As expected, the new receiver requires some updates to your existing XenApp or XenDesktop environment to work (you’ll need a MyCitrix login to download them).  Additionally, the receiver currently only supports XenDesktop 5.0 and XenApp 6.0 environments running on Windows Server 2008 R2.  Whether that list will be expanded as the receiver matures – given that this is still listed as a tech preview – remains to be seen.

The release of this new receiver, though currently limited to a very small market, could be the start of a much broader shift in how remote users access Citrix environments, and we’re quite excited to finally get our hands on it.  We’ll work on getting our environment set up in the next day or two to give the new receiver – as well as that Chromebook that’s been sitting on my desk – a run for its money.

The Samsung Chromebook Series 5

Chrome OS, which officially launches on June 15th,  is  Google’s much-anticipated entry into the operating system space.  At first glance, it looks like little more than a Chrome browser window.  At second glance, you realize that it really is just a browser on steroids.  This makes perfect sense, because the OS is centered around Google’s (lofty) assertion that the applications we use day to day on our current machines are “legacy” apps, and that the future of computing lies in web-based applications.  While I fully agree with the second part of that statement and am continually impressed by what web apps are able to do these days, many Enterprise applications are far from being web app ready.  That’s where the Citrix Receiver comes into play.  Citrix’s XenApp platform has long been utilized to access published applications on non-Windows operating system,  and Citrix’s announced support for Chrome OS opens up a whole world of possibilities for the new operating system.  Unfortunately, as of this afternoon, the Receiver continues to be missing-in-action from the Chrome Web Store.

Plenty of angry birds, but no Citrix Receiver.

What excites me about Google’s new operating system is how vastly different it is than the competition.  They set out to redefine how we think about personal computing in a web-centric world, and that in turn requires users to change some of their behavior.  I don’t expect Chromebooks to be springing up in large numbers in the legal sector any time soon (despite Google’s compelling Enterprise offers), but they are perfectly suited for mobile users and it won’t be long before people start asking about them for remote access.  I’ll be keeping an eye out of the Citrix Receiver and plan on reporting back on how it handles the XenApp environment once I have it up and running.

(One last thing to note, to be fair, there are some Citrix KB articles that document some of the steps below that I used to help me compile some of this information, but it is not as organized and is disparate.)

Adding a corporate logo to the splash screen

Even if organizations are not doing many advanced customizations, this is a basic task that I see most firms do. It can be done right from the Citrix Web Interface Management console if the Web Interface was running on a Windows Server/IIS box. Completing on the NetScaler is a bit more tedious. Without getting into too many details about where the authentication point is configured (that might only require only one of these logos to be customized) , the two logos in question are as follows:

Citrix Access Gateway logo:

Citrix Web Interface logo:

First thing you’ll want to do is get an SFTP client to login to the NetScaler appliance. I use WinSCP, but any client should do.  The other thing I would recommend procuring before starting is the correct size and file format of your corporate logos . (It is important these logos are the appropriate size or they will get squashed or cut up on the page.) For the ‘Citrix Access Gateway’ splash logo, that would be going with a 265×62 pixel GIF file. Name this file “ctxHeader01.gif“.  For the ‘Web Interface’ logo, that would be a 59×25 pixel PNG file. Name this file “CitrixLogoHeader.png”.  Once you have procured these custom corporate logos, they need to be replaced on the NetScaler appliance itself with the default images.  Once connected to the appliance with an SFTP client, replace the default logos with the newly created ones in the following locations:

1. Citrix Access Gateway logo: <root>/netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images
2. Web Interface logo: <root>/var/wi/tomcat/webapps/Citrix/XenApp/media*

*Note: This location would be the name of whatever the Web Interface site was named on the NetScaler.  In my example, it was “XenApp”.

Once the files have been replaced, the NetScaler splash page and the Web Interface should be reflected immediately with the updated logos.  The one caveat here is that these logos will be replaced back to default every time the appliance is rebooted.  Not to worry though, there are some basic steps to follow to make sure they are copied back the appropriate location each time, so that they are updated after an appliance reboot.

