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

The challenges we were looking to deal with by using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops were: How do we protect our data and how do we make sure that our data is not leaked out? We have deployed Citrix for most of our critical applications so that our users are using the Citrix VDI.

We have deployed it for a small number of users, between 1,500 and 2,000. To deploy it, we are using some Cisco hardware that we had available and some of the existing hardware within our data center. We have it on the web right now, but going forward, we are also moving some of their solution to the cloud.

We are using the application virtualization capabilities, on-premise desktop virtualization, cloud-hosted desktop virtualization, remote PC and physical desktop access.

The solution simplifies adherence to industry regulations for data protection and for compliance. Overall, from a cyber security point of view, in terms of data leakage as well as patches and upgrades that are required to be deployed to multiple endpoints, Citrix makes it very simple. That clearly helps in terms of mitigating risks at a very early stage.

The security of our intellectual property and data is enhanced because of the roles we have defined very precisely. People only have access to the data they are supposed to have access to.

The most valuable features of Citrix are the remote desktop advantages and the remote desktop environment for our remote users.

When it comes to the security and protection of critical business applications and desktops, it works very well. We were able to achieve what we were looking to do using the Citrix solution. It provides all of the features required for the protection of data. For example, we don't want to allow any copy/paste of data to an outside environment, and we are able to restrict the VDI to not allow any data transfer from the VDI to the local laptop's hard drives. That is one of the greatest advantages the solution provides. We also lock the USB.

We get complete control using the single, cloud control pane of Citrix. Using it, we can control the deployment of VDIs, which helps.

There is room for improvement because it has a lot of dependency on Active Directory and other things. If they could come up with something similar and native, a complete solution portfolio would help.

We have been using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops for about one year.

As of now, we don't have any plans to increase our usage. Our consumption has been good during COVID, but we have been able to achieve what was required from our existing licenses.

There were some issues initially, in terms of the requirements, and there were some delays.

We did not have a previous solution.

Once we entered into an agreement to use the service, it took three to four months before we could start using it. The initial setup at our end to use the service took about a month to a month and a half. It was complex to some extent in our scenario, but as we worked on it and did a deep dive, we were able to do what was required for the deployment.

In general, they met our expectations for services delivered on time, on budget, and on spec.

We had our enterprise architect team and the project teams deploying the solution, as well as the respective business people who would be working very closely with their end-users. It was a team of 45 to 50 people. For maintenance, we have administrators as well as people who handle the required setup for the environment and who do troubleshooting.

We had help from a Citrix partner. From a project management standpoint, I would rate them at eight out of 10. The project management resources are not available from Citrix itself. They have to rely on partners and, sometimes, the partners also have to rely on the OEM.

The prices quoted initially were on the very high side, and there was room for negotiations, considering the competition and the options that are available directly from Microsoft now. The Microsoft options were not that mature at the time we were looking for a solution.

We looked at other solutions to some extent, but Citrix had already been in the market for a long time, so we started using Citrix. 

Citrix does not have its own hypervisor and VMware was very close competition. It would have also been a good, equivalent choice and there would not have been a problem using it. Then we looked at the financials and that aspect was left to the procurement department for negotiations. Overall, we gave a slightly higher rating to the VMware product, but senior management said that they would like to go with Citrix.

My advice would be to look at the options available and at your specific requirements. You need to find the best match for the overall integration of your ecosystem in terms of how it is with Office 365. And you may be using multiple SaaS solutions. The product you choose should be able to match all of those requirements.

The biggest lesson is that, during COVID, Citrix has come in handy for us for working remotely. It's a good solution.

The solution provides the flexibility of being used on most devices, but not on every device. It covers 80 to 85 percent of devices. In terms of the user experience, when we asked employees to work on the VDI, they were not entirely happy, considering the performance compared with a normal laptop or a desktop. But overall, the user experience is good, an eight or 8.5 out of 10.

The solution has enabled us, as an organization, to embrace thin-client computing, but I wouldn't say we have seen savings as a result. Citrix cannot function alone for organizations that have Office 365 deployed. Office 365 forces you to pay for a lot of other solutions and services that Citrix also has to rely on.

LG Uplus is using Citrix for internal groupware. Every employee here uses Citrix to access the VDI to make some Word documents or PowerPoint presentations. We are not allowed to use our local PC resources at all. 

