First and foremost, some perspective, although I feel this would benefit all IT Architects, my examples are based on personal experience from the better part of 16.5 years with 1.5 years consulting, 15 years as full time employee for GMAC FS / branded Ally FS / now Ocwen Financial, Dell/Perot. You’re more than welcome to review my biography/profile at www.linkedin.com/in/virtualos/ to validate if my opinion is worth the time. When I left GMAC FS, I was managing three teams and continued to wear the hat of Enterprise Architect and Citrix Architect.

1. How to Change the IT Architect Hiring
Practice
How to Change the IT Architect Hiring Practice so Companies and End-Users Win,
a Proposed Change
Part I
By Brian Murphy / Draft 1 Sunday, September 15, 2013
www.linkedin.com/in/virtualos/ [1]
"An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offense; A vain man, in
order that it may."
William H azlit
First and foremost, some perspective, although I feel this would benefit all IT
Architects, my examples are based on personal experience from the better part of 16.5
years with 1.5 years consulting, 15 years as full time employee for GMAC FS / branded
Ally FS / now Ocwen Financial, Dell/Perot. You’re more than welcome to review my
biography/profile at www.linkedin.com/in/virtualos/ [2] to validate if my opinion is
worth the time. When I left GMAC FS, I was managing three teams and continued to
wear the hat of Enterprise Architect and Citrix Architect.
But our answer is, you shouldn't go as far as you’re probably considering,
given the panic mode most managers enter when a star threatens to shoot
out the door. Under normal circumstances, to keep stars happy, you just
need to give them what they crave: outsize compensation; effusive
recognition; enjoyable, challenging work; and the feeling that they’re not
being micro-managed. All that changes in a split second, however, when a
star asks to see you, closes your office door, and says: “I’ve gotten an
offer I think I just can’t refuse.”

2. Your first instinct will be to match the offer financially. Usually, though,
that won’t be enough. The competitor luring your star has been smart
enough to make the deal richer in other ways with, say, more job
responsibility or a bigger title. You can match those, too. And that’s where
the trouble starts. Because promoting stars just to keep them can incite a
little riot, especially if the promotion is over people who feel they deserve
the same kind of treatment but just haven’t threatened to leave.
Before you know it, other stars will be insulted by your accommodation,
and even some midrange performers will feel resentful. And at the end, the
only contented person left in the place might be your over-performer who
has decided to stay, now feeling more indispensable than ever.
http://goo.gl/R4z3l1 - Jack Welch
I’ve managed, hired, fired, interviewed, and consulted. In other words, I’ve been on
both sides of the hiring process having to approve recruitment vendors in a scenario
where all resumes came from approved vendors, internal candidates, or existing
employees. To consulting and unbeknownst to me at the time [consider 10 years ago]
98% of my interaction as sole proprietor IT consultant would require interaction with a
recruiter then behind the scenes - hiring manager.
I'm not one to mince words, so, the purpose of this guide is to reach those at executive
level that can implement change from the top down. Otherwise, it will only get worse.
The goal is to convince, beyond doubt, which Recruiting practices and bad Hiring
Managers must change or get out of the business. The primary focus being small
business owners, sole proprietorship; such as myself that now must utilize what is akin
to a Union of Recruiters that have penetrated every company in America and except for
the innovations of LinkedIn a majority of my negotiations start with a recruiter. In 17
years, I have 5 that I trust without doubt.
How many people do you know that can paint a masterpiece? It is the same in IT, not
everyone can create masterpieces. If you were hiring someone to paint a portrait of
your datacenter, one would hope you would pay top dollar for someone that could make
you and the company proud. Hire a pianist for a concert, depending on the concert – is
it not truth that the more important the concert the smaller the names on the list?
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man

3. stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and
again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does
actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great
devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end
the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails
while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid
souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
President Teddy Roosevelt
I'm using the term IT Architects because that is my profession [however, it would
appear that IT <Insert Title>, and wish to compare our profession to other "Architects"
other than IT. Our profession is the only is one that I’m presently aware of that does
use a methodology of other Architect. What I’m proposing is simple, allow IT
Architects that specialize in certain disciplines such as Citrix, Cloud, VMware,
Networking, IT Security, Storage, and the list goes on; propose their architecture and
paid a proper wage based on competing bids. Any IT Architect, assuming they are true
to the discipline, should have an idea of what their architect entails. I require NDA
now for my architecture – why?
Imagine you were just told to start interviewing Architects to build a new, never seen
before building design to eclipse all buildings before it arrived. Would you not bring in
multiple Architects, ask for references or recommendations; MOST important, you
would review their proposed design, immediately ruling out those that simply get in,
read the docs, willing to work for less per hour, minimum standards met – get the
picture.
"Knowing others is Wisdom. Knowing yourself is enlightenment."
Lao-Tzu
Bad designs are destroying VOS and leaving bad impressions on end-users that must
endure the problems when the solution is simply to start focusing on the ability of the
Architect, bring them in to propose a design, make them tell you how they will
generate cost saves, look at their references or private portfolio; this one change would
eliminate this focus on hourly rate because when you budget 4 million dollars and I do

4. it for 800K – what do you care what I’m getting paid? I can implement an 8000 user
solution in 8-10 weeks. At 500.00 per hour, you still made the right choice. People
should get paid based on profession chosen and the ability to deliver the critical
components of their chosen profession – in the case of IT Architects, whether Citrix,
VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Enterprise Architects, Enterprise Application Architects,
Cloud Architects; all the same requirements.
I wish I had a $1.00 for every Recruiter/Hiring Manager that wanted to hire me after
they had already obtained architectural design from Citrix or Citrix partner. The
answer is NO, every time; to say yes – for me – is an issue of Integrity. Other Architect
professions believe they have the best design, why would I accept a job
implementing someone else’s design? To get paid – no, not if you have any
Integrity.
"From my days in the Pit, I learned that the game is all about fielding the
best athletes. Whoever fielded the best team there won. Reuben
Gutoff reinforced that it was no different in business. Winning teams come
from differentiation, rewarding the best and removing the weakest, always
fighting to raise the bar."
Welch, Jack; Byrne, John A. (2003-10-01). Jack: Straight from the Gut
Not only did this happen recently, they tried to dictate what I would get paid per hour
– no negotiation. My argument back was too logical and didn’t matter because at this
point in the negotiation these individuals have no power. They have no power to
change the pay and too afraid to support you because they feel like they can get
someone else – which they can because that is the other card on the table; lack of
Integrity. Every IT Architect that accepts lower pay or does not stand by their brand
empowers the those focused on how to drive down rates rather than the LONG TERM
PICTURE of which IT Architect provides the best architecture, agility, CAPEX, OPEX,
ROI, TCO cost saves.
Myself and others utilize, enhance, our designs in our area of expertise; my first
implementation almost 17 years ago of Citrix Winframe 1.0 on Windows NT 3.51.
There are others in the same situation that have accomplished the same or more and
have more tenor. Unless the company refuses to use Recruiters and create their own
HR recruiters [example Dell], you must utilize a recruiter unless you happen to know
someone at another company that can submit your resume. LinkedIn is a great tool for

