Last year had many of us wondering, what’s next? Will we be able to travel home for the holidays? Meet our friends for happy hour? Cheer on our favorite football team in person?
Here at Citrix, we’ve been focused on what’s next for the future of work. Over the past year, the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops team has added new features and functionality to support you as you navigate this new digital landscape, implement hybrid-work initiatives, and keep your employees productive no matter what’s ahead.
Last year was a big year for our advancement in VDI and DaaS, so let’s revisit some of our top achievements from 2021. Here are 10 of our favorites:
1. Deliver a superior user experience with new HDX enhancements
We are continuously innovating to improve our industry-leading HDX user technology and ICA protocol to bring users a high-definition VDI and DaaS experience, regardless of location. HDX Adaptive Audio brings improved audio redirection and playback in sessions consisting of a new audio codec and real-time quality sampling adjustment based on the organization’s network condition. Additionally, we’ve optimized Adaptive Throughput 2.0 with greater throughput than with 1.0, delivering an even better user experience. It includes additional intelligence to enable ICA to dynamically reduce or increase throughput where appropriate, making it truly adaptive. We’ve also made HDX 3D Pro improvements that have significantly doubled frame rate delivery across the board to enhance 3D Pro workloads and make them more responsive, and we drastically increased FPS in 4k workloads while decreasing bandwidth consumption.
2. Accelerate your cloud transition with PVS for Azure
We have brought our flagship provisioning technology, Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS), to Azure. Leveraging our PVS provision-on-demand streaming technology, you can now rapidly provision and stream hundreds (or thousands) of Azure-hosted VMs from a single shared golden image in a matter of minutes. These VMs can then be exported to and power managed by Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service. This long-awaited offering solves both performance and scalability challenges while allowing you to expedite your time to value and accelerate your cloud adoption. Learn how to set up Citrix Provisioning on Microsoft Azure in our product documentation.
3. Stay resilient with service continuity
The days of worrying about service disruptions and the availability of your cloud services are over. Service continuity offers industry-leading cloud resiliency by enabling users to connect to their virtual apps and desktops during outages. In the event of an outage, if users have networking connectivity between the endpoint and VDA, they can enjoy continued access to their virtual app and desktop resources.
Previously, we announced the availability of service continuity on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome and Edge browsers for Windows using a browser extension and Workspace 2109 or later. Now, you can leverage it on Chrome and Edge browsers using a browser extension for both Citrix Workspace app for Mac and for Linux. Service continuity is also now in preview for Citrix Workspace app for Android and iOS, as well as CSP multi-tenant. Learn more about service continuity in our product documentation.
4. Simplify upgrades with VDA Upgrade Service (Preview)
One of our most highly anticipated announcements last year was the introduction of the VDA Upgrade Service. This cloud-based service simplifies the VDA upgrade process for admins by automating upgrades to the latest version of the VDA (either CR or LTSR), depending on your machine catalog type. Because this is a service-based upgrade, interactive logins mid-upgrade aren’t necessary, and upgrades can be scheduled or done on-demand without performing a manual upgrade or reinstalling the VDA. The service dramatically reduces the admin burden that comes with updating VDAs and enables you to take advantage of our innovations sooner as you upgrade to new versions. Sign up here for the preview.
5. Streamline image management with Image Portability Service (Preview)
Citrix is proud to be your “go-to” for everything from hybrid work to hybrid cloud, and we are committed to helping you build an effective hybrid multi-cloud strategy. With the upcoming Image Portability Service, we’ve made it easier for you to streamline how you create, update, and manage images across complex hybrid and multi-cloud deployments. As an IT admin, you can now quickly and easily move machine catalog images wherever they’re needed, without deploying and managing them from the ground up in each separate platform. The service takes it from there and will automatically deconstruct and reconstruct the image in the locations to which you want to deploy it. Admins can create advanced workflows within the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service to solve cloud-specific use cases such as disaster recovery, high availability, and cloud bursting.
Image Portability Service is currently in preview. Try it out today, and learn more about the technology in the video below and in our product documentation.
