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

Because this is a tech product, it has an app used for application virtualization.

Your servers are in a remote location, but your server is in UK and you are operating from Australia (theoretically). In this case, you want only Outlook to be used by your end users, therefore what you do is virtualize an Outlook from the servers located in the UK, but your users are using it in Australia as if it is in their local machine. It would be as if the user is utilizing Outlook in his/her machine, but it is running on the servers located in the UK.

This is an app. It virtualizes the application on your desktop. Supposing you have to enter it, you need to login and you will see the Outlook icon on the console. Outlook will open in your system, but the server is in the UK, which is utilizing the resources. Not your local resources, but those in the UK, the UK servers.

It helps you to virtualize your application, so whenever the user needs the application, they have it in virtualized form.

It is user-friendly and easy to use. It helps in many ways. The installation and maintenance are good.

It is progressing and improving day-by-day. Before, we had 6.5 version. The recent one that we used was version 7.1.5. 

There are many latency and slowness issues, which are things looked after by Citrix. 

There have been many issues with stability.

Scalability depends on the server and the number of users in the organization. You need to have capacity planning on how you are providing to users. If the server is a bit old, like the hardware is HPE Generation 4 servers, you are requesting the server to handle more than a hundred users, then it will work slowly. Therefore, capacity planning and the way you plan the architecture is very important for this.

Tech support is good. I would rate them as a seven out of 10.

Previously, I was using XenApp, but there were different products, like ThinApp and VMware. 

The initial setup is simple.

It is affordable. The product, XenServer, is free to use, and XenApp has a one month free license. The licenses are affordable, but the support is a bit expensive, though worth the value.

For three or four years, there were no other options other than the Citrix XenApp. Now, we have ThinApp, VMware, and one more application from Microsoft. While we have options now, XenApp stands out above the rest.

This is a very good tool for virtualizing your application. The support is good. It is affordable. I would recommend it to users who are looking to use XenApp. 

XenDesktop VDI is the best in class desktop virtualization solution with the best support for clients.

It has very good performance in delivering 3D applications over WAN.

We implement this solution at many customer sites. It directly affects the productivity and gives the customers a very flexible solution.

The customers have the possibility to provide access to their applications and data, but its data won’t leave their data centers.

I can't think of anything at the moment.

We have been using XenApp/XenDesktop for 10 years.

We sometimes have issues after updates.

I would rate the technical support at a 10 out of 10.

We did not use a previous solution.

You need a very good concept do the conceptual work before you start implementing. Depending on the concept, the setup could be straightforward.

You have to do some hard work in order to get the suitable licenses.

We looked at VMware View in some projects.

All Citrix products are very flexible and give you a huge amount of possibilities. From a consulting perspective, I recommend that you set aside adequate time for project planning.

• ICA protocol performance on a slow network
• Adaptive user constraint in a different user environment
• Load balancing and HA

• This product can reduce the cost of a user environment, but only if all components are included for a migration to a Citrix environment.
• A Citrix environment can increase the security by centralizing and controlling the user environment.
• The application deployment was also accelerated.

Citrix needs to ameliorate their administrative panel and provide a tool to
add more control in the user Citrix environment. An example is Norskale,
recently acquired by Citrix. Actually the user profile can only be modified
by third part tools or by a system tool (like : regedit, script and other).
In addition the AppCenter (XenApp 6.5 version) is not a simple tool and
need to be optimized (too long to load, too many options in different
submenus) and debugged (some columns added in user view corrupt the access
to the AppCenter).

We have used this solution for four years. We used Citrix XenApp when the product was called Presentation Server.

There were some stability issues, primarily with printers and some device drivers. It's important for an administrator to configure policies correctly to prohibit some devices from connecting.

We did not encounter any scalability issues. However, scalability is the key to user performance. The administrator needs to check performance counters to ensure the best user experience.

The technical support is adequate.

We used Microsoft RDS, but it did not have the same performance as the ICA protocol. It lacked the load balancing and high availability functionalities.

The initial setup is pretty simple, but you need to follow the manual as with any software installation.

Beware! It is expensive. You need to include all variables when you are going to migrate your users or applications to a Citrix environment. Remember to establish a global strategy.

We did not evaluate any alternatives. Other products on the market lack the same functionalities.

