Citrix vs Terminal Services vs VMWare

We're evaluating desktop virtualization options for our clients. We have one on Terminal Services, and another on Citrix Access Essentials. Citrix is kind of neat, but is quite complex to configure. You almost need to be a Citrix guru to make it do what you want, while Terminal Services feels much more intuitive. We have no clients on VMWare's View, so I don't know much about it.

On the front-end, Citrix's full plugin is pretty slick, while the ICA client kinda stinks. TS is just Remote Desktop... very simple for me and the users.

My real concern is scalability... I'm leaning more towards TS for my deployments, but I've heard it does not scale well and is resource-heavy. The whitepaper on capacity planning for TS says 60 users on 4GB of memory is just fine. Does anyone have any real-world experience with this?

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Turgon

forkvoid wrote: »

We're evaluating desktop virtualization options for our clients. We have one on Terminal Services, and another on Citrix Access Essentials. Citrix is kind of neat, but is quite complex to configure. You almost need to be a Citrix guru to make it do what you want, while Terminal Services feels much more intuitive. We have no clients on VMWare's View, so I don't know much about it.

On the front-end, Citrix's full plugin is pretty slick, while the ICA client kinda stinks. TS is just Remote Desktop... very simple for me and the users.

My real concern is scalability... I'm leaning more towards TS for my deployments, but I've heard it does not scale well and is resource-heavy. The whitepaper on capacity planning for TS says 60 users on 4GB of memory is just fine. Does anyone have any real-world experience with this?

Suggest you check out the Citrix forum for insights on that particular platform. The only exposure I had to TS was some years ago where we were left with a troublesome box that limited capacity. I think it was licencing issues plus dodgy installation. You will most likely find some strong views when asking field pros for comparisons of Citrix/TS/VMware.

dales

Not sure about TS in 2k8 but its probably been mentioned that it is resource heavy compared to citrix because each user gets a full desktop with all the processes loaded that are in order for a desktop, depending on which citrix you may be thinking about you can just publish applications to your TC and it will only load whats necessary for the program onto the server so the load will be lighter. I guess it depends on how many users and programs you are talking about.

Hyper-Me

If it comes down to terminal services I would definitely try to use a 2008 or 2008 R2 box.

RemoteApp is just phenominally better at presenting the application to the user rather than a full desktop like in older versions of TS.

With a full desktop, users think that is "their" computer and browse the internet and do other things. You can lock it down, but thats extra administrative effort over having a streamlined RemoteApp setup.

Full disclosure, I've never used Citrix so my opinion represent the use of TS only.

Devilsbane

Hyper-Me wrote: »

With a full desktop, users think that is "their" computer and browse the internet and do other things. You can lock it down, but thats extra administrative effort over having a streamlined RemoteApp setup.
.

That could also be solved by educating users and letting them know that this is just like your work computer. Don't do anything on here you wouldn't at work.

Also, in our citrix enviornment we can launch IE... however it is IE 5.0 which most users would refrain from using. I don't know why you would use an internet browser through, you have one loaded on your computer. The only time using the virtual one would make sense is when accessing local intranet sites. (And you could realativly easily only allow local sites.)

Hyper-Me

humble2007 wrote: »

That could also be solved by educating users and letting them know that this is just like your work computer. Don't do anything on here you wouldn't at work.

Also, in our citrix enviornment we can launch IE... however it is IE 5.0 which most users would refrain from using. I don't know why you would use an internet browser through, you have one loaded on your computer. The only time using the virtual one would make sense is when accessing local intranet sites. (And you could realativly easily only allow local sites.)

Its been explained. Some people just dont get "it". The see a desktop and see icons and they think thats the local desktop, so naturally they click around looking for games, browsing the internet, etc.

If having a full blown desktop wasn't an issue, MS and other companies never would have developed RemoteApp style delivery systems.

astorrs

Hyper-Me wrote: »

If having a full blown desktop wasn't an issue, MS and other companies never would have developed RemoteApp style delivery systems.

I find this sentence immensely amusing. Ever since Microsoft licensed the terminal services/multi-user technology from Citrix and incorporated it into NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, people have been clamoring them to deliver "RemoteApp" which they finally did with Windows Server 2008 - ~13 years after Citrix delivered MetaFrame 1.8.

P.S. If anyone needs help with a TSE/MF1.8 environment I refuse to help you.

Hyper-Me

astorrs wrote: »

I find this sentence immensely amusing. Ever since Microsoft licensed the terminal services/multi-user technology from Citrix and incorporated it into NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, people have been clamoring them to deliver "RemoteApp" which they finally did with Windows Server 2008 - ~13 years after Citrix delivered MetaFrame 1.8.

P.S. If anyone needs help with a TSE/MF1.8 environment I refuse to help you.

I have no experience with Citrix so I dont know about all that jazz. I was just speaking to the relevance of having something like remoteapp. I'm sure the other remote guys came way before MS for that feature