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

Because this is a tech product, it has an app used for application virtualization.

Your servers are in a remote location, but your server is in UK and you are operating from Australia (theoretically). In this case, you want only Outlook to be used by your end users, therefore what you do is virtualize an Outlook from the servers located in the UK, but your users are using it in Australia as if it is in their local machine. It would be as if the user is utilizing Outlook in his/her machine, but it is running on the servers located in the UK.

This is an app. It virtualizes the application on your desktop. Supposing you have to enter it, you need to login and you will see the Outlook icon on the console. Outlook will open in your system, but the server is in the UK, which is utilizing the resources. Not your local resources, but those in the UK, the UK servers.

It helps you to virtualize your application, so whenever the user needs the application, they have it in virtualized form.

It is user-friendly and easy to use. It helps in many ways. The installation and maintenance are good.

It is progressing and improving day-by-day. Before, we had 6.5 version. The recent one that we used was version 7.1.5. 

There are many latency and slowness issues, which are things looked after by Citrix. 

There have been many issues with stability.

Scalability depends on the server and the number of users in the organization. You need to have capacity planning on how you are providing to users. If the server is a bit old, like the hardware is HPE Generation 4 servers, you are requesting the server to handle more than a hundred users, then it will work slowly. Therefore, capacity planning and the way you plan the architecture is very important for this.

Tech support is good. I would rate them as a seven out of 10.

Previously, I was using XenApp, but there were different products, like ThinApp and VMware. 

The initial setup is simple.

It is affordable. The product, XenServer, is free to use, and XenApp has a one month free license. The licenses are affordable, but the support is a bit expensive, though worth the value.

For three or four years, there were no other options other than the Citrix XenApp. Now, we have ThinApp, VMware, and one more application from Microsoft. While we have options now, XenApp stands out above the rest.

This is a very good tool for virtualizing your application. The support is good. It is affordable. I would recommend it to users who are looking to use XenApp. 

Citrix DaaS allows external users to connect to the external LAN. You can take complete control of this desktop. Additionally, you can manage company, grant others access to enterprise, and take control as needed.

The support could be enhanced.

I have been using Citrix DaaS as a partner.

Citrix has good support, but the response is very slow.

Positive

I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I use the solution as one of the main applications for my desktop infrastructure.

The solution supports all the essential features I require. Also, I can use it from anywhere.

The solution functions slowly. It takes a long time to load. This particular area could be better.

I have been using the solution for three years.

I rate the solution's stability a five or six out of ten.

The solution achieves all the goals I set it up for. Thus, it is highly scalable. I rate its scalability an eight out of ten.

The solution is average. I rate it a five out of ten.

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.

We are in the process of upgrading the product currently. Our primary use case is having it as our main access for all our employees to be able to connect to our work environment. All applications are available through that access point.  

The most valuable feature in Citrix is really just the desktop. The desktop part is what we are using right now for our client access. So just the use we have for the remote access, in general, is the most useful for us at this time.  

I think Citrix Workspace is doing a good job for us. No complaints. If there was an improvement to make on the Workspace product, it would have to do with the communication components. Zoom, Teams, and Salon are not working well within the virtual desktop. So doing something to get the product to allow the video conferencing applications to function better would be the most important.  

We have been using a Citrix setup for a long time. I would say 15 years.  

Workspace is quite stable. There has been no notable downtime.  

It easy to add applications to Workspace and to expand usage.  

We are using private companies to help us with the support of the product. We are not using Citrix for support. The support we have is good.  

I did look into information about the workspace from VMware. With the VMware workspaces, there were not any specific pain points. We were just researching the products and features for comparison.  

What I would say to people looking at Citrix Workspace as a solution is to do thorough testing for all applications. In our case, this should have included video conferencing applications. It was something we did not look at specifically probably because it was working well with everything else.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Citrix Workspace as an eight of ten.  