Follow the basic steps below to complete this:

1. Create “customizations” folder in the following location:  <root>/var/customizations.
2. Copy the custom “ctxHeader01.gif” and “CitrixLogoHeader.png” files to this newly created folder.
3. Browse to <root>\flash\nsconfig and insert the following lines to the bottom of the rc.netscaler file and hit save.

cp /var/customizations/ctxHeader01.gif /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/ctxHeader01.gif
cp /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/images/ctxHeader01.gif /var/customizations/
cp /var/customizations/CitrixLogoHeader.png /var/wi/webapps/Citrix/XenApp/media/CitrixLogoHeader.png*
cp /var/wi/webapps/Citrix/XenApp/media/CitrixLogoHeader.png /var/customizations/*

*Note: This location would be the name of whatever the Web Interface site was called on the Netscaler

Adding a disclaimer to the NetScaler splash page

Similar to adding a corporate logo, most organizations opt to add some type of disclaimer to the Citrix Web Interface site for legal reasons.  The process to complete this is significantly more tedious when doing this on a NetScaler than doing this on a Citrix Web Interface/Citrix Secure Gateway setup that leverages Windows IIS.   Follow the steps below to add a disclaimer to the NetScaler:

1. Edit the index.html in the location: <root>/netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/index.html.
2. Underneath line 116 in index.html, input the following text with the organizations custom disclaimer and save the file.

<td></td><td></td><td align=”right”><span style=”display:none”><img src=”/vpn/images/LoginButtonRolloverGlow.gif”/></span><input type=”submit” id=”Log_On” value=”" class=”CTX_CaxtonButton” onclick=”ns_check();” onmouseover=”this.className=’CTX_CaxtonButton_Hover’;” onmouseout=”this.className=’CTX_CaxtonButton’;”/></td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<!– Disclaimer customization –>
This is a private computer system. It is for authorized use only. Users, whether authorized or unauthorized, acknowledge that there is no right or expectation of privacy with respect to any communication, information, or file sent, received or stored through this computer, e-mail, voicemail or other electronic systems.
<!– End of Disclaimer customization–>
</FORM>
<script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript”>

3. The disclaimer should apply immediately once the index.html is saved.
4. Again, like the corporate logos in the previous step, this setting will reset if the NetScaler appliance is rebooted.  In the “customizations” (created in the previous step) folder copy the newly edited index.html
5. Browse to <root>\flash\nsconfig and insert the following lines to the bottom of the rc.netscaler file and hit save.

cp /var/customizations/index.html /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/index.html
cp /netscaler/ns_gui/vpn/index.html /var/customizations/

Deploying the Citrix Online Plugin

One of the most basic customizations that I recommend organizations do is deploy the Citrix Online Plugin from the organizations web interface site instead of the default redirection to the Citrix download page if a client is not detected.  Deploying the client from the Web Interface simplifies the experience for users who are connecting with non firm workstations and ensures the same version that was tested and deployed on firm workstations is deployed to non workstations that require the client.  Again, completing this task from the Windows IIS Web Interface is a fairly straightforward, however the task is not as a straight forward on the Web Interface running on the Netscaler.  Actually, I found the task to be particularly challenging because I could not find good documentation, but below are the steps that worked for me:

1. Create ‘Clients’ folder structure in the following location and copy the Citrix Online Plugin executable in the following path: <root>/var/wi/tomcat/webapps/Citrix/XenApp/Clients/Windows/On-line Plugin/CitrixOnlinePluginWeb.exe*
2. Update the WebInterface.conf file (see below for more details) and uncomment “UpgradeClientsAtLogin=On”
3. Save configuration and reboot NetScaler.

*Note: The folders here are case sensitive.

