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

In HDX, the graphics provide high-performance imaging.

The product improves how our organization function because it is simple and can be centrally managed.

I think they should improve data speed performance to reduce bandwidth.

I have used this solution for three months.

It was easy to deploy.

I rate technical support 10/10.

Initial setup was not so complicated.

We implemented it in-house. It's easy with support.

It is a bit expensive but ROI is there.

Go for it. It's the best one.

The most valuable feature to me is the flexibility to publish just apps, just virtual desktops, both, or even physical desktops. Having so much flexibility in one solution, especially one that works as well as Citrix, is a huge advantage.

We have a large number of Mac users who need access to Windows programs. We tried many methods for allowing them to work from the Macs, including connecting them via remote desktop to physical Windows computers. This solution removes the troubles we had with VPN, single-use VMs and/or dedicated physical machines.

I guess eliminating the slight difference in the web interface compared with the Receiver interface for saving files to local devices would be an improvement, but I have a feeling it's just not possible.

I have been using this solution for about six months.

Users have some trouble adjusting to the Receiver interface, but other than that, everything has been very easy.

My experience has been excellent.

It's straightforward, but I ended up building the "back end" to be more robust than I had initially planned in order to stay in line with best practices.

We did everything in-house. Since we have the capabilities in-house for such projects, I prefer to go through an implementation, at least as a functioning demo, before hiring outside contracts. In our case, we were able use the functioning demo we built.

That's difficult to honestly figure, since we've expanded the use of the applications to people and scenarios that weren't available to them before.

Get honest advice from Citrix on licensing, then ask someone who is using it in the same capacity as you plan to.

We set up demos of a few different solutions. None of them were as easy to deploy, to license, or to use as this, nor did any match the flexibility.

Build yourself a demo, following best practices. You'll likely find it to be pretty easy to do, and you'll have a solid foundation if you do need to hire outside help.

The Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services features allow you to provision workloads just by following a wizard, and most importantly depending of what you have in your environment, either a below average network (Machine Creation Services) or fast and large storage (Provisioning Services). You are able to use either one of them to improve the time it takes to build workloads and make them available to users.

One of our clients where we implemented XenDesktop has a highly mobile fleet of users, and providing access to shared desktops either via Wyse terminals or tablets has really shown what a difference in improving efficiency and reliability can do to a system. What we love the most about XenDesktop is the simple and easy way to scale on-demand depending on the workload.

Citrix Director, which is like the monitoring interface from Citrix could use a revamp in the way that it displays information. The display is not very intuitive, and it could also have better integration with SCOM via Comtrade MP (now Citrix) and other monitoring tools. This is in progress with v7.8 using SNMP traps which will allow Director to talk to upstream monitoring systems like BMC Patrol, CA Spectrum, Tivoli, etc.

I've been using it for three years.

With the deployment, it was only doing the design that took a while to build. It was a very particular client with a not so good network, so we had to work around that, but Citrix adjusted perfectly, for every issue we found when designing XenDesktop had a feature to make it happen.

XenDesktop is a very mature product and since implementation early last year, we've only had couple of issues that required our attention. As the solution was built with High Availability in mind, we only suffered from a degradation in service rather than a full outage of the system.

If you need more hosted shared desktops, boom it's really easy, and only takes couple of clicks and in minutes the new workloads are available and ready to be used.

Excellent, Citrix support guys are top of the line, and when we required a Citrix Consultant on premises, Citrix sent one straight away to assist us.

Previously, I used VMware Horizon View. This solution is simple and elegant, but it lacks the robustness Citrix has. Protocols and features to improve user experience when the network is not the best, are features that VMware has but they are not as effective as Citrix ones. The ICA protocol from Citrix has been maturing for many years, and the amount of settings you can tweak to deliver a great user experience is incredible. It can be a bit complicated, but if you work with the product you can work out what option suits best your scenario. VMware is still behind but let’s not think it is the underdog as they are gaining market share and it is a cheaper solution than Citrix.

After the design was built, agreed upon, and firewall rules were defined, deployment of the solution was a breeze. Having XenDesktop running on top of XenServer as native hypervisor is the best way to go. When machines are created via MCS or PVS you don’t need to do anything else for the VMs to be created as XenDesktop talks directly to the hypervisor and instructs it to create whatever workloads you need on the fly.

The implementation was done in-house mostly, however with the design considerations we approached Citrix for assistance and to confirm whether or notour design considerations were following best practices. One thing to consider when implementing Citrix and a set of policies is that if it is a big environment, you are deploying, please ensure that the person or team that's doing the design knows what they are doing. Citrix works marvellously when properly configured but if not, you will find a world of trouble trying to make it work as you want.

