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

The central administration and deployment of desktops and apps. XenDesktop gives a full desktop experience i.e. the user gets a Windows machine with a C drive and loaded with a set of applications such as mail, productivity suites and access to files.

We have 12 offices around the island, and users able to connect to the same desktop and access their apps and files from any of these locations. Road warriors get access to the insurance apps on their mobile devices of any OS.

The studio is very slow.

We've been using it since May 2010, alongside XenApp and XenServer.

From an administrative point of view, it is easy to deploy and maintain.

In the beginning yes, especially if you are running a large number of desktops.

No issues encountered, and we run 600 virtual desktops.

Customer Service:

8/10.

Technical Support:

10/10.

No, but we did try VMWare View as well as part of a lengthy POC. Citrix XenDesktop & XenApp came out on top.

It was a straightforward wizard-based setup.

We used a mix of a vendor and an in-house one. The vendor was excellent, and they advised on the right architecture for performance and scalability, so I would give them a 10/10.

It's reduced the PC maintenance and upgrade costs by two or three times.

Carefully make the distinction between XenApp and XenDesktop. XenApp uses a mix of Microsoft RDS and Citrix to provision the service so this increases the licensing cost, as well as the amount of administration behind it.

• VMWare View
• Kaviza Desktop (later bought by Citrix)

You should also have a look at Atlantis Computing as well. XenDesktop is deployed along Atlantis ILIO, which is phenomenal.

The infrastructure for both XenApp and XenDesktop must be carefully designed.

Carefully select the components for the architecture. Running virtual desktops or apps require careful planning and sizing. We found SSD disk to be extremely appropriate.

We normally use Citrix for delivering applications remotely. Our experience is with the government and companies that have branches.

XenApp made our Application environment secure and restrict the data transfer.

The most valuable features are user experience and printing capabilities.

Citrix has to support all of the hypervisors including KVM.

The technical support is not as good as it is with other vendors and it should be improved.

We have been using XenApp Citrix since 2007.

This is a very stable solution. The security updates are always being done.

Citrix is scalable. In my company over the past seven years, we have had many users. In addition, our clients using this solution have many thousands of users.

The Citrix technical support is not as easy as other vendors like F5 or VMware. Obtaining technical support is a little bit tough and it should be improved.

We had tested Ericom, 2X and find better performance with Citrix.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The length of time for deployment depends on the environment and the requirements. For example, last year we deployed this solution for an airline with 27,000 users and it took approximately three months.

Our in-house team deploys this solution for our clients.

Our ROI was 144% .

A perpetual enterprise license costs approximately $300 USD.

I have evaluated a lot of products and the latest solutions. Citrix, among all these products,  has added value because of the user experience and its printing capabilities. You can connect to any printer, and from anywhere you can print documents using a compressed channel. It is easy and the bandwidth is very low.

Citrix has its own training and certifications available, such as CCA-V, CCA-N, CCE-V,CCE-N. For anybody who is implementing this solution, I would suggest that they start with the training. That will help them with the product in learning what it is, how it is going to be implemented, what the requirements are, and so forth. The training is easy and once it is complete, implementing and using the solution will be easier for them.

I would rate this solution a ten 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.

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.

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.