Citrix

What is Citrix?

Citrix is a U.S.-based software company founded in 1989 that offers virtualization and cloud computing software. A pioneer in the remote access space, the company’s core mission is to provide a better way to work by allowing people and the enterprise organizations they work for to choose precisely what that entails.

Citrix creates technology that removes time, place, infrastructure, networks, or devices as a barrier to productivity to ensure that people can work anywhere and in any way they choose. Citrix's products are widely used by businesses and organizations of all sizes to enhance productivity, improve flexibility, and enable remote work capabilities. Their technology is especially valuable for companies that have a distributed workforce or require secure access to applications and data from various locations and devices.

As of September 2022, Citrix has merged with software giant Tibco as part of the newly formed Cloud Software Group.

What is Citrix technology used for?

Businesses and their employees use Citrix to recreate the conveniences of the workplace in out-of-office settings, ensuring that remote users can maximize productivity by continuing to use their workplace tools uninterrupted.

Some of the key use cases for Citrix technology include:

Virtual Application Delivery: Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly XenApp) allow organizations to virtualize applications and deliver them to end-users on demand. This enables users to access their applications remotely from any device, making it easier to work from home, on the go, or from branch offices.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly XenDesktop) go beyond virtualizing applications by providing full virtual desktops to users. These virtual desktops run in the data center and are accessed remotely, offering a consistent and secure computing environment regardless of the user's device.
Remote Work and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD): Citrix technology is instrumental in enabling remote work scenarios. With Citrix solutions, employees can access their work environments and applications securely from personal devices, facilitating the BYOD trend.
Cloud Adoption: Citrix technology supports cloud computing initiatives, enabling organizations to run applications and desktops in public, private, or hybrid cloud environments. This flexibility facilitates scalability and cost optimization.
Endpoint Management and Security: Citrix Endpoint Management (formerly XenMobile) helps organizations manage and secure mobile devices, applications, and data. It offers features like mobile device management (MDM), mobile application management (MAM), and secure remote access to corporate resources.
File Sharing and Collaboration: Citrix Content Collaboration (formerly ShareFile) is a cloud-based file-sharing platform that facilitates secure collaboration and data synchronization among teams.

Overall, Citrix technology plays a crucial role in supporting remote work, improving user experiences, and ensuring efficient application delivery in modern IT environments.

What are the key Citrix products?

Some of the key products and solutions offered by Citrix include:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly known as XenApp and XenDesktop): This product allows businesses to virtualize applications and desktops, enabling users to access them remotely from various devices and platforms.
Citrix Workspace: This is a unified platform that integrates virtual applications, desktops, files, and collaboration tools into a single interface, making it easier for users to access their resources from anywhere.
Citrix ADC (Application Delivery Controller): This is a load balancing and application delivery solution that optimizes the performance, security, and availability of applications, ensuring a smooth user experience.
Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer): A server virtualization platform that enables businesses to create and manage virtual machines, providing a scalable and flexible infrastructure.
Citrix Endpoint Management (formerly XenMobile): This solution helps organizations manage and secure mobile devices, applications, and data across different operating systems and device types.
Citrix Content Collaboration (formerly ShareFile): A cloud-based file sharing and storage platform that allows secure collaboration and data synchronization among teams.

What is the role of IT monitoring in a Citrix deployment?

Citrix is one of the most performance sensitive workloads in enterprise IT networks today. Even a small glitch anywhere in the infrastructure can result in screen freezes, slow logons, session disconnects and such. IT operations teams need to be able to monitor the Citrix delivery chain end-to-end in order to avoid “Citrix is slow” complaints from users.

Traditional system and network monitoring tools do not have the expertise to monitor Citrix technologies and protocols well. This is why Citrix customers have to explore specialized solutions for monitoring Citrix.

How does eG Enterprise help Citrix customers?

eG Enterprise is an end-to-end monitoring solution for Citrix technologies. Customers get all the insights they need to proactively monitor, diagnose and report on Citrix performance. By monitoring end-to-end, eG Enterprise not only highlights times when Citrix is slow, but it also provides the diagnosis necessary to resolve issues, i.e., is it a network issue, virtualization problem, Active Directory issue, etc. The solution is simple to use, so even helpdesk staff can use eG Enterprise effectively to resolve user complaints.

Learn more about how eG Enterprise complements built-in monitoring tools from Citrix to provide a single pane of glass for IT admins: https://www.eginnovations.com/white-paper/citrix-infrastructure-monitoring-through-a-single-pane-of-glass