• Keep calm and take some time to install, configure, and optimize. Test with users as well.
• Remember to keep your users in the project loop before releasing the architecture into production!

• Remote access
• BYOD
• High performance
• Feature-rich, full desktop experience

• It has enabled remote working from anyplace, anytime, and anywhere
• It has simplified, secured, and centralized the challenges of O/S deployment across the enterprise.

They could reduce the number of bugs and fixes required post release. This would ensure a smooth integration with any flavour of hypervisor or cloud provider.

I have been using the product for fifteen years.

Over the years Citrix has increased the pace in which new versions are released, and often the product has not gone through thorough enough testing so the consultants are left very challenged trying to resolve bugs, and obtaining post-release fixes from the Vendor (Citrix). It would be much better if Citrix could slow down the rapidness of their updates and give a bit more time and consideration to belt and bracing the solution prior to general public release.

For the most part, we did not encounter stability issues. However, owing to the complexities involved in working with multiple vendor platforms, and by the nature of the Microsoft O/S, there are sometimes gremlins and bugs which affect deployments for which hot fixes are often required.

These bugs can sometimes affect stability, but often only affect it when mixing multiple vendor solutions.

We did not encounter any scalability issues. By design, Citrix offer a very modular solution whereby you can bolt-on and build-up on features and functionality as required. Citrix tends to do future-proofing. It is still the market leader in Server Based Computing deployments.

Technical support was usually excellent. However, you sometimes have to push to ensure that you get to the top level of engineer to deal with the case. This is the case with most vendors.

We have worked with all competitors over the years. I think that the "Ferrari" Citrix is still your best choice

It depends on what business needs you are trying to achieve and which product features you need to enable.

Installation and setup have been improved over the years. However, to implement a truly robust, performance rich solution, you still need an SME to help design and implement the solution.

We have a teamed on seasoned Citrix Consultants, specialists in their chosen field covering off the complete Citrix Product Suite from XenMobile, to XenDesktop

We recently implemented a new on-demand private cloud solution for SAS Software to replace their aging PC/Ghost imaging within their classroom environments throughout the UK. The new XenDesktop solution is completely hands-free enabling the end user to provisioning the desired desktop image on-demand within a 3 minute end-to-end process. Previously, it use to take the SAS Support staff an entire weekend to rebuild a classroom ready for the SAS Software training course to commence on Monday. They realized their ROI within just one year.

Citrix is competitive when compared to other vendors. Often you get what you pay for. In this instance, if you want an enterprise-class and future-proofing solution, then Citrix is a good choice to make.

We have evaluated, and continue to evaluate all the main competitors since 2000.

We looked at VMWare View (now Horizon) and Microsoft RDS/VDI.

We are brand agnostic and we go with the best solution which fits the customers' needs and budgets.

As professional consultants, we will advise and present the pros and cons of each solution when explaining our recommendations.

• Talk to fellow experts who have worked extensively with the technology.
• Ask them to come over, showcase, and demo the solution so that you can cover all your business objectives and ensure the right vendor.
• We always recommend an onsite PoC for 5-10 consulting days to prove the technology and to thrash out what can and cannot be achieved.

• Protects web infrastructure
• Ensures business continuity and IT disaster recovery
• Consolidated multiple remote access solutions
• Lowers WAN costs

A cements customer uses the application for truck shipments from the United States by connecting to the infrastructure in Colombia, as the solution can only be found in that country.

We are already evaluating the latest version, 7.9, because Citrix continually updates everything.

For optimal and stable infrastructure products, the people who develop software in-house should provide IT architecture updates.

All implementations of Citrix have problems with stability; that is normal. This type of infrastructure should be integrated with the many software and hardware components that are currently implemented in the company.

Very good customer service.

Technical support is improving.

I have worked with VMWare as a hypervisor as the suite is very wide. However, Citrix is less expensive.

All Citrix configurations have a certain amount of complexity.

In-house application deployments are not always easy to integrate, because it is not always compatible with client-server environments.

For a project to be effective, you must coordinate with Citrix to divide the licenses into stages and not affect costs.

It is important to do a good sizing of users. In addition to Citrix' own online calculator for sizing users (https://www.citrix.com/products/xenapp-xendesktop/savings-calculator.html), I can help with dimensioning the server infrastructure for different virtualisation projects.

