Hot News About Citrix Changes in 2021-2022: What’s There for You to Know?

Being one of the leading software companies in cloud computing and virtualization technology, Citrix has gained its place in the IT market. It is recognized by providing workspace, security, app delivery, and other professional services around the world. In addition, it offers a wide variety of solutions such as Unified Endpoint Management, digital workspaces, SD-WAN, secure access, analytics among many to assist organizations in following a better way to work from any place and on any device. The solutions provided by this company are implemented in such industries as government, manufacturing, education, healthcare, financial services, and retail – this explains Citrix popularity.

Citrix Digital Workspace, a famed integrated tech framework, is designed to deliver and operate data, app, as well as desktop delivery. This digital workspace includes such components as desktop virtualization, file sharing, content collaboration, unified endpoint management, and single sign-on which offer best conditions to employees for quick, easy, and secure work. It allows employees to enter their data and apps real-time from any location and device, regardless of the cloud platform (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud) on which data is stored. With the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service, you can choose the environment that suits you most (cloud, on-premises, hybrid) to run your business.

Good news!

Citrix and Microsoft partnership started in July, 2020 aimed at reimaging a flexible workspace has come to fruition. In 2022 Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop is offering support to Microsoft Windows Server 2022 that was released in September, 2021. Citrix administrators have gained gain flexibility to host their infrastructure across cloud-based and on-prem environments, including Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop. In addition, with this new server OS you get new features, and updates automatically.

In September 2021 Citrix released Virtual Apps and Desktops 2109, HDX improvements, and new server OS support. Speaking of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2109 release it has affected the Windows VSAs and several core components. Thus, currently, you can install and upgrade a site as well as install and upgrade VDAs in an existing site. Note, that the VDAs of 7.9 version or later a valid for this release. In addition, this cloud release supports both Windows 10 OS and Windows 11. To add more, version 2109 includes the enhancements as follows: adaptive audio, virtual display layout on the VDA, virtual channel security update, and multi-session VDA install and upgrade.

The Linux users will also enjoy working with such new features as virtual display layout, HDX session screen sharing, Connection Quality Indicator (CQI), RHEL 8.4 and CentOS 8 (2015) support, smart card support for Debian OS.

What’s new in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?

According to the Citrix Pulse Survey, 99% of IT executives are moving some or all their systems to the cloud, and 74% of them prefer a hybrid structure. On the whole, 200 respondents participated in this survey. This testifies the growth of using the cloud in conducting business. And that’s why Citrix adds more capabilities to its cloud service Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and puts more focus on maximizing productivity in applying hybrid-cloud deployments.

This year Citrix introduced service continuity aimed at improving cloud resiliency and availability. This makes it possible for users to get access to virtual application as well as desktop resources during cloud delivery controller or Citrix Workspace outages. Be aware, that now service continuity is available not only on Windows and Mac endpoints, but also on Linux endpoints, Microsoft Edge and Chrome browsers, along with using Citrix Workspace app 2109 or a browser extension.

One more new feature concerns the premium service in the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. Thus, historical trends can be viewed for the past 365 days in comparison to the previous period of 90 days.

The new features integrated in the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops cloud service increase the value of your deployments. Thus, customers are able to save time while migrating from on-prem to the cloud, due to the automated configuration tool updates. Restart scheduling in Studio is another new feature to be covered. It allows administrators to set the time for restart and custom dates/times for machine maintenance within Studio. And the last feature in this cloud service is known as Azure AD Admin Group Support which allows customers, who are members of the AAD group to get access to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service instead of the separate management in Citrix Cloud.

New Citrix Features on Azure

As a result of collaboration of Citrix and Microsoft Azure, the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops deployments have gained more benefits. To accelerate transition to the cloud, a preview of PVS (Citrix Provisioning Service) has been introduced. The other preview has been launched for Image Portability service on Azure. It helps to increase the effectiveness of administration of work processes which deal with hybrid deployments or migration. To add more, the Azure VMware solution or AVS that functions on the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service has received full support. It makes it easier for customers who use Citrix along with VMware on Azure to manage, deploy, and monitor workloads running on Azure through AVS.

What’s new in partnership of Citrix and Google Cloud?

Citrix is also expanding its partnership with Google to add new features to Google Cloud. Some of them that have been recently added to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service are the following ones:

• Support for Google Customer Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) which gives more control over keys that are used to encrypt data within a Google Cloud project.
• Shielded VMs support: it increases the level of security from malicious insiders and against remote attacks.
• MCS Support for suspending and resuming VMs: this allows organizations reduce costs without hampering user experience.

To sum up, changes mean development and life. To stay competitive in the IT market, Citrix works hard to add new features to its cloud-based service such as Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. Thus, it ensures better security and optimized management, along with better user experience. In addition, collaboration with Microsoft and Google brings good results in the form of workload effectiveness and providing the best cloud services to their customers.