Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Reviews

Remote workers/branch offices needed quick, reliable access to resources at the Corporate Data Center no matter what kind of device they were working from.

It has allowed us to provide network/application resources to anyone anywhere, no matter what kind of device the end user had, we were usually able to find a compatible Citrix receiver app.  That gave our user base flexibility to be anywhere and still be productive.

I found the ease of deployment, scalability, and security to be to our benefit when supplying virtual applications/resources to our clients.

Printing is huge, there are a lot of shortfalls with supporting printing over XenApp.  I know it isn't all a Citrix issue, Microsoft needs to do some work to get the print subsystem streamlined since it apparently hasn't been looked at since Windows NT4 days.

More than seven years.

Very easy to scale, virtual servers can be stood up quickly on your virtual platform using Citrix PVS

No previous solution

ThinApp

We normally use Citrix for delivering applications remotely. Our experience is with the government and companies that have branches.

XenApp made our Application environment secure and restrict the data transfer.

The most valuable features are user experience and printing capabilities.

Citrix has to support all of the hypervisors including KVM.

The technical support is not as good as it is with other vendors and it should be improved.

We have been using XenApp Citrix since 2007.

This is a very stable solution. The security updates are always being done.

Citrix is scalable. In my company over the past seven years, we have had many users. In addition, our clients using this solution have many thousands of users.

The Citrix technical support is not as easy as other vendors like F5 or VMware. Obtaining technical support is a little bit tough and it should be improved.

We had tested Ericom, 2X and find better performance with Citrix.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The length of time for deployment depends on the environment and the requirements. For example, last year we deployed this solution for an airline with 27,000 users and it took approximately three months.

Our in-house team deploys this solution for our clients.

Our ROI was 144% .

A perpetual enterprise license costs approximately $300 USD.

I have evaluated a lot of products and the latest solutions. Citrix, among all these products,  has added value because of the user experience and its printing capabilities. You can connect to any printer, and from anywhere you can print documents using a compressed channel. It is easy and the bandwidth is very low.

Citrix has its own training and certifications available, such as CCA-V, CCA-N, CCE-V,CCE-N. For anybody who is implementing this solution, I would suggest that they start with the training. That will help them with the product in learning what it is, how it is going to be implemented, what the requirements are, and so forth. The training is easy and once it is complete, implementing and using the solution will be easier for them.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

Our installation is currently on-premises, but we have already decided that we will move to the cloud. In general, we are using XenApp to make a virtual protected environment in order to link our other applications through Citrix. We want to link data or applications, it depends on the case. Sometimes we don't want to have links from application to application but just for the applications to share the data which they are using. This product provides us some flexibility in the architecture.  

I'm not the end-user of the application. My position is very high in the organization. I know that the users who are using this product like it, but I don't know what exactly they like or what might make it separate from similar solutions. From my point of view, the reason they like it is this flexibility that they have. They can connect one application to another application or just to use the data. They have applications locally and use the data in the cloud in a very secure way. They have more flexibility using this solution.  

The place where this application can most probably be improved is in the integration with other environments. Right now we have it on-premises, but our plan is to have it on cloud and we have already taken steps with Microsoft to implement this goal. After we move it to the cloud, we will want to add other applications and other data sources to what is already available in order to more easily move the data from one place to another and to use it from different applications. Broader integration would give the user more flexibility. This is why, from my point of view, integrating with other environments is the most important feature that needs to be expanded.  

As an example, IBM has a cloud solution that gives users the capability to connect between different clouds. No matter what kind of cloud you are using the data becomes universal through the capabilities of the IBM solution. You can ensure data security and can move data from one cloud to another. This is the kind of thing I mean by integration. It is an integration of administrative work, resource usage and also of the different environments. Right now we have some things on-premise and we have part of it in the cloud. Most probably will be not only be using Microsoft cloud in the future but also Amazon and Google as well. We want to have this application everywhere in this environment and to be able to use only one interface to let us know what volume of resources we are using, how much different solutions cost us, and if our usage is effective. This way we can make evaluations and change if necessary. The economy of our model is very important for us.  

The other less important point is that the deployment could be faster. We deployed the solution with the help of a vendor, and I do not blame the vendor that things seemed to come together a little slowly because it was not easy to do. I think the implementation can be simplified a little by the manufacturer.  

I have been using this product for around three years.  

XenApp is a very stable solution. This is one of the reasons we were using it. I had some experience with the product at the previous company and we decided just to use the same solution for this company because it is really stable.  

I don't know yet how the product rates in the area of scalability. We are currently moving from one environment to another, and that is an early step in our process. I don't know about scaling because it is a step we will worry about later. These are interim steps we are taking in the plan that we have right now. Our end goal is to be completely in the cloud or in some kind of hybrid environment. When we achieve that, the next step is to use the application to scale. So we are still in a sort of proof of concept period right now where we don't want or have the need to test scalability.  