5. bypassing the recruiter but to date it falls in that 1%.
Once again I saw the benefits of acting like a small company. Giving the
project visibility, putting great people on it, and giving them plenty of
money continues to be the best formula for success.
Welch, Jack; Byrne, John A. (2003-10-01). Jack: Straight from the Gut
Anyone branding themselves IT Architects should have the ability to stand front and
center and pitch their idea, tell you where they can save money from a CAPEX, OPEX,
CAPEX, ROI, and TCO. That alone would rule out the “pretend architects” from those
of us that can stand before anyone with confidence and – in my case – present 30 key
areas where I can architect a solution for VOSC [Virtual Operating System Cloud]. You
will never hear me use the term VDI – why? It is NOT a desktop. It is a virtual
operating system with the critical purpose of providing a SECURE conduit to “Your
Company Business Applications”. Now, if your budget is 4 million for 50,000 users yet
based on my initial discovery and globalization with some sites having multiple shift
differentials I estimate your total concurrent use at 30,000 users and quote you a
CAPEX cost of 800,000.00 – COMPLETE.
Not only this, I create 30 areas of cost savings from network bandwidth CIR rates
reduced by half to deploying thin clients that utilize .5 amps versus 3 amps or more,
consolidate an estimated 2200-2500 applications, provide licensing control for those
applications so those applications that are concurrent licensing I can create a single
published application accessed globally by all 50,000 users but now concurrent is
30,000 saving 20,000 licenses. This applies to many applications. I’ve only listed 3 of
30.
In his book “Straight from the Gut”; Jack Welch stated:
“But differentiation is all about being extreme, rewarding the best and weeding
out the ineffective. Rigorous differentiation delivers real stars—and stars build
great businesses. Some contend that differentiation is nuts—bad for morale.”
Source: Welch, Jack; Byrne, John A. (2003-10-01). Jack: Straight from the Gut
In other similar titled professions, it is a competition whereby the best architecture and
cost saves win. In the IT Architect profession it becomes who works for the lowest

6. hourly rate; stated prior this has been 99% of my dealings with the top 1% I can count
on one hand the number of recruiters I know and trust have my best intentions at heart
and their other customer – the company I plan to bring my ideas and architecture.
Proven, repeatable, cost savings and IT agility.
Hiring the right IT Architect is critical to the success of certain complex
implementations. I have been implementing Citrix solutions (Top-Of-Stack) for almost
17 years now but what most fail to understand is to implement Citrix solutions
correctly, create Agility, create Application Lifecycle Management, create cost saves in
30 key areas; requires advanced knowledge of Big Data, Networking, Firewalls,
Windows Server Operating Systems, Windows Clients, Android Clients, Macintosh
Clients, Disaster Recovery, all the major hardware server vendors, all the major Big
Data aka Storage Vendors, Active Directory, Advanced DNS concepts and the complete
stack of the solution you represent. Citrix XenDesktop when implemented properly is a
major cost savings.
Yet, the value is in Citrix XenDesktop, XenServer, XenApp, ShareFile, Podio, Citrix
Universal Receiver, Citrix StoreFront, Citrix Single Sign On, Netscaler APC 10.1, Insight
for HDX and Web, Citrix Mobile Phone solution, and Citrix Tier1 Hypervisor for the
desktop allowing for offline mode. With these components, you can create a VOS cloud
that can service 30,000 or 300,000; with that said; why do most implementations fail?
1 reason; the most often missed aspect of the design; a true case of “putting the cart
before the horse”; regarding Citrix Architect there is 1 common mistake that causes
failure.
When I say fail? I include those that consider consolidation a success at a cost to more
Help Desk tickets and resources allocated more to supporting a bad architecture than
working on new projects or increase cost for whatever reason. The opposite of
“Agility”; the purpose of IT is to allow the business to grow without hindrance. Having
seen many environments, I am often amazed what users are willing to put up with,
until they leave and find a company where IT enables business Agility by utilizing
internal and public cloud hybrid methodology with dynamic capacity on demand, data
center resources running at 70% utilizing top of stack – versus what? 1-2% today?
Instead, the system is now based on who will give in first and take a lower rate, this is
considered a win. How does it feel to know you based your decision on the value of a
person without given the chance to prove their value by presenting their designs, cost
save methodologies and I could go on but the point is you have misrepresented your

