Get started: Plan and build a deployment

If you’re not familiar with the components, terminology, and objects used with Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service), see Citrix DaaS.

For a customer journey perspective, go to the Citrix Success Center. The Success Center provides guidance for the five key stages of your Citrix journey: plan, build, rollout, manage, and optimize.

• The Success Center information is an essential partner to this product documentation.
• Success Center articles and guides offer a broad solution-based perspective. They also contain links to service-specific details in this product documentation.

If you’re migrating from a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops deployment, see Migrate to cloud.

Important:

To ensure that you get important information about Citrix Cloud and the Citrix services you subscribe to, make sure you can receive all email notifications.

In the upper right corner of the Citrix Cloud console, expand the menu to the right of the customer name and OrgID fields. Select Account Settings. On the My Profile tab, select all entries in the Email Notifications section.

How to use this article

To set up your Citrix DaaS deployment, complete the tasks summarized below. Links are provided to each task’s details.

Review the entire process before starting the deployment, so you know what to expect. This article also links to other helpful information sources.

Note:

If you plan to use the Quick Deploy interface to provision Microsoft Azure machines, follow the setup guidance in Get started with Quick Deploy.

Plan and prepare

Use the Success Center Plan guidance to help establish goals, define use cases and business objectives, identify potential risks, and create a project plan.

In the Citrix Tech Zone documentation, see a step-by-step proof of concept guide for this service.

Sign up

Sign up for a Citrix account and request a Citrix DaaS demo.

Set up a resource location

Create a resource location and add Cloud Connectors.

More information:

• What are resource locations and Cloud Connectors?

• Video about installing Cloud Connectors:

  

If you’re using the Quick Deploy interface to provision Azure VMs, Citrix creates the resource location and Cloud Connectors for you.

On the Overview page of Citrix DaaS, this step is titled Connect to infrastructure.

Create a connection to the resource location

After you add a resource location and Cloud Connectors, create a connection to the resource location using the Full Configuration interface of Citrix DaaS.

This step isn’t necessary in either of the following cases:

• You’re building a simple proof of concept deployment
• You’re using the Quick Deploy interface to provision Azure VMs.

More information:

• What are hosts?
• What are host connections?

Install VDAs

Each machine that delivers applications and desktops to users must have a Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) installed on it.

• For a simple proof of concept deployment, download and install a VDA on one machine.
• If you’re using an image to provision VMs, install a VDA on the image.
• For a Remote PC Access deployment, install the core version of the VDA for single-session OS on each physical office PC.

How-to and more information:

• What are VDAs?
• Installation preparation and instruction
• Command-line VDA installation

• Video about downloading and installing a VDA:

  

On the Overview page of Citrix DaaS, this step is titled Register resources.

Create a catalog

After you create a connection to your resource location (if needed), you create a catalog. If you’re using the Full Configuration interface, the workflow guides you automatically to this step.

How-to and more information:

• What are catalogs?
• Create a catalog
• Use the Quick Deploy interface to deploy a catalog containing Azure VMs.

• Video about creating a catalog using the full configuration management interface:

  

On the Overview page of Citrix DaaS, this step is titled Create a collection of resources.

Create a delivery group

After you create your first catalog, the Manage workflow guides you to create a delivery group.

This step isn’t necessary if you’re using the Quick Deploy interface to provision Azure VMs.

How-to and more information:

• What are delivery groups?
• Create a delivery group

• Video about how to create a delivery group:

  

On the Overview page of Citrix DaaS, this step is titled Assign users.

Deploy other components and technologies

After you complete the tasks above that set up the Citrix DaaS deployment, follow the guidance in the Build area of the Citrix Success Center. You’ll find information about provisioning and configuring other components and technologies in the Citrix solution, such as:

• Citrix policies
• StoreFront
• App Layering
• Workspace Environment Management (WEM) Service
• Citrix Gateway service
• Zones
• Federated Authentication Service (FAS)

Complete other tasks that apply to your configuration. For example, if you plan to deliver Windows Server workloads, configure a Microsoft RDS License Server.

Launch applications and desktops

After you configure your deployment, publishing occurs automatically. Applications and desktops that you configured are available to users in their Citrix Workspace. A user simply navigates to their Workspace URL and selects an application or desktop, which launches immediately.

Send the Workspace URL to your users. You can find the workspace URL in two locations:

• From the Citrix Cloud console, select Workspace Configuration from the menu in the upper left corner. The Access tab contains the Workspace URL.
• From the Citrix DaaS Overview page, the workspace URL appears near the bottom of the page.

More information:

• Video about users launching applications and desktops from their Workspace:

  

More information

The Citrix Cloud Learning series provides education courses that are organized by your path:

• If you’re new to Citrix DaaS, see New to Citrix DaaS Learning Path.
• If you’re migrating from a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops deployment, see Migrating Citrix DaaS to Citrix Cloud Learning Path.