Citrix virtual desktop.

[Other Means]

Anyone had any dealings with this? Apparently I've got a meeting with their "consultants" tomorrow to talk about a new infrastructure.

I've got an instinctive dislike of the idea of it but if anyone loves it then tell me why.

Of course, I'd prefer horror stories but I'm trying to keep an open mind.

[costard]

If your printers are wired to a server a couple hundred km away, it's faster to print inside citrix instead of waiting for the data on your machine to make the journey to the server and back. Particularly useful if you live in a country with stupid slow broadband and need to do large file printing - like photos.

I don't know what other benefits it brings, if any.

Cheers.

[Other Means]

Nope. I'm wondering what it brings myself.

This presentation better be from a burning bush.

[costard]

What a coincidence.

I arrive at work to find that my citrix agent has forgotten me and deleted all my preferences. OK, so I lose some time reinstalling shortcuts and setting up Outlook. Not so bad.

Then I find that some of my mapping work is gone for ever (saved as a link and not backed up, mea culpa) and all of a sudden I'm really not a fan at all.

meh, time to go out bush and forget about work for a bit. See if I can rustle up a gold-bearing creek.

[YankeeDog]

Yeah, we use Citrix where I work. I actually don't use it that much, because I'm not very important and my job therefore doesn't come home with me at night or send me halfway across the globe to some godforsaken locale (there are a few benefits to NOT being the boss).

But when I have used it, it's worked fine for me. Granted, what I do with it is generally pretty simple -- I usually use it to interface with our document management system (Hummingbird DM) from my home computer, check out a document or two, edit them (usually in MS Word), and then sometimes print them to one of the office computers for someone to pick up. Hardly the cutting edge of remote office technology these days.

Cheers,

YD

[Wilhammer]

Yikes, we are doing something quite similar with Xen.

Just got done with a meeting with one of the vendors quoting us.

http://www.citrix.com/english/ps2/products/product.asp?contentID=163057

[Tero]

Offhand:

Pros: no need to upgrade HW (any old rig will run as the desktop is "remote"), all SW up to date, lisencing and version issues managed, all settings the same to all users/user groups. In short a control freaks wet dream.

Cons: when it (server, connection) goes down you are SOL, offline working a pain in general, local/remote backup/synchronization tricky, lisencing issues (max users/application deny access if not dealt with properly), universal settings = universal problems. In short, individualistic and innovtive approach to working out the window.

Suitable for controlled environments with high security demands (hospitals etc), unsuitable for work which requires individual approach to problem solving etc.

[Wilhammer]

Offhand:

Pros: no need to upgrade HW (any old rig will run as the desktop is "remote"), all SW up to date, licensing and version issues managed, all settings the same to all users/user groups. In short a control freaks wet dream.

Cons: when it (server, connection) goes down you are SOL, offline working a pain in general, local/remote backup/synchronization tricky, lisencing issues (max users/application deny access if not dealt with properly), universal settings = universal problems. In short, individualistic and innovative approach to working out the window.

Suitable for controlled environments with high security demands (hospitals etc), unsuitable for work which requires individual approach to problem solving etc.

Being in Higher Ed, we are looking at this for Academic Labs. Your final point is why.

[Other Means]

Nothing that would be replaced by Citrix would have hardware requirements that are anywhere near taxing a normal desk/laptop. Office, some specialised but still low CPU usage apps - although one with RT SQL use - and browsers.

Saw 2 vendors today - it's the thin client guys tomorrow.

And yes, I'm aware of the irony thanks.

[Tero]

Being in Higher Ed, we are looking at this for Academic Labs. Your final point is why.

Since Citrix Metaframe is essentially a rehash of the old mainframe Telnet remote application usage most users these days have problems with the fact that the "normal" functions of the PC will not work the quite the same under Citrix.

From the system admin POV Citrix is easy to manage. But only if all the users and user groups comply 100% with the set up. Well planned and executed Windows AD with intelligently drawn up policies beats Citrix hands down.

[Wilhammer]

Since Citrix Metaframe is essentially a rehash of the old mainframe Telnet remote application usage most users these days have problems with the fact that the "normal" functions of the PC will not work the quite the same under Citrix.

From the system admin POV Citrix is easy to manage. But only if all the users and user groups comply 100% with the set up. Well planned and executed Windows AD with intelligently drawn up policies beats Citrix hands down.

Being at higher Ed, faculty generally never wants to comply with anything. Students don;t care - they bypass everything. We have a pretty solid AD environment, but thinks like INB Banner ruin it; that and a lot of other Web Based Apps. VMing in our environment is just trying to please those Faculty Tech Wannabes who think 'Virtual Classroom' is so Cool, but they soon find out they don't really understand it. It will work in the classroom, but still, one flaw of the VM concept is narrowed points of failure - one piece of hardware hosting an Virtual Environment kills the whole thing. Sure, we can go redundant and cluster some servers, but that is more expensive than just going with desktops locked down in the Classroom AD subdomain. In that case, the Point of Failure is spread out over every desktop, and each one only costs about 1000 dollars, vs one VM server in the 15K to 20K range. And don't even try graphically intense stuff over VM....like Autocad. Oh well, we will make it work, and like so many other It projects, it will likely dead end.