7. customer on both sides of the fence?
That recruiter has misrepresented you and I by only considering our worth per hour and
rather than going to bat on our true value attempts to see how “low we will go” – NO;
but the real victim is the customer that is sold a resource because simply because they
chose to work for less – nothing to do with their recommendations, their design
recommendation after review of the environment, finding those hidden cost saves,
creating a design that impresses the end-user community – how is this not best long
term for your customers on the “hiring side of the fence” and mutually beneficial
because once the cost savings is proved, you have an architecture that is tweaked
slightly better to achieve these cost saves, the focus now is I DON’T WANT TO LOSE
THIS PERSON; Sounds great, so I’ve shown you a repeatable process and true cost saves
of 3 million, how does 200.00 per hour sound for 10 weeks of work?
Why bring this up? Most are going to say it cannot be changed – really? You need to
read; “Who Moved My Cheese”. (Reference: http://goo.gl/IMuY[3]) For those of you who
are recruiters and hiring managers, I don’t blame you directly. This is not a finger
pointing article written out of anger. I’m doing my job, creating a solution that is
ultimately a better value to the customer and end-users we support. If we must go
through you, then things must change. Whether you as a leader in the industry of
recruitment or as Hiring Managers approaching senior management or executives
reading this, hopefully agree, and change the hiring practices.
Success if defined by the IT Architect. How can you as a hiring manager, define the
abilities of the IT Architect unless you provide them a chance to show the “blue prints”
to the plan, proposed cost saves, proposed CAPEX cost, where agility is achieved?
This appears to be reserved for “vendors” yet where a vendor once quoted 12 million
dollars how was I able to quote $800,000.00. This was the only time in 17 years a
company hired me based on my known/proposed architecture, my “Brand Name” built
with Citrix [after speaking to Citrix employees assigned to the account].
I've only met a small percentage of individuals in the virtual space relative to Cloud
which make no mistake VOS is a service offering in the cloud and require similar
architecture to create that associated cost effectiveness that is perceived with SaaS,
PaaS, IaaS solutions today.
It really isn't that difficult, just hire the right person for the position. Right people in

8. the right places - sounds simple; At this point, it can only get worse so to all you
Recruiters and Hiring
Managers focused on hiring the cheapest labor you can rather than focusing on the
benefit the customer gains and the additional business you gain by placing the "right
resource that meets or exceeds expectations with a proven track record that is verified
by that resource ability to produce recommendations or perhaps already utilize a tool
intended to help alleviate having to call someone every time you bid on a job; LinkedIn
being a good example.
This requires recruitment firms to enable their recruiters to think on their own, give
them bargaining power – I’m so tired of “I need to check with my manager”. Are you
not as fellow IT Architects? It reminds me of certain new car dealerships where I offer a
price and the first thing out of the salesperson mouth is “I need to check with my
manager”.
I honestly don't understand and refuse to work with Recruiters when I send them a PDF
of my 44 recommendations on LinkedIn, copies of awards, Certifications, over 100
recommendations counting the cards, emails, spot bonuses, and they ask for
references? My response, "I just gave you 44 multi-paragraph recommendations from
real people that you can look up on LinkedIn and contact as many as you wish". All my
former managers have given recommendations and that is who I would provide for
contact.
As a contractor, I cannot expect my former managers to get a phone call and restate
what they have written in stone on LinkedIn because "it is our policy". If I give in to
this policy my former bosses would start to get annoyed and ask why they can’t just use
the recommendation on LinkedIn; is that not one purpose of LinkedIn – sure it is, but
our policy is to ignore the obvious. At what point to you stand up for your
accomplishments and say NO.
If one thing is certain, change is inevitable. If change does not happen, everyone loses.
Most of all, the end-users become victims of poor design which impacts their ability to
perform their job, all because the wrong person was hired; some will read this and get a
wake-up call not knowing that private Cloud
Lack of integrity never works in business; it seems as we grow older some create false
excuses for cutting corners, blaming others for their mistakes, not taking responsibility.