General Management of the Web Interface running on NetScaler

Most administrators who managed the Citrix Web Interface are accustomed to leveraging the management console that is bundled with the install.  Not only does it allow for basic management of the Web Interface site, over the years Citrix has added more and more functionality within the GUI console to handle most customizations and advanced options that previously required folks to manually update the Webinterface.conf file.  Unfortunately, Citrix takes a few steps back with the integrated Web Interface on the NetScaler.  There is absolutely no management console for it and administrators are forced to make update the Webinterface.conf file to configure any custom settings they might need to make.  This link to Citrix’s eDocs library details out all the parameters that can be configured in the Webinterface.conf file for all the different settings the Web Interface accepts for any additional customization/management that needs to be done.

(As an aside, this post is only talking to VDI and in particular as a desktop replacement and not other use cases that may include, but are not limited to training rooms, war rooms, remote access, etc.)

Licensing is confusing and expensive

The finger is first pointed at Microsoft and their ever changing (confusing) licensing scheme for VDI.   A quick browse of the VDI licensing guide details seven scenarios and the licensing implications for using VDI with respect to each.  Does it really need to be this confusing?  Can’t Microsoft license VDI in the same way they license Terminal Servers to simplify this?  The other hindrance here is the essential requirement that an organization purchase Software Assurance for desktops or purchase a VDA for each user/device connecting to a VDI desktop.  This is a cost of about $100 per user/desktop that some firms have not been used to shelling out.  Most of the firms that I have worked with (specifically the SMBs) don’t purchase Software Assurance for Windows desktops as they purchase Windows OEM licenses from Dell, HP, etc.

Let’s now point the finger at Citrix.  I have a law firm client at the moment that currently leverages XenApp as a desktop replacement and owns a XenApp license for every user in the firm.  “Upgrading” these licenses to XenDesktop using Citrix’s trade up calculator results in the firm paying $20,000 (retail) to convert their existing (140) concurrent use XenApp licenses to named user/device XenDesktop licenses.  Should they want to continue to leverage CCU licenses for XenDesktop, they would have to shell out almost $50,000….  ‘Yes’, they are technically now getting XenDesktop and XenApp as part of the upgrade, but I would contend that if Citrix allowed a 1:1 conversion from XenApp CCU licenses to XenDesktop  CCU licenses (and did not give XenApp for “free” as part of it), it would be more palpable for customers (but clearly less profitable for Citrix) to make the conversion.

Citrix and VMware’s Offline VDI solutions are not there yet

Let me start by acknowledging there are less and less scenarios in which a user is “offline” the days.  However there are still scenarios in which users are offline or have a degraded connection that require a functional offline VDI solution.  Specifically, airplanes, spotty WiFi in hotels (my personal pet peeve) and public spots along with low bandwidth/high latency air cards among other scenarios.  VMware’s botched approach with its Type II hypervisor with checking in/out VMs would not meet expectations of law firm users.  Citrix’s approach with its Type I hypervisor, XenClient, is promising but is still a 1.0 product one year later.  The HCL for XenClient is also limited to a subset of machines and the server piece (Synchronizer) of XenClient is also only available for Citrix XenServer, which also makes it a non starter.  The bottom line is that the current offerings by Citrix and VMware are just not good enough from a usability/manageability perspective for law firms to accept it.

Organization politics and delegation of responsibilities

This section is very specific to the legal space as most firms are structured such that there are “Infrastructure” folks and “Applications” folks that work in individual silos.  The Infrastructure folks are primarily responsible for networking, security, messaging, virtualization, shared storage, sometimes Citrix XenApp, etc. while the “Applications” folks are responsible for Windows desktops, user profile management, software distribution, application integration and the overall user experience.  My experience has been that most Applications folks don’t want to touch the Infrastructure, and Infrastructure folks definitely don’t want to deal with anything user facing.  If a firm were to embark on a VDI initiative, it would require tight collaboration between the two different silos as a successful VDI implementation requires careful infrastructure planning as well as application integration for good user experience.  Of course, fighting organizational politics and contention of responsibilities is left up to a CIO, but I see this is another reason why VDI goes nowhere in law firms.

