Citrix Gateway vs. Citrix Hypervisor

The best usage scenario for Citrix Netscaler Gateway is in enterprises with a high volume of telecommuting users or in situations where the user needs to access certain applications from anywhere. In our case as a hospital, we need our doctors to access the medical records of the patients and be able to carry out any required action, with a high level of security and with a certain agility.

The free version is a boon for small businesses that want to have a hypervisor but not the headaches of using something that requires licensing. It is more than adequate to compete with the lesser versions of Hyper-V or VMware. Any small business that wants to lessen its hardware footprint could benefit from this product. If you are a medium or large business it is also a nice addition to the cupboard if you already use other Citrix products and are familiar with the Citrix support process. Shops that are fully committed to VMWare or MS Hyper-V should probably avoid this as it would just act to dilute your system and add unneeded complexity. Citrix Hypervisor is not most common Hardware Hypervisor on the market but it is more than competent for most Enterprise Deployments.

• Very accessible to any app, and any devices using single URL.
• Very helpful to all the people using Citrix Gateway to do their job.
• Using Citrix Gateway agents are being productive and more successful in their roles as long as there's no issue or system down.

• Resource Monitoring is a good and I am able to monitor my entire infrastructure whether I'm using my iPhone remotely or while on any company-issued laptop to ensure our services run at peak efficiency.
• CLI - the command line is not hard to use. It can take a little time to get used to the commands but once you have them down managing the environment from the GUI or CLI is pretty easy.
• Backups are very easy to start and manage with XenCenter or XoA. Keeping business DR scenarios achievable.

• I suggest make it more faster because sometimes its lagging but not all the time.
• When it comes to Notepad I suggest having options for the size of fonts, and color of fonts, to make it look nicer.
• I suggest making it more user-friendly, and more features so that users can perfectly maximize this tool.

• Adding or presenting additional storage to the host can often be a task that is far more involved than competitive products.
• The product can require reboots more frequently than competitors due to the DOM kernel getting "hung up".
• Sometimes when a virtual machine is deleted it still leaves behind orphaned vdisks.
• Recovering from the loss of a host can sometimes cause virtual machines to require lengthy command prompt scripting to fix so they can be powered back on from another host.

With the knowledge and usage of solutions from VMware and Microsoft offering more compelling cloud integrated options it makes it more compelling in many environments which I consult. XenServer is a good product and fits the bill in many smaller environments but as clients look to the cloud or a hybrid cloud it can in some cases make it a bit more difficult.

XenServer is quite usable due to the simplicity the management and installation provide for an administrator. The console for management is very intuitive and can easily be installed on any Windows operating system. There is a relatively simple web console that can be implemented as well that enhances the usability to provide service to non-administrators.

It's been a little problematic in the past at larger VDI deployments requiring a bit more care and feeding than other vendors. But the latest releases (6.5.x) have brought about huge improvements in the stability and availability.

When running like a top XenServer is a fantastic hypervisor. There is relatively low overhead on the Dom0 so workloads get the most of the resources.

Support is pretty good and pretty fast to respond. I can't say I can really complain about the support experience I've had with them, as they've resolved issues within a reasonable time-frame. Of course, they could always be faster and better, but I think for what we pay, it's well worth the money.

The staff I've worked with are very knowledgeable or able to get a very well articulated and capable support team member on the phone or helping them if necessary and they always want to ensure the best experience possible for you on the platform. The ability for the support team to reach out to hardware vendors for assistance is a nice plus too.

Part of a training for certification to become a trainer for Citrix included an in-person training with a Master CCI. The XenServer training at this time was pretty simplified due to the product primarily being installed however you did have to work with it and mildly configure the system.

Haven't given it a real go with any online training however there are some options out there. I have taught a course following Citrix material for XenDesktop which leverages XenServer and it is pre-built so not the best for XenServer specifically for installation but configuration is mildly touched on

Ensure you review the HCL (hardware compatibility list) and reach out to the hardware vendors to ensure they support the platform and in case they have documentation that can be followed for the implementation. Also ensure the prerequisites are completed prior to implementation so that as few unexpected delays occur as you can control.

I have not used any products that are somewhat similar to what Citrix Gateway does. And I don't think my company does have another product like it. I have worked in 3 different lines of business for the past 3 years in the company but this is the only time I was required to use it.

VMware seems to be the standard and is more widely accepted. However, Citrix Hypervisor, is easily learned and cheaper. We have also used VirtualBox to offer up ideas for other free products. VirtualBox seems to be easier for end users who just want simple VMs and not necessarily entire environments. Citrix is good for environment virtualization.

The servers latest versions have made massive improvements to scalability. But from past experience there have been issues when running workloads for extended periods of time without reboot on the hosts. I would need to run similar workloads on the 6.5 release which has changed much of the bottlenecks or issues so I'd imagine its far more capable now, Perhaps able to stand near the best in the market.

• we moved from Cisco to Citrix VPN, and no longer had to worry about certificate issues
• profile issues from Cisco were no longer a problem with Citrix.
• the amount of time PER VPN call dropped significantly in the internal helpdesk, however, the volume of calls stayed the same.

• Resources management.
• Offers remote connection to the workstation from outside.
• Assures compliance with continuity indicators.
• Assures resilience.
• Respects the SLA with the users.