The second use for my team's project is that we are reviewing the potential for a virtualization solution for our customers, who are mainly video editors. We offer them a low-price alternative. Instead of buying our high-end desktops or workstations, they can save money by virtualizing some application solutions. 

This is deployed in LG CNS, which is a subsidiary of the LG group. Most LF subsidiary companies are a part of the LG CNS solution. LG CNS solution is combined with Citrix, which means that if you work with LG CNS, you have no choice but to use Citrix.

First, since we adopted the Citrix VDI, we are no longer dealing with the problem of leaking the customer's personal information. Second, we aren't investing a lot of money in buying new personal laptops. With the VDI, we aren't relying on a high-core CPU or memory in each employee's laptop. Because the functions that require a lot of memory and CPU are happening in the cloud, we can just give the employee a basic Pentium CPU laptop.

The Virtual Desktop Interface is very important because we have many departments for customer service. For example, we have operational storage and also we have a customer call center. Most of the customers are calling about a security problem. 

Before we adopted a VDI storage solution, our customers' personal information was leaked. This happened a lot. But since we adopted a VDI solution, these kinds of issues have happened rarely. Of course, we banned each user from installing or sharing software, like peer-to-peer sharing software. There is no chance that a single user could leak personal information by mistake through unauthorized access.

Virtualized solutions are very important. Because of the high-speed internet service here, I think the virtualization application solution can be adopted in a B2C market for customer service.

We've tested a lot of cases with the Citrix solution and found that it's okay when the Citrix virtualized solution is adopted over the laptop or desktop. But it has some latency issues—a lag between the input device and screen—when we test it with a smartphone or tablet. The reason that users use the virtualized desktop is they want to access a Windows 10 application, but they need their keyboard and mouse. Every employee complains about the performance or quality of their VDI. After we adopted the security solution, I think the performance is quite better. But employees are still complaining about the speed of the VDI.

Latency is also a major problem when adopting Citrix for video editing software or 3D editing software, especially editing 4K video or large file size. The Citrix virtualized solution becomes too slow, so we cannot use the VDI. For the streaming, Citrix needs to improve its screen resolution problems because this is a market trend. We produce and use a lot of high-density videos. If Citrix cannot improve these kinds of issues, then we might not be able to use VDI anymore two or three years from now.

Citrix doesn't offer any solutions for the virtualization of macOS, either. I think we could use that kind of service.

It's been around 10 years or so.

I would rate it very low actually. Because here in Korea, most of them are for sales, not technical assistance. For developing some applications, we have to choose or test virtualized applications. But call up Citrix agencies—sales agencies—they say they cannot solve the technical issues. We have to find some technical references through the internet or through developers who have some experience with Citrix.

Internally, the IT department uses Citrix. For developing customer service for my team's product, I use Hyper-V's client solution instead of Citrix, because the price of the Citrix virtualized application solution is too high. Citrix only provides the B2B license here, so they don't have any B2C license. I use Hyper-V-based applications and virtualized solutions because of the price issues.

I think it was very complex. It was difficult to install Citrix by ourselves, but we have an IT department and a PC maintenance department. The initial setup required around three people. But after the initial deployment, most employees don't have any trouble with installing Citrix solutions. For each user, it takes around half an hour. For example, I broke my laptop and had to get a new laptop. I personally asked the IT and PC maintenance departments to install the systems again. It took them around 30 minutes.

We have a dedicated IT department. They have a contract with Citrix and they're employed here. 

It's tough to say whether we've really seen any cost savings. Many people don't believe the Citrix solution lowered the total cost of the whole system. But I think if we adopt an application virtualizing service, then we can reduce costs a little bit more. 

Currently, everyone here is using the same public cloud server resources for every software. but if we adopt a virtualized application solution, then the IT department can choose which software needs a lot of resources and which can adopt lower-tier public cloud resources. That way, we can save a lot of infrastructure costs.

It's my understanding that the solution license fee for each user is around $300 US. If we buy a personal laptop for each employee every five years, then the total cost is five times $300 US, or $1,500 USD. So we could buy 100 personal laptops instead of the Citrix solution. If we compare the cost of a high-performance laptop and the price of the Citrix solution, the total cost savings is very small. But we can improve the security issue.

