Citrix Architect

DATE: April 30th 2010

I thought about becoming a Citrix Architect by following the CCIA path but couldn't really motivate myself to do so. Something at the back of my mind kept niggling me, not to do so, may be it was the pain of struggling after 9/11 to find work as a 'one trick pony' but then again I'd done pretty well out of this technology before, so why not try to go further?

Architecting success

I managed to secure a role which required me to design a Citrix based solution for a large organisation, as a Solutions Architect (they didn't use the term Citrix architect) and little did I know then, this role was the spring board into the world of architecture.

This role allowed me to learn how an architectural framework is used, in this case it was Zachman and how the supporting documentation is developed. I learnt how to look at solutions conceptually, logically and physically, which allowed me to understand how other technologies worked.

I also was exposed to developing requirements, functional and non-functional, plus how to map these requirements to documents and how to create traceability matrices to ensure all requirements had been bound, agreed and covered.

The next role I had didn't even have any Citrix, it was based on Oracle, Red Hat Linux and Java but because I knew how to look at technology from a conceptual, logical to physical perspective, I was able to quickly prepare high level documentation.

In the proceeding years, I worked with Tibco, Biztalk, ASP.NET, Oracle, Exchange, SCOM, SAP and a whole host of other technologies. I was amazed at how working at a high level, allowed me to see the bigger picture, instead of just one very small aspect, which was the Citrix side of things. So for example, I got to understand how Oracle RAC and Dataguard works, in terms of what it could do for the organisation but that's all I needed to know, as I didn't need to know how to configure it, just how it provided resilience, across servers and data centres.

Architect Roles involving Citrix

I'd been used to working as a Citrix Consultant for many companies including banks for a number of years and only heard these roles described as a Consultant role or a Senior Consultant role. The more I got involved in architect roles, I never heard of an architect specifically brought in for architecting solutions involving Citrix.

In fact I believe there's no such real role title as a Citrix Architect, it's just made up to glorify what would normally be branded as a Citrix Consultant and I've seen it banded by Citrix quite a lot. In the real world, I simply don't come across it, as the architect roles are generally confined to,

 • Enterprise Architect,

 • Applications Architect,

 • Solutions Architect,

 • Technical Architect,

 • Infrastructure Architect,

 • Information Architect,

 • System Architect,

 • Business Architect and

 • Lead Architect.

Solutions Architect

I'm currently working as a Solutions Architect, designing an 'End to End' solution for a large corporate, where I'm looking at XenDesktop and Microsoft App-V as part of the applications delivery strategy.

I was interviewed for this role, with 3 other candidates, who I was later told by my current boss all had the CCIA accreditation and years of Citrix experience, however I got the job because the interview panel felt I had more business and architectural knowledge and didn't just come across as an out and out Citrix techie.

This is the most important aspect of recruiting someone for any Citrix project, is to ensure they not only have Citrix product knowledge and experience but more importantly they understand the importance of business and architectural needs

TOGAF any day

If you're seriously considering getting into IT architecture the TOGAF certification, which stands for 'The Open Group Architecture Framework' is something worth considering and this is something I am seriously working towards becoming accredited in.