General Announcement and News
Citrix Acquires Norskale: Making the Industry’s Best App & Desktop Delivery Performance Even Better
Throughout our history, Citrix has been a leader in delivering the best secure app delivery user experience available, a key reason customers choose our products and services. That commitment to provide the best experience possible continues with the acquisition of Norskale, a privately held user environment management (UEM) company.
XenApp and XenDesktop 7.11 is Here!
XenApp and XenDesktop 7.11 embraces the latest Microsoft platform offerings establishing the foundation for Day 1 support of Windows Server 2016, provisioning of app and desktop workloads on Azure Resource Manager and enhancements for App-V integration.
Admins now have advanced management options for delivering apps and desktops across geographically dispersed sites based on criteria such as user location, app location or user profile. Ongoing site management improvements deliver new performance metrics and alerts, easier self-service password reset configuration, and more provisioning options. This release continues to enhance the user experience with improved graphics rendering capabilities, new application delivery options for Linux, and profile management improvements. All these new capabilities and more converge with the 7.11 release to reaffirm XenApp and XenDesktop as the market-leading solution for virtual app and desktop delivery.
StoreFront 3.7 Has Been Released!
Storefront 3.7 was released earlier this month and with it comes a number of new features like Self Service Password Reset, Zone Preference Improvement, Receiver for Web Small Form Factor support etc. Find out more in this article.
Unified, Focused: Worx Apps Are Changing to XenMobile Apps
In Q4 of this year, we will be consolidating the number of XenMobile sub-brands by replacing “Worx” with “Secure.” Worx apps will undergo a name change only. The apps will look the same and function the same. This change in naming will not require users to re-enroll their devices or update the XenMobile Server. During the regular application update process, end-users will receive the newly named app, but all application data and workflows will remain exactly as they were before.
Citrix SCOM Management Pack for ShareFile is Here!
We are pleased to announce availability of a new Citrix SCOM Management Pack for ShareFile—a specialized monitoring and reporting console to further improve availability, performance, security and capacity-planning for a ShareFile deployment. The Citrix SCOM Management Pack for ShareFile is an add-on to Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) to monitor product-specific metrics for ShareFile.
Receiver 12.3 for Mac Has Landed!
Mac OS 10.12 codenamed Sierra was recently released. Citrix is happy to announce that Receiver 12.3 for Mac has also been released.
AppDNA 7.11: Added Security & Server 2016 RTM Reporting
The release of XenDesktop 7.11 comes with the new version of Citrix AppDNA with a new reporting module for Server 2016 RTM and added security algorithms for the Security reporting feature introduced in 7.9.
Citrix Named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers…Again!
Gartner has published the 2016 Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers. At Citrix, we are pleased to see that we are positioned as a leader in this space for the tenth year, and we are positioned furthest overall for completeness of vision.
Citrix XenServer Supports Microsoft Plans for Enhanced Virtualization Security
Today, Microsoft announced their intent to extend their Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) with an Additional Qualification for third party hypervisors, such as Citrix XenServer, to support some Windows Server 2016 virtualization-based security features (VBS), notably Credential Guard (CG) and Device Guard (DG). Windows Server VMs running on SVVP validated platforms will be able to leverage the new VBS capabilities to strengthen the isolation of a number of security-sensitive components and deliver enhanced security for Windows applications and desktops.
Citrix wins virtual desktop interface shootout
Virtual Desktop Interface is becoming easier to do, with potentially killer graphics, reasonable port virtualization, fine-grained administrative control, and with potential hosts other than Windows.
While Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp remains the one to beat, two other VDI platforms we tested, Ericom Connect Enterprise and Parallels Remote Application Server, can provide for the publishing of diverse applications to desktops, while following “the rules” regarding resource accessibility and security.
In testing, we found Citrix leads the pack in terms of overall flexibility, although its vast feature sets can increase support burdens. If price-be-damned and you really want the venerable Full Meal Deal, it’s Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp Enterprise. We found it has almost everything you could ask for in a VDI product.
Is your security awareness training program working?
Employees at Axe Investment, the fictional firm of biollionaire Bobby Axelrod in Showtimes new series, Billions, were downright angry when they learned that surprise SEC raid was only a test. Axelrod, though, found the mock raid fruitful as it revealed the internal weak links of his organization.
These are metrics that enterprises should be using to evaluate the success of their security awareness programs. In order for awareness training to work, it has to keep everyone in the enterprise, well, aware.
