June 11, 2019

Citrix Posters and Diagrams

My Citrix journey started about a decade ago.  I was lucky enough to work with some really great people to get me started.  These mentors helped me with the "what".  Building a farm and publishing applications were great but I really wanted to understand the "how".  Where did NetScaler end and Web Interface begin?  What really happened after a user put in their credentials and click, "Log On".  I eventually figured it out using a combination of Citrix Docs, Google, late nights and fixing broken environments.

If I had to learn this all over again in 2019, I would start with an Instructor-Led Training class or eLearning (training.citrix.com).  Spending hundreds of hours learning on the job could have been shortcutted with a class.  Both of these options will probably cost you or your organization money.  Money that in hindsight would have been worth it in my opinion. Maybe the money or the time is not in the cards right now, so let's move on to a great alternative with a lower price point 😏.




Citrix is making posters and diagrams for a variety of solutions.  Allen (Twitter) announced the roadmap for these reference architectures in, "What's ahead for Citrix reference architectures" (Citrix Blogs).  I use the Virtual Apps and Desktops on-prem poster each and every week when talking to customers.  It helps guide me through any of the following:

  • Virtual desktop models
  • 5 layers of a VAD deployment
  • User authentication and resource enumeration*
  • HDX technologies
  • ICA protocol
  • Networking traffic and ports
  • Session launch*

Last week I sent a customer a link to the posters on techzone.citrix.com and he replied back with the image below.  It got a lot of attention when I posted it on Twitter.  Anyone have a plotter so I can get one for my office?



Brian @sagelikebrian


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