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

The main features that I felt were valuable to our organization were:

• Ability to manage iOS and Android mobile devices.
• Application white/black listing.
• Comprehensive rule based policies with relative parity between platforms.

In this case it was an upgrade from XenMobile 8.6 so it was an upgrade to maintain support from the vendor. The main areas of improvement would be around reporting and integration with ShareFile and access to the Worx suite of mobile applications (WorxMail, WorxWeb, WorxNotes).

Even with professional services, deployment can be a challenge; especially when integrating with Exchange when rolling out WorxMail (as an alternative over the native mail clients to containerize and restrict access content). Support is also an area that we struggled with; inconsistent quality between support analysts.

I have used XenMobile for a little over 2 years.

We did encounter deployment issues. Integration with the NetScaler appliances and ShareFile were two of them but one of the biggest issues was around the wrapping of the Worx apps. As the Worx applications were updated, the wrapping tools would periodically also require updates but the releases were sometimes out of sync. Support also was limited with application wrapping. It would have been nice if Citrix Support would have dedicated more staff training for the Worx apps, the wrapping of them and how they are deployed.

XenMobile v9 was relatively stable once it was up and running. After Citrix professional services left the site, we spent another couple of months tweaking and testing before we were willing to migrate our devices to the new environment.

We did not encounter any scalability issues.

When you are dealing with the pre-sales teams and the professional services teams, they are really good. Our experience was that typically, if they didn’t know the answer to something, they had access to resources that could bring you closer to a resolution.

This is one area that concerned me with Citrix. I know that during our deployment, Citrix was making some changes internally and it’s possible that we just got caught in that change. But over the two years that I had access to Enterprise support, it was touch and go getting access to a quality engineer who knew how to actually resolve an issue rather than read it out of a prepared script. We always tried make our calls early in the day when we knew we would get access to support either in North America or UK/Germany/Ireland; otherwise it was always a game of phone tag when dealing with some of the other global call centres.

We did not use a previous solution. We upgraded from a previous version of XenMobile as we had a significant investment in the Citrix stack already.

Initial setup was complex. We had integration into ShareFile, AppController (for the Mobile Application Management -MAM), NetScalers and then we tried to deploy the mobile apps at the same time, so we could get away from ActiveSync. I felt that the complexity simply increased with the addition of integration points. Even our professional services team had difficulties at times as the products are complex on their own, much less when you are trying to get them to work together. I would recommend phasing the deployments, if your schedule permits. Start with getting XenMobile and the AppController up and running first, wrap and deploy the Worx apps and then worry about ShareFile later in the project. The secondary concern is for the end user, because it’s a lot of change to to cope with if there is a "Big Bang" approach.

We used Citrix’s professional services for the engagement. While they were very easy to deal with and tried to accommodate our design, I think they were still new to their roles.

Sit down and seriously review your mobility strategy. If you don’t have one, draft something before you get started. Consider where you feel your organization is going to be in the next 2 to 5 years. I would consider an mobile device management (MDM) solution to have a lifespan of about 3 years as they have to adapt to a series of vendors (Apple, Google, Samsung, etc.) that move a lot faster than they do.

Determine what features you are planning to roll out to your users over this timeframe (i.e. access to internal documentation [ShareFile], access to Internet sites [WorxWeb], etc.) as Citrix has a variety of options that can affect which licenses you will need and where you can save money. If you have an existing Citrix investment, look at the Enterprise licensing as you get quite a bit extra,(such as ShareFile for free).

We did not evaluate alternatives due to our existing Citrix investment, so we opted to stay with Citrix.

XenMobile is a good, stable product, but make sure you investigate what features you are looking to roll out and decide whether XenMobile isn’t overkill. Depending on what want to deploy, you may need to examine your resource requirements to not just deploy, but support as well. Training isn’t cheap for any Citrix course but XenMobile from an administration perspective, is pretty simple to learn.

The stars from this solution are its NetScaler and profile manager.

This was a breakthrough for us; we reduced our user base from 2000 client machines with Windows OS and all applications installed on all computers and so on, to 40 application servers and 2000 thin clients that don’t need any management. If one has a problem, it’s replaced.

Many of the improvements that we have identified for this version already appear in the newer version. For this version, we thought they could improve management access to the applications, organization in the console, and revise server management – these are in newer versions.

The solution has been in production for three years.

The solution has been in production for three years with no major problems; zero down time from the solution.

No scalability issues at all; in the beginning, we had only 20 application servers and 900 users. At this time, we have double the application servers and more than double the number of users. The process was straightforward.

The level of support is very good. We have support from a company that is Citrix certified and if we need some core development, such as in the client for end users, Citrix had been wonderful.

I did not previously use a different solution. This was the solution that we chose for the business need that we had at the time. And from the search conducted at the time, this was the best solution for us.

The solution was straightforward; it’s like, if all of the network requirements have been done, it takes 4-6 hours to have the infrastructure working in a production environment.

Thera are two types of licensing, per user or per device. This is a point that needs a lot of attention. It varies from case to case. In the infrastructure that I administrate, the (concurrent) per-user license was the best choice.

At the time, we did not evaluate other options. This was the best solution available for us.

Citrix have online sites that help designing, planning and implementing the solution; use them.

It’s a strong solution for application virtualization. Works on a Windows server base, so compatibility with applications is easier.

The most valuable feature of this product for me is that it provides secure access anywhere from any device.

This product has improved my organization by provide access to the Intranet application and website over the internet over SSL from any device.

This product should include a feature like like App Volume, which their competitor already has.

Also, the Hypervisor needs to be improved.

I have been working with this product for the last four years. I have done many projects on Citrix XenDesktop.

I did not have any deployment issues. For a PoC, it is an easy one-day setup.

Technical support in India is awesome and are equipped with the required technical solutions.

Initial setup was straightforward. It's a single-server setup in a simple environment and can be scalable at any point of time.

ROI is always a challenge for VDI if the number of users is less than 200. It all depends upon the organisational requirement.

In comparison to Citrix XenDesktop, VMware Horizon is a very good product. However, some features such as Sharefile and Netscaler complete the Citrix story.

Go for this product without any thinking. If you are looking for security and a single point of management, then go with this product.

The user experience is comparable to XenApp (our past presentation server), with the same look and feel as a normal full desktop in the head office.

It still uses ICA protocol, which means we did not have to increase the WAN bandwidth to deliver same user experience across all the sites. We did not have to increase telco cost to provide same user experience from sites outside of the head office.

In the past, when we were using the presentation server from Citrix, login time was taking up to eight minutes. XenDesktop reduced login time to less than two minutes. Managers who move around can take their work at any point in time to a new location without having to login from scratch. That increased productivity.

Our organisation has not been successful in delivering a multi-media experience via VDIs. This is one of the areas we are hoping to improve by upgrading to version 7.8.

I have been using this solution for more than four years.

Stability issues due to storage performance caused initial grief. Now it is working. We are using dedicated VDIs for users. We have half of the 1200 VDIs running from one DC and the rest from a secondary DC.

Scalability is good, but it required a lot of learning while our organisation were going through it.

Citrix support was good. They can always do better.

Since we already were using Citrix presentation server, our migration met the same look and feel requirement for the business. Citrix XenDesktop is the leading product for VDIs.

Initial backend infrastructure was easy for our organisation for VMWare and storage, because we were already running VMWare for server virtualisation. Now it is just too many. We are running 1200 VDIs.

It was a hybrid implementation. Design was done by vendor and implementation was done jointly.

Our model for ROI was not financial. It was user experience and opportunity productivity loss savings. If we are to do this work again, I would recommend using DataCore Software Defined Storage using commodity hardware to run a VDI host farm to reduce storage and DR cost.

Get the full business requirement and test the end-to-end performance and the capacity for DR before going full-fledged. Also, understand the licensing cost. Having dedicated VDIs for our organisation saved us lots of headache:

The most valuable feature of this product to me is its ability to provide a secure desktop to remote users.

The product has allowed the organisation to provide VDs for external users to access internal resources and manage them.

The product deployment is role-based and I would like to see the roles reduced.

I have used this solution for 18 months.

We had some issue with SCVMM, which is used to manage the Citrix infrastructure. We also faced an issue with the VDs being unregistered due to different reasons.

Citrix support is very good. You open a case online and then give them a call. An engineer works with you until the issue is resolved. I quite like it.

This is our first VD deployment.

Initial setup was straightforward, but we did face some issues. As it is role-based setup, one needs to follows it properly, and do the sizing right to get it working.

The product was implemented by a solution provider along with the server hardware as part of the project.

We implemented the product to check the feasibility and acceptability of VD in our organisation.

The product licensing is competitively priced.

You can manage all devices and users in your company. You can respond rapidly to user requests. If you use the thin client, you can save energy.

You can simulate disaster scenarios for our virtual world and you can increase your virtual security.

You can create Linux virtual desktops with XenDesktop, but only Red Hat and SUSE versions. I would like to be able to create Linux virtual desktops for VMs running Ubuntu, Kali and other Linux versions. Citrix should add this features to the next version.

I would like applications to open faster. Citrix can increase applications' startup time.

I have been using XenDesktop for nine years.

I had a stability issue with Citrix XenServer. If you experience a problem with XenServer, you must know Linux commands, unlike with VMWare ESX. You can solve any problem with the GUI on VMWare ESX. With Citrix, it must be developed.

Citrix has a very easy setup GUI in versions 7.x.

Implementation varies from company to company. If you have more than 10,000 users in your company, I prefer to perform implementation in-house.

Regarding Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop licenses:

• Example 1 - You have 100 users in your company. If all workers use Citrix products during work time, you can select the Citrix user/device license. (For any company.)
• Example 2 - If your company uses a shift system (60 workers in the morning, 40 workers at night), you can use a Citrix concurrent license. (For example, any university.)

This Citrix product is flexible, easy to manage and faster than similar products such as VMWare Horizon.

The initial installation plan should be well-done. It must be well-constructed and it must be very well-optimized. Anyone can install this product, but not everyone can manage this product.

My rating refers to version 7.x of the product. I rate earlier versions lower.

The following are the product's most valuable features to me:

• Quick provisioning: It is easy to make changes and see them reflected throughout the organization.
• Document control: Enabling users to copy a company document to their hard drive or flash memory really protects our IP.

It has accelerated the process in which a new employee is given the necessary tools. We have contacted people in different countries that no longer have to wait for the central team to grant access to their PC in our environment. Assigning them a VDI user allows them to start right away.

In general, I'm really pleased with Citrix. What sometimes is an issue is when an application is not compatible with the server's OS, but that is out of Citrix´s hands.

I have used this solution for one year.

I have not encountered any issues with scalability. It actually is a strong point in its favor.

I rate technical support 10/10. They are really interested in understanding your architecture and providing solutions.

Citrix Mexico helped us understand some issues, but mostly it was developed in-house.

The ROI in our case is really difficult to quantify. I focus on the non-measurable advantages: IP protection, access from any device, and storage of data in high-availability data centers, no data loss.

Unlike MS, many vendors haven’t considered VDI licensing, so this might represent an opportunity to save on licensing costs, because you're actually installing it on only one device (the application server).

Redundancy is a must. After that, ensuring that all your users will access it through a high-speed internet connection will be a key success factor.

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.