The most valuable feature to me as IT is that the disk is non-writable. This means that, during the course of computing, nothing permanently bad can happen to the computer. Viruses and malware can’t corrupt it. So instead of a rebuild of the machine, which used to happen at least twice a week, and take as much as 10 hours, it’s a simple reboot to fix.

The second most valuable feature is the ability to deliver a full-featured desktop to our users anytime, anywhere with an internet connection.

My organization is a 24x7 organization. About 2/3 of our users work a schedule that is 48 hours on, 96 hours off on rotating shifts and many of them live a minimum of 70 miles away. They frequently need to get into our computer system to adjust their work availability schedule for overtime and out-of-area deployments, as well as to keep in contact with other divisions that are on more-regular work schedules. We can now access our system in the field, which is valuable when interfacing with our constituency.

I would like to be able to document the VDIs better in XenServer and in the Delivery Controller, so that I could know which snapshot and image goes with which machine. I can do it now, but it takes some digging.

And I still think the training costs too much in relation to the cost of the software.

I have been using it since 2009.

In this newest version, I keep running out of allocated space on my storage server for the virtual desktop images. This is because I am used to the older Provisioning Server model where I had one image that streamed to many desktops. Now, I am using the Machine Creation Services model where each desktop has its own image. That’s okay, but the snapshots of previous images - so that versions can be rolled back - are giving me some problems to get used to. It’s not a terrible problem, it’s just me getting used to it and figuring out how to allow for it.

Customer service and technical support is great, but you do have to pay for it. Don’t skimp and don’t try to do without it; you’ll be sorry. There are great knowledge base articles and a lot of active users, but there is also a lot that happens that never hits the knowledge base. The risk you run by trying to figure it out for yourself is dissatisfied and tremendously frustrated users - and this is not an area where you want to encourage a howling mob.

My experience is no longer very valid as it was seven years ago and Citrix has made many changes and improvements. It was a nightmare. XenServer was, and is, pretty easy. XenDesktop was, and is, fairly complex. At that time, XenDesktop was poorly documented (as in, barely documented) and I ran into problems with everything, including lingering problems with the Nehalem processors in the hosts and problems in my storage server that caused the virtual desktops to arbitrarily hang for the first year or so. Every piece of the technology has matured, both hardware and software, since that time.

The XenServer piece was done by a VAR from the RFP process. The original plan was for them to also do the XenDesktop piece but, as I mention elsewhere, while they were familiar with Virtual Iron, they were not familiar with XenDesktop and did not wish to undertake it. They subcontracted it to another installer, who tried to set it up but didn’t get it done past the problems I mention elsewhere. Then another VAR took a shot at it, but also couldn’t fix it. I spent a lot of time studying, learning, and trying to fix the issues and found the hardware problems and fixed them. But it still didn’t work properly. I finally bit the golden bullet and paid the price for a Citrix gold partner who rebuilt the XenDesktop installation correctly and taught me at the same time. From then on, it worked beautifully and met our vision. But that first 1.5 years was a bear to wrestle.

We extended our hardware replacement lifecycle by not having to replace endpoints. We no longer use PCs, but use thin/zero clients with no moving parts. So instead of a PC refresh every three years, we went 5-6 years and used a less expensive machine. Instead of three servers for the hosts, we were able to use only two when we replaced them and didn’t do it until seven years. Our fuel costs are down because a “broken” machine is a reboot, not a rebuild. We use less electricity. We are able to provide 24x7 on-call support with only 1.5 IT personnel instead of only 40 hours to our 24x7 operation. All our employees, many of whom live in another city, can access our system anytime they need to sign up for overtime or change their schedule (this is a fire department) or interact with any division on a different work schedule than their own. And our overall IT costs (hardware, software, utilities, etc.) dropped 44 percent over what we were spending in 2008 and certainly over our trajectory.

The initial purchase for the first three years will be more expensive than what you have been spending. There will be a higher cost in time, in the learning curve, and in effort. You won’t start to see a savings until after that; the savings comes over time and will affect many areas.

This is a disruptive technology and it will disrupt your organization; you’ll have to learn to think differently both in a technological fashion and in a budgetary fashion. If you’re used to measuring your ROI in terms of years, you’ll need to take a longer view. If you measure it by line item, you’ll need to take a wider view.

Initially, we were going to use Virtual Iron as it looked to be the simplest and least expensive to implement for a small organization. Oracle bought the product in the middle of our implementation process and killed it. Our implementer had a business relationship with a Citrix sales engineer who was able to show us the XenServer/XenDesktop product. It looked very similar, so we went with that. XenServer was; XenDesktop, not so much.

Virtual desktops aren’t for every user and it takes some thought to apply them correctly. Heavy graphics programs will benefit from the use of GPUs in the host. Your best bet will be to use a Citrix partner VAR who knows what they’re doing to implement and train you; even though it costs more initially, it will prevent so much dissatisfaction, it will really be worth it. There are a number of little “gotchas”, optimizations, and tweaks they have already known about and Citrix has worked through and patched that will greatly impact the user acceptance and affect it will have on your organization.

Implementation will also take some user training and you’ll get some pushback. For example, people will need to be trained to use shortcuts on their desktops and to not put a lot of files and folders on them. Why? Because Microsoft Windows loads everything up on load and it will slow them down. It will make their user experience unsatisfactory while they WAIT FOREVER (more than 30 seconds to as much as minutes, depending on bandwidth and user perception) for their desktop to come up. They’ll get used to the new way of working and come to appreciate the new amenities, but you may have to keep reminding them of what they’ve gained when they complain of what they think they’ve lost. And they will lose some things; a virtual desktop is more locked down. The desktop is non-writable, which means that nothing writes to it. This is great for IT support, but not so great for some apps. Think about that in relation to software packages that you use as you’re planning. If you’ve got software that MUST write to the disk, you can do that, but you’ll have to allow for an additional writable disk to the desktop image for any user using that software.

Citrix Workspace allows you to work in a remote environment and gives you data security.

Performance could be better if there was a low latency improvement.

I have been using Citrix Workspace for three years now.

Citrix Workspace is stable for our needs.

The scalability of Citrix Workspace is exceptional.

Technical support is excellent and we have had no issues with the support team.

The setup process is straightforward.

We are seeing a return on investment with Citrix Workspace.

I would rate Citrix Workspace a nine out of ten.

The most valuable feature is the seamless application edition with the low-level network bandwidth because we have between 10 and 15 sites in France with a low level of communication needs. We need to deploy our main application, the ERP system, and we needed an efficient solution to provide a solution to the remote sites, with very small links between the data center and the remote site.

The application is now very complex. We started with Citrix on PCs. Now, to access the same application, we need to have a StoreFront Server. It's now very complex.

If we want to make a clean application, we need to have StoreFront for the web access between the receiver or the Workspace client. And then have StoreFront connected to the Delivery Controller. The Delivery Controller is connected to the database, NetScaler, which we use to secure remote access.

In the beginning, we used three servers in a load-balancing environment but now to run the same application, it's on many servers.

The price is a little higher compared to other solutions. Big farms need big infrastructure, but for mid-business like us, it's complex.

I have been using Citrix since 2002. 

Citrix is stable. We had an issue two weeks ago because of full infrastructure maintenance and some strange issue but it was the only incident we had.

We can say it's stable, but we are dealing very carefully with updates and upgrades too. It's getting a little bit more competitive now to upgrade because we have many components to upgrade.

When this is deployed it's stable, but when we think about upgrading some components, it can be more difficult. We need to do the updates carefully. Normally, we used to have a test farm, but it's expensive to have test farms.

It is easy to deploy a new server on the application.

I would recommend Citrix if the IT team is at a good technical level with people who can deal with many technologies.

I would rate Citrix Workspace an eight out of ten.