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The image below, illustrates the different administrator roles that can be configured from the Studio console.  Administrator roles can be found within the "Configuration", "Administrators" node.

This post is designed to give you a better understanding of what Role to assign a user or group of users.

Here's a diagram to assist you with your decision on what security to apply to the varying levels of Xendesktop Administrators:

There may be occasions where you need to use powershell to create the Machine Names, rather than the Xendesktop 7 Studio Wizard.  In this scenario you can use Powershell:

Add-PSSnapin Citrix.ADIdentity.Admin.V2

Add-PSSnapin Citrix.*.Admin.V*

Get-AcctIdentityPool -adminaddress *replace with name of your controller*

Take a note of the identity Pool name that you'd like to add new machines into

New-AcctADAccount -IdentityPoolName "your Identity Pool" -Count 2 -StartCount 50 -OutVariable result

This above command will create the Machines using the Naming Scheme currently applied to your Identity Pool that your adding these Machine account into.  The hostname count will start at 50 eg:

Current Naming Scheme: HOST###

The above command will create VM accounts: HOST050 & HOST051

Microsoft are due to release their Desktop as a Service offering this year.  There's very little information about it at the moment. I'll leave you to ponder the possibilities with regards to what this could mean for those vendors who currently have no cloud platform. Things are about to get even more interesting:

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-readies-mohoro-windows-desktop-as-a-service-7000014769/

The above image was created by Daniel Feller, a Lead Architect for Citrix.  The blog post can be found:

http://virtualfeller.com/2013/10/29/just-the-apps/

Before you decide to rush forward with a Hosted VDI solution.  It's worth reading over this posting by DJ Feller.  Xendesktop 7.1 App Edition (Or Xenapp) can host 500 users "with just three physical servers using two Intel Xeon E5-2690 @2.9GHz with 192 GB of RAM".  You'll notice that to pack the same density of users into hosted VDI, you're looking at perhaps 500VMs, in comparison with 21 VMs when using the hosted shared desktops/apps method

I can see the point in VDI, but in many cases a hosted shared desktop solution will work (Xenapp). So  establish whether your user base needs a full fat hosted VDI solution. Do users care whether they see their Desktop? or do they just want reliable access to the tools that allow them to perform their job?

Citrix Machine Creation Services (MCS) is noted to generate 21.5 % more Average IOPS (Inputs and output per second) when running in steady state and compared to Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS)
This breaks down to roughly 8% more Write IOPS and 13% more Read IOPS than PVS.

MCS Creates 45.2% more Peak IOPS when compared to PVS

PVS has a Read/Write ratio of 90%+ Writes when the VM is running in Steady or Peak mode

MCS has a Read/Write ratio of 47/53% during Peak VM operation

MCS has a Read/Write ratio of 17/83% during Steady state

So it's now widely considered that MCS is now a perfectly viable option that can be used as an alternative to PVS. (Depending on the requirements)  If the Reads Ratio can be reduced during the VM Stable running state, then this would make the write difference beween MCS and PVS negligable.  You have to consider whether the remaining write difference is worth negating for the ease of configuration and management that MCS offfers.  Ok, it may not be a solution for all cases, but it's certainly no longer a second thought.  There are technologies to reduce the READ ratio during VM stable running status, such as the hypervisor caching technologes used by Hyper-V and VMware.

The diagram below illustrates the Read/Write ratio against IOPS for a Windows VM.  This is the lifecycle of a VM from Bootup to running state.

**Note**

Pooled static is used when there is a specific requirement for a user to be assigned the same VM.  This could be down to an application that requires the same VM's mac address to function.  Also, PVD works as a PVD to machine then Machine to user association, which mean that Pooled static is used by PVD also.