Harvard Partners Trusted IT Advisors
Citrix Migration Architect
Remote•United States•Contract
About the Job
As the Citrix Migration Architect you will lead the migration and modernization of our Citrix infrastructure. You will serve as the primary technical Subject Matter Expert (SME) responsible for guiding our internal team through the migration of Citrix XenApp, Citrix Enterprise Layer Manager (ELM), App Layering, and Provisioning Services (PVS) environments.
You will be someone who has successfully delivered multiple enterprise Citrix transformation projects in real-world production environments. Will lead architecture, design, implementation, migration planning, knowledge transfer, and operational readiness activities while mentoring internal staff throughout the engagement.
Responsibilities:
Technical Leadership:
- Serve as the primary Citrix SME throughout the engagement.
- Provide technical leadership and guidance to internal engineering teams.
- Review and validate architecture decisions.
- Establish Citrix operational best practices.
- Facilitate technical workshops and design reviews.
- Assist leadership with risk identification and mitigation.
Citrix ELM & App Layering Migration:
- Lead the migration of Citrix Enterprise Layer Manager (ELM) environments currently operating on Windows Server 2016/R2.
- Migrate ELM environments from VMware infrastructure to Nutanix AHV.
- Assess and document all App Layering configurations.
- Validate application functionality after migration.
- Ensure image integrity and operational consistency throughout migration activities.
- Create migration, validation, testing, and rollback procedures.
- Optimize App Layering architecture and image management processes where appropriate.
Citrix PVS Architecture & Migration:
- Assess existing Citrix PVS environments.
- Design and optimize PVS architecture.
- Validate vDisks, streaming performance, and image delivery processes.
- Ensure high availability and disaster recovery requirements are met.
- Lead migration, upgrade, and remediation activities.
Citrix XenApp Environment Assessment:
- Assess existing Citrix XenApp infrastructure and dependencies.
- Review published applications and user delivery requirements.
- Identify opportunities for modernization and optimization.
- Validate application compatibility and performance requirements.
VMware to Nutanix Migration Support:
- Work closely with the Nutanix migration team.
- Ensure successful migration of Citrix infrastructure components from VMware to Nutanix AHV.
- Validate Citrix services following migration activities.
- Troubleshoot issues related to platform transitions.
- Ensure Citrix best practices are followed during migration execution.
Qualifications:
- 15+ years of enterprise Citrix architecture, engineering, and virtualization experience.
- Extensive experience supporting large-scale Citrix environments with hundreds or thousands of users.
- Proven success leading multiple enterprise Citrix migration and modernization projects.
- Experience serving as the lead technical architect and trusted advisor during Citrix transformation initiatives.
- Strong consulting, mentoring, and knowledge transfer experience.
- Demonstrated ability to deliver projects on schedule and within scope.
- Experience building, coaching, and mentoring infrastructure and support teams.
Mandatory Citrix ELM / App Layering Experience:
- Minimum 5+ years of hands-on experience with Citrix Enterprise Layer Manager (ELM) and Citrix App Layering.
- Experience designing, deploying, upgrading, and supporting Citrix ELM environments.
- Experience creating and managing:
- OS Layers.
- Platform Layers.
- Application Layers.
- Elastic Layers.
- User Layers.
- Experience maintaining and troubleshooting App Layering environments.
- Experience migrating Citrix ELM environments between virtualization platforms.
- Experience validating layered images and application functionality post-migration.
- Multiple successful production implementations and migrations of Citrix App Layering environments.
Citrix PVS Experience:
- Extensive experience designing and deploying Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS).
- Proven experience supporting enterprise-scale PVS farms.
- Experience designing highly available PVS architectures.
- Strong understanding of vDisk management, image lifecycle management, and PVS performance optimization.
- Experience troubleshooting complex PVS environments.
About Harvard Partners Trusted IT Advisors
Harvard Partners is a management consulting firm focused on helping companies more effectively leverage their IT investment. We engage with the C-Suite and Technology Team to help them better understand their IT infrastructure and process in order to align the technology strategy and organization to reach the firm’s strategic business goals.Some of our practices include:• Program/Project Management and "PMO as a Service"• IT Assessments• Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery• Optimized Infrastructure• Concierge Managed Services• Data Center Strategy, Transformation, and Migration• Cloud Management Programs• Security Assessments and Remediation• Staffing, technical & tacticalWorking with the client’s staff, vendors, and consultants, we deliver supportive and collaborative engagements where direct dialog, simplified reporting, productive meetings, and clear responsibility and accountability encourage active participation resulting in consensus-based business outcomes.