We currently have 53 people using the solution. Most of them are just users from the office, but we have around 10 engineers and IT people who are capable of doing everything we need for implementation and maintenance.  

Because we are using a partner to interface between us and Microsoft, we do not have contact with Microsoft's technical support. The partner has been successful in covering everything we need.  

I changed my employment over the past two years. Earlier, I was part of the pharmaceutical company Bcom and we were using the same XenApp product there. Then I moved to a smaller Bulgarian company. We were using a different version of Xenapp there and we had a somewhat different experience. The support that Microsoft provided was different in each case. In the first case, it was a global corporation. In the second case, it was a local group of companies and we were supported by the local Microsoft office.  

But in each case, the reason why I switched products was that I changed employment and not that I changed from an entirely different solution to this one.  

The level of difficulty of the initial setup depends on the situation. Because we have this application through a Microsoft provider which is directly working with Microsoft, they have enough staff and experience with it to set it up. It was very easy for us just to use them.  

If we had to do it alone, I don't believe we had the capacity to do it without a lot of trouble. We prefer this model of having some kind of agent who is more knowledgeable and experienced do the setup. They already know exactly how to set up the environment for using the application, and we would have had to learn it all anew.  

The deployment of the solution was more than five months, but it took that long because we probably caused some delay. We were not pushing for the implementation to be completed, we changed our offices, and many other things happened in between. So it is not because of the application or the group doing the deployment, but because we were moving slowly ourselves.  

We had a third party, the supplier, do the initial implementation for us.  

We did not evaluate other options when making the decision to take on this solution because I already had a positive experience with this product in the past. I wanted to use the same solution because I know it and I know that it works and that it would do what we needed it to do. Stability was the main factor in making the decision.  

Right now the computing environment is changing very fast with cloud, hybrid, containers and other options like that. We wanted to have something which was going to allow us to use a hybrid solution until we define the final model that we want to use.  

Advice that I would give to people considering this solution is to use our model of implementation. I absolutely recommend using a local supplier who is knowledgeable and who has experience with the product and deployment because then you won't have any problems. We are only using it. We don't care how it is set up. We don't care about the model itself, but only that the result fits our requirements. This supplier is doing all the things we don't want to have to learn for us.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a seven-out-of-ten.  

We use this for secondary use coming from our side.

It's most valuable feature is its easy setup.

For us, pricing is the most important feature to improve.

I have been using XenApp for a couple of years.

It is a stable product.

In terms of scalability - it is easy to scale it.

We have about 200 people using this solution.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took about two or three days from the start.

We deployed it with the use of one consultant.

I would recommend this solution to other people. On a scale of 1 - 10 I would rate it an 8.

I have a few small companies as customers who need to have access to data stored in a centralized site from remote locations. We provide them with this tool so they can do their work in that type of business model.  

XenApp is fast and secure and reliable for remote connections. It is a solution that is completely different than older Windows solutions like Remote Desktop, Server Gateway, and Runtime Brokers. These Windows solutions have never really produced satisfactory results for me.  

There are a few things I would like to see improved. First, the price can be improved for sure. Microsoft does not have support for this type of solution to make it easy to use the product. But in using Citrix, I can provide remote access support. The features I use with Citrix cannot be found in Microsoft products with any solid alternative. RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol), which is the Microsoft solution, is limited. If you try to go with the solution in the cloud, the RDP is still very slow because there is an HTTPS overlap on the RDS (Remote Desktop Services), and RDP is not secure enough. They also could improve support for the integration of these products.  

The other thing I would be looking for in the next release is that they make improvements to roaming profiles. I think they have already made some additional efforts to improve this. It's good, but it could be better. Most of the problems I come across are caused by profiles being incorrect. That should be fixed but it may not be possible on the Citrix side because it is really a Microsoft issue.  

I have been using that for 10 years already.  

If I look back at the issues I had over time, there really have not been too many. Most of the issues are Windows Server related, they are not problems with the Citrix solution.  

I think the product is very scalable. I would say it is really infinitely scalable from my experience.  

I have 16 customers and the customers use XenApp every day, all day. But I can scale that as needed as my client base increases.  

In the beginning, the tech support was very good, but today like every other company, Citrix is limiting its support solutions. Right now I would say that the technical support ranks as a six or seven out of ten. Sometimes it is very good and sometimes I find the solution faster by myself than they find it for me. But overall, it is not really impressive and not as good as it was.  