User Experience is not as good as local desktops

Isn’t this what a desktop is all about?  If a firm invests hundreds of thousands of dollars in a new VDI desktop, and the user perception is that it doesn’t perform as well as the traditional desktop it was replacing, is the project a success?  PCoIP and ICA protocols have improved significantly along with some of the HDX and user experience improvement with the latest versions of XenDesktop and View, however designing a VDI desktop to perform as well as a typical local desktop (4 cores/4 GB RAM) with Windows 7 is still difficult to impossible.  Specifically when it comes to media (audio and video) and resource intensive applications.

The local desktop is still required

Ideally, a VDI environment would leverage a BYOPC or Thin Terminal model in which the local corporate desktop is obsolete and not required.  Users would have their own PC and Thin Terminals to access their “managed” corporate VDI desktop in which all their applications were available to them.  Unfortunately, its not that black and white at law firms.  To start, law firms have hundreds of applications and making them all available through a VDI desktop is very challenging even with application virtualization solutions.  Additionally, the local desktop in some way provides an “insurance policy” for firms to allow for local applications (outside the VDI desktop) in some facet.  This could be business applications such as a browser toolbar required for collaboration, or  Adobe PDF reader to view large PDF files a user brings in on a DVD.  These local applications could also be non-business applications such as DVD video software and iTunes.  The point is that law firms have knowledge workers who have an array of IT demands with respect to their applications and user experience and the local desktop would not get replaced
even with VDI.  I am not saying it is impossible, it would just be very hard.

The fact that the local desktop is still required creates multiple management points for IT as they have to not only manage a VDI desktop, they have to continue to maintain, service, patch, etc. a local Windows desktop.  Citrix and VMware would contend that the capital costs of VDI is not where the savings are, but the operational costs are where all the savings come from.  I am sure there are some fancy marketing charts or Gartner charts that attempt to prove this, but let’s take them at their word.  The challenge here is that most law firm’s would not be replacing their local desktops (with Thin Terminals) should they move forward with a VDI solution.

Honorable Mention

Capital costs for shared storage and virtualization infrastructure, Thin environments with XenApp/Terminal Servers can be built for a fraction of the cost of VDI.

Conclusions

I am going to end this post by saying the success to any VDI environment (or any technology project for that matter) is knowing your use case and business requirements.  This has been drilled into me by my colleague Matt Liebowitz who probably starts every VDI conversation with the phrase “know your use case”.  Too many times technologists lose sight of the business requirements and use cases for a particular technology before attempting to fit a square peg in a round hole.  VDI offers obvious benefits in some areas over a traditional desktop, but it isn’t a one size fits all model.   The use case I focus on in this post (VDI as a desktop replacements) relay my thoughts on why most firms see VDI as an non starter because the challenges associated with implementing VDI outweighs the firm’s business requirements for doing it.  Is VDI a non starter for all law firms?  Absolutely not. There are some scenarios in which a firm’s business requirements and existing desktop circumstances make VDI an attractive and potentially more cost effective approach than a traditional desktop.

Typically I’ve seen firms start small and grow the functions leveraging their NetScalers over time.  They might replace their Secure Gateways with virtual Access Gateways running on the VPX with the idea to add Exchange 2010 traffic to it down the road.

If you find yourself in a similar situation you can use the chart below to size the needed VPX based on some of the most common traffic types.  Also note that it’s very easy to purchase a small model and upgrade later should you have bandwidth requirement changes.

For a copy of the quick-and-dirty Excel spreadsheet I’ve used to calculate bandwidth needs feel free to email me: Clinton Gates

Upgrading to Netscaler 9.3

It was a no brainer upgrading my 9.2 VPX 1000 Netscalers (running the “classic” code) to 9.3 by downloading the update from Citrix and following the GUI wizard.  The process took less than 20 minutes and went without error or any downtime since my Netscalers are setup in an HA pair.  It was pretty straightforward to perform a failover, upgrade, and repeat.

