Citrix XenServer Reviews

The primary use case of this solution is to manage virtual servers under Citrix.

The deployment model we are using is on-premises.

What I like the most is the support of the GPU Graphics and the VM Live migration.

Network management needs improvement because it is not very stable.

In the next release, I would like to see more tools added, or included.

This solution is stable.

There are approximately three hundred users.

The technical support is very good.

Previously we used a different solution but this one is better.

The initial setup is simple and straightforward.

This solution is open source, it's free.

Version eight of this solution is complete.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We migrated from VMware to XenCenter to cut costs.

This solution is more cost-effective and hardware-efficient with Citrix VDI.

The support for this solution is phenomenal.

The built-in networking features are a little limited.

Prior to this solution, we used VMware.

We use the product primarily for server virtualization.

It has allowed us to grow over time because, initially, it was free. We were able to use what would have been budgeted for licensing costs in other ways.

Simply the ability to virtualize and make better use of existing resources is the most valuable aspect of this solution.

It is a very good product, so there really isn't much that needs to be added. Maybe the speed could be improved. It might be nice if the licensing cost could be improved because it is a big jump when you reach the threshold.

A good addition might be consol management in Linux. Right now I have to start in Windows to manage the system. It is not my preference.

This solution is very stable.

The whole point of the product is to be scalable, so it has very good scalability.

I never had a reason to use technical support.

I changed the implementation from XenServer. The product we use now is not really XenServer but XCP-ng which is built on the XenServer open source. Because of the structure of the licensing through Citrix, we changed the product, although it is built on the same source.

The initial deployment of the product was easy. The entire deployment with testing took about one month before it was completed for production.

I did the implementation myself.

There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. In the beginning, because we had a small network, it was free. We have expanded to five physical servers so now we have to pay for all the servers. It is good for others to be aware that the product is only free to a point.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate XenServer as an eight for the product. For the pricing, I would rate it a five.

We primarily use the solution for virtualization and for building other things on top of it. Mostly we sell the solution to other customers and offer them support.

The solution integrates well with other solutions, which makes it really strong as a primary solution to deploy.

The solution is too expensive and people are kind of moving away from Citrix. It's starting to become a problem. It is a primary reason that while we are rebuilding we're going to seek out open-source solutions.

The solution is stable.

The solution is highly scalable and can be highly integrated with other solutions, which makes it very good.

Technical support is good. I would rate them eight out of ten.

Sometimes there are difficulties when you look at the reseller model because you need to go through the reseller to get help, and often they are just salespeople. For us, in Botswana, resellers are typically in South Africa and they are more interested in sales than assistance.

These resellers are only interested in sales. When you are an assistant or a developer like we are, they can't really support you. They can only offer licenses to you. That is actually where the problem is. They have their sales quarters. If you don't meet their quarter they'll cut you off the next time and you have to reapply and go through their checks again, which is not a Citrix problem, but a partner weakness that should be re-considered.

The initial setup has a moderate level of difficulty. Someone with a good understanding of the technology will be okay, but if someone who is new to the solution may experience challenges. 

When you try to show clients Citrix, the price kind of scares them away. It's quite expensive.

We are rebuilding our whole news infrastructure. We stopped using the solution for some things, but we will use it once we are finished with what we are currently building.

We're using a hybrid deployment model. We're also a Citrix partner.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I really like the solution. It works well.

We primarily use the solution for deploying. Usually we're deploying infrastructure based on XenServer desktop solutions.

The solution is easy to deploy. It's very easy to understand problems and read logs.

The solution would benefit from faster technical support.

The solution should add session sharing in future releases. It would be helpful if, for example, you could switch a user from one terminal server to another terminal server without loosing the session and without the need to log off and then log on again. This way we can put in place some services, without asking the user to log out. We can just move users from one server to another and the user would not notice any interruption.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is extremely scalable.

We're not satisfied with technical support. It's very slow.

The solution is easy to deploy.

The solution is free to use.

We use the private cloud deployment model.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It depends on what an organization requires, but I would recommend the solution.

I primarily use the solution for virtualization. I have about five virtual servers on it.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is very fast. It also works very well for physically small servers.

The USB support for the virtual server needs improvement.

The solution is very stable. It works very well.

My environment is very small, so I don't have much experience with scaling the solution.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I handled the implementation myself.

We use the free version, not the commercial version of the solution.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I would recommend the solution. I was looking for a solution that works well on a small server, and this solution works very well for me.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is virtualization. 

The feature I find most valuable is its performance. It's a no "frills" solution. There aren't many tools and some may find that a little arcane, but I come from another visualization background. I like the console because you can do everything on the console, so you don't need any tools. 

This solution needs a block-level backup. We have backup solutions in place but they are pretty arcane. That is a niche, it is not filled with professional solutions. There are solutions that can do it - if you look at solutions for file system level backups, you will find many of them. But if you look for systems with block-level backup or block-level synchronization, you will see that the tools are pretty minor.

The solution is extremely stable. It's much more stable than VMware or any other tool that we've tested. One might get away with freeware solutions, but if you need support, I recommend using the commercial solution. 

It is easy to scale with this solution. I can scale up and scale down when I need to. And for memory and the VCPU's, it's even simpler because you can simply select that interface, and it will follow. Since I started using the 7.6 version, I can move virtual hosts around, so that's all working extremely well without any hurdles or hiccups. Our company has 600 employees and about 60% of them are using XenServer.

I think the technical support could be better because we have received support directly from the Dell server instead of from Citrix directly. It is difficult to get hold of support during office hours and sometimes will take a while to get the right person for the right answer. But apart from that, the quality of the answers and the support is very good.

The initial setup was very easy. It starts very easy and if you have special niche cases that are not provided, they are standard to install. You would, however, need to get yourself comfortable with the console, but if you have a Linux background, you will find that it is very easy. I did 90% of the installation myself, but we used third parties for special niche cases. We also needed support from Dell because we had some issues during startup with some drivers that were provided by Dell since we are mainly using Dell hardware.

My advice to others would be that there is no one golden bullet when choosing a virtualization platform. It depends on the careful planning of what kind of service you plan to provide to your users. Ask questions like: What is running on those systems? What platforms? What are your minimum demands? 

There's something else that's fairly important because the virtualization market is rapidly shifting towards a total overhaul. And efforts are being made on the Linux site to run armed and risk solutions in the data center. So I hope that XenServer will adapt to that too.

This solution has special niche cases where it doesn't work as you planned. But in general, I am very happy with the server. I will give it a rating of nine out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution for Citrix worker resources.

The price is the solution's most valuable feature.

The manageability of the solution needs improvement. It's an extremely bad product to handle. 

The solution needs to offer better implementation of shared storage.

The solution is not stable.

The solution is scalable. 

I don't like the cluster functionality, but it's scalable. You can put a new service inside, and it works. The only thing is the shared storage, which does not have a good implementation. With LVM, it's a bad idea to use real partitioning. It's advisable instead to use a container file like Hyper-V or VMware.

Technical support is too slow. It takes too long. Especially in comparison with VMware. Their the support is much better.

In most cases the set up is straightforward. In special cases, especially for shared storage, it's not a great implementation experience.

We're using the on-premises deployment model.

I would advise others to only to use it with functionality where the high availability is available through other mechanisms, like Citrix, and not to use the features from the product itself.

I'd rate the solution four out of ten.