FAQS

Citrix sits on top of approximately 11 different systems in your network that all have to be working in concert for you to get the best end user experience. A problem in any one of these systems, from Active Directory to the Web Interface servers, can impact the performance end users experience through Citrix. In reality, Citrix is responsible for the "slow response" approximately 20% of the time. Usually the culprit is one of the systems behind Citrix. See Figure 1.1 below to get an idea of all of the systems that are working behind the scenes to deliver applications to end users. Figure 1.1

Citrix relys on many different systems in your IT infrastructure to serve up applications and virtual desktops. Figure 1.1 above is a graphic example of all of the systems working behind the scenes with Citrix. When a problem presents itself, the Support Desk has to identify which system(s) are ultimately causing the problem. In large companies this problem can be magnified because each system pictured above is managed by a seperate person or team of people. If the individual Citrix servers are built even subtly different from one another the number of variables that could be causing the problem becomes astronomical. There are "best practices" to avoid the variables and tools to help diagnose quickly.

We can absolutely help you, give us a call and we will help you figure out what to do next.

Yes. While all of these are common complaints, there is no reason these problems should exist, let alone persist. We can absolutely make these issues go away.

Yes. These types of issues are typically profile issues, policy issues or are tied back to Active Directory. We can help you identify and resolve these issues and give you steps to make sure the issues stay resolved.

Often the most expedient way to correct a Citrix issue today for a help desk is to blow away the end users profile and make them create a new one. In some cases, Support Desk personnel will copy some of their personalizations back to the new profile. Destroying the end user profile, while expedient, just annoys the end users. Today we use proactive management tools with correlation engines that pull back the curtain on Citrix and see the symptoms and source of issues that seem to be Citrix related.

Make sure your printer drivers are consistent across all of your servers. Use native drivers where possible. Use the Citrix Universal Print Driver. Look at third party tools like triCerat Screwdrivers (which takes printing completely away from Citrix) if all else fails.

Yes. Typically these are profile issues or tied back to log-on scripting. We have several tools in our arsenal to resolve these issues.

Yes. These types of issues are typically profile issues, policy issues or are tied back to Active Directory. We can help you identify and resolve these issues and give you steps to make sure the issues stay resolved.

Yes. We can provide the Citrix expertise to help you get the Citrix environment right so that your vendor can properly deploy/upgrade your application.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work as a policy is gaining more traction. The benefits of getting out of the desktop/laptop hardware business are very attractive for a lot of companies. The policy is also very attractive to end users that have their own tastes when it comes to the devices they use. Today we can serve up your applications to any device as a service with a simple client on the end users device. The users have access to the applications and data you provision, but the data does not leave the confines of your data center. In the event you have employees that need access to key company data while away from the office and disconnected for the network or internet, there will have to be a copy of that data on their machine. We can extend policies to protect that data and give you the ability to erase/destroy that data in the event the device is lost or if you feel the security of your company assets may be in question.

Yes. We can provide you with key Citrix expertise exclusively or manage your entire environment on your premise or from one of our datacenters.

Yes. You can publish a single application or an entire desktop depending upon how your end users prefer to work and what makes the most sense for your applications. We can setup a pilot environment for you and let you experience how your applications will perform on any device you choose.

Yes. Managing mobile devices can be a challenge. In simple terms, you will need to have the ability to configure, provision, secure, support, monitor and decommission devices and/or data on these devices for both company owned and employee owned devices. We can help you with the full lifecycle of mobile device management (MDM.) If mobile devices are critical to your business, you may also want a way to measure the performance of these mobile devices and the applications installed on them. We can help you proactively manage the end user experience on these devices and establish metrics for employee productivity.

VDI is a simple enough concept, but the deployment of a VDI solution takes a fair amount of planning to make sure the end results are both what you want and worth paying for. We can do an Assessment of your environment and run some environment diagnostic tools that will give you a clear picture of how well suited your environment is for VDI today, where your challenges are, and what those changes will likely cost to get the performance you are looking for. We also have the ability to demonstrate live side by side comparisons of your desktops delivered via VDI vs. physical PCs so you can experience the performance first hand before you do your rollout. Also note that all VDI deployments are not created equal. We have three different VDI solutions based on your size, budget and your environment complexity.

Review this Citrix XenApp Comparative Feature Matrix to see all of the differences between Presentation Server 4.5, XenApp 5.0, XenApp 6.0 and XenApp 6.5

We get this question all the time but the reality is there is no single answer. Your applications will determine how many users you can ultimately get on a single XenApp server (physical or virtual.) We have customers that are able to get 30 XenApp users per VM, with 15 VMs in a single dual processor, hex core 2U pizza box server. We have users happy to get 5 users per VM. We use sizing tools from Citrix and third parties to answer this question definitively. Often we can tweak the applications to improve performance or add third party products to improve user density by as much as 30%. Ultimately there is a balance that is unique for each customer between third party tools that improve user density vs. additional host hardware vs. the ultimate achieveable improvement in end user counts per server.

As a best practice we build a 2008R2 farm and move your applications that ARE 64 bit aware and leave your legacy 32 bit applications in a Citrix 4.5/5.0 environment. We can serve up these applications in a single pane to end users so they do not have to be bothered about determining which farm to access to get to their applications.

Yes. We can build, host and manage your Citrix environment in one of our data centers and serve up your applications as a service to your users.

Yes. If you are in the planning stages, your first step should be an Assessment to evaluate your existing environment to get a handle on the cost and feasibility of getting your existing environment in shape for these initiatives so you do not get any surprises. We can help you assess, design, pilot and deploy these types of environments, provide patching and basic incident support or manage the environment entirely for you. We can do whatever makes the most sense for your organization.

Yes. Whitehat provides Citrix Managed Services for customers that do not find it practical to staff their own Citrix resources.