Minimize Windows 10 migration headaches by freeing data from devices
Operating system migrations require detailed planning, as every part of the end-user computing “stack” – hardware, applications, data, and user profiles — needs to be assessed before proceeding. From an organizational productivity standpoint, maintaining the availability of the data people need to do their jobs is a top concern.
How to support Microsoft’s Skype for Business tool on virtual desktops
Microsoft was sluggish in providing a comprehensive enterprise unified communications (UC) product organizations could integrate into a virtual desktop deployment. Virtualization was always an afterthought with Microsoft’s Lync messaging platform, the predecessor to the Skype for Business tool before the company acquired Skype in 2011.
Now, the partnership between Citrix and Microsoft has spawned the HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.0, which puts the virtual desktop on par with its physical counterpart when it comes to UC support.
The reality is, in an enterprise environment, IoT will be much more complex than the individual smart device/smart thing relationship. It gets back to Tim O’Reilly’s point about systems. When we started talking IoT initiatives nearly two years ago, we found most people were not excited to talk about IoT as it related to a new sensor, device or gadget. Instead, they were intrigued when you talked about the potential for IoT to help solve complex business problems. As organizations become increasingly digital in all aspects of their business, new challenges in managing the connections, devices and applications that make up their digital business arise. This is especially relevant as enterprise applications evolve to be a collection of services and interactions spread across the cloud, on-premises systems and devices/sensors/things.
Why Citrix Is Better than VMware in Desktop Virtualization
Offerings that have to interoperate are always better between companies that cooperate than companies that don’t. And firms at war with each other seldom are successful with joint efforts. Often joint efforts between firms that actually want to work together fail due simply to cultural difference.
What gives Citrix the sustainable advantage is not only the fact it has a tighter relationship with Microsoft, but—because it appears to realize that it has to do most of the heavy lifting to maintain the relationship, there is none of the typical finger-pointing between the firms. Citrix owns the solution and responsibility and thus if Microsoft becomes distracted it is prepared to fill the gaps.
Yes, The Cloud Can Be A Security Win
There are so many different kinds of clouds — public, private, hybrid, internal — that many businesses and customers have difficulty deciding which is the right one for them. Furthermore, many businesses may use a few different variations of cloud environments — a private cloud for their own intranet, a hybrid cloud to keep some data on premises and some off premises to meet compliance regulations, and a public cloud for low-risk data.
These different types of environments make it difficult for IT and security teams to monitor every cloud on every device, or to monitor access requests for each different type of cloud environment. If you don’t control the cloud or where your data and apps reside, don’t manage them, or don’t know what you have in the cloud, your risk starts to sprawl and you don’t even know what’s happened when there’s a breach — or where to start to remediate. Follow these guidelines to make sure you avoid the cloud’s possible pitfalls.
Best Practices/Reference Architecture Documents/Blogs
XenMobile Touch ID Restriction Configuration & End User Experience
This blog describes how to configure Touch ID restriction on XenMobile Server and end user experience when Touch ID is enabled/Disabled for iOS devices.
Skype for Business from the Azure Cloud!
Times have changed! Today, calling from a cloud has a whole new meaning, with Skype for Business Online and Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop for Azure. Co-developed by Microsoft and Citrix, this unique solution brings not only telephony, but a full repertoire of Unified Communications features to the Azure cloud.
Introduction to Isolation Groups in XenDesktop
By design, App-V applications are isolated from each other and each AppV application is run within its own separate virtual environment—they do not share any data with other AppV applications. While this application isolation is welcome, as it promotes application compatibility by preventing any cross-application conflict, there is a need, at times, to overcome this restriction in certain strategic scenarios.
What Does Windows Server 2016 Day 1 Support Really Mean?
Citrix will support Windows Server 2016 on Day One! But what does that really mean? Does that mean that if I got my hands on the released bits of Windows Server 2016 on X Day of X Month (remember, I can’t tell you the actual release date) that I could then install XenApp and XenDesktop 7.11 on it and start using it? Immediately? Well, in a word, yes. Yes, it does. It’s really that simple. So, you see, there is no need to take the old approach to a new server OS and wait years to start working on it. You can truly start deploying and testing your own apps on Day 1 with XenApp and Windows Server 2016.
XenApp 7.11: Scalability & Economics on Microsoft Azure
Deploying Citrix XenApp 7.11 workloads from the Microsoft Azure cloud can give your IT organization a strategic advantage since it enables the delivery of desktops and applications in an agile way – you pay only for what you use. In fact, the price point for deploying a XenApp farm on Microsoft Azure can be as low as $6.89 per month per user.
