Search for a specific user.
See processes that the user
is running and their CPU &
memory.
View HDX channel
information for the user.
10:00AM
10:00 User-by-user troubleshooting begins.

31. What Follows …
•
Citrix Director / EdgeSight
VMwareVCOPS -
Virtual
Task Manager -
Windows
EventViewer -
Windows
EMC Ionix -
Storage
Cisco UCS Manager -
Hardware
CiscoWorks -
Network

32. A Real-World Example
08:00 Helpdesk receives a call that application access is slow
09:00
Helpdesk has received many calls that application access is slow. The Citrix
admin is called to look at the issue.
11:00
The Citrix admin has reviewed Director/EdgeSight metrics, has killed the
offending process. But user complaints persist.
12:00
The Citrix admin decides to reboot the server but the problem persists even after
the reboot.
13:00
The problem does not appear to be specific to Citrix. The Citrix admin calls
for a conference call with the other administrators .
17:00 After hours of troubleshooting, the problem is identified in the VMware tier!
Slowandmanualdiagnosis

33. Performance Management
with Total Visiblity

34. •
Real-World Example -
Revisited
06:30
The helpdesk receives an automatic alert saying that access
to Ctirix is slowing down. No user has been impacted yet.
6:30AM
Helpdesk
This looks
odd. Let’s
get to the
bottom of
this before
users start
calling …

35. •
Triage Problems Quickly
The application that
is responsible for the
slow down – a samba
backup job
6:35AM
Helpdesk
Yup, the
backup
job is
taking up
resource
s …

36. •
Focus on the Root-Cause, Not
Effects
Without root-cause diagnosis, you have no idea where the problem lies
With root-cause diagnosis, you have a clear idea of what to do to resolve the
problem.
All the problems
appear to be equally
important.
The root-cause
of the problem
The effects of
the problem

37. The Result
06:30 The helpdesk seels an alert of a slowdown with Citrix
access.
06:35
The helpdesk reviews the service topology and determines
that there is an issue on the VMware server. Contacts the
VM administrator.
06:45
The VMware administrator realizes that the backup job is
impacting the user experience. Reschedules the backup
job for later in the evening.
Performance
Management Made
Rapidandautomated
diagnosis

38. Profile
Management
Sharefile
Control
Device
Manager
Citrix
Performanc
e
Managemen
t Total Visibility with
Performance
Management gives
comprehensive coverage
to be pro-active
End to End Performance
Management

39. 3
Citrix & Desktop Migration
Rightsizing for
ROI

40. Real-Time VDI Overview
CPU
bottleneck
identified
Isolate bottlenecks to growth in real-time

41. Use Case – Performance
Optimization
A few of the servers
are handling most of
the sessions
Citrix Architect

42. Use Case – Bottleneck Analysis
Analyze which tier is
the bottleneck

43. Know How to Invest Wisely
Memory bottleneck
preventing addition
of more Desktops
Identify and resolveVDI bottlenecks and excess capacity
and right-size your environment.

44. Assess Users, Not Just VMs
See performance issues at the user level so you can fix
and right-size yourVDI environment for user satisfaction.

45. CPU usage inside a
virtual desktop is
high
Deep Visibility Into Sessions

46. The top CPU
process isWindows
Media Player.The
user is watching a
movie 
Deep Visibility Into Sessions
Accelerate problem resolution
by understanding why aVM is consuming resources.

47. Case of Disk I/O Bottleneck
Clicking the Magnifying glass
reveals the Root Cause which
turned out to be a rogue
process consuming Disk I/O

48. Forecast the Future
Predicted FUTURE
performance based
on the past
Citrix Architect

49. Assess
/Plan/
Design
Migrate
Post-
Migrati
on
Maintain
Migration Performance Assurance
3 Keys
- Performance
Baselines
- Total Visibility
- Rightsizing for
ROI
Performance
Assurance
using
eG
Pre-
Migrati
on

