Workspot vs. Citrix Cloud

The in-depth answers you need about vastly different architectures

Comparison Guide

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HOW TO USE THIS GUIDEOur primary goal from day one of the company is to ensure that organizations of all sizes can realize the benefits of virtual desktops and apps. With a long history at Citrix and VMware implementing these solutions and struggling alongside customers to make the technology work, our team of VDI and app publishing experts now has Workspot’s modern technology to do it right. We are obsessed with delivering fast time-to-value for our customers. Providing VDI and DaaS should not be mired in complexity. We have innovated well beyond legacy methods so we can show you value on day 1. This document will provide you with a few thoughts that are important for you to consider about Citrix Cloud versus Workspot.

CITRIX CLOUD REALLY IS JUST PLAIN OLD HOSTINGCitrix products like XenApp and XenDesktop are complex solutions with multiple layered components. These components need to be deployed on-premises by multiple teams with specific skill sets who have received in-depth training. These components, such as the Brokers, Storefront, License Server and NetScaler have complicated high availability scenarios and configurations.

The Citrix Cloud service hosts the customer deployments in multiple data centers. There is one copy of a deployment per customer. Citrix is responsible for the management of these customer deployments. For each customer’s instance Citrix needs to worry about the complexities of scale, availability, reliability, patching, updating, troubleshooting, and support. We know how difficult it is for a single customer to operate one instance on their own; now imagine all those difficulties massively compounded when operating thousands of instances! How can that possibily be managed?

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THE HARSH REALITIESIn practice, Citrix Cloud is more complex because all the components cannot be hosted in a remote datacenter. This creates a fragmented hybrid model and defeats the benefits of moving to the Cloud. Some legacy components must run on-premises, plus there are new components that need to be created which run in Citrix ‘cloud’. This simple rendering of Citrix Cloud shows the components that are hosted by Citrix: Netscaler Gateway, Delivery Controller, and Storefront. Running on the customer premises is the Citrix Cloud Connector.

Another harsh reality is that if a customer moves to Citrix Cloud, there are security complications and performance issues that must be evaluated.

Security is compromised: Credentials & data flow through Citrix CloudWhen a user connects to the XenApp / XenDesktop Service, the user authenticates against the Citrix Cloud. User credentials need to be stored in the Citrix hosting infrastructure. Further end user traffic needs to be routed through the Citrix hosting infrastructure. In some situations, network bottlenecks are created at the connector. Delivery Controller registrations are one of many things cached in that connector. Do you want to store your credentials in the Citrix Cloud? Do you want all your traffic to flow through the Citrix Cloud? This would create serious issues for any organization, but for many organizations that have strict regulatory obligations it’s a non-starter.

Workspot is architected to expressly separate the control plane from the data plane. Data and credentials flow directly between the end user and the customer data center whether that infrastructure is running on-premises or on Microsoft Azure. We never store credentials in Workspot Control (our VDI control plane in the cloud). Authentication, including multi-factor authentication, is done directly between the Workspot Client (our unified workspace on the user’s device) and the customer’s authentication infrastructure.

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Scalability and availability is compromisedThe Citrix Cloud is hosting their legacy on-premises solutions. Those solutions had scalability and availability limits when they were on-premises. The recommendation for customers was to deploy not more than 10,000-20,000 users in a single deployment. The limits were based on the size of the Flexcast Management Architecture (FMA) database and the legacy three-tier application architecture. In a Citrix Cloud deployment, those same limitations for the size of the Delivery Controller and Storefront per customer apply, plus there is an additional limit because of the hosting architecture of Citrix Cloud. All data flows through a single choke point – Citrix. Every user’s performance is now affected by the scalability of this choke point. Availability of the service is also determined by this single choke point which also is a single point of failure. So if the Citrix Cloud is unavailable, your business comes to a screeching halt. Lastly, the Citrix Cloud connector itself is responsible for more than 10 types of communication to more than 5 services! There are no considerations for application traffic to multiple data centers or regions.

Citrix Cloud delivers poor user experienceWhen a user tries to access their desktops, apps and data using Citrix, making that connection can take as many as 33 handshakes between all the components that are deployed. This results in slower connection times, sometimes upwards of 30 seconds. The problem is so pervasive that Google readily suggests this search term when you start typing “Why is Citrix…” (so slow). Try it.

There is an even bigger problem. The data traffic is tromboned through the NetScaler Gateway running in the Citrix Cloud (red line). This means that if the user is in APAC, the Citrix Cloud is in North America, and the workload is in a data center located in Europe, the data traffic would have very high latencies.

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A Workspot user connects directly to their virtual application or desktop, in many cases with zero handshakes, but in some cases with one handshake. Hence a Workspot user can reconnect in less than 5 seconds in most cases. Furthermore, the Workspot user can connect to a local data center and the traffic flows directly between the user and the data center. The Workspot control plane lives in the cloud and is completely separate from the data plane; no data traffic flows through Workspot Control.

Citrix Cloud has multiple panes of glassDespite their marketing positioning, the Citrix Cloud does not simplify management complexity for IT. Citrix Cloud makes the complexity worse. All the components and their consoles are still being hosted in the Citrix Cloud. At a minimum, the Citrix Cloud solution components, in conjunction with any existing tools, add up to a minimum of 5 administration consoles! Therefore, IT still has to go to the StoreFront console to associate delivery controllers for app/desktop access, to the Citrix Studio console to provision desktops, and finally to the Citrix Director console to monitor analytics. As if that were not enough, if they are using NetScaler, the customer has the choice to use either the NetScaler admin console or the new NetScaler Management and Analytics tool. This is 5 big blows to the idea of simplicity, and it causes confusion and frustration for IT teams.

And that is just for one site! In a world where IT can have multiple cloud data centers, you would have different sets of consoles for each site. Multiply that per deployment, and you have amassed an even larger mess than the one you have on-premises.

So what’s the net result of shoveling legacy software - XenApp and XenDesktop - into Citrix Cloud? Security show stoppers, poor network performance, tedious and confusing administration through way too many consoles, and compromised user experience.

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FORTUNATELY, THERE IS A CLOUD FIRST WAYWorkspot makes VDI insanely simple. The solution has a single pane of glass to do all the above: provision applications, desktops, users, and monitor analytics across multiple sites. The Workspot solution is cloud-native and multi-tenant. We built it from the ground-up just like Salesforce for CRM, Workday for HR, Netsuite for ERP, and ServiceNow for IT Management. A customer is a tenant in our service. The solution was built with a modern, micro-services architecture similar to how Facebook and Twitter are built, which allows it to be deployed in hours and to scale to millions of users. Workspot provides the ultimate flexibility: deliver virtual desktops and apps from on-premises data centers, from Azure, or both, simultaneously, and managed through a single console. Customers have the option to subscribe to an all-in, turnkey service, where Workspot spins up the Azure compute, storage, and networking environment within hours, then ensures fast time-to-value through deep engagement with our Customer Success team.

Deploy in a day with zero CapEx!

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SUMMARYOrganizations looking to the cloud for delivering virtual desktops and apps must look closely under the hood and ask hard questions of vendors to understand the implications of vastly different Citrix Cloud and Workspot architectures.

Key characteristics of Workspot’s innovative DaaS 2.0 service on Azure:

Predictable per user costs: Workspot optimizes Azure costs by bundling all desktops, applications, compute, storage, and networking components into a single, predictable bill.

Instant on and instant scalability: You can get started today deploying 1000s of desktops. No need to acquire data center infrastructure. Scaling up is also instantaneous.

High performance for end-users globally: You can automatically deploy VDI to the Azure region(s) closest to your users, and thereby ensure optimal performance. Then, you simply manage everything from a single pane of glass.

The only 100% cloud native architecture optimized for Azure: DaaS 2.0 is always up to date with the latest features. Workspot releases new features every few weeks.

CHECKLIST

Top 10 questions to ask Citrix about Citrix Cloud:1. Are you really hosting 1 instance of XenApp/XenDesktop for each customer?2. Are my company’s user credentials stored in the Citrix Cloud?3. Is my company’s data flowing through Citrix Cloud?4. Are you sending data traffic through Citrix Cloud? Does this create a bottleneck?5. Is the Citrix Cloud a single point of failure?6. How many panes of glass do I have to manage my deployment?7. Who pays for Microsoft Azure?8. Can I manage both my licenses in the Cloud and my on-premises licenses?9. If I’m a Citrix Cloud customer, do I work with one support group?10. If I’m a current Citrix customer, can I keep my Subscription Advantage without support?

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Workspot.com1601 S. De Anza Blvd, Suite 230Cupertino, CA 95014 USA 8

ABOUT WORKSPOTWorkspot has reinvented Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with its cloud-native VDI 2.0 and Desktop-as-a-Service 2.0 (DaaS 2.0) solutions. Workspot solves the corporate challenge of securely delivering apps, desktops and data to any device and helps organizations achieve unprecedented time-to-value for VDI implementations. With a focus on customer satisfaction, Workspot offers the shortest implementation times in the industry.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company received the Best of VMworld 2016 Gold Award for Desktop and Application Delivery solutions. For more information on Workspot’s risk-free, turnkey solutions, visit: www.workspot.com.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCESSchedule a demo: It takes just 15 minutes to see how it works

Solution brief: Workspot DaaS 2.0: Insanely Simple Desktop as a Service on Microsoft Azure

Technical white paper: Workspot Enables Secure Access to Desktops, Apps and Data from Any Device