They certainly should improve support. On the other hand, the price of support isn't very much. You have to buy the maintenance every year to get the new versions and support access. For that small price that they charge for the support, you can't expect to have services that are really very good. In the past, you had to buy the products and you have to buy the support separately. Today the cost is more for the product alone. On average the vendor will gain more, but it might be better to have better support packages that you can pay extra for, especially in this case.  

For me and my situation — I have a complete Citrix environment with NetScaler — all services were installed in one day. The most time it takes to install an additional application is one or maybe two days. I may outsource some tasks at times, but nothing about it is really complex. I know using Citrix with Microsoft is fairly complex and you have to use it in the cloud and have things done for you at times. But I don't believe that alone constitutes complexity.  

I do not use other resources for implementation. I do it all myself as I am a partner and reseller.  

The advice I would give to those who want to start using this solution is to beware of Citrix and Microsoft. They are both considered sort of the bad guys in the computing world. They want to push you to the cloud and maybe you don't really need the cloud for your solution. You don't have to listen to them.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as an eight.  

We are located in three cities in Norway and we use this system for our virtual applications. We have an ordering system, a CRM system, an email system, and more. In fact, it is used for anything that is suitable for a virtual app. Some special programs, like AutoCAD, need to be run locally, but these are the exceptions.

The most valuable feature is the automatic software upgrades because they take place on only three or four servers, rather than on 50 or 60 machines.

The administration, security, and flexibility are very good.

We would like to be able to provide VDI, a full desktop, to each of our users.

I have been using XenApp since 2009.

This solution is pretty stable, I would say.

Scalability depends on the hardware, but it is easy to scale.

We have between 60 and 80 users who are managers and engineers. In addition, we have external customers that we support. These companies have between 10 and 50 users.

Although we do most of the technical support with our own IT department, we have been in touch with the vendor several times. They are good in terms of response time and we are satisfied with their work.

We did not use another solution prior to this one. We are only using Citrix and Microsoft in our infrastructure.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward, but of course, there are some complex things to do as well. It took us a couple of days to deploy.

We have four IT consultants who support this solution.

We deployed this solution using our in-house team.

We did evaluate other solutions, but we found that Citrix was so interesting that we chose it.

What we would like to do in the future is to have a VDI solution where we can give each user a desktop, but we aren't there yet. At this time, we are using this only with published applications.

This solution is easy to manage, but we want to see what happens when we create a hybrid solution with Office 365. We will be moving to a cloud-based solution in perhaps two years from now.

This is a good solution and if it is suitable for the environment then I would recommend it.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We use this solution to solve issues related to bandwidth when Oracle forms are used remotely. Also, upgrading or adding any other user application is extremely easy. Oracle E-business Suite is a resource intensive application and database system, which is customized in order to fulfill the government's needs.

This solution has improved user productivity all over Egypt serving the Government financial system. The bandwidth used by the applications was dramatically reduced from 60K to 8K per user. This reduction in bandwidth had reduced the connection cost for the whole project.

The most valuable feature is that users can work remotely from any location. The shadow feature is extraordinary and helps a lot when supporting remote users. The business support team uses this feature to connect to the user session when they are working and can provide instruction on performing complicated tasks.

Direct connection of USB devices on the terminals to be used by streamed applications is very important for printing and the usage of token authentication, but the current version does not support this one hundred percent. It is necessary to support this transparently so that any USB device can be used.

This solution is extremely stable.

Scalability is easy and straightforward.

I did not use another solution prior to this one.

The setup is straightforward, although trimming the application streaming is crucial to make the best use of bandwidth.

We used a vendor team and they were excellent.

I suggest using the concurrent user licensing scheme.

Remote Terminal was evaluated in addition to this solution.

My advice is to use Citrix XenApp on Windows VMs, based on VMware Hypervisor.

Reducing traffic capacity is needed for more than 13000 remote end-users who are working on Oracle E-Business Suite with about 1600 concurrent remote users working simultaneously all over Egypt. These users connect through 3G mobile modems from different service providers.

It increased the no. of users and reduced traffic and data connection cost in addition to increased user productivity.

Application streaming and shadow feature helped end-user online support and training. It also increased user productivity. Since this application has its own traffic encryption proprietary technique, it increased data connection security.

Eliminating the need of Windows terminal server because it increases the cost for each user as each PC that needs to connect must have its own terminal service license.

Extremely stable.

It is flexible and very easily scalable.

Good customer service and excellent technical support.

Previously, I used direct user connection, but it was not secure enough and used a lot of bandwidth.

If you follow the vendor instructions, the setup is straightforward. But it might be a little bit complex in the tuning phase.

Our own in-house team made the full implementation and operation as well.

The setup cost is not much. Although trimming the application settings is somehow tricky and has a lot of effect on performance, it is done only once. For a large number of users, use the concurrent users' license model.

A direct connection was evaluated.