I think the speed and latency of Hyper-V are quite good, but one thing I worry about is the security issues. Our internally developed client for the Hyper-V solution doesn't have as many security solutions as Citrix does. As I recall, LG CNS has its own VDI solution. At this moment, there are some solutions that can replace Citrix, like FreeVDI, an open-source VDI, for example. We have tried using those kinds of service solutions in some departments, but they didn't quite meet our expectations.

I would rate Citrix seven out of 10.

As a care provider we provide hospital and community health services with around 3,200 staff at the hospital and a further 650 community staff who work in local clinics and in patients' homes. On 1^st April 2020, we acquired our first primary care practice as part of our move towards being an integrated care system.

In terms of Citrix our biggest use case is for remote access and remote control. The former provides a VPN connection and the latter a published desktop. Prior to the onset of the COVID virus we had a 200 concurrent connection license covering both types of connection but today, following an NetScaler upgrade we now have a license for 1,000 concurrent users. Typically we're running 500 to 600 connections out to those locations every day.

Our hospital systems are a mix of SaaS and on-premises solutions. Our primary clinical platform is the Cerner Millennium electronic patient record (EPR) system, and that is delivered entirely over Citrix. However, we also use Citrix on-premises to deliver a range of services, including modern workspace, sharefile, load balancing (over 4 NetScaler’s) and of course remote control and remote access. Recently we have been working with Citrix to develop a thin-client workstation-on-wheels, for use on our hospital wards and believe this to be the first of its type. That's really where the relationship with Citrix has stepped up, because we're doing some new, innovative work.

We've consolidated all of our previous licenses into the latest version of the Citrix Workspace Premium Plus package to optimise the value received from the investment and are shortly to tender for a new support package that we expect will see us engage directly with Citrix.

The Citrix technologies allows us to do some clever things. For example, it has enabled our Radiologists review images that are quite large at home. Imagine trying to squeeze a 20Gb mammogram down a broadband connection, it is simply not practical. Yet by combining the Citrix technology with a specialist workstation from our Imaging partner, we're now able to have radiologists working successfully from home, reviewing MRIs, CTs, plain films, etc., because all we're sending are keystrokes and screen updates.

In terms of Security. Our organization has achieved the Cyber Essentials Plus security accreditation. My organization takes security very seriously. In fact, as far as I know, we're the only hospital in our region that has three full-time staff who work on security within the IT department. We very much take that Zero Trust position and ensure that we provide the necessary policies and controls to protect our organization, but not to the point where we impact our agility or flexibility in terms of supporting people who genuinely have a need.

We've built a strategic relationship with Citrix and we use a lot of their products for everything that we do. I would rate the Citrix stack highly as an end-to-end solution for implementing Zero Trust principles. It's allowed us to do a lot of things quickly and flexibly, and some of the functionality that has become available as we've moved into the newer, more advanced versions of the Citrix software, have proved very beneficial.

Among the most valuable features is the Citrix Workspace, which allows us to drive that thin-client connection and the remote control/remote access capabilities. Those things have allowed us to connect an awful lot of people quickly from home and that's obviously helped during the pandemic. There's a concern right now that a second wave of the Corona pandemic is on its way so we're gearing up now to enable a second wave of staff work either from home or from an alternate location. This way we can reduce the number of non-clinical staff in the hospital whilst not degrading the services we provide in any way. Fundamentally we are seeking to keep the number of staff working at the hospital down to only those who actually need to be there.

The user experience, when using Citrix technology remotely, is very good. It's easy to use and I say that with some authority because I've been working from home now for about six months. I've been able to do my role as the CIO entirely from home. I log on through the Citrix gateway first thing in the morning when I start the day and I stay logged in until 5:30 or 6:00 o'clock at night. I've been able to gain access pretty much whenever I want and it's just two clicks to get me there.

I've got friends who work on the wards who use the Citrix client on our workstations-on-wheels and they find it relatively easy. They load the Citrix client, they click on the link to the EPR, and that's it, off they go. Because it's a thin client, because we're not dragging huge amounts of stuff over the network, they get very good performance out of their equipment. And that's allowed us to extend the life of some of our very early workstations-on-wheels. Some of them are now four years old and are coming up for replacement. Indeed that's what we've been doing with Citrix, building the next generation of workstations-on-wheels, to benefit from what we've learned by working with Citrix and partners to deploy this new technology.