What is important to note is that after version 9.3 there will be no new releases of the Netscaler “classic” code in favor of the “nCore” code.  To provide some background, with the release of Netscaler 9.2 last year, Citrix made their nCore code available to the VPX appliances as it was previously only available for the physical MPX boxes.  At the same time, the existing code set was dubbed “classic” and each new revision of 9.2x was released in both classic and nCore flavors.  The change also bumped up the minimum requirements of the Netscaler VPX from 1 vCPU and 1 GB of RAM (running on classic) to a heftier 2 vCPU and 4 GB of RAM if you are running nCore.  For environments leveraging some of the advanced content caching and acceleration features, nCore might make sense, however for ones using the Netscaler for ICA/SSL proxy and application level load balancing, there is limited value in the nCore code.  (I don’t care to go into the specific improvements to the code, architecture that nCore brings over classic, but feel free to read this Citrix Whitepaper if you are interested.)  The notable here is that after version 9.3, Citrix will no longer be releasing updates to the “classic” version of the code, thus forcing you to run nCore going forward.

Integrated Citrix Web Interface on Netscaler nCore

While technically, this has been available since 9.2 version of the Netscaler running nCore, I figured I would mention this feature in this post.  The Citrix Web Interface which is required for any XenApp or XenDesktop solution can be integrated within the Netscaler.  (This Citrix Technote shows you how.)  The ability to spin up Citrix Web Interface sites on the Netscaler appliance is an attractive solution for a number of reasons.  The first is a reduction in at least two Windows 2008 R2 servers that are typically dedicated for the Citrix Web Interface.  While this might not mean much from a licensing perspective when running Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter in a virtualized environment, an argument can be made that the all-inclusive (within the Netscaler) is simpler to manage than Windows 2008 R2 boxes that require patches and anti-virus among other things.  I usually allocate 2 GB of RAM and 1 vCPU for a Windows 2008 R2 server running Citrix Web Interface, so reducing a couple of these servers also provides a nominal reduction of resources to the virtualization solution.

One thing to note about integrating the Web Interface on the Netscaler are the implications about customizing it.  Most organizations brand their Citrix Web Interface to some degree.  This might mean something simple as adding a banner, logo, disclaimer, or something more complex that includes custom fields, embedded links, etc.  Completing these customizations on a Windows/IIS server is significantly easier for Systems Administrators than completing them on the embedded web server of the Netscaler.  While Citrix does provide a GUI driven interface to customize the logo and banner, advanced customizations of the integrated Web Interface can be challenging.

Over the next week, I’ll be upgrading my environment with integrated Web Interface on my 9.3 Netscalers to replace my existing Windows 2008 R2 based Web Interface servers.  I plan to follow up this post with my thoughts, findings and successes/failures in customizing it, so stay tuned.

As I investigated the performance issues I reviewed quite a bit of product documentation, best practice guides, forum posts, etc. and spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Citrix technical support. Still, the issues remained. I then attended a VDI summit at Microsoft and was fortunate enough to speak to a Citrix engineer who happened to be presenting. As we took a walk down the hall I described the issues and environment, and by the time we got back he’d identified the problem and the solution. Though at first blush locating the vDisk and write cache on a highly available network share appears to make sense, doing so eliminates PvS’s use of the Windows system cache.

The system cache stores frequently accessed information in RAM but only applies to local files (or files that appear local, as is the case with an iSCSI drive). So in the current environment every time a target VM issued a read request it was sent through the network to a PvS, through the network again to the active file cluster node, through the network again to the SAN, then back to the file cluster node, back to the PvS, and back to the target VM. Granted, approximately 50% of the traffic “through the network” was through a virtual switch since each target VM had a 50% chance of utilizing the PvS on the same host as the active file cluster node, but the point remains – each request resulted in some degree of physical network traffic, OS overhead on both the PvS and file cluster node, and in read I/O on the SAN.

