The Desktop cloud evaluation phase is the first stage of a desktop cloud project

A complete desktop cloud project usually has to be evaluated, designed, implemented in these three phases, and finally a smooth transition to the long-term operation of the state. The main tasks of these four phases are as follows:

Assessment: The evaluation phase will assess the enterprise's current user desktop environment and its supporting environment in detail, Enterprise's business priority, prepare design for detailed design: In the design phase, according to the enterprise business priority, the enterprise's desktop cloud architecture and detailed design are designed, combining with the enterprise's present situation and development plan. This detailed design document will include user classifications, the types and specifications of mirrors (image), the design of the network, the design of the storage, and the integration of the existing Active Directory with the enterprise: the implementation phase will be specifically installed and configured according to the detailed design, including installation of the server, installation of the storage, installation of the operating system, Database installation, desktop Cloud module installation, network configuration and support system configuration. In the process of implementation, we need to check the design, the design of the deficiencies to maintain. After implementation, we will also carry out a number of user acceptance testing and performance test operation: In the early phase of operation, we will be phased user migration to the desktop cloud environment. At the same time we will use a number of tools to monitor the server layer and application, timely detection of various problems. In addition, the operational dimension will also patch and upgrade the environment

This series of articles, starting with the full lifecycle of the project, introduces you to the four phases of work detail and best practices. You can refer to this series of articles to complete a desktop cloud project with the actual situation of the enterprise.

Overview of the Desktop Cloud assessment

The desktop cloud Assessment is the first and most overlooked phase of the desktop cloud project. Usually this time the pre-sales architect has done research on the state of the enterprise, and it seems that the user's needs are clear, but from the practice of many projects, this kind of research is usually just a preliminary, lack of detailed research. But it was the lack of detail that led to the failure of the project. For example, the pre-sales architect usually monogram what business applications the customer has, and what these business applications are. With this content it appears that the survey of customer applications has been very detailed, but the pre-sales architect often ignores those users who are more efficient, and if these neglected applications are reader,winrar, such as Acrobat, the general application of resource consumption can be made up later However, if it is a graphic-intensive application, it will pose a great challenge to the implementation of the desktop cloud, resulting in the failure of the project. So we need to pay attention to this phase, the detailed assessment of the user's business and IT environment, understand the customer's real needs, so as to design a meeting customer requirements of the desktop cloud architecture.

The desktop cloud assessment usually employs a combination of user questionnaires and user interviews, and sometimes a more detailed assessment of the user's desktop environment with the help of an assessment tool for complex environments. The assessment includes the customer's business drive to implement the desktop cloud, the existing IT infrastructure, the existing user desktop environment, and the IT support process. Through these assessment activities, we can fully understand the customer's status and future cloud computing architecture

Methods of evaluating Desktop cloud

The methods used in the desktop cloud assessment are usually as follows: three.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires are usually sent to customers by mail before the architect arrives at the customer site, and after the customer is sent, we can communicate with the customer by phone or email to help them complete the questionnaire. The purpose of using questionnaires is to have a comprehensive understanding of the customer's business and IT status.

Questionnaires typically include the following:

A survey of the basic status of

users, including the number of users, the location of the office, the use of the application, the characteristics of the application, the use of peripherals and so on. Survey of the status of the IT infrastructure: including the server, storage, and network conditions used. Survey of the status of IT support services: including Windows AD, DNS, DHCP, and so on. Survey of IT support processes: including the location of Help Desk, the process of composing people and desktop issues

Interview

Interviews are an effective complement to the questionnaire. The questionnaire is a static, limited to a certain range of questions and answers, the interview is a dynamic, open question and answer. Sometimes what we need to know is not reflected in the questionnaire, or it is reflected in the questionnaire but we don't feel clear. At this time we need to go through face-to-face interviews with customers to further understand the situation, to determine the user's understanding and we agree.

After receiving feedback from the customer questionnaire, we can finalize the questions that need to be interviewed with the customer, and which relevant people to interview. The interview personnel generally include the end-user of the enterprise, network expert, storage expert, help-desk personnel as well as operation and maintenance personnel.

Evaluation tools

The evaluation tool can conduct a more accurate survey of the customer's desktop environment, and some intelligent assessment tools can also give the server, storage, and network capacity recommendations based on the information gathered. Evaluation tool Install a small load agent on the client's desktop, this agent will continue to collect user desktop CPU, memory usage, application usage, working mode and other information. There are a lot of such tools in the market, we take Lakeside's systrack as an example to introduce the installation steps:

The end user is divided, select a certain proportion of typical users to install Systrack server and database, determine and desktop agent communication port installation Systrack Client Agent to select the typical user desktop according to the end user's specific workload, running two weeks to two months. Analyze customer desktop situation, give evaluation suggestion