Virtual Apps & Desktops
Health Check Questionnaire
Prepared by: Charlie Lopez
The purpose of this questionnaire is to facilitate the gathering of data required to fill in details for a
Virtual Apps and Desktop Health Check. Not all questions will be required as each case is unique.
1. User Layer
1. Total # Users on Citrix?
2. User Types? (Delivery Group + Knowledge/Task worker?)
3. How are your users distributed geographically?
4. How many remote access users?
5. Where do users connect from?
6. How Many Internal Users?
7. What type of devices are used: (Tablets, Thin Clients, Laptops etc..)
a. Tablets/Mobile:
b. Internal Desktops/Laptops:
c. Kiosk Machines?
d. Other?
8. What Storefront URL do users leverage? (External vs Internal)
9. WorkspaceApp/Receiver, HTML5 or Web?
10. How do you deploy the Workspace App/Receiver today? (SCCM, PDQ Deploy, Other?)
11. How do they connect? (ICA-Proxy, VPN, Internal LAN, 4GMobile Networks)
2. Access Layer
ADC/Gateway
1. ADC Version?
2. HA Pair?
3. How many in each Datacenter?
4. URL’s for Access?
5. GSLB?
6. GSLB Details for Storefront:
Example:
7. Concurrent Users per location?
8. VPN use for what purpose?
9. How many users on VPN?
10. Internal Network Bandwidth: 1GB, 10GB, 100 GB?
11. Internet Circuit? MetroE/4G/Other?
12. What additional features are you using today or want to use in the future? (WAF, LB, GSLB, ITM)
Storefront Configuration
1. What Version of Storefront?
2. How many Servers?
3. Storefront Server Group?
4. Distributed by Datacenters? (Y|N?) What's the split? (Example: 2 in each datacenter )
5. How many Stores?
6. What is the SF URL? (Internal/External)
7. Cert Dates Valid on WebServer?
8. How are cert dates checked for expiring certs?
9. SocketPooling enabled?
3. Resource Layer
Personalization
1. Do you currently use Local, Mandatory, Roaming or Citrix Profiles?
2. What Server is used to store profiles? Host Name:
3. Profile Server Host & Location? (Example: ESXi – ESXI001WestSrv/Denver)
4. Redirecting profile folders? (Y|N)
5. Folder Redirection Server Host & Location? (Example: ESXi – ESXI001WestSrv/Denver)
6. Logon Scripts being used? (Y|N)
7. What are Logon Scripts used for?
8. Printers: What kind of printers do you deploy, Network Printers? or Autocreated Printers?
9. Share Folders? (Internal Shares with limited or full access.)
Applications
1. What Applications do users access via Citrix?
2. Dependencies of Applications? (Backend DB?)
3. Where is the backend of the App located compared to the App Server?
4. How are applications updated today?
Image Design
1. How Many Images are in use today?
a. PROD:
b. DEV:
2. Image Names?
3. Image Creation tool? (PVS, MCS, Manual)
4. Image Details: RAM, vCPU, PageFile Size, page file location if PVS?
5. How Many Users per Server on a full load: (Range)
6. % of MEM & CPU with a Loaded App Server?
7. Are VM Tools installed? (Y|N)
8. What versions of the tools?
9. Future Changes planned for images?
10. Did you pull a Scout Report? - Hotfix List
5. Control Layer
Active Directory
1. How is Citrix infrastructure laid out in AD? (Structured or Unstructured)
2. Are Citrix Policies being delivered through GPO or Studio?
3. Any Policies being applied locally on VDA or Infrastructure Servers?
Get Snippet of the AD Organizational structure.
Database
1. SQL Version?
2. Host Name?
3. Shared with other Instances? (Y|N)
4. Mirroring or AlwaysOn Availability Groups Being Used?
5. Database names & Sizes
6. Backups? (Y|N)
7. Frequency?
8. SQL Server Host & Location? (Example: ESXi – ESXI001WestSrv/Denver)
Licensing
1. How Many Citrix Servers?
2. Licensing Server Version?
3. Host Name?
4. License Count, get image?
5. RDS Licensing? (Per Device or Per User)
6. How Many RDS License Servers?
7. How many licenses & what OS are they for? (2008R2/2012/2016)
Delivery Controllers
1. How Many Sites?
2. How Many Controllers in each site?
3. How are Controllers distributed per Site?
Stretched across Datacenters (6 total, 3 in each datacenter for 1 primary zone)
Stretched across Datacenters with Satellite Zone (6 total,3 in one datacenter as
primary zone and 3 in one datacenter as satellite zone.)
4. Delivery Controllers part of a pool?
5. What Delivery Controller do VDA's register with? (Delivery Controllers listed in the ListOfDDC's)
6. Delivery Controller resources? (RAM, CPU, Storage)
Machine Catalogs
Get details of the MC see example below:
Image Controllers
1. PVS:
a. How Many Farms?
b. How Many Sites?
c. How many PVS Servers?
d. What networks are used for Provisioning? (Dedicated, Shared)
e. PVS Server Resources? (RAM, CPU, Storage)
f. Boot Method?
g. How are images provisioned? (Streamed VM Setup Wizard, XenDesktop Setup Wizard)
h. vDisk storage location?
i. How is replication performed?
5. Hardware layer
Storage
Example: HPE 3PAR 8440 auto-tiering storage array.
1. Infrastructure Storage? (Shared or Local)
2. What Hardware?
3. VDA Storage? (Shared or Local)
4. What Hardware?
5. Additional Storage? (Profiles, Redirected Folders, Download Packages, and other)
Application Hosts
1. What Type of Host SW Used? (XenServer/HyperV/ESXi)
2. How Many Hosts total?
3. Host Distribution per Datacenter? (5 in SDC & 5 in BDC)
4. Host type? (Example Lenovo X240 M5)
5. Host Resources? (How many Sockets? How many Cores per Socket? RAM?)
6. Servers in a pool? Pool Names?
7. # of Hosts per pool.
6. Operations Layer
Helpdesk Support
1. Do you provide 24/7 coverage? (Y|N)
2. How do admins currently get notified of issues?
3. What type of ticketing system do you have in place?
4. What are your SLA's to your users? (5 minutes, 1 hour?)
5. Do your help desk admins have Director Access and is it used?
6. What are the current Citrix tools used today for monitoring and troubleshooting?
7. What is the internal Helpdesk engagement process before reaching out to Citrix Support?
Testing & Change Control
1. Do you have a Test/Dev Environment?
2. How are Windows Patches and Application Patches deployed and tested today?
3. How is change management handled?
4. Are infrastructure servers Backed up?
5. Frequency?
6. Are Application Host Master Images backed up?
7. Frequency?
8. How far back is backed up? 1 month, 6 months?
Disaster Recovery
1. What type of DR strategy is used today?
2. What percentage of users can be handled by 1 Datacenter?
Monitoring
1. How is Studio and Director used to monitor the environment today?
2. What type of monitoring tools do you have, other than Studio and Director?
