by Dave Fiske, Lead EUC Strategist/Evangelist

Transitioning from Citrix to Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) has never been easier, thanks to the robust migration capabilities offered by Nerdio Manager for Enterprise. In my recent video, I demonstrate just how straightforward this process can be—even including the removal of the Citrix VDA from the original machine. This ensures a clean(ish) restart of the machine to be deployed out to the AVD image and ultimate user accessed host pool. This step ensures a clean migration and reduces potential conflicts, making the switch both efficient and simple. Nerdio will be able to import any image once you’ve gotten it (the image) successfully into Azure, which isn’t as hard as it seems.

Step-by-Step Migration Process

• Assessment and Planning: Begin by evaluating your existing Citrix environment. Identify which virtual machines, user profiles, and applications will be migrated. Set clear migration goals and establish a timeline that minimizes disruption to users. Creating a list ranked from easiest to hardest to migrate and create another one with best to least benefits to the company. After that, make the decision on where to start with your leadership team. Nerdio Manager will help you with right-sizing your VM’s after they are actively running with users or real-world test/QA usage.

• NOTE: Nerdio recommends using a clean image when doing a migration from legacy to modern delivery with AVD; however, we know that cannot always happen, hence the demand for our migration tool, Nerdio Migrate.

• Preparation: Prepare your Azure environment by setting up the necessary
  resource groups, networking, and assigning required permissions. Ensure you have access to Nerdio Manager for Enterprise and have it properly configured forvyour organization. Azure Migrate can be used to import your image from your existing VDI host environment if the image isn’t already in a resource group on Azure. Check out this video by my colleague, Dean Cefola, for a walkthrough of the migration process into Azure.

• Migration of User Profiles and Data: If you are already using FSLogix for profile management, you can migrate user profiles, settings, and data from Citrix to AVD. If you aren’t using FSLogix already, Nerdio Manager assists with seamless profile management, ensuring users retain a familiar workspace. Christiaan Brinkhoff from Microsoft created a blog a few years ago on how to migrate from Citrix. Our technology partner #Liquidware also has a whitepaper on migration from any profile type into ProfileUnity.

• Application Delivery: Re-deploy applications previously managed by Citrix, either as RemoteApps or within session hosts on AVD. Nerdio Manager streamlines this process, allowing for easy application assignment and monitoring via Nerdio Insights that includes real-time insights. Something else cool is if you want your end-user to be Windows 365 instead of AVD, Nerdio can get you there too! I’m working on writing up a blog post on that plus a migration video.

• Removal of Citrix VDA Agent: As demonstrated in my video, it’s crucial to
  uninstall the Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) from each migrated machine. This prevents conflicts and ensures systems operate optimally within the AVD environment.

• Final Deployment and Optimization: Complete the migration by transitioning all users to AVD. Use Nerdio Manager’s built-in tools to optimize costs, monitor performance, and maintain security post-migration. Basically, this means that Nerdio Manager will help you with rightsizing of your VM’s and auto-scale along with pre-stage times to get the best performance for your users and balanced by the real spend costs attributable to your running environment.

Closing
By leveraging Nerdio Manager for Enterprise, organizations can streamline their migration workflows and minimize downtime. The intuitive interface guides users through each phase, from resource assessment to final deployment on AVD, all while maintaining operational continuity and cost efficiencies. If you're considering moving your virtual desktop infrastructure to Azure, this tool provides a reliable, user-friendly path forward.

Check out my 2-minute video to see the migration in action and discover how you can simplify your journey to AVD. Explore the step-by-step process and see firsthand how Nerdio Manager for Enterprise can transform your migration experience from complex to seamless. I also wrote an article and quick person journey video a few months ago on how you can leverage your legacy EUC skills to transition into a Nerdio Superhero.