Back in 2020 and 2021, I created a blog series that aligned Citrix design methodologies to the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework. Today, the Citrix and Microsoft partnership is stronger than ever with continued improvements and new innovations such as Citrix Provisioning Service (PVS) on Azure, Citrix Image Portability Service, and Citrix HDX Plus for Windows 365. Getting started on Azure with a well-architected landing zone is critical to maximizing these innovations.
Today, we are excited to share the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework reference architecture for enterprise-scale support of Citrix on Azure (for Citrix DaaS and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops). This architecture adapts the framework to highlight production-ready Azure infrastructure for the scale and success of Citrix workloads. It includes key Citrix design guidance and considerations in alignment with the core Azure design areas. These design areas are as follows:
- Identity and access management: Foundation for management and governance of identity and permissions
- Resource organization: Structure of management groups, subscriptions, and resource groups in a landing zone
- Network topology and connectivity: Management of network architecture at scale
- Management baseline: Recommendations for operations and monitoring of the environment
- Security governance and compliance: Operational excellence with the appropriate automation and policy control
- Business continuity and disaster recovery: Strategy to keep critical workloads up and running during planned and unplanned events
The primary goal of this reference architecture is to help organizations with varied requirements start from a consistent foundation, designed for modularity and scale. A visual of the component architecture is included below (click the image to view larger):
Many thanks to my collaborators at Citrix — Loay Shbeilat, Allen Furmanski, and Mohamad EL-Safah — as well as our fantastic partner team at Microsoft and Michael Shuster and Zeljko Macanovic of Ferroque Systems for helping put this together. We have also included some additional links below for reference that complement this guide. We hope that you get the most from it as you start your journey of Citrix on Azure.
Resources
- Microsoft Documentation: Enterprise-scale support for Citrix on Azure
- Microsoft Documentation: Start with Cloud Adoption Framework enterprise-scale landing zones
- Citrix Tech Zone: Solution Hub – Citrix DaaS on Microsoft Azure
- Citrix Tech Zone: Design Guidance for Citrix DaaS on Microsoft Azure
- Citrix Tech Zone: Tech Brief: Citrix Provisioning
- Citrix Tech Zone: Using Azure Files with Citrix User Profile Management