- Citrix Cloud Virtual Apps And Desktops Windows
- Windows Virtual Desktop With Citrix
- Citrix Virtual Apps And Desktops Service On Citrix Cloud (cc-vad-cc)
- Citrix Cloud Virtual Apps And Desktops Windows 10
Citrix Cloud Virtual Apps And Desktops Windows
What is being announced?Citrix is announcing that we are focusing our public cloud integration and engineering efforts on our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service to ensure the best performance and compatibility with vendors like Azure, AWS, and GCP. Therefore, we are announcing the official deprecation and end-of-support for cloud-hosted workloads (VDAs) in our Current Release (CR) of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops starting with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2003.
A site running on Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2003 or higher with workloads in public clouds will be an unsupported configuration.
Customers leveraging public clouds for workloads are encouraged to migrate their environment to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service in Citrix Cloud, or remain on the 1912 Long Term Service Release (LTSR) which includes up to 5 years of mainstream support.
Who does this impact?
The changes apply only to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops customers deploying our Current Release (CR) offering of Virtual Apps and Desktops 2003 and future CR releases.
Customers running Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service in Citrix Cloud and customers following our Long Term Service Release (LTSR) deployment track are not impacted by this announcement.
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 1912 LTSR will continue to support public cloud workloads.
Note that older versions who had Cloud support, such as 7.15 LTSR will not be affected.
Why is Citrix making this change?
The pace of change in public cloud providers is frequent. With Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service, Citrix can adjust the service to rapidly accommodate changes in our public cloud integration points without requiring the customer to execute rapid upgrades.
This delivers the best experience for our customers and the most value for their user community.
What should customers do as a result of this announcement?
Customers who typically upgrade to the latest Current Release and leverage cloud workloads have two options:
- Remain on the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 1912 release, which has full support for public cloud providers. As an LTSR release, 1912 will not receive new feature updates, but has a support lifecycle of 5+ years and is regularly updated with security patches and fixes through Cumulative Updates.
- Migrate to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service. The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service offers full support for public cloud and on-premises workloads and the latest integration enhancements.
The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service is regularly updated with the latest integration and performance optimizations with our key public cloud vendors, including Azure, AWS, and GCP. Reference the release matrix for more information.
How is this change enforced in CVAD 2003?
There is no technical enforcement in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2003; however, a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2003 site with public cloud workloads will be treated as an unsupported configuration. A future Current Release will enforce this change.
To ensure continuity, we recommended that customers with workloads in public clouds do not upgrade to CVAD 2003 and instead remain on CVAD 1912 or move to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service.
No, VMWare Cloud on AWS is a public cloud component. Customers who wish to use VMWare Cloud on AWS should use the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Service, or remain on LTSR 1912.
When will Citrix technically enforce this change?Citrix plans to remove cloud-hosted workload functionality in a future Current Release. These upcoming changes will include multiple enforcement mechanisms including changes in meta-installer, Studio and VDA registration processes.
Are Controllers running in a public cloud supported with on-premises workloads?
When product enforcement is in place, it will focus on VDA workloads and does not impact controllers. A customer may run their Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops infrastructure in public clouds and connect to on-prem workloads if they choose.
Can you run a 2003 Current Release VDA with a 1912 LTSR Controller?
The LTSR program requires all baseline components to be on the LTSR version. Using 1912 Controllers to provision CR VDAs in public clouds is not supported. Reference the LTSR FAQ for more information.
This forward-looking indication of plans for products is preliminary and all future release dates are tentative and are subject to change.
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.
The content of the CTX270373 article published by Citrix has brought worrying consequences for Citrix customers running or planning to run workloads over the cloud. The reason for this is that Citrix will no longer support any deployments running on Virtual Apps and Desktops 2003 and future Current Releases (CRs) if the deployments run workloads over public clouds such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
This blog post describes how this may affect Citrix customers and introduces Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) as an ideal alternative solution for delivering applications and virtual desktops over on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud scenarios.
What does this announcement mean?
Citrix administrators deploying Virtual Desktop Agents (VDAs) to resources running over the cloud who are accustomed to upgrading their Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) setup to the latest Current Release will need to choose an alternative. Here are some options for moving a virtual desktop and application delivery solution to a supported configuration:
- Migrate the CVAD setup to the 1912 Long Term Service Release (LTSR). LTSR versions, with a support lifecycle of five years, are only updated using Cumulative Updates which include security patches and fixes. Therefore, customers will not be able to apply any updates containing the latest product features.
or
- Migrate to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service. This cloud service includes support for public cloud and on-premises workloads but may require a complete redesign of the customer’s setup. Certain infrastructure components such as Delivery Controllers, Director and Studio will be hosted and managed by Citrix, whereas customers will be required to deploy cloud connectors for every resource location, as well as manage all components of the resource layer.
Both alternatives entail a migration process of your Citrix setup that may compromise its stability and affect business continuity.
Another important consequence of this announcement is that moving forward, if customers require to deploy hybrid models and need to remain on a Current Release version, then the use of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service in Citrix Cloud is mandatory. In addition, if a migration to Citrix Cloud is finally required, enterprises will still need to navigate through a complex array of product editions to decide which line best fits their needs and perhaps might even have to readapt their previously purchased licensing model.
Because this announcement applies to CR versions, those Citrix customers using the 1912 LTSR version or running Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service in Citrix Cloud won’t be affected.
Windows Virtual Desktop With Citrix
Parallels RAS is a Great Alternative
Parallels RAS is an all-in-one application delivery and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution that allows users to work remotely at any time and from any client device, including mobile platforms. When using Parallels RAS, enterprises have the flexibility to run workloads over both public cloud providers and on-premises infrastructure according to their needs, without having to analyze complex feature matrixes and subscription models.
There is only one full-featured product edition of Parallels RAS licensed by concurrent users that includes all enterprise features such as application and virtual desktop delivery, load balancing, high availability, reporting, monitoring and more. Also, support and software maintenance are included without additional cost.
Citrix Virtual Apps And Desktops Service On Citrix Cloud (cc-vad-cc)
In addition, the latest Parallels RAS 18 provides unified Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop integration and enriches this Azure service. It does so by centralizing workload management and providing administrators the capability to easily manage workspaces, host pools and templates from one single point, the Parallels RAS Console.
Citrix Cloud Virtual Apps And Desktops Windows 10
The Windows Virtual Desktop service recommends FSLogix Profile Container as a user profile management solution. Parallels RAS provides the ability to deploy and configure FSLogix Profile Containers centrally—not only over Windows Virtual Desktop workloads but also over Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) and VDI workloads.
Running a pre-configured trial of Parallels RAS over Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS is very straightforward. Pre-configured virtual machines are available on Azure and AWS marketplaces, and organizations can deploy a fully functional Parallels RAS setup within minutes with just a few clicks.