50. Real-World Migration Case Study
Rick Ruskin
Vice President Sales & Marketing
VDX
RRuskin@vdx.com

51. Our Mission
premier consulting organization
redefining
assure
the success

52. • Microsoft, Vmware, Citrix, NetApp expertise
• Microsoft National System Integrator – Merit based
designation
• Proven customer success
• Migrated over 200,000 XP desktops in the past year
• Deep technical capabilities
• Level 400 consultants ONLY
• Core focused on enterprise infrastructure:
• Desktop transformation
• Private and public cloud
• The management tools to optimize
these solutions
About VDX
52

53. What We Deliver
Strategic Platform
Engagements
Technology Implementations
Desktop/Data Center
Migration &Transformation
Cloud Acceleration
AssessKnowledge
Transfer
Plan
Pilot
Transform

54. • High level goals in any of these migrations is to
upgrade as much of the infrastructure as
possible to avoid major architectural work every
time an upgrade needs to take place.
• Current major Migration initiatives in flight
today:
• XP End of Life
• Server 2003 End of Life
• Citrix 4.5 End of Life
Migrations

55. • Approximately 33% of Desktops still running XP
• Even if you are 80% migrated, there is considerable work
to be done
• Why is it imperative that you finish the migration process?
• Security upgrades WILL end soon
• Third party software companies will cease support soon
• No ability to acquire new hardware that supports XP
• The cost for extended support from Microsoft will
continue to increase over time
XP End-of-Life Migrations

56. • Build out of supporting infrastructure – upgrade to SC2012
• Re-packaging and virtualization of applications
so that at next O/S most of the work is done
• Profile management and performance management
technologies:
• Preserve user experience
• Decouple personna from physical devices
• Enablement of automation and self-service portal for application
download
• All this creates the foundation or BYOD and private cloud
Windows 7/8 Migration
56

57. Enablement of the Cloud
• Migrations are also the time to initiate your Cloud
strategy:
• RAG assessment against the application portfolio

58. At the end of 2014, not only will
XP be eradicated from their
environment, but they will have
enabled over 30,000 users to
access any application, from any
worldwide location, from ANY
supported Device
Global Fortune 100
Health Insurance Company
• VDX decoupled personas
from desktops
• VDX virtualized all
applications across the
organization. Now virtually
O/S independent.
• VDX Build out a virtualized
XenApp infrastructure for all
apps that couldn’t be
virtualized.
• Enabled IT to more easily
support large user
community across all geo’s

59. In roughly One year, totally
transformed environment from
Physical with much EOL product,
to Modern, Up To Date, and
Cloud-Ready
Mortgage and Lending Leader
Massively parallel modernization
of entire desktop infrastructure
which included:
•Upgrading to System Center
2012
•Virtualizing and de-coupling of
user profiles
•Upgrading all desktops to
Windows 7 or 8
•Enabling folder redirection
•Virtualizing or repackaging of
1,000’s of applications and
building application catalogues

60. In less than 5 Months, the entire
Environment was transitioned from
Windows XP to Windows 7/8, and
NO Financial penalties were
incurred
Mid-Size Regional Bank
• Needed to get off XP before
April, 2014 deadline
• As of November 2013, no apps
had been migrated and all DT’s
were still running XP
• Built out SCCM 2012 so could
do “zero touch” upgrades
• Took “Virtualize First” approach
to applications and put the
others into Citrix
• Virtualized profiles to ensure
positive user experience

61. &
Ask the Experts

62. About eG Innovations
eG Innovations is the only enterprise-class performance
management solution that provides virtualization-
aware correlation and complete visibility across every
layer and every tier of dynamic & complex cloud, virtual,
and physical IT environments to reliably deliver mission-
critical business services.
Worldwide
Locations USA, UK, Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong, India
Customers Over 1000 customers
Certifications
Awards
& Recognition

63. Customer Success

64. • eG Innovations – www.eginnovations.com
• Bala Vaidhinathan - info@eginnovations.com
• eG Innovations Resources
• XenApp Monitor –
www.eginnovations.com/xenapp
• XenDesktop Monitor –
www.eginnovations.com/xendesktop
• Product Trial – www.eginnovations.com/trial
Resources, Q & A