XenApp & XenDesktop 7.x Server OS VDA Staggered Reboot Framework
This is the second version of the reboot framework for XenApp/XenDesktop Server OS VDAs.
Citrix Linux VDA 1.4 Introduces App Publishing with XenApp & More!
Linux VDA continues to evolve with every release, enabling more and more use cases. The Linux VDA 1.4 release is part of XenApp and XenDesktop 7.11 and it adds support for Linux application publishing with XenApp, anonymous login, policy management, USB redirection and expands HDX 3D Pro support on Linux.
Security and End-User Productivity with XenMobile & Office 365
Keeping pace with the rapid change from corporate-owned data centers to cloud services while maintaining tight control of your data and identity is a challenge.Mobile devices add an additional level of risk. However, Citrix XenMobile is built to bring a higher level of security to these platforms, no matter the location of your assets.
Configuring GSLB for XenMobile
Customers have many requirements. As I usually deal with large customers, a disaster recovery solution is always one of them. With XenMobile 10.x, things have gotten a lot easier: clustering is a piece of cake, and to direct traffic to the right data center we have NetScalers and GSLB (Global Server Load Balancing) at our disposal. This post is about configuring GSLB on NetScalers for XenMobile.
Self-Service Password Reset for FMA!
Learn more about Phase 2 of the Self Service Password Reset capabilities introduced in XenApp and Xendesktop 7.11.
Using Citrix Director in a MultiForest Environment
Citrix Director is capable of monitoring a XenDesktop and XenApp environment spanning a forest configuration where the users, XD Delivery controller, VDAs and Citrix Director can be located in same/different forests.
Step-by-Step Guide to Mac OS X Enrollment with XenMobile
Citrix has released XenMobile 10.3, which supports enrollment and management of the Mac OS X. Once the Mac OS X is enrolled, the administrator can manage the device by deploying multiple policies and perform various administrative tasks remotely thus making sure that they are complainant.This guide contains the step-by-step instructions accompanied with screenshots for a hassle-free Mac OS X enrollment. This guide also contains steps to collect the Mac OS X logs for troubleshooting when needed.
Using XenApp & XenDesktop in Azure Resource Manager
The recent addition of Azure Resource Manager support to Citrix Cloud’s XenApp and XenDesktop service provides a powerful new tool for creating and managing cloud hosted VDAs
nFactor authentication – MFA on steroids
The latest version of NetScaler has deeper integration with nFactor and can now be used with NetScaler Gateway and Unified Gateway. With nFactor you can configure an unlimited number of authentication factors. You are no longer limited to just two factors and you can get creative on how to chain them. Configuration will depend on the security policy and many times, user adoption and training are considerations to look at.
StoreFront Aggregation Groups Revisited
Over the past 12-18 months, we have seen a dramatic shift with the number of deployments using Web Interface versus StoreFront to the point that StoreFront is the de facto standard in new environment builds and migrations that we are seeing within Citrix Consulting. The majority of these deployments are also leveraging advanced multi-site settings in some way: either Optimal Gateway Routing to enable the use of HDX Insight for internal (non-Gateway users), user farm mapping to assign different groups of users to different farm sets, or aggregating resources from multiple farms/sites to collapse duplicate applications and/or desktops behind a single icon.
Extend the Microsoft RDS platform in Azure through Citrix solutions
Recording of a session from MS Ignite showcasing the new XenApp Express service in Azure that will replace RemoteApp.
Events/Webinars
Solution Webinar: How to deploy NetScaler Unified Gateway for Hybrid Cloud and secure access to Microsoft Office 365
Deep dive into how NetScaler Unified Gateway provides secure access to Office 365 and hybrid cloud workloads.
Oct 5 – Master Class: NetScaler Rate Limiting and NetScaler and AAA
Live technical webinars to learn about the most critical elements of cloud infrastructures and enterprise datacenter architectures.
Desktop Master Class: September 2016
Solution Webinar: What’s New in XenApp and XenDesktop
Master Class: Mobility Master Class: September 2016
Solution Webinar: Avoid Ransomware with a Published Browser
Master Class: NetScaler 101- TCP optimizations and compression: delivering applications effectively across the Internet. In the Spotlight – NetScaler in Citrix environments: remote access; high availability and visibility for XenApp/XenDesktop solved
Solution Webinar: Why Healthcare IT Prefers Citrix over VMware: A Dose of Security in an Unsecure World
Solution Webinar: Top six things you might not know about SD-WAN
Citrix and Microsoft: Making Cloud Simpler, Business Faster