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If XenDesktop wasn't required by a customer, I would use something else
June 13, 2019

If XenDesktop wasn't required by a customer, I would use something else

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with XenDesktop

Citrix XenDesktop is utilized at our Datacenter to provide our third-party offshore developers access to internal company resources while maintaining a good security standing. XenDesktop prevents customer data and/or proprietary code from being downloaded external to the company and leaked to competitors or our customer's competitors.
  • All Management resources can now be installed on a single server. Reducing the overhead required to maintain a citrix environment.
  • Granularity of the Delivery groups allow you to define allowing a remote user to connect to a random XenDesktop VM or individually assigning VMs to users.
  • HDX RealTime Optimization Pack has stabilized some of the issues of utilizing all of the features of Skype for Business in a ZenDesktop VM.
  • Product documentation is bloated with information and lacks documentation on assisting with first time setup.
  • Customer service offers very little assistance when it comes to using your support contract.
  • Default Policy, out of the box, allows Clipboard, File Share, Printer Sharing, Drive redirection, and others security risks that should be disabled by default.
  • Screenshots are not prevented, other products blank a screenshot or sniping tool image. Watermarks are the only security citrix offers and are disabled by default.
  • Renewal cost of support contract is 80% of initial purchase price. Other companies renewal cost is significantly less.
  • End users who do not properly log off can leave a hung connection, and requires manual deletion of the connection for users to re-connect.
  • Performing windows and ESXi updates have had to be delayed because of conflicts with Citrix code. This required time consuming justification, memos, and approvals from customers.
  • Developers installing packages on their VMs to test new code have caused a VM to lose connectivity with Delivery controller and sometimes unregister the VM.
  • Security Audits from a majority of our customers approve the use of Citrix without much scrutiny, as it is trusted to be a secure solution. Expediting over that section of the audit.
Other products were more cost efficient, offered a better support contract, were much simpler to configure, and had better documentation.

We chose Citrix over the alternatives, because one of our customers required the use of Citrix for the connection of third-party vendors.
XenDesktop app on the VM requires very little resources to maintain itself and does not appear to have much of an impact on the utilization of the VM. Even with HDX RealTime Optimization Pack, Skype for Business still has issues with screen share, audio pass through, conference rooms. Microsoft Teams requires some custom configuring to make it work in XenDesktop.
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.
One of the most challenging obstacles of setting up this environment was making the Citrix XenDesktop accessible from the Citrix Netscaler. As both products are owned by Citrix, I expected to find an admin guide or some level of documentation on how to make these communicate.
While configuring the Application Pool in Citrix Studio, I spent much time on third party site obtaining information on how to configure. I couldn't gain any useful information on from Citrix support and Citrix user community on how to integrate apps with Application Pool.
Citrix XenDesktop is useful when your company utilizes third party offshore developers that need to access internal resources with restrictions. And useful when you need to provide contractor or support technician temporary access to resolve an issue.

It can prevent customer data and/or proprietary code from the unsanctioned removal of company premise.
External auditors have been quicker to approve (and sometimes mandate) the use of Citrix as a trusted tool for external access.