The prototype is built and is currently being tested. When we go live we'll see a big step forward in terms of the performance, a notable increase in battery life and the corresponding reduction in the number of times the unit has to be recharged.Those are things that our nurses have told us will be of benefit to them.

The solution also provides the flexibility of being used on any device. We have a mixture of Windows PCs, Android mobile devices, Apple tablets and other Apple devices. We have Citrix installed on all of those and it allows our users to use these devices for any number of things. They can use it for clinical access, bringing patient data quickly to the clinician. For example one such system is the EDM (electronic document management) system that holds the scans of all of our paper documents and using Citrix staff can switch between the EPR and EDM and so get a complete picture of the patient's health. On a more basic note it can also be used to access tasks lists, calendars and email – helping to manage busy lives at a time when hospital staff are working under extreme pressure.

It affects the employee experience in a very positive way because of the way in which we have combined the remote connectivity with the Citrix tools. That means that as long as you have the right level of authorization, you can access a great deal of information from anywhere, and you can do it in one of two ways. If you have a hospital device that belongs to the Trust, then you've got a very high level of access to a lot of information because we can then employ end-to-end security. But if you're at home and you're using your home computer, you can still connect. It's just that there is no data transfer and the performance is less through the published desktop than it would be through the remote connection. But both situations work really well and, obviously, have been tested very severely with the Coronavirus where, very quickly, we had to give a lot of people the ability to work from home. One of the ways we did that was to allow them to use their own computers and come in through the Citrix desktop connection.

It takes a little bit of work upfront to get it configured and operable, but given the length of time we've been working with Citrix and the strength of our relationship, we're normally able to get any glitches ironed out and resolved quickly. That allows us to provide both a strong suite of applications to our users and a good user experience.

In terms of automated analytics to detect serious performance issues, what happens is that Citrix work with us and provide a monthly health check. This service monthly provides a series of analytics reports and tell us that it's all working, or if there is any issue they work with us to get it resolved.

Where improvement could be driven is in terms of clarity as to the functionality of some of the solutions. If you go back to the older Citrix Xen products that we had, we understood those really well. As we've come into the new workstation premium suite, there is a lot of additional functionality that we perhaps have not yet fully exploited. It is not because we can't, but simply because we don't yet understand the depth of functionality that's offered.

We made the upgrade to the Workspace suite last year we had planned to train this year but then the pandemic struck. We've only had one thing on our minds since March and that's how do we keep the hospital running? How do we make sure we keep people safe? And how do we treat patients in the face of a once-in-a-century experience?

Citrix have offered to help with demos or presentations of these new features, but we also simply haven't had time to dive in.

I joined the Trust on the third of January, 2017. At that point the Trust was already engaged with Citrix, so it's at least five years or more.

The solution is absolutely rock-solid. I'm almost scared to say this, but throughout the whole stress of what we've been through over the last six or seven months due to COVID, Citrix hasn't missed a beat. It's been solid and reliable. We've had no downtime. It's been absolutely on the money, and given how critical it has been to get people connected and working, the 100 percent reliability has made me very happy.

We're happy with the scalability. We were able to increase a 200-user solution to a 1,000-user solution simply by buying an upgrade to the license. We chose to buy two additional NetScalers, bringing our total to four, but that was largely because we bought the initial upgrade from 200 to 1,000 to allow us to connect the 640 staff who work in the community. But then, the hospital's need for remote access and remote control overtook that. That's what drove us then to buy a second set of NetScalers because we didn't really want to put some 4,000 users through just one gateway (pair). We felt having two gateways would be safer from a resilience point of view. And having two NetScalers per gateways means that we can take one down to do maintenance updates without disrupting the service.

In the next couple of months, we'll start to plan what next year's digital program looks like. The way in which we operate is that through November, December and January we engage with operational and clinical colleagues to determine how we are going to exploit IT to enable transformation going forward. We then build a digital program for our Digital Board to sign off on. As we go through that exercise, looking at how we can deliver better healthcare for our patients and improve the clinical experience, we will be looking to Citrix to help us understand how we can better exploit the new software that we've invested in. Normally by now, having bought it last year, we would have been well into it, but the pandemic has somewhat focused our minds elsewhere.

Given that we are building these new, next-generation workstations for use in the clinical areas, it's been great to see just how much support and help we've had from our partners including Citrix. They've recognized that it is something new, that it is something that will help hospitals (not just ours) to deliver services that are more reliable and quicker in busy clinic areas and on wards. It's been a huge pleasure to work with some of their very senior people on a project of this scale.

You often find when you're working with tech organizations, and you step it up to do something that's not straight out of the sales catalog, that some step up well and some don't. Citrix have really stepped up well. They've kept in close contact with us, they've supported the design and they've helped us to consider options at the build level. We're delighted with that. We've built a prototype that's being tested at the moment and we look forward to that going into production. We'll probably hold some sort of press event to talk about what we've done. It's the strength of the partnership that we enjoy with Citrix has allowed us to do that.

The very initial setup was done before I arrived at the Trust, but I have been involved in all the major iterations that we've gone through since. Some of them were relatively easy to do, others were more complex. Getting the license upgrade to increase the number of remote access sessions and upping the size and capability of the gateway was relatively easy. It took a few phone calls, purchasing of the license, and off you go. But configuring the VPN and the Citrix published desktop so that they work within the security model that we have did take more work than we had originally expected.

In some aspects, when you bring software products together from three different vendors, there is always a little work to do to get APIs aligned and to get the solutions talking to each other so that the user then gets a very slick experience. We do such things all the time with our IT department usually spending the most time on testing, especially when the solution is for use with patients. We seek to ensure that when we hand something to a busy doctor, a senior nurse or a therapist that they don't need to have an enormous amount of tech knowledge to be able to use it. They just click on the buttons, enter the information and press go, and it does what it needs to do.

In terms of how long these updates take, the remote access and remote control was a solution that was built for 200 concurrent users. Today, it's built for 1,000 concurrent users. It probably took about two weeks to agree on exactly what software license we needed to buy, about a week to procure it, and about three hours to embed it. That was quick and easy to do. 

In terms of the Citrix desktop, we couple that with a second form of authentication that comes from a third-party, and that took six to seven weeks. It didn't take that long to get it to work—we got it to work quite quickly—but it took that long to get it to work smoothly. It took time to work with the three different application vendors that were involved and iron out the bugs and make it work as we wanted. But most of it, particularly where it's just us dealing directly with Citrix, happens quickly and easily.

If you think about our ability to continue to operate as a healthcare organization during the pandemic, without Citrix we would have struggled. We would have found it very difficult to have so many people able to continue doing their day jobs from locations other than their normal bases. It is therefore fair to say that the ROI on our connectivity investment was excellent. Yet this does not stand in isolation as the delivery of our electronic patient record system using clinical workstations-on-wheels is all built over Citrix technology. Absolutely, for every pound we've spent, we've seen a good ROI.

I'm happy with the pricing. The cost of the Citrix software reflects what I would expect a product of that nature, in that market, to be.

Understanding the licensing is quite a bit more complicated, because one of the things about Citrix is that you can buy licensing at different levels. You can buy a basic license, which will give you the core functionality. You can buy an advanced license that will give you the core plus another layer, or you can buy a premium license, which provides a much wider set of functionalities. In truth I still struggle with some of the variations but with the aid of our reseller we usually find what we are looking for. Yet I still like the idea because it means that if all you need is a basic load balancing solution, then you don't need to buy an advanced or premium license. On the other hand, if you want to use the extra features that come with those higher-grade licenses, you can choose to do so, but you only pay for what you need.

The only comparable I can think of is that we use software from a different party for virtualizing servers. But we were aware that in terms of the ICA-type protocol, Citrix was the product that everyone was saying was the best. Indeed, I've worked with Citrix for a very long time - I guess a little over 20 years, so I never had really had any intentions of looking anywhere else because I believe that it's the right tool, to do what we need. In truth I have not seen any compelling evidence to make me think otherwise.

My advice is to spend more time planning than you do implementing. Get what you need—the components that make up the solution—all agreed and lined up before you then commence the build work. I know that's really easy for someone like me to say, when you're under pressure and your organization needs something built very quickly. Therefore, to make sure that you generate the most benefit from your investment and you drive the features that really help, spending a little more time in the planning phase and making sure that you've got the right type of license, the right application or appliance required to do the job as this will save a lot of rebuild work or remodelling work down the line. It will also mean that if you want to grow it for scaling purposes, it will be far easier to do if you've thought about that before you implement the solution.

