Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, or XenDesktop) is a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and application virtualization solution from Citrix.
$375
Oracle VDI
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) can be used to deploy managed virtual desktops and access them from anywhere while keeping data and applications safe.
DaaS is ideal in large-scale environments that require centralized, secure management. Remote workforces at large organizations. Highly regulated industries like finance. It allows for easy security and monitoring over one aspect instead of multiple remote machines. DaaS is not ideal for organizations with small budgets due to the pricing and organizations with lousy network connectivity. This would make the end-user experience terrible.
For large and mid-sized organizations utilizing massive virtual desktop deployments, Oracle VDI offers great value. It supports a wide range of operating systems like Linux, Solaris, Windows etc.
All Management resources can now be installed on a single server. Reducing the overhead required to maintain a citrix environment.
Granularity of the Delivery groups allow you to define allowing a remote user to connect to a random XenDesktop VM or individually assigning VMs to users.
HDX RealTime Optimization Pack has stabilized some of the issues of utilizing all of the features of Skype for Business in a ZenDesktop VM.
In our use of Oracle VDI, we have found there is a significant lag time when using the desktop environments through it, rather than the standalone virtual desktops.
Real time reporting and statistics can be improved as well.
From an end-user perspective, Citrix DaaS is ideal. No matter the device that the user connects with, the end user's experience is always the same. Desktop icons are there, along with the files. As a big name, Citrix allows for SAML authentication or a local account. End users do not need a beefy laptop to have a good experience in DaaS.
The performance of XenDesktop is the best in the industry because of the fine-tuned protocol and years of updating. Overall, I don't think there is a better performer on the market. The question is if the added complexity of running XenDesktop is really worth the performance gain. While the latest version of XenDesktop is the easiest to deploy so far, it is still more challenging than the competitors.
The easiest way to describe the performance is like this - when it is working, it works almost flawlessly. When it starts freezing, your day is going to get very interesting very quickly. As I have stated earlier, I used it for one purpose, and it did what I needed it to most of the time, but I did have issues with it.
The support is great when you get an engineer that knows what they are doing but getting that individual sometimes takes a while. Overall, they are professional and polite and competent in their knowledge. Sometimes the cases are open for an extended period of time which becomes very frustrating when dealing with critical issues.
Take it slow and read the directions each step of the way. If you are not familiar with Citrix products, use a reseller or other experienced engineer to assist you in the setup of your environment
Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops is platform agnostic (we can use any underlying hypervisor technology) and really flexible for any use case. Using a golden image and provisioning it (with Machine Creation Services or Provisioning Services) is powerful and really straightforward, compared to the complexity in Microsoft RDS of maintaining a coherent farm, or the limitation of VMware Horizon to run on VMware Products.
VMware Horizon does everything that Oracle VDI is capable of doing and offers many more features, and unlike Oracle VDI, it is still receiving constant updates. Oracle VDI was a great solution for enterprise-level management of virtualized desktop when it was getting updates, but now that it won't be getting any, I would put it in the "outdated technology" category.
Being able to easily add new use cases with minimal "re-work" to existing workspace delivered by the solution has been a great ROI value.
The Security features that are built-in have made the solution a go-to for any remote access or vendor access requests the business has needed to continue projects and expedite digital initiatives.
While the overall environment stability is excellent there is an increase in support team and end user training required which can "steal" time from admin and engineers.