For implementation, my advice is if you are designing a big environment contact Citrix Professional Services. If you're not sure on some aspects of your design, and have a CCE-V in your team, this is the key person to contact when doing a design for a large environment - 5000+ workloads for desktop or server.

Citrix is a pricey product, but it is the best product for large corporate companies that want to squeeze to the last buck the life of their existing computers. Using Citrix allows medium to large companies to save money when computer hardware refreshes need to happen; Using shared desktops with Windows Server 2012 R2 as OS you can provision this for a large fleet of users that are probably still using a Windows XP computer but the user experience they will have will be like using Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 if you use the latest version of XenDesktop

Plan your budget, and do a PoC first if possible to get key users feedback, work with Citrix licensing team to find out what best license scheme adjust to your needs, don’t go out and buy the Enterprise license because it has it all, check first what your design requires and after that make an informed decision.

• Reliability
• Security
• User Profiling 
• Administrator's knowledge base

It gives our business departments the ability to be mobile.

As a market leader, they have got excellent product variety, but they should improve the user and administration experiences. 

Also, their support could improve.

If it fits your budget, no doubt you should get it, but keep in mind that there are other products out there that could give you the same for less.

We can virtualize desktops as well as apps.

We can create desktops per project.

I haven't seen any areas for improvement, but I am still learning.

I've been using it for four years, and I started with Citrix Presentation Server 4.5, and we are migrating it to XenApp 6.5.

No issues encountered.

There were some issues.

There were some issues.

9/10.

9/10.

We also looked at VMware View.

The central administration and deployment of desktops and apps. XenDesktop gives a full desktop experience i.e. the user gets a Windows machine with a C drive and loaded with a set of applications such as mail, productivity suites and access to files.

We have 12 offices around the island, and users able to connect to the same desktop and access their apps and files from any of these locations. Road warriors get access to the insurance apps on their mobile devices of any OS.

The studio is very slow.

We've been using it since May 2010, alongside XenApp and XenServer.

From an administrative point of view, it is easy to deploy and maintain.

In the beginning yes, especially if you are running a large number of desktops.

No issues encountered, and we run 600 virtual desktops.

8/10.

10/10.

No, but we did try VMWare View as well as part of a lengthy POC. Citrix XenDesktop & XenApp came out on top.

It was a straightforward wizard-based setup.

We used a mix of a vendor and an in-house one. The vendor was excellent, and they advised on the right architecture for performance and scalability, so I would give them a 10/10.

It's reduced the PC maintenance and upgrade costs by two or three times.

Carefully make the distinction between XenApp and XenDesktop. XenApp uses a mix of Microsoft RDS and Citrix to provision the service so this increases the licensing cost, as well as the amount of administration behind it.

• VMWare View
• Kaviza Desktop (later bought by Citrix)

You should also have a look at Atlantis Computing as well. XenDesktop is deployed along Atlantis ILIO, which is phenomenal.

The infrastructure for both XenApp and XenDesktop must be carefully designed.

Carefully select the components for the architecture. Running virtual desktops or apps require careful planning and sizing. We found SSD disk to be extremely appropriate.

The central administration and deployment of desktops and apps. Also, XenApp restricts access to those applications that you, as the admin, will define. XenApp works best if there are no bandwidth limitations in your area.

We have 12 offices around the island, and users are able to connect to the same desktop and access their apps and files from any of these locations. Road warriors get access to the insurance apps on their mobile devices of any OS.

The studio is very slow.

We've been using it since May 2010, alongside XenDesktop and XenServer.

No issues encountered. From an administrative point of view, it is easy to deploy and maintain.

In the beginning yes, especially if you are running a large number of desktops.

No issues encountered, and we run 600 virtual desktops.

8/10.

10/10.

No, but we did try VMWare View as well as part of a lengthy POC. Citrix XenDesktop & XenApp came out on top.

It was a straightforward installation, a simple wizard-based one on Windows.

We used a mix of a vendor and an in-house one. The vendor was excellent, and they advised on the right architecture for performance and scalability, so I would give them a 10/10.

It's reduced the PC maintenance, and upgrade costs by two or three times.

Carefully make the distinction between XenApp and XenDesktop. XenApp uses a mix of Microsoft RDS and Citrix to provision the service so this increases the licensing cost, as well as the amount of administration behind it.

• VMWare View
• Kaviza Desktop (later bought by Citrix)

Carefully select the components for the architecture. Running virtual desktops or apps require careful planning and sizing. We found SSD disk to be extremely appropriate.

The infrastructure for both XenApp and XenDesktop must be carefully designed.