Author Archives: zhurachel

About zhurachel

I am a solution architect focus on virtualization and storage.

CVD: FlexPod Reference Architecture for a 2000 Seat Virtual Desktop Infrastructure with Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 on VMware vSphere 5.1: Architecture

Posted on 2014-02-27 by zhurachel

This CVD provides a 2000-Seat Virtual Desktop Infrastructure using Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 built on Cisco UCS B200-M3 blades with NetApp FAS 3200-series and the VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1 hypervisor platform. The architecture deployed is highly modular. While each customer’s environment … Continue reading →

Posted in flexpod, NetApp Clustered ONTAP, virtual desktop | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

XenDesktop 7.1 with vSphere 5.1 on NetApp CVD is published

Posted on 2014-02-25 by zhurachel

Finally after many late nights, we finished our CVD XenDesktop 7.1 with vSphere 5.1 on NetApp. I had great time working with the best engineers in Citrix and Cisco. I will start my series blog posts on this CVD shortly. Happy … Continue reading →

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How to deploy Citrix ShareFile on NetApp?

Posted on 2013-10-31 by zhurachel

I introduced Citrix ShareFile and why NetApp is the best storage for ShareFile. Now we are ready to set a production ShareFile environment on NetApp. To deploy Citrix ShareFile, you need the following components: Any type of hypervisors  –       Two … Continue reading →

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Why NetApp is the best storage for ShareFile?

Posted on 2013-10-16 by zhurachel

Citrix ShareFile StorageZones and NetApp offer a cost-effective and scalable file sharing solution with the following key benefits. Storage efficiency On-demand flexibility Nondisruptive operations Unified storage architecture Data protection Storage Efficiency With the ShareFile object storage–based architecture, every update to … Continue reading →

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Citrix ShareFile Series – Overview

Posted on 2013-09-24 by zhurachel

I am working on Citrix ShareFile NetApp Insight presentation. NetApp Insight will be in  Las Vegas from Oct 7 to 9. If you have a chance to attend, please come to my sessions: XenDesktop 7 best practice and design, and … Continue reading →

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Where should I put Citrix PVS vDisk?

Posted on 2013-09-13 by zhurachel

Often there is a debate if we should put Citrix XenDesktop PVS vDisk on CIFS or SAN LUN. I like CIFS’s simplicity and SAN LUN’s resilience. Can we have both? Answer is SMB 3. To verify I setup a lab with … Continue reading →

Posted in Storage Discussion, virtual desktop | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

LIF Failover group – Clustered ONTAP best practice series

Posted on 2013-08-30 by zhurachel

When you setup XenDesktop deployment on NetApp Cluster ONTAP, it is important to set LIF user defined failover groups. LIF failover refers to the automatic migration of a LIF in response to a link failure on the LIF’s current network port. When … Continue reading →

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Load-Sharing Mirrors virtual storage server root volumes – Cluster OnTAP best practice series

Posted on 2013-08-05 by zhurachel

I have not posted blogs for a while. In last a few weeks, I was heads down configuring NetApp FlexPod with XenDesktop. I would like to share some best practices on NetApp cluster OnTAP storage configuration in my next a … Continue reading →

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2000 Seat XenDesktop 7 Storage Sizing and Configuration Example

Posted on 2013-07-11 by zhurachel

I am configuring 2000 seats XenDesktop 7 deployment these days.  1000 Hosted Shared Desktop, 500 Hosted VDI (Pool desktops), and 500 Hosted VDI with personal vDisk. I used NetApp VDI Sizer to get the work loads spread to NetApp FAS … Continue reading →

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CIFS share with NetApp Clustered ONTAP configure wizard

Posted on 2013-06-21 by zhurachel

I am working on vSphere 5.1 with Citrix XenDesktop 7 on Cisco UCS project these days.  CIFS share is created in a virtual storage server as desktop home directory or as a share between the infrastructure VMs. I was setting … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments