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.
