As we shift from the initial crisis phase of COVID-19 to the next phase of extended work from home and a new normal, many IT leaders are being prompted to expand or develop systems to mitigate risk and maintain productivity in an ever-changing and fluid environment. These disruptions in IT stability, the need to prepare for new technical capabilities, and potential requirements to scale to meet demands have prompted the investigation into cloud technologies such as Microsoft Azure and Citrix Cloud to bring greenfield use cases to workspace technology.

From a Citrix TIPs perspective, I have had the opportunity to share Citrix on Azure lessons learned, deployment and operational guidance, and capabilities such as Azure Virtual Desktop (formerly Windows Virtual Desktop) with my friend and colleague, Microsoft’s Jeff Mitchell. As customers plan or iterate their business continuity initiatives, we wanted to answer the question: “What is the process and methodology to bring a greenfield use case to the cloud?”.

One key methodology to follow when planning a new business continuity use case using Citrix Cloud and Microsoft Azure would be the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure. This is a full lifecycle framework comprised of the following six phases. The definitions of each of these phases and examples of Citrix project outcomes are summarized below:

Phase Microsoft Definition Citrix Outcomes
Strategy Define business justification and expected outcomes Confirm scope and business drivers of solution
Plan Align actionable adoption plan to business outcomes Prioritize workload deployment based on time to value and total cost of ownership
Ready Prepare the cloud environment for planned changes Establish a Citrix Landing Zone MVP with documented “units of scale” to facilitate incremental and structured growth
Adopt Migrate and modernize workloads and innovate with new cloud solutions Phase rollout of Citrix workloads including aggregation of on-premise and cloud resources for seamless user experience
Govern Govern the environment and workloads Execute a Citrix governance MVP using Azure Management Groups, Subscriptions, Resource Groups, and Tags
Manage Operations and management for cloud and hybrid solutions Optimize Citrix landing zone management using a combination of IaaS cost models, configuration, and training

Join Microsoft’s Jeff Mitchell, Cloud Solution Architect, and me for a webinar on Wednesday, June 10, as we review the process to build a business continuity strategy using Citrix on Azure. We will explore Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework, align its methodology with Citrix leading practices, highlight deployment and migration strategies, and share the latest lessons learned for Citrix on Azure. Sign up today!

Citrix on Azure: Business Continuity Planning
Date: Wednesday, June 10

Time: 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. ET
Register now

— Kevin Nardone, Senior Enterprise Architect – Citrix Customer Success