6. Support for Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11
We’ve brought greater flexibility to your deployments through support for Microsoft Windows Server 2022, introduced in our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2106 release, and support for Windows 11, introduced in the 2109 release. This ensures that your Citrix environment seamlessly integrates with the latest and greatest Microsoft operating systems so you can deliver a high-performance, secure, and reliable experience for your users. We also are targeting support of these new operating systems in the upcoming Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops LTSR. Learn more about how you can deploy Microsoft Windows Server 2022 or Windows 11 in your Citrix environment today.
7. Roll out Citrix Managed Azure for all Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service editions
Citrix Managed Azure is now available for all Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service editions, giving admins the flexibility they need to deliver DaaS workloads seamlessly and securely by simplifying management and maintenance. With this option, within minutes, you can host workloads in select regions worldwide while taking advantage of the most widely used Azure compute and storage offerings for your app and desktop workloads.
Using Citrix Managed Azure offers a fast path to hybrid-cloud benefits and is available from the Azure Marketplace. To make your life even easier, you can add consumption-based funds to your account in advance to approximate your operating expenditures, or Citrix can bill in arrears for your monthly consumption. All you need to do is subscribe, provision new desktops within Azure, and leverage DaaS pay-as-you-go flexibility alongside your existing Citrix deployment.
8. Experience DaaS simplicity with Quick Deploy
In the past year, organizations have been re-thinking how their IT services should be delivered. To help simplify deployments, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service offers fast deployment of DaaS workloads directly from their management console through the Quick Deploy interface. When deploying DaaS workloads with Quick Deploy, you can use your own Azure subscription or choose to leverage Citrix Managed Azure and be billed only for consumption used during that time. This agile deployment model makes it easier for you to spin up desktops on demand when needed to support your employees and meet your business challenges. See our product documentation for requirements and details on how to get started with Quick Deploy.
9. Enable new environments with Azure Active Directory Group Based Support
Last fall, we announced the general availability of Azure AD group-based administration for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service. This feature enables you to assign and manage access to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service administration consoles based on Azure AD group membership, without the need for separate management in Citrix Cloud. This greatly minimizes admin management at scale and helps accelerate your organization’s journey to the cloud. Get started today.
10. Protect your corporate data with expanded support for app protection
To help deliver a best-in-class employee experience that keeps data secure, you can use app protection to support a zero trust approach in protecting both managed and unmanaged devices. App protection is now available for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service with cloud-hosted Citrix Workspace, as well as for customers with on-premises Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops StoreFront deployments. This ensures that your virtual resources in the cloud have the same level of protection as on-prem resources. Using app protection, you can protect app data from keyloggers and screen capture in sessions initiated through Citrix Workspace app. For system requirements and detailed steps on configuring this feature, visit our product documentation.
Preparing for the next LTSR
Keep an eye out for the next Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Long Term Service Release (LTSR), coming soon! This means now is the perfect time to start evaluating the release to experience new features, verify application compatibility, and look at the user and administrative enhancements we’ve included.
Whether you are looking to upgrade or build a new site, we encourage you to get a head start on preparing for the next LTSR by deploying 2112 CR into your pre-production environments today! By taking advantage of our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops LTSR program, you can stay at the forefront of dozens of enhancements that maximize the experience for both users and admins.
Please note that if you are currently leveraging XenApp and XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR, it will reach end-of-life in August 2022. Keep an eye on the Citrix blog for the most up-to-date information and updates on upgrading to the next Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops LTSR.
Get Started Today
That’s a wrap on our favorite highlights from 2021! As you can tell, we’ve been busy bringing enhancements that make your workflows even easier. And we couldn’t have done it without you working alongside us. We invite you to check out these new features and hope you will share your feedback with us below or with your Citrix representative to help us continuously improve here at Citrix.
Here’s to all we’ve accomplished together this year, and we look forward to bringing you many more exciting innovations in 2022!
Disclaimer: The development, release and timing of any features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion and are subject to change without notice or consultation. The information provided is for informational purposes only and is not a commitment, promise or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions or incorporated into any contract.