One of the lessons I have learned from using this solution is the fact that we have been able to be agile and respond to the needs of the organization through the use of the product. That has been a very good side of things. Another side of the lessons learned is that when we paid for the upgrade to move to the premium suite, we could have engaged earlier with Citrix to understand the additional functionality. We knew ahead of time that there was additional functionality, but in terms of the detail, we didn't get into that and then we got overtaken by the pandemic. In a normal year that wouldn't have mattered, but the lesson I've learned is that if we take an upgrade in the future, if we take the next step forward to a next generation of that software, I want to try to ensure that the purchase and the training of my engineers are closely coupled.

As for protecting our environment, we use Citrix Gateway, but the single sign-on is provided by another partner of ours. We have Tap and Go, Remote PC Access, Web App Gateway. We do have Web/URL filtering, but not from Citrix.

In terms of maintaining the solution, I have resources at both 2^nd and 3^rd line engineering that have Citrix skills and who look after the day-to-day stuff. In addition we have a contract through a Citrix partner and so can escalate calls that we can't handle. We spent time and effort putting our engineers through Citrix training. But occasionally, something comes up and we're not able to resolve it. At that point, we log a call via the partner and the partner's engineers, and Citrix's own engineers, get involved. Normally that results in a relatively quick resolution. The Citrix engineers clearly know the product really well. They'll quite often say, "Oh, we've seen this before. You need to do this or that or the other." As I said, we've had very few issues with reliability on the Citrix platform so those calls are actually quite rare.

Overall, I love it. It's been a really good product. It's helped my organization and helped me to deliver what the organization wants. For me, Citrix takes 10 out of 10.

For example, right now I'm at home, and my connection to the hospital runs over the Citrix VPN that we've created. We also have Citrix Remote PC Access, so if you are home and you're on your own computer, rather than one that belongs to the hospital, you can access the published desktop rather than having full VPN access.

We're a fairly big Citrix customer. We're doing some quite ground breaking stuff with them. We're beyond just being a customer. Traditionally, Citrix is positioned in the marketplace as a manufacturer. They sell through channels and the customer deals primarily with the partner. Because of the amount of work we've done, we primarily deal directly with Citrix themselves. There is a partner involved because that's the only way of doing the sales component of it, so if we want to buy something that has to be through the channel. But the work that we're doing is being done alongside engineers who are employed by Citrix rather than by the partner.

For virtual desktops, like Windows 10 or Windows 7, we primarily use the solution to offer some customized applications to the users. 

Some of the basic applications, like Windows applications, are being used across all VDIs. 

The usage depends on the specific customer. They decide what applications they want to have in their VDI. We have certain items as far as their requirements, and we just manage the infrastructure in the background.

Citrix tends to have the most capabilities surrounding desktops.

The application virtualization is very, very good.

The customer is always looking for a unified solution. They need a single place where everything can be managed from while using a web application. With Citrix's system, there's an administrative tool and a helpdesk tool. Those two tools are very different, and the Citrix administrative tool is not meant for web-based use. It's in a heavy application. If they could build it into their web-based applications, that would be ideal. That way, administrators can log in from anywhere on any browser and they can just manage the environment in the background. 

Citrix does not have an in depth assessment tool. Some customers ask for components in Citrix that can give information around the hypervisor's resources or in-depth metrics of the hypervisor's site. There is a free tool from Citrix, however, it does not give you the deeper information of the other components like hypervisor or the OS or the storage, or downloads in the network. Those are the limitations of that particular tool right now. We might need to use a third party tool to gain that information. 

If Citrix can develop something which can have more reach towards the backend infrastructure, other components of the Citrix environment, that would be ideal. 

We've most likely been using the solution for over eight years at this point.

Citrix is one of the companies that is delivering virtual apps and desktops in a big way. They are mature enough to understand the level of stability required and deliver it. 

Now, they are moving towards the cloud and offering everything as a service. The redundancy part is already taken care of by the company. 

