Implementing Autodesk Products in an Enterprise Citrix Environment

As part of executing an enterprise licensing program with Autodesk, Inc., Arizona Public Service (APS) was looking for a better way to manage over 800 desktop installations of Autodesk products. APS's implementation project included: establishing a Citrix farm on 18 servers across 2 data centers and migrating all desktop users; reducing application support needs for 800 users on multiple product versions spanning 8 years by defining 30 Citrix publications to manage all users on a single version of Autodesk products; incorporating custom palettes and tools within the login process to get away from personally defined palettes; using Active Directory to manage application access for all users; and migrating engineering drawings from desktops, user directories, and unit shares to a redundant network file share. This session will address project challenges, system architecture, lessons learned, and successes.