If the following 10 reasons describe your experience with Citrix Virtual Apps or Virtual Desktops or even VMware Horizon, you have a problem.
The good news is that it all can be fixed with something as simple as a phone call.
1. You have lost your Citrix Admin and can’t find a good replacement. Or you can’t keep them, or just can’t afford them. (The good ones are so expensive, right?)
2. The Citrix end user experience is suffering. End users are putting in requisitions for new laptops and desktops; the crafty ones are sending the CIO pizza and the Support Desk cookies on Systems Admin Day as subtle bribes to get them off of VDI.
3. There is (likely) an upgrade that needs to happen. Everyone in IT is quietly ignoring it. It might be Win 7, Server 2008 R2, Citrix 4.0, 4.5, 5.6, 6.0, 6.5, or anything pre-7.15. Consultants are expensive and messing with Citrix Virtual Apps or Virtual Desktops / VMware Horizon without a VDI expert handy is scary stuff.
4. Consultants are making a good deal of money reactively fixing broken things in your Citrix.
5. NetScaler. Where do we start? NetScaler is incredibly powerful but it’s tricky to get the most from the advanced, super-cool stuff. You might get there yourself eventually, but expert assistance will almost always get you there faster.
6. You bought some third party tools. Some are useful, some are shelfware, some are too complex, or need a dedicated full-time employee, soooo they don’t get used.
7. You are supporting more than four gold images.
8. Login times are longer than 30 seconds.
9. Throwing Citrix or VMware Horizon out is beginning to look more appealing as there does not seem to be a way to get it “right” and your boss looks at you with a “I’m not so sure about you” way when you pass in the hallway.
10. The Support Desk staff immediately escalates any and every ticket with the word Citrix or VDI in it, burying your limited Citrix/VMware expertise in support issues so they never have time to improve anything.
If more than three of the ten items in this list sound all too familiar, a handful of actions can solve your headaches and give you the productivity Citrix and/or VMware Horizon was meant to provide. So you can move on with your life and career.
The first step, as they say, is recognizing there’s a problem.
What can you do when Citrix or VMware Horizon is a problem?
It is easy to find someone who claims they can fix a Citrix environment. It’s another thing altogether to find someone capable of maintaining the quality of the experience — long term. Even if you go with Citrix Cloud, you still must manage the messy parts.
You can hire someone (not as easy as it sounds), go for Citrix Desktops as a Service (DaaS), or get a fully self-contained, hands-off Citrix or VMware appliance (like our Titanium HCI).
Or, if you have good hardware, you can hire a firm to manage Citrix or Horizon for you.
Those last two can be very attractive: they include all patching, AV exclusions, updates, proactive management, Citrix upgrades, and application updates.
And that means you’re able forget the trauma of managing Citrix or VMware Horizon and simply enjoy the experience — and the benefits.
Leave Comment