Resource locations contain different resources depending on which Citrix Cloud services you are using and the services that you want to provide to your subscribers.

Typical resources include:

• Active Directory domains
• Citrix NetScaler appliances
• Hypervisors like Citrix XenServer
• Virtual Desktop Agents (VDAs)
• StoreFront servers
• Machines hosting the Citrix Smart Tools Agent

Resource locations also contain Citrix Cloud Connectors which are required for enabling communication between your resources and Citrix Cloud. For more information about using Cloud Connectors in your resource location, see Citrix Cloud Connector.

Location of resources

Your resource location is wherever your resources reside, whether that’s a public or private cloud, a branch office, or a data center. If you already have resources in your own cloud or data center, your resources remain where they are. There’s no need to move them elsewhere to use them with Citrix Cloud.

Your choice of location might be impacted by the following factors:

• Proximity to subscribers
• Proximity to data
• Scale requirements
• Security attributes

There is no restriction on the number of resource locations you can have. The overhead of a resource location is small.

Primary resource locations

A primary resource location is a resource location that you designate as “most preferred” for communications between your domain and Citrix Cloud. The resource location you select as “primary” should have Cloud Connectors that have the best performance and connectivity to your domain. This enables your users to log on quickly to Citrix Cloud.

For more information, see Select a primary resource location.

Example of resource location deployment

• Build your first resource location in your data center for the head office based on subscribers and applications that need to be close to the data.
• Add a second resource location for your global users in a public cloud. Alternatively, build separate resource locations in branch offices to provide the applications best served close to the branch workers.
• Add another resource location on a separate network that provides restricted applications. This provides restricted visibility to other resources and subscribers without the need to adjust the other resource locations.

In Citrix Cloud, resource locations contain the resources you manage such as hypervisors, Cloud Connectors, and VDAs. For an overview, see Resource locations.

At a very basic level, a resource location consists of two machines on which the Citrix Cloud Connector software is installed. These machines, known as Cloud Connectors, are joined to your Active Directory domain and provide the communication pathway between your resource location and Citrix Cloud.

To get started setting up a resource location, see Cloud Connector Installation.

To ensure your proxy or firewall will allow traffic to your resource location, see Cloud Connector Proxy and Firewall Configuration.

After you set up your first resource location, you can add more resources to it for the Citrix Cloud services you want to use.