Azure Virtual Desktop vs. Citrix DaaS

Currently Azure Virtual Desktop enviroments are our first choice for all customers. Especially because most of our customers already have a M365 License which includes Azure Virtual Desktop usage. We deploy it for both RemoteApp and Full desktop solutions. This gives us the flexibility to "lift and shift" a specific workload of more legacy customers towards the cloud and provide them with a secure solution to use their apps in the cloud from anywhere.

Incentivized

DaaS is ideal in large-scale environments that require centralized, secure management. Remote workforces at large organizations. Highly regulated industries like finance. It allows for easy security and monitoring over one aspect instead of multiple remote machines. DaaS is not ideal for organizations with small budgets due to the pricing and organizations with lousy network connectivity. This would make the end-user experience terrible.

Incentivized

• Better computing power
• Configurable System and as per team needs configuration can be added or removed at ease
• Internet Connectivity within the cloud system is way better than our home / office internet connections
• No heating issues on personal machines, leaving all the worry on actual data center machines

Incentivized

• Enables remote access anywhere, to any device which eliminates managing the endpoints how traditional VPN would require.
• Integrates well with modern applications to offer optimized user experiences similar to native applications which increases user acceptance.
• Extremely flexible in how policies are applied to different use cases to ensure the appropriate security mitigations are in place with minimal effort.
• Easy to maintain and expand environments to fit business needs.

Incentivized

• Use the Azure portal, Windows Virtual Desktop PowerShell and REST interfaces to configure the host pools, create app groups, assign users, and publish resources.
• Publish full desktop or individual remote apps from a single host pool, create individual app groups for different sets of users, or even assign users to multiple app groups to reduce the number of images.
• As we manage our environment, we use built-in delegated access to assign roles and collect diagnostics to understand various configuration or user errors.
• We use the new Diagnostics service to troubleshoot errors.

Incentivized

• A single console to manage the environment.
• The configuration is a bit complicated and we have hired Citrix administrators. But it's a good solution.
• User profiles need improvement. They could use more stability and more functionality as well as user profile redirection.

Incentivized

Because it has been a mainstay of our business for many years.

Incentivized

AVD has performed well for us and allowed us to migrate away from Citrix.

Incentivized

Getting the environment setup took me three months of off and on work, with 3 complete rebuilds of the environment. Utilizing the WebUI to access the environment had presented so many random issues that we had to require end users to use the Citrix Reciever App. As it was the only stable solution. Aside from that, it hasn't required much admin intervention since the stand-up was completed.

Incentivized

Xendesktop did a great job with HA of all the components.

Incentivized

The performance of XenDesktop is the best in the industry because of the fine-tuned protocol and years of updating. Overall, I don't think there is a better performer on the market. The question is if the added complexity of running XenDesktop is really worth the performance gain. While the latest version of XenDesktop is the easiest to deploy so far, it is still more challenging than the competitors.

Incentivized

The support is great when you get an engineer that knows what they are doing but getting that individual sometimes takes a while. Overall, they are professional and polite and competent in their knowledge. Sometimes the cases are open for an extended period of time which becomes very frustrating when dealing with critical issues.

Incentivized

I was self trained

Incentivized

Easy to understand and learn at my own pace

Incentivized

Take it slow and read the directions each step of the way. If you are not familiar with Citrix products, use a reseller or other experienced engineer to assist you in the setup of your environment

Incentivized

I think that the cloud based [Azure] Windows Virtual Desktop is the future and sets the precedent for how these should be configured in the future. I've used cheap options and other more expensive options, but VD is the best when compared to Citrix or freeware. I would recommend it to anyone over these.

Incentivized

Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops is platform agnostic (we can use any underlying hypervisor technology) and really flexible for any use case. Using a golden image and provisioning it (with Machine Creation Services or Provisioning Services) is powerful and really straightforward, compared to the complexity in Microsoft RDS of maintaining a coherent farm, or the limitation of VMware Horizon to run on VMware Products.

Incentivized

Easily scalable

Incentivized

• More people can work from home which is a positive contribution to company’s objective of promoting work life balance
• Reduced building operating costs with more staff working from home
• At any point in time
• Significantly reduced loss of data if a
• user loses or damages a work laptop

Incentivized

• XenApp has allowed us to continue support of legacy applications and all access of those applications to users across the globe with any device.
• XenApp can also manage software licenses by restricting number of users, number of concurrent sessions, or combination of both to required specification.
• While initial investment in XenApp can be costly, continuing support and upgrade are very cost effective and product stability is excellent.
• While there are competing products from Microsoft and VMware, when it comes to remote application access, XenApp is the best of breed.

Incentivized