9. "Real winners never sneak to finish lines by clandestine or compromised routes.
They do it the old-fashioned way—with talent, hard work, trust, fairness, and
honesty. It’s okay to negotiate tough business deals, but conduct your business
with both hands on the table and sleeves rolled up."
Huntsman, Jon M. (2008-10-29). Winners Never Cheat: Even in Difficult Times,
New and Expanded Edition (p. 48).
The fault is not all with Recruiters, the firms, Hiring Managers, and HR hiring
restrictions; every time someone in our business allows a recruiter to dictate their
hourly rate actually loses integrity. You just validated that you are worth less and each
recruiter or hiring manager that is allowed to dictate your or my salary makes it that
much easier for them to try it on others to where we are today where some will not
speak with you or pass your resume on for a phone call if you refuse to work for that
rate.
I try to negotiate with them and explain that the focus or my focus has always been on
cost savings I bring to the table, do you thing the customer or hiring manager can spare
at least 10 minutes so I can explain why I am the right person for the job and once I
describe all the areas where I can create cost savings the hourly rate would be the least
concern. I wish I could share everything but I require an NDA to for full disclosure of
my design and after 17 years and millions of dollars saved (3 million on 1 project) I
simply cannot understand why a hiring manager would be more concerned about cost
of implementing a VOS Cloud Solution with Citrix TOS (Top of Stack) utilizing any
hypervisor; thus, maybe they have a large ESX environment, or HyperV, or XenServer.
Citrix VOS works with all hypervisors. The type of hypervisor is something to consider
relative to TCO and ROI but one factor of 30 areas of true cost saves.
I’m using Citrix as my primary example for two reasons;
They were first to market
They have the best top of stack solution
If you need convincing, read my article “King of the Stack”
at: http://goo.gl/3qDZxq[4]
Globalization and Cloud VOS create massive opportunity for cost saves which I will
outline a few of the 30 that are repeatable processes not unlike a manufacture of cars or

10. other products and concepts such as Six Sigma. (Reference: http://goo.gl/mmtx[5])
Here are some numbers that are repeatable: (Some of many)
10 second logons per VOS [My term – Virtual Operating System, because it is
not a desktop]
12-15 IOPS per VOS
Windows 7 Professional, read-only VDISK, streamed to X # of users of which
becomes a hardware limitation; with a goal of utilizing 200% of the underlying
hardware (cost save).
2 tickets per day per 8000 users (massive cost save)
2200 Applications hosted on X enApp generates a tiny 50,000 IOPS
Staff reductions at every site, H elp Desk
Simply provided training for Desktop Support Teams to become VOS
Operations Support
POD based (2 meter cabinet) design with Dynamic Capacity on Demand
methodology – exists today and cheap.
Citrix, as one example, gives you their software for free; all that is required is
a CON CURREN T LICEN SE. N etscaler hardware and VPX being the exception.
Application Lifecycle - All applications hosted in X enApp, one single RO
X enApp VOS Disk hosted on shared N AS emulating N FS or CIFS or fiber LUN
presented to several servers (shared)
N +1 POD with H ardware LifeCycle
CIR Rate reductions for every remote site (Massive OPEX savings potential per
MON TH )
It is the same with creation of a Cloud Services Platform. Some can paint, most
cannot. Some architects utilize standard practices, others have proprietary and
inventive ways focused on cost saves; ROI, TCO, CAPEX, OPEX. What are Cloud
Services and the small percentage of Architects who can implement a complete
solution stack?
Hiring an Architect should be based on their proprietary design that meets or exceeds
all best practices across all IT towers. Have you hired a contractor to build a building
before looking at their proposal? IT Architects if truly architects have a picture in their
mind and utilize a specific design that is repeatable and works every time. If they
cannot tell you the architecture to be used and explain the areas in which you will
benefit how can you possibly know your hiring manager or recruiter has not simply sold

11. you a resource because they accepted a pay cut?
I stated that most implementations fail in 6 months, defined as users unhappy, more
expensive than physical PC’s regardless of the reason(s). The Citrix VOS Cloud with
Netscaler, Provisioning Server, Universal Client, StoreFront, MDM, ShareFile, Podio,
and competing products VMware vCloud and ESX implementations are akin to
installing Microsoft Office Professional and only using Word. Or, because it is thought
of as an OS - and Citrix takes the blame here by not marketing their own products
correctly. XenDesktop is merely a virtual OS conduit for business applications hosted
on Citrix XenApp which runs on Microsoft Terminal Services.
Citrix Provisioning Services allows for one single virtual OS file hosted on a NAS or a
single NFS LUN shared by multiple-fiber connected physical servers. Since the virtual
operating system does not have applications installed but presented by Citrix
XenApp/Terminal Server which is designed to host segmented but hybrid and complex
shared use of DLLs in memory allowing for more user sessions per host and designed to
do this with minimal impact to processor, memory, and IOPS.
To expound further, you can expect to utilize around 50,000 IOPS per 2200
applications hosted on Citrix - otherwise it was done wrong. The read-only single
virtual operating system allows for a single point of update with all customization
requirements handled by Group Policy and Citrix Policies. This model works in multitenant scenarios, no inventory agents installed in the OS, no remote control agents
required being this functionality is built into XenDesktop so that Help Desk can
shadow a user desktop and obtain critical information using Desktop Director tool that
ships with XenDesktop.
Regardless of 30,000 or 300,000 users makes no difference, the Desktop Director tool
best feature is the advanced search that allows for Level 1 - 4 support teams to quickly
find the user desktop, then shadow it and capture the issue. Generally, there are not
many issues assuming you do not install all the agents from the desktop environment
into the virtual operating system / with Provisioning Server produces a single read-only
instance that allows for automated creation of desktops based on the criteria you define
and this can be a complete 180% difference from customer to customer or business
towers.
Virtual operating system is merely a CONDUIT to the business application. We often
forget that the reason this technology exists is not for our pleasure but 5o provide

12. access to business applications from any device at anytime from anywhere using any
type of connectivity from 3G, 4G, Dial-up, Satellite, to congested Internet connections.
In 90% of the implementations I'm asked to fix, maybe it is just me, the "cart was put in
front of the horses". Most VOS implementations die on the vine despite what all the
vendors are stating. The question is why?
It comes down to one thing; however, that one thing has many complex obstacles in
the path making this a very complex and difficult to answer without offending. Yet, to
not discuss it and allow it to continue I might as well find a new career due to every bad
implementation gone wrong leaves the end users - the reason IT people exist disgruntled and pleading for their old and dusty physical computers back and
management eventually gives up because it truly becomes a disaster and
unmanageable.
Amazing how one thing, addressed at the end by 95% of implementations today
instead of the beginning, can triple your Help Desk calls in 6 months and now you have
lack of resources for projects due to support taking priority over new projects so you
wasted all that money and now have to hire more resources to support the
environment when the goal is reduction in staffing – unfortunate side effect of proper
designed VOS solutions. If you are in any position to force change, start by getting to
know and teaching these simple concepts to your hiring managers that you employ to
work with recruiters (practically the only way to get a job now in IT – IT now has a
middle layer that never existed 10 years ago, not unlike a large Union with the goal of
representation to every employer and job seeker while getting paid by the company and
will try to do everything they can to dictate my/your hourly rate.
Every consultant in IT that lacks the Integrity to say no, I make this, you will pay me
this because I’ve earned that right and the cost saves (coming up) some of us bring
negate any reason to focus on hourly rate. If hiring managers would focus on hiring the
right person and cost savings rather than trying to save money at the beginning rather
than big picture relative to OPEX, CAPEX, ROI, and God forbid lower TCO. Next, the
recruiter should focus on the value of experience and accomplishments backed by actual
recommendations from real people not “click the mouse button endorsements”.
TRAVEL IS FATAL TO PREJUDICE, BIGOTRY AN D N ARROWMIN DEDN ESS… BROAD, WH OLESOME, CH ARITABLE VIEWS OF MEN
AN D TH IN GS CAN N OT BE ACQUIRED BY VEGETATIN G IN ON E LITTLE

13. CORN ER OF TH E EARTH ALL ON E’S LIFE.
—MARK TWAIN
Executive IT leadership, if you really want to know why the VOS solution failed where
others have succeeded and saved millions, start with the people that hire and teach
them the principles of business cost saves, agility, people of integrity, hiring the best
resource for the job versus the person who “talks the talk” just like anyone can read the
PDF or EDOCS and follow the steps rather than produce an architecture, for example,
that is proprietary and requires an NDA but with proven, repeatable processes utilized
and implemented for more than a single customer and pay them their worth or suffer
the consequences of failed implementation within 6 months – based on 17 years in IT,
15 years as FTE with GMAC now Ally and Ocwen, Dell, and now close to two years as a
sole proprietor having to turn down more jobs than accept for reasons of pure
Integrity.
Every implementation gone wrong is a lot of end-users that now consider VOS a
four letter word due to the person or person’s your hiring manager interviewed
and hired because they just made the cut and accepted a lower rate putting them
at the top of the resume stack yet if one thing is done wrong, or simply the fact
that some people claim to be musicians or painters; seen all the time on certain
television shows where they seem to actually believe they can sing, yet everyone is
telling them find another profession.
This must stop, before VOS solution becomes a four letter word to the majority as some
leave for other companies, 1 bad experience they tell 10 people, try to implement VOS
there and if enough people have already gone through that bad experience my ability to
stay employed continues to decline; which is truly sad knowing that you still have
those 2% of Architects that implement cost effective, agile solutions that save millions,
VOS that boots in 10 seconds, 1 GB of RAM, centralized applications, telecom, file
servers, and ultimate security of data never leaving your network.
The data never leaves your network, all the user sees is a representation of the desktop
like watching TV. The TV is just a receiver for the data, you see it and hear it but it
originates somewhere else and when you turn your TV off, the data was never actually
on your TV, it is merely a conduit. VOS is a conduit for accessing business applications
– centralized applications, databases, storage, telecom incoming and outgoing lines,
with virtual phone hosted as an application presented to the VOS – just plug in a

14. headset and with Citrix HDX, the user will never notice because everything resides on
one LAN, WAN no longer part of the equation and as you will read a huge potential
cost save that 98% of consultants miss because it is more of a post-implementation – I
call it like I see it.
So, the root of the problem is not the "1 thing that causes all VOS implementations to
fail" but the fact that 10- 15 years ago a sole proprietor such as myself did not require a
middle person such as a Recruiter and bad hiring managers wanting to buy cheap labor
and willing to hire an engineer playing architect but worse driving the rates down for
those of us with more than 15 years experience. With that said, experience means
nothing without proven, year after year accomplishments and seeking out harder
challenges because you love the profession, the technology, and that feeling of
accomplishment when you have built a solution that on average costs 6 cents per user
per usage hour, dynamic capacity on demand, one VOS to update, one platform to host
all applications and present those to the read-only virtual operating system that boots
in 10 seconds and runs perfect with 1 GB of RAM allowing for 3x the number of
desktops alone by not having to use 4GB due to improper use of virtual operating
systems versus their physical counterparts.
The point of using VOS is to not use Desktops and to actually save money which
counter to most examples is possible. Are certain vendors going to suffer, absolutely question is will they adapt. Why do you care? As business owner or CEO to CIO to IT
engineer your job is to save the company money and create agility in IT so it does not
create a bottleneck for the business and rather then being seen as an expense your are
now creating solutions that are dynamic, centralized applications, application lifecycle
management, one read-only desktop for all, no more inventory agents due to having
your applications on Citrix XenApp and using best practices of Role Based security and
Domain Local Groups per application you can tightly control and immediately report on
number of users in that group to assure it matches your licensing. Not only that, you
get published applications that are restricted to X number of users but leverage
concurrent licensing and global dispersed users where the application has 10 licenses
that are also concurrent (not bound to a user - just a license) but 50 users in the group
using the application over a 24 hour period. The alternative is install the application
on the desktop and buy 50 licenses.
Now, apply this to every application you have and hopefully you are thinking of all the
cost saves on application licensing alone by simply centralizing the applications to a
solution that is specifically designed to host shared applications, then all it comes

15. down to is tweaking the timeouts, determining your actual concurrent users out of
30,000 might only be 19,0000 at any given hour. Next, you but hardware to host that #
of users, not 30,000; using a POD based deployment methodology (think of a POD as a
2 meter cabinet with top of rack switches, next blades, next storage). Using this
methodology does not eliminate the need for N+1 and Disaster recovery but all those
dollars saved on licensing, elimination of all those vendor contracts for anti-virus
agents (this is another discussion), inventory agents (all applications now on Citrix
XenApp/Terminal Server with access streamlined to a single Active Directory Domain
Local Group assigned to each application and further restriction policies to limit # of
concurrent users, rules that allow users from this IP segment but not these IP segments
(SOX/HIPAA Applications?), Citrix StoreFront Web Interface that supports all clients
and mobility where you can move from device to device work to home and utilizing the
Citrix Universal Receiver for Macintosh, Android, Linux (Ubuntu, Red Hat, so forth),
iPhone, iPad, Chrome Book (embedded HTML 5 Google Chrome Applications that uses
their browsers and found in their Application Store) and the multiple Microsoft
Operating Systems such as XP, Vista, 2000 to Windows 7 and 8.
So I've provided multiple cost saves to consider as to why and how VOS can be a true
benefit from CAPEX, OPEX and ROI. This is nothing compared to the big picture yet
due to corruption, greed, and shady deals between Recruiters and Hiring Managers that
lack the understanding of the complexity of this type of solution and worse are focused
on hiring someone that is willing to come down on their rate so they get what is paid
for as their solution that on average dies in six months and everyone involved throws
up their hands and says something like "well, we tried it is just becoming too hard to
manage and users are screaming for their physical PC's back - who can blame them?
Confucianism states: “Do not do to others what you would not like
yourself.” Zoroastrians are advised that “if you do not wish to be
mistreated by others, do not mistreat anyone yourself.” Muslims are
taught no one is a true believer “until he desires for his brother that which
he desires for himself.” H induism warns never to behave “towards others
in a way which is disagreeable to oneself.” The Torah says: “What is
hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the
rest is commentary. Go and learn it.”
H untsman, Jon M. (2008-10-29). Winners N ever Cheat: Even in Difficult
Times, N ew and Expanded Edition (p. 149)

16. One of the biggest cost saves, often missed, is post-centralization of applications,
replacing PC's with small Thin Clients (no moving parts, last 7 years on average) at all
remote sites with a device that uses half an amp opposed to 3x that amount and
suddenly you notice your energy expense of running PC's, that hot air blowing out
requiring AC to work harder - remember no moving parts. And yet, this is nothing
compared to turning down CIR rates on every circuit globally because you just cut your
bandwidth requirements down to maximum of 15K per user, 0K when not being used
except for the occasional HDX ping to verify the session is not disconnected and
therefore a candidate to return to the pool and free up that license.
Imagine if you centralize file services, and applications from every remote site, no more
data or multiple copies of Access Databases with link tables into other databases and
MDE front-end run from a network share local to each site or God forbid run across the
WAN. XenDesktop/XenApp supports the virtual Cisco Phone Client, Lync, SharePoint
integration internal and external if we throw in Citrix Netscaler. Plug in a headset to
the Thin Client, send that encrypted HDX traffic down the dedicated audio or video
channel to the remote site and centralize all your incoming and outgoing telecom to
one location and further reduce bandwidth requirements not to mention all those
remote PBX's with those expensive VOIP cards.
I've shared a few of 30 potential cost savings that I know and have proved that I can
provide. I'll leave the business before I allow someone else to dictate my pay.
Regardless of contract or full-time. I've already decided to leave the consulting
business. The solution is changing the hiring process so I can stay. Or, someone reads
this and hires me direct and pays my worth - I require an NDA and non-compete to
disclose my architecture and 30 critical cost saves. I look forward to your LinkedIn mail
or Inmail.
Last but not least, why do overpaid CIO's outsource IT? CEO/CFO Business
Functionality? CIO Development? Same reason companies outsource hiring:
So they can point the finger at someone else and keep their jobs although they hired
the outsourcers.
Part II - Q & A - http://goo.gl/XtYuSo[6]
Sincerely,

17. Brian Murphy
LinkedIn - Most Recommended People
http://www.linkedin.com/in/vcisscloud
More publications? Join my blog at:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/VCISS-GROUP-4184033?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr[7]
1. http://www.linkedin.com/in/virtualos/
2. http://www.linkedin.com/in/virtualos/
3. http://goo.gl/IMuY
4. http://goo.gl/3qDZxq
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6. http://goo.gl/XtYuSo
7. https://www.linkedin.com/groups/VCISS-GROUP-4184033?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr