CITRIX VIRTUAL DESKTOP WINDOWS

Also depending on which feature of the protocol is used –> Rendezvous protocol | Citrix DaaS the Cloud Connector also acts as a proxy if the Rendezvous protocol is not used for connectivity. The connection to the infrastructure is done via a virtual machine that hosts the cloud connector service, (Citrix Gateway Connector) which acts as the connectivity proxy for VDAs and Citrix Cloud. The service is behind a DNS load balancing capability which redirects the user to the closest PoP location. This means that traffic coming from an end-user is going to one of the POPs (Point of presence) that Citrix has –> Citrix Gateway Service – Points-of-Presence (PoPs) then being redirected to the VDA.

This connection point supports a UDP-based connection using a protocol called EDT which is based upon DTLS (This requires the use of the Rendezvous protocol, more about that part a bit later) Regarding the data plane (handling user session connections to the actual VDI/VDA), this can either be done using on-premises Gateway appliances or their managed data plane service called Gateway-as-a-service. Much of the Citrix Cloud services are running on Microsoft Azure, as can be seen as part of the FQDN documentation here –> System and Connectivity Requirements | Citrix Cloud This means that all APIs/changes/updates need to go to that region. Their management plane is delivered in 5 different regions (US, US-GOV, EU, JAPAN, Asia Pacific South) so when you create a management plane tenant you need to select one of these regions. The Cloud service itself is built on top of a combination of AWS and Microsoft Azure to run This service provides much of the functionality needed to manage, provision, and provide connectivity to the infrastructure using a local component called Cloud Connector.

Much of the services that Citrix have been building over the last years have been around their managed cloud service called Citrix Cloud. This section is meant just to provide some context around the overall architecture of both platforms and their services. NOTE: If you do not want to read all the extra stuff want for the second part.

CITRIX VIRTUAL DESKTOP WINDOWS

Now to be fair, I have not included all the Citrix stuff related to ZTNA and Secure Access, the focus here is to look closer at the functionality of providing virtual Windows Applications and Desktops and the difference between these two vendors on Microsoft Azure. So, I wanted to use the blog post to break it down into some different sections much as Citrix did in their post, and give my personal reflection on this, how does Citrix CVAD now compare to Microsoft AVD? I have had this discussion soooooo many times with customers and other partners in the last years that I have lost count. Sometimes they need Citrix, sometimes AVD is good enough, and sometimes maybe something else entirely. Now I have been working with Citrix and Azure for over 10 years, so I know my way around both platforms.Īs part of the work, I do as a Cloud advisor, I always want to provide the customers I work with the best solution depending on their use cases. For one I do not feel that it is representing all the facts, so therefore I wanted to use this blog post to go into more detail on what is the difference between the two options. A long time ago I wrote a blog post around Microsoft RDS vs Citrix XenDesktop at the time where I looked at the overall functionality and end-user experience, which you can read about here (and now fast forward to 2022 not much of that is that much relevant anymore.)Ī Couple of weeks ago I saw this post from Citrix, and it made me a bit agitated (which you can read about here –> Citrix and Microsoft Azure: Create Your Ideal Virtual Desktop Experience – Citrix.

Citrix virtual desktop