Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Formerly XenDesktop

Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops is best in class for offering a great user experience in VDI, server-based sessions, or published apps. Using additional GPU allows uses like rich video, 3D apps, and great modern uses (MS Teams, Office 365, Zoom, etc.). Citrix products are very well integrated (Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops used with Citrix ADC is the best way to secure access and monitor everything).

Of course, requires an active internet connection. This is good for traveling users, for example, at an airport with intermittent connection. Alternative of not using Citrix desktop, but regular VPN, local Excel file, for example, could become corrupted or have sync issues. Allow user to continue to Excel session upon reconnection. However, does not allow offline use such as on airplanes without internet.

As per my experience, it is well suited for in-house applications which are not web-based. With Citrix virtual app and desktop you can use them from anywhere. It is the most reliable and secure platform to use them. It is not suitable for web-based or SaaS applications because you can use them remotely.

for companies mixed with both PC and Mac environments, Citrix is the solution for running PC only environment. Saving on the laptop renewal cost, time to spinning up a new laptop takes no time. so for a company that doesn't have much IT support or ongoing cost, it's a great option for designer company need to provide heavy duty PC to users, Citrix laptop not that great.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops are ideal for large companies and I don't think are worth it for small companies. This software helped us in IT to focus more on a pool of apps installed in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and not on individual users' issues. Allowed a lot of users to work outside the office as they were in the office.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops are secure and way better than using built-in Microsoft terminal services. I have used other products as well like VMware Horizon View and Hyper-V to provide VDI solutions to the end-user but they lack one thing or the other, whereas Citrix Apps and Desktops solutions cover almost everything as a complete VDI solution.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops are well suited for those who need access to their work remotely. The interface is easy to use, and you can log in quickly and easily. The desktop features are great and their customer service is helpful when you need it. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is less appropriate when the system can lag due to connectivity issues such as slow internet.

It is working quite well on allowing access to many business applications from one point of access. In my experience, it is not working well where you need to move files form your local machine into Citrix and vise versa. Installation of new applications (as a user) inside the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is not always smooth and cause problems due to the sandbox nature.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is well suited for company that wants to cut down on cost of supporting remote users. Having the ability to create an image of desktop and applications to deployment company-wide and centralize patching and upgrading. All users get the same look and feel when they connect to the system make supporting the users easier.

It is well suited when you have a lot of different applications that you need to log into each day. It acts as a gateway to access all of the items you need to use, with one click of the mouse. I have always been pleased with the operation of Citrix Virtual Apps.

XenDesktop is well suited for reducing latency. When you have applications and data in one location and have users in another this is one of the best products for improving their experience. It's also useful for creating a security boundary around your apps and data. You can secure it at a network level then require your users to connect to the XenDesktop environment to access that information.

Works great for general user access. All the familar and approved applications are available. I rarely have all of my licenses in use but last March for 8 months - it became normal. No performance issues at all.
For those people with customize applications, tons of unsupported and not backed up data on their local drives (and a few audiophiles that I don't support high end audio) aren't happy they don't have a seamless experience. We have looked at using VDI but as the majority of employees are not mobile it isn't cost effective to change the entire remote access desktop to accomodate 3 users out of 20. We do have an issue with profile bloat; on the planned upgrade later this year that will be addressed as one of the primary configuration items to address.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) is well suited for any internal workspace or remote access environment where flexibility and reliability is of interest. Whether you need to delivery a bunch of similar desktops or an application for a training session or fully empower a team or department to work remotely while maintaining the highest security mitigations the platform will allow you to deploy workspaces as you need, and wherever you desire with the hypervisor or cloud of your choosing.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is great when you have an environment where you still have a lot of on-premise applications or when you need to give users a strong performing desktop from wherever. But the need for this product is less when you have a lot of web applications or SaaS applications because they don't need a lot to perform well.

In most cases, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly XenDesktop) is most suited for larger deployments and shops that have dedicated IT Staff. Trying to use it with just on and off MSP support can be a little questionable as the system does need daily babysitting as to dealing with users who get stuck, profile issues, and just general user education. Also, it is not optimal for situations where a lot of the apps are high-end graphic intensive as this not only requires more memory and processing power but usually GPU's for video as well. But for shops that want to make their more common apps or MS Office type stuff available in a virtual environment, this is the best at doing it.

When you finally get to support, it is usually fairly good and consistent, but Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly XenDesktop) does make it hard and time-intensive to get to someone who can help. With that said their only KB's are quite good and many times you can solve issues by looking stuff up yourself vs. fighting to get a competent support rep on the phone,

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops are well suited for remote access when paired with Citrix ADC as the gateway. It is great for when there are limited resources and applications and desktops need to be shared with many users. It is a very good VDI environment and works with VMware vCenter and ESXi very well. Without Citrix ADC it is very difficult to set up an ICA proxy for remote sessions. If you are planning on using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops for remote access you either need Citrix ADC or VPN to keep it secure.

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.

The centralization of company data and standardization of user desktops is the primary reason we use Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. This helps both the end-users (all data is in a single location rather than a unique share on a unique server for each office) as well as IT management (all users share the same desktop and settings. One location to change all desktops).

The only complaint I have with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops support is the chief complaint about all most all support - it's based overseas, and the techs, while very knowledgeable, are tough to understand. I'm the type that doesn't just want the issue fixed, and I want to know what happened, how to fix it, and why it broke. Sometimes this extra information is hard to get. Otherwise, the support is excellent, reasonably quick to respond at any hour, and quickly fixes the issue.

Where access to company resources or shared drives are required. Because we are utilizing a large number of shared drives with various resources, XenDesktop becomes a must-have, especially for offsite users.

Support has been very quick at resolving our issues and is very reliable. Each time they have helped to resolve my issues in a timely manner which is a very big deal for me.

Xendesktop makes the most sense in larger environments where multiple servers are needed to support the end users.

Perfect for those who desire flexibility in where / how they connect to their online workspace.

XenDesktop is well suited for normal business applications such as Word and Excel. It is also good for basic internet access and email usage. I have found it is not good for graphic design and using applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign. The colors, resolution, and response time is just not as good as running software locally.

It's really helpful to have everything in one central place and for everyone to be able to access it. The functionality is not always as great--it can be frustrating when it says there are multiple instances of an application running even when there aren't. If I didn't work in the same building as the people with administrative access, this could cause delays in my work.

XenDesktop is suited for working remotely when you need to be connected to a site that has top security. XenDesktop is not well suited for productivity work.