Chapter 3 - Installation Planning and Requirements

Abstract

This chapter examines the aspects of hardware planning, platform deployment options, Windows Server 2003 installation planning, and an introduction to Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0 farm design and planning. It begins with a description of hardware planning with a detailed discussion of horizontal vs. vertical scaling. The chapter takes a look at the traditional bottlenecks that terminal servers face to allow better understanding of when and how to scale up or out. Following this, the chapter presents a discussion on building redundancies into server hardware. It also reviews the architect-level concepts of platform deployment. There are five different methods or approaches to platform deployment—manual installation, unattended or scripted installations, server cloning, server provisioning, and finally, the hybrid approach. The challenging concept of software compatibility and the process and importance of conducting a software inventory are also explored. Finally, the basic concepts of farm design for Presentation Server are reviewed. Installation planning requires an architect-level view of all the components of the environment that will be impacted, not just the selection of the correct server hardware from which to host Presentation Server-based applications.