• ICA protocol: Beats latency and improves performance for slow connections
• Provisioning service (PVS): Makes deployment of VDI machines a simple breeze
• Profile manager: Profile manager makes it very easy to retain user settings. The whole suite of Citrix XenDesktop provides a complete set for managing the environment.

We have a lot of users in remote locations and some have slow, high-latency connections. So deploying XenDesktop as a VDI solution to connect to our data center overcame the challenges of having remote users and addressed the slow and high latency issues we used to experience prior to deploying Citrix.

I would like to see better documentation of best practices and communication of newly available tools or troubleshooting tools. If you ask several consultants, each will give you almost completely different designs, as the best practice recommendation by Citrix might be absent.

We did a lot of testing and slowly deployed our environment. Given we are also IT consultants and developers, we had a lot of the issues resolved before reaching production. One tip that is also important is training the end users and making sure they understand the setup.

Citrix Premium support is really top notch. They take ownership of the issues and are determined to address it, 9 out of 10 times it is addressed on the spot.

Citrix offers many different components to address all kinds of environments. Simple setup can be done; however, if it is a complex environment, rest assured Citrix will also address it. It all depends on the components used and how to best integrate them.

Implementation was completed by our in-house team.

Citrix is not a cheap solution as it addresses a lot of the challenges that no one else can. With Citrix, we do not have to upgrade our network infrastructure of remote offices, which is a lot of ongoing savings.

Buying the licenses all at once would give the best discounts. Also using a VAR may give best pricing. Shopping through different VARs is a must as you could see 50% of savings.

We evaluated several solutions including MS RemoteApp. Citrix offers better scalability and works much better in terms of WAN and slow connections due to the power of the ICA protocol.

Make sure you study the architecture before rushing to go to production. Also make sure to do a proof of concept and pilot deployment before investing. You can get trial licenses. Once you believe you have the whole solution is ready to go, consult a Citrix consultant to take a quick look before you execute, in the event you do not have all the expertise.

• Application virtualization
• Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI)
• Management and security using NetScalers

We are using this to allow our users to access applications over a secured, remote environment. It has helped to reduce the outages in our IT infrastructure, especially during server maintenance.

The solution needs some improvement to make it more flexible with an easier interface.

I have been working with this technology for over nine years.

Initially, we had some stability issues, such as slow logon for users and profile issues. All have been resolved and it is currently running smoothly.

We did not have hot-production outages in the environment. When we deployed the products, we set up rigid environment monitoring which has helped us to reduce scalability issues.

I never used a different solution as I started my career with XenApp. I later learned other Citrix products. So far, I am comfortable with them.

Initially, we built a pre-production environment to understand the challenges according to our requirements. We were able to overcome them.

I did not evaluate other options.

• During the implementation phase, understand the requirement and set up a sand box environment for testing and managing. 
• If all of the testing is successful, plan for production from scratch. Do not use your existing sandbox for production.

ICA and HDX are the most valuable features of this product to me. These protocols allow features that most other vendors either have not implemented yet or are too bandwidth-intensive to use in the enterprise with WAN users.

Our organization was a VMView shop. Due to issues with application responsiveness / perceived performance, our users had a very negative perception of the technology and were opting for physical PCs instead of VDI. During an extended pilot with these users leveraging Citrix XenDestop, we were able to improve the perceived performance / application response time, as well as use significantly less bandwidth. This was a huge cost savings for the firm.

The biggest area for improvement is in QA testing. The last few releases of either the VDA or updates to the broker either reduced functionality or re-introduced issues that were previously addressed.

I have been using this solution for five years.

The only issue that we had was early on in our implementation with a “Black Screen”. Although we were never able to determine the root cause with Citrix Tech support and escalated engineering, updating form 5.6 to 7.6 greatly reduced this issue / impact to our users.

I rate technical support 5/10.

The initial setup was straightforward. We were able to get three farms up and running within two hours. The migration from older to newer was relatively easy as well.

Implementation was done in house. My best advice if you are migrating from another product to XenDesktop would be to deploy new VDI’s and migrate the users. This allows you to validate the stack and avoid legacy configuration and applications that might have issues. If that is not an option, researching what the VDI’s have installed, and what other remoting technologies are in use, will prove valuable and avoid some of the pitfalls that we had.

ROI I believe is close to three years.