We have many components and have controlled redundancies. From the end-user side, a user won't see any disruption in the services. That's due to the fact that the infrastructure in the background is highly available. Elasticity is also introduced. We're always building provisioning desktops on-demand and shutting the machines that are not in demand. 

We have certain policies defined in the infrastructure in the background, which can enable our administrators to utilize the resources as they need them. Therefore, it's quite stable.

We use this solution ourselves in our own organization and have a 60,000-70,000 userbase currently. We have more than 40 customers within the virtual workspace. Most are medium-sized entities. A few have 20,000-40,000 users. We'll be adding another client in healthcare that has about 20,000 desktops.

Scalability is not an issue. You can scale up to any number. There's only the requirement of adding the infrastructure and building that horizontally. You'll need to set up the different components horizontally. For example, if we have a 10,000 user base, then we can probably have 10 master servers. If the user base is around 40,000, then we can double the master servers so that they can take up the load.

We often contact technical support.

They are very engaged, whenever we have an issue. They are very helpful. Most of the time, whenever we run into an issue where we need to reach out to Citrix they are available to us.

We do not support only Citrix. We also support the backend infrastructure and hosting infrastructure that are also Citrix products. If it's tied to another product, such as Microsoft, they'll work together to resolve whatever the issue is. 

We haven't found any difficulty in working with them. It's rare that we'd need to reach out to other vendors as well as Citrix (usually once in a quarter), however, if it happens, we know Citrix will do what they can to work with all parties.

We do not exclusively work with Citrix. It's much more high-end than other services, however, we do also offer, for example, VMware and Horizon.

The initial setup is very simple currently. Earlier we used to install many components separately. Now, we have a basic software installation setup. We can build the environment in a few hours. It does not take much time now. Earlier, we used to have to secure the servers, for example. It is all virtualized. One administrator can build the environment from scratch and in a very short period of time. It's not complex now. Earlier it was, but not anymore.

The deployment time depends on the sizing of the environment. If the customer is looking for only 500 desktops, it takes one day to build everything. If there is planning involved, and there are some different components or key bits and pieces that the administrator needs to collect, it might take a bit longer.

If it is in a scalable environment that's sized, for example, at 1,000, 10,000, or 20,000, it will definitely take time. This is due to the fact that we need to choose the appropriate technology for the background. We need to figure out if the customer's willing to have a provision desktop, basically. That all depends on what the customer size is and what the customer requirements are.

We also offer managed services, so we can help our clients manage everything once the solution is fully deployed.

Our team can help implement the solution for our clients. That said, I don't handle the process directly myself.

Citrix is competitive, however, at the same time, they give great service. VMware, Horizon, or other VDI solutions may be cheaper. That said, they do not have the same capability that Citrix has. 

We offer other VDI solutions like Microsoft WVDs and the VMware's Horizon, that are on the cheaper side. It's up to the customer, what they want to do. If they want to have premium services, we will host their VDIs on Citrix system components only. That will give them better features and better capabilities or maybe less frustration on the user experience side.

We offer cloud and managed services offerings as well as environments hosted on our data center. We have a variety of options and therefore can offer a variety of prices according to what they need/want.

We're currently using the latest version of the solution.

While we mostly work with on-premises deployments, we also occasionally handle cloud deployments as well. 

We have our internal Cloud offering. Form there, we have a managed data center and within our company's premises, the customers are just subscribing to services based on their need for virtual desktops.

I would recommend the product. It's an industry leader in the VDI environment. Nobody can match their capabilities right now.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten overall. If they had better capability testing, I might rate it higher.

The primary use case is for organizations with a large number of users, such as warehouses or production facilities. In these environments, users access a few applications from multiple computers. Citrix Workspace simplifies the deployment of these applications by installing them on the session host and distributing them to the users. 

From my perspective, the most valuable feature is the manageability. Citrix Workspace offers a wide range of options and makes the deployment procedure much easier.

Some customers find the price to be a significant factor. They have a hard time understanding the extra cost of the services. However, in the long term, I have seen a more stable business due to using Citrix Workspace.

I have been working with Citrix Workspace for many years.

It has been very stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

It is a scalable solution. It is easy to scale. Around four customers are using this solution. 

The deployment varies depending on the client and their specific requirements. For example, some of our clients in the healthcare industry have specific applications and data that require special handling.

The deployment model depends on how you define a cloud-based solution. We host the session host and deployment in our data center, and customers connect directly to our data centers from their offices. So, we provide the infrastructure, but it may differ for different users based on whether they use the workspace plugin or have their own clients.

It's a monthly subscription. Some customers find the price to be expensive. Because first, they have to pay for Microsoft Remote Desktop user accounts, and then on top of that, they need Citrix accounts. It's not exactly double the cost, but it's a significant increase. Some customers are sensitive to costs, but some have started to understand why they need to pay for all the services.

If you only have a few users, it's hard to justify the costs. So using this solution will depend on individual use cases. 

I like this solution. Overall, I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

I use the solution to give my workers access to several application in the form of Citrix internal applications for the company.

We had an old software that our servers did not support. So we moved to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops for cyber engineering in India and Mexico.

The support offered by Citrix's partner needs to improve. The partner support platform should aim to provide more technical information to users.

The solution is very expensive, including the license, and the support, of all the platforms.

For example, the solution of Microsoft, if you are partnered with Microsoft, you have access to the license, and you only need the variable servers from the virtualization with Microsoft.

I have been using the solution for six years.

It is a stable solution. We don't usually have problems with the platform, but escalating the issue is difficult.

It is a very scalable solution. In the last semester, we updated the video graphics on the virtualization and video 3D graphics for the simulation on the hardware, and it was implemented in three days. It took six to seven months to get the GUI and firewall, but that was because of the problem in the country rather than Citrix. Four thousand users are using the solution presently.

The technical support with Citrix is a nine but support with a partner is a four. So the problem with support is not with Citrix. It is more with the partner who was supposed to provide the solution.

Positive

Talking of my own experience, I have tried VMware and Microsoft Hyper- V solutions. But here in the company, Citrix is the only solution.

We recommended a partnership the first time we bought it from Citrix and Citrix. The partnership was closed several years ago, and the new partner could be better. It's not good. Now, Citrix has been bought by another company.

It's costly in the market. But it is not expensive for the company. For the company, it's relatively inexpensive because the core of the work is compensated with the price. Secondly, the price is included in the cost of the business.

Presently, we are in the process of evaluating other competitive solutions and collecting their names. I must propose an error to show why we must change or stay with Citrix.

People planning to use Citrix must take the right decision for their firm rather than evaluate the cost from the start. 

It is a robust solution. I rate it a nine out of ten.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is used to control our virtual machines and provide access to our devices from anywhere.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is capable of deploying and managing all servers or virtual desktop infrastructures.

The cost of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is high and has room for improvement.

The technical support is slow and has room for improvement.

I am currently using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a stable solution.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a scalable solution.

The quality of technical support is very poor. Insufficient staffing has resulted in delays in responding to tickets.

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment process is simple. We just need to deploy the VDI server and its VDA.

The implementation is completed in-house.

Citrix licensing is expensive.

If we deploy in Azure, Microsoft has an advantage over Citrix because it provides effective solutions for deployment and management.

I give Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops a ten out of ten.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is recommended for midsize and enterprise companies because it is not affordable for smaller organizations.

I recommend conducting an analysis of the organization's requirements and compiling a list of viable solutions before proceeding to a proof of concept.

We use the solution for remote desktop access. 

The solution is deployed on the Citrix cloud.

The App is the most valuable feature.

Citrix should consolidate the multiple tools currently required into a single platform. At present, to access all the features, I need to log in to four separate locations and use four distinct tools.

I have been using the solution for four years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is affordable.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

I use the tool to connect to the other apps of the company.

The tool helps me to connect with some apps of our company and resolve the tickets.

I have to re-enter my user password when I am not using the tool for some time around ten minutes. I want to also improve the need to download other Citrix apps.

I have used the solution for two weeks.

I would rate the solution’s stability a seven out of ten. The tool’s download time is slow.

I would rate the tool’s scalability a nine out of ten.

The solution’s setup is simple.

I would rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

My use case for this product is to connect to secure environments. I'm the owner of the company and a user of Workspace. 

This is a simple solution and I like that I can connect remotely. 

I think there could be better integration with other vendors. If you install it on  a Mac, you get a message to say it's not working properly. I'm not sure why they'd develop a product not supported by Mac. 

I believe the solution is stable. 

The solution works as expected and I rate it 10 out of 10.