Citrix DaaS vs. Unidesk (Discontinued)

DaaS is ideal in large-scale environments that require centralized, secure management. Remote workforces at large organizations. Highly regulated industries like finance. It allows for easy security and monitoring over one aspect instead of multiple remote machines. DaaS is not ideal for organizations with small budgets due to the pricing and organizations with lousy network connectivity. This would make the end-user experience terrible.

Incentivized

Unidesk is well suited to environments where users are accustomed to using personalized and "unique" desktops where as other solutions cater only to standard or non-persistent desktop experiences. The personalization layer present in Unidesk allows users to feel as though they are using a personalized system without the complexities of managing dozens or hundreds of unique systems for users across your company. Updates to existing desktops/layers are accomplished with ease and can easily be done by lower tier support. If your deliverable is to provide a persistent desktop experience while maintaining the best density and performance of your infrastructure then Unidesk is a hard solution to beat.

Incentivized

• All Management resources can now be installed on a single server. Reducing the overhead required to maintain a citrix environment.
• Granularity of the Delivery groups allow you to define allowing a remote user to connect to a random XenDesktop VM or individually assigning VMs to users.
• HDX RealTime Optimization Pack has stabilized some of the issues of utilizing all of the features of Skype for Business in a ZenDesktop VM.

Incentivized

• Creating application layers is easy to do. It's just a matter of installing the applications as you would normally do on a computer.
• Unidesk's technology isn't sandbox like VMware's ThinApp technology so it works much better and is more compatible with other software.
• The admin console and technology in general is easy to learn for the administrator while it's transparent to the end users.

Incentivized

• A single console to manage the environment.
• The configuration is a bit complicated and we have hired Citrix administrators. But it's a good solution.
• User profiles need improvement. They could use more stability and more functionality as well as user profile redirection.

Incentivized

• Occasionally if a desktop is left on for too long some weird things happens. For example, the desktop is no longer recognized in AD - it could be AD, removal, etc., but I have checked all these. Refreshing and restoring the VM seems to solve the problem. This happened more than once.
• We have redundancy (two) connection brokers - Unidesk has trouble from time to time knowing which one to use it seems.
• The rebuild takes too long when the VM is larger. Users would reboot their desktop as a normal routine and they call to reboot thinking their VD is down when it was just taking its time to rebuild the layers (anywhere from 5 to 15 mins. Mostly 15mins).

Incentivized

I would of given it a 10 but Citrix tech support is lacking.

Incentivized

Unidesk has been a solid product for us. We continue to rely on its simplicity and scalability.

Incentivized

From an end-user perspective, Citrix DaaS is ideal. No matter the device that the user connects with, the end user's experience is always the same. Desktop icons are there, along with the files. As a big name, Citrix allows for SAML authentication or a local account. End users do not need a beefy laptop to have a good experience in DaaS.

Incentivized

Next to zero downtime

Incentivized

The performance of XenDesktop is the best in the industry because of the fine-tuned protocol and years of updating. Overall, I don't think there is a better performer on the market. The question is if the added complexity of running XenDesktop is really worth the performance gain. While the latest version of XenDesktop is the easiest to deploy so far, it is still more challenging than the competitors.

Incentivized

The support is great when you get an engineer that knows what they are doing but getting that individual sometimes takes a while. Overall, they are professional and polite and competent in their knowledge. Sometimes the cases are open for an extended period of time which becomes very frustrating when dealing with critical issues.

Incentivized

I was self trained

Incentivized

Online training isn't bad just an over view more then anything else.

Incentivized

Take it slow and read the directions each step of the way. If you are not familiar with Citrix products, use a reseller or other experienced engineer to assist you in the setup of your environment

Incentivized

Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops is platform agnostic (we can use any underlying hypervisor technology) and really flexible for any use case. Using a golden image and provisioning it (with Machine Creation Services or Provisioning Services) is powerful and really straightforward, compared to the complexity in Microsoft RDS of maintaining a coherent farm, or the limitation of VMware Horizon to run on VMware Products.

Incentivized

AppVolumes seems to be a lot less mature as a product. It does have some benefits over Unidesk e.g. the fact it doesn't include the OS Layer (image management) side means I can just use it for the app layering piece if I like. I can also deploy my application layers to physical desktops BUT I have had less success compatibility wise with my applications as AppVolumes 'AppStacks'. I believe Unidesk has a better handle on the do's and don'ts, or at least may be a little more honest about them. I also don't enjoy the Console with AppVolumes and while I can use it without the image management or tied into the stack the way Unidesk is...you also lose that image management and need to couple it with another product in some scenarios. FlexApp to me is stronger than AppVolumes. FlexApp is coupled with a profile management solution called ProfileUnity which makes it a more attractive alternative (at least at the time of me posting this). However, I prefer other UEM products at this moment in time. I also value the image management and ease of a single console for all of Virt Desktop management that Unidesk provides.

Incentivized

Easily scalable

Incentivized

• Being able to easily add new use cases with minimal "re-work" to existing workspace delivered by the solution has been a great ROI value.
• The Security features that are built-in have made the solution a go-to for any remote access or vendor access requests the business has needed to continue projects and expedite digital initiatives.
• While the overall environment stability is excellent there is an increase in support team and end user training required which can "steal" time from admin and engineers.

Incentivized

• Image management and updating is now much quicker, time saved
• Application 'packaging' is required a lot less, which saves a lot of money
• Unidesks customer service is the best that I have worked with. PERIOD!

Incentivized