The solution was to create local storage on each PvS, relocate the vDisk from the file cluster to the local storage (now two sets of files instead of one), modifying the vDisk Store properties to point to the local storage, and defining a process to keep vDisk files in sync between the PvSs as updates are made. Also, most importantly, I increased the RAM on each PvS from 2Gb to 6Gb. Together, these changes allowed the most frequently accessed information from the vDisk to be cached in RAM on each PvS, thus reducing read IOPS, read latency, and write latency as shown below, and eliminating the trip through the file cluster node.

Note that read IOPS decreased 27% despite a 16% increase overall. Further analysis indicates the actual impact was higher:

Stated another way, if total IOPS were constant at 998.95 from week 1 to week 2, based on the numbers above we would expect read IOPS to be 22% of that in week 2. That’s 217.92, which is 37% less than 346.40.

It’s important to note that with approximately 25 non-VDI servers utilizing the same storage infrastructure these are certainly not isolated results – the statistics above cannot be attributed to the vDisk relocation alone. However, since the environment was fairly static for the periods immediately preceding and following this project it’s assumed that 1) non-VDI activity remained roughly constant, and 2) the 16% increase is due to the movement of several sets of vDisk files within the SAN. Obviously every environment is different in terms of equipment, topology, workload, etc. Therefore this analysis is intended to illustrate the performance gains in one particular environment, not to state that you will have the same gains in your environment.

In any event, the changes described above immediately improved VDI performance, and a few weeks later relocating write cache from the file cluster to a local disk on each VM improved performance further. Specifically, relocating the write cache left write-related SAN I/O roughly constant but eliminated the network traffic and OS overhead associated with PvS and the file cluster node. This also allowed us to decommission the file cluster nodes and reclaim the host and SAN resources they consumed. It’s worth noting that since the VDI environment shares the SAN with the production servers, the decreased read IOPS and corresponding decreases in both read and write latency provided benefits system-wide.

I found this solution interesting from a technical perspective, but equally interesting that so little information is out there on the impact of vDisk location. The Citrix support staff I spent hours on the phone apparently weren’t aware of it, and Citrix’ “Implementing a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure” course didn’t cover it (though ironically the course materials show a vDisk store with a UNC path). Also, the product documentation doesn’t cover it and the best practices guide arguably contains misleading information:

All traffic that occurs between the vDisk and the target device passes through the PVS machine regardless of where the vDisk resides. Using Windows Server 2003 file caching features can improve vDisk deployment efficiency.

A fair read is that “all” vDisk traffic “can be improved” by caching, when in fact “only” traffic to a local vDisk is affected, and it “will dramatically be improved.”

Now that I know what I’m looking for, I’ve found recommendations relative to vDisk location and system cache in a blog post, a forum post, and a handful of similar resources elsewhere, but given the significant performance impact to both VDI and other components that utilize the same storage infrastructure I’m surprised that this topic isn’t discussed more prominently in more formal documentation. That said, I hope this information is helpful to anyone planning or troubleshooting a similar environment.

The Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer for Virtualization certification is designed to certify breadth of knowledge across Citrix virtualization solutions. The CCEE offers experienced IT professionals the opportunity to develop and validate their ability to combine the coordination of operational planning efforts with tactical design expertise and integration know-how.

Niraj and Jeff have a well established reputation for helping law firms adopt thin-client technologies and best practices around enterprise desktop and application management. It is exciting to watch server-based computing strategies mature as new virtual desktop solutions, such as VDI and application virtualization, have become more mainstream. Not only are these new tools offering firms technical improvements, but also significant operational efficiencies and flexibility over traditional desktop and server-based approaches.

On behalf of the team, Congratulations to Niraj and Jeff on your accomplishments!

First and foremost, XenClient has a very strict HCL.  It is specific to the most modern Dell, HP and Lenovo’s business series laptops with Intel Graphics.  This isn’t a surprise and is actually expected to some degree.  I know that Citrix is working closely with OEMs and Intel for compatibility, so this will expand as the product matures and if it finds a niche.  I was working with a test Dell Latitude E4300 as my XenClient laptop and was able to complete the install within 10 minutes.  It was very straightforward and went without a hitch.  The hypervisor takes about a minute to boot up and then you are presented with the main GUI (screenshot below).  The UI is pretty straightforward, and includes functional information like remaining battery life, gives the ability to connect to different wireless networks, and configuring some basic hypervisor’s properties.

Using the wizard driven menu, I created a Windows 7 desktop and that is what was presented at the center of the screen.

After Windows 7 was installed in a VM, I installed the XenTools, but still had an issue with audio playback.  This was resolved easily by installing the Realtek AC97 audio driver.  My test laptop only had 2 GB of RAM on it and although the hypervisor was utilizing 600+ MB of RAM, the 1 GB Windows 7 desktop ran pretty well.  I confirmed the hardware audio buttons worked and functions passed through to the VM and USB devices such as iPhones and aircards were also passed through without error.  Also, because the XenClient supports paravirtualization, it is able to directly pass through the Intel video card to the running VM.  This means Aero support, HD video playback among other functions that require video acceleration.  Check out the screenshot from the running VM.  The Intel GMA graphics driver is passed through into the virtual machine.

Finally, there is the “Synchronizer” piece that is the server backend that the XenClient can connect to.  It allows deploying, updating and managing virtual machine images centrally against connected XenClient hosts.  The Synchronizer Virtual Appliance only supports XenServer at the moment, so it has been a non-starter for me and expect it will be in most other environments as well.  It is rumored that a virtual appliance that supports ESX is slated for release later this year, so that should help make it easier to test.  I’ll do more testing when this is made available.

Anyway, the “1.0” release of XenClient should really be called an extended beta.  The product is very slick, but is far away from any production use.  I would go so far as to say that we are at least 12 months away from XenClient seeing a production environment.  Citrix has a interesting product, but has the challenge of figuring out specifically how XenClient fits into existing XenDesktop and Provisioning Server environments.  Will the Synchronizer be integrated into Provisioning Server in the future?  Will a Provisioning Server vDisk have the ability to be offline with XenClient?  XenClient introduces a lot of questions.

So why do I think is this rumor relevant again?  Last week, Citrix released the Citrix Access Gateway VPX 5.0.  Along with this release came a significant licensing change that cuts into the CSG’s value.  The Access Gateway’s “Platform License” ($995 retail) includes unlimited connections to XenApp/XenDesktop through the Access Gateway.  The “Universal” CALs (Access Gateway licenses) still exist, but now differentiate the VPN, Smart Access other traditional AG features.

So what does this mean?  This means that organizations that only want the SSL proxy functionality of the Access Gateway can do it at it a significantly lower price point than previously.  The price point is lowered because the (expensive) “Universal” licenses are no longer required for SSL XenApp/XenDesktop connections.  If Citrix were to stop supporting or developing the CSG, there is now a viable option from a price point perspective to its existing CSG customers.

Now that we have that squared away, someone would ask the obvious “Why should I pay for the Access Gateway VPX with a platform license, if the CSG is still free?  Free is still better.” – Fair question.  The value is in the new functionality included with the 5.0 platform of the Access Gateway.  The most obvious feature is the new High Availability feature on the 5.0 platform.  AG now supports running in an active/passive configuration on all appliances running 5.0 with the platform license.  This is something the CSG currently does not do and this reason alone is enough to consider moving to an AG 5.0 based appliance.

The other reason is to be forward thinking and understand that although the CSG serves a need today, it is obvious that Citrix is moving towards the AG platform.  While this might mean more of an investment now, the expectation is that it will pay off with newer features and functionality that comes with the AG platform going forward.