4. Infrastructure Assessment

The infrastructure assessment section of the Analysis phase is one of the most overlooked sections of a project but is one of the most important. Without it we make a lot of assumptions and increase our chances of risk, not to mention the possibility end-user perception might be skewed due to issues beyond the scope of the project.

From my experience, a MetaFrame XP deployment will amplify the environment you deploy in to. What I mean by this is that if you place a MetaFrame XP farm in a poorly performing network you will most likely experience user perception problems. However, if you prepare your environment and deploy in to a network that meets the necessary requirements, your customer will love the outcome and you will make more money with less hassles.

During the Infrastructure Assessment, you will be tasked to document the readiness, requirements and considerations for each of the following sections. This information will allow you and your customer to understand which areas of their current environment are ready for the MetaFrame Access Suite rollout and identify the ones where more attention is required.

Professional Services organizations will often focus on other items that may represent a risk, but are not directly associated with technology users, project management practices, etc. These are important areas to explore, and should be assessed to some degree when you perform your own assessment.

Upon completion of the infrastructure assessment, you will be able to spot problem areas and make recommendations for changes that will help you in your quest to achieve the vision of the project.

An Infrastructure Assessment is broken down into the following sections though others may be added/subtracted based on the specific IT environment:

       Network Architecture: The Network Architecture segment is very important but sometimes is completely overlooked. Please give it the attention it deserves. The MetaFrame Access Suite is great if you have a good network, but can turn ugly very quick if the network infrastructure you are installing into is not properly designed. You will want to document what network protocols are on the wire, if they are using switches / hubs and how they are configured. You should document how they are segmenting the network (VLANS, subnets), what topologies are in play (Ethernet, Token Ring, ATM) and any bandwidth management software they may be running. You will also need to look for and document any duplex mismatch that might be found.

In order to make sure that you are not responsible for any possible security holes, you will want to discuss with your customer what security precautions they have in place I.E. (firewalls, access controls, and two-factor authentication). You will also want to determine and document who has access to the physical presence of the hardware

       Hardware Environment: You will want to document the vendor, the amount of memory, processors, disk drives, NIC(s) required and any additional hardware for devices pertinent to the MetaFrame deployment.

       Operating Systems Environment:

Windows Server 2003 (Active Directory) - you will need to document how the Active Directory is designed. Document information such as name resolution, pertinent IP addresses, OU structure and file/print structure. Parse through the login scripts for any possible issues, group membership, any users/groups that will have administrator access and any additional information that might be specific to your customers AD design.

Windows 2000 (Active Directory) - you will need to document how the Active Directory is designed. Document information such as name resolution, pertinent IP addresses, OU structure and file/print structure. Parse through the login scripts for any possible issues, group membership, any users/groups that will have administrator access and any additional information that might be specific to your customers AD design.

NT Server 4.0 - you will need to document how the NT domain is designed. You will want to gather such information as the Domain model (Single Domain, Multiple Domains, Multiple Master, etc), name resolution (WINS, DNS), file/print structure. Parse through the login scripts for any possible issues, group membership, any users/groups that will have administrator access and any additional information that might be specific to your customers domain design.

Novell Netware - you will need to document how the Novell network is designed. You will want to gather such information as the type of Novell directory services running, i.e. NDS, Bindery. If they are running NDS, you will want to document the NDS design (OUs, trees, etc.), name resolution, all the protocols running and their respective addresses. Parse through the login scripts for any possible issues, group membership, any users/groups that have administrator access, and any additional information that might be specific to your customers Netware design.

       MetaFrame Environment: If you will be deploying into a network with an existing MetaFrame / WinFrame installation, you will need to verify the following: Farm Architecture, ICA Browser, Servers, Load Balancing, Network Structure, Users, Applications, Application Delivery Architecture and Licensing.

       Printing Environment: If you have been around the Citrix world for a while, you will know that the print subsystem is one of the most finicky problem spots and requires proper configuration for optimum performance. With this in mind you will want to make sure you do your best in analyzing your customers print environment. You will need to document all the print servers for such things as what OS it is running, how the printers are attached and how many printers are on each print server. You will also need to document as many of the home / off-site printers as possible.

I like to throw this task in to the hands of my customer and task them with the responsibility of supplying me with a list of all the printers that need to be supported. I also make sure that they are aware that any additional printers might require additional changes.

       Client Environment: In a server-based computing environment, you spend 99% of your time on the back-end but it is still important to know what type of client workstations you will be deploying into so that you can account and support them as needed. You will want to document the operating systems you will need to support, if they are desktops or laptops, how the users will be connecting to the server and from what type of connection. (RAS, ICA dial-in and or TCP/IP via the Internet)

       Change Control Environment: The goal of any deployment is not only to successfully deploy the product, but also to leave an environment that will not fall when you leave. This is done by creating policies and procedures on how future changes will be orchestrated. This is what we call change management.

In most cases, you will not find any change control mechanism in place, but this does not mean that you want to leave it that way. Document any change procedures that might be in place, which is able/responsible for making changes and inform your customer that you will be creating basic change control procedures for their new MetaFrame environment.

The following is an example of a basic Infrastructure Assessment finding: