SearchHealthIT hosted a nice virtual seminar this week, which I attended (in part). I caught one of the sessions on mobile health computing by Claudia Tessler and C. Peter Waegermann of the mHealth Initiative, Inc.
mHealth can be described as the convergence point of electronic medical records (EMR), mobile computing, social media and direct patient / doctor communication.
The vision is clear: Patients and their doctors communicate via all the modalities we’re already enjoying as consumers: eMail, text messages, and sometimes social media. The obvious challenge is that the desire for convenience must be carefully balanced with the mandated need for privacy and security.
Application and Desktop virtualization can confine the protected data to the datacenter, while enabling clinicians to interact with the data securely over any device without the need to re-write the application. Even the relatively new iPad is supported out of the box.
The following resources provide a best-practices based approach to designing virtualization environments based on Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop technologies:
* Windows XP Optimization Guide for Virtual Desktops (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124239)
Description: If Windows XP is still your desktop operating system of choice and it is going to be used within a virtual desktop environment, you need to optimize it appropriately. The optimizations will help deliver a better user experience and greater scalability on the hypervisor of choice (XenServer, Hyper-V, or ESX).
* XenDesktop Modular Reference Architecture (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124087)
Description: The architecture explained within this white paper is a recipe for creating a scalable XenDesktop environment using any required FlexCast option. This reference architecture discusses how to configure the controllers, imaging layer, application layer and the desktop layer.
* High-Availability for Desktop Virtualization – Reference Architecture (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123244)
Description: In environments where desktop virtualization is a critical business resource, it is imperative that the solution remains available even if a component or data center is lost. This reference architecture looks at all levels of the entire XenDesktop solution, and provides an architecture for creating a highly-available solution.
* High-Availability for Desktop Virtualization – Implementation Guide (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123245)
Description: Implementing a desktop virtualization solution oftentimes requires an investigation and implementation of the high-availability options. This white paper provides step-by-step instructions for enabling high-availability in XenDesktop within a single site and across multiple sites.
* Virtual Applications or Virtual Desktops (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX122595)
Description: Trying to decide between virtual desktops and virtual applications is oftentimes challenging. By understanding the core expectations and requirements for each delivery method helps make this decision easy. This white paper focuses on the decision and how to identify the most appropriate type of delivery solution.
* Networking topics, including Global Server Load Balancing (http://community.citrix.com/p/network-architecture) - it’s like never having to worry about datacenter failures again.
Florian Becker
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