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

We are using this solution for enabling remote workers. 

The primary example right now is the pandemic. People can work remotely without having to use VPNs. We prefer people connecting from home to an institutional system, rather than bringing every random person's home system into our internal network via VPN.

The basic virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) feature is most valuable. We were lucky to have it in place when the pandemic hit. It is used very heavily now.

They can simplify the process of printers. Printers were quite a difficult issue. It took us a long time to iron this issue out.

We have the most simple use case where people connect from home to either a virtual machine or their physical desktop. We tried more complex solutions like Machine Creation Services, and they were more overhead than they were worth for us. I found them difficult to work with and confusing, and they were not worth the work for us.

The basic VDI is quite good. It is pretty stable and reliable. 

It is very scalable. We have 400 end users.

I have used them, and in general, I have been very happy.

Citrix is the only VDI I have used.

It was in place when I was hired. I have been involved with upgrades. Mostly, I have just been filling out the infrastructure and adding more machines. My supervisor was the one who handled the setup. 

For its administration, we have two FTEs: myself and a senior systems engineer. There are a couple of other systems administrators who spend a little bit of time working on it. It requires nonstop maintenance every day. It requires four to five hours a day.

I'm not involved with the money aspect at all, but from my perspective, we've got a very good ROI. Particularly during the pandemic, it has enabled the institution to keep working. We seamlessly transitioned to an entirely remote workspace.

We are just now approaching the end of our initial purchase, which was an excellent price for us as an academic institution. We got a very good deal to get us on board. That license is up for renewal in about a year, and we are nervously waiting to see what the pricing will be.

I know that other vendors were evaluated. I was not part of that. It was before I was hired.

It is a good solution, but it is not always a straightforward solution. Don't underestimate the complexity of a large-scale deployment of infrastructure like this.

I would rate Citrix Workspace an eight out of ten.

On-premises

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.

I love the extended features of this product. You can easily manage profiles and create desktops in minutes. You can also use your desktops on mobile devices pretty much anywhere. One feature that we use extensively is the WAN optimization. Our data backups are offsite, so moving data and virtual machines could kill our bandwidth, but this feature prevents that. XenDesktop 5 is lightyears ahead of XenDesktop 4. It is much easier to use, and the management interface is intuitive.

Sometimes creating good Active Directory policies can be confusing. Also, there is a lot of work in optimizing desktops so that they don't unnecessarily reduce server performance.

High initial cost, but over time it allows a much longer desktop refresh cycle. Our organization is using fat terminals instead of buying thin clients. Once those machines break, we can begin replacing with thin clients.

We use the solution for our remote employees to access their information.

The solution helps us with our ERP.

The most valuable feature is how secure the solution is.

The cost of the solution is high and has room for improvement.

The initial setup has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The solution is stable.

I give the scalability a nine out of ten.

We have around 40 people using the solution.

The initial setup is complex. We used five people for the deployment.

We have seen a return on investment.

The solution is expensive and I give the cost a four out of ten.

I give the solution a seven out of ten.

Hybrid Cloud

We can virtualize desktops as well as apps.

We can create desktops per project.

I haven't seen any areas for improvement, but I am still learning.

I've been using it for four years, and I started with Citrix Presentation Server 4.5, and we are migrating it to XenApp 6.5.

No issues encountered.

There were some issues.

There were some issues.

Customer Service:

9/10.

Technical Support:

9/10.

We also looked at VMware View.

• Protects web infrastructure
• Ensures business continuity and IT disaster recovery
• Consolidated multiple remote access solutions
• Lowers WAN costs

A cements customer uses the application for truck shipments from the United States by connecting to the infrastructure in Colombia, as the solution can only be found in that country.

We are already evaluating the latest version, 7.9, because Citrix continually updates everything.

For optimal and stable infrastructure products, the people who develop software in-house should provide IT architecture updates.

All implementations of Citrix have problems with stability; that is normal. This type of infrastructure should be integrated with the many software and hardware components that are currently implemented in the company.

Customer Service:

Very good customer service.

Technical Support:

Technical support is improving.

I have worked with VMWare as a hypervisor as the suite is very wide. However, Citrix is less expensive.

All Citrix configurations have a certain amount of complexity.

In-house application deployments are not always easy to integrate, because it is not always compatible with client-server environments.

For a project to be effective, you must coordinate with Citrix to divide the licenses into stages and not affect costs.

It is important to do a good sizing of users. In addition to Citrix' own online calculator for sizing users (https://www.citrix.com/products/xenapp-xendesktop/savings-calculator.html), I can help with dimensioning the server infrastructure for different virtualisation projects.

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.