citrix questions

[groovin]

ok, looking through citrix's site, they throw around all sorts of cool buzz phrases like "leverage your network" "on demand enterprise" and so on. That's great and all, but it doesnt really do me any good to know that it can help "mobilize my workforce".

i can guess that what it does in short, is run on a win2k server on which all your apps are installed and then let workstations or thin clients connect to it and run the apps off the server. that way you save money in app licenses (since you only need one for the server) and time in upgrading and maintaining those apps on each workstation. if you go thin clients, a thin client costs less than a workstation.

so now im wondering, what the heck should i be looking at? they have the 'access suite' 'presentation server' and so on... then tehres metraframe xp which gets me confused with metaframe xp presentation server and so on...

also, id imagine this would be priced like a usual networked multi user app... you gotta pay for the server install software, then CALs... so how much are these things? I see a wide variety of prices.

i will contact their sales to see what they have to say, but i thought id ask here in case their sales people are no more helpful than their site.

yeah, i might be completely missing the point here... please correct me if i am. thanks!

 

[Garion]

You still need CAL's for each user - In fact, Citrix runs on top of MS Terminal Services. MSTSC requires that each client station owns a CAL for Win2K (or it used to) in addition to the Citrix licenses.

Citrix is great in three scenarios:

1: You have a large, bandwidth-intensive application that you need to run at a remote site over a slow WAN/VPN link that is too pokey to run the app. You can take control of a Citrix session fairly well at about 50Kb/s per user (I think they advertise 30, but I use 50). You can even just launch the application and (most) apps will tie in nicely to local printers, local hard drives, etc.

2: You have a bunch of old hardware that you don't want to replace and want to run everything on a central server.

3: You don't want to bother managing a bunch of individual workstations - Give 'em dumb terminals and then only manage the central citrix servers(s).

Reality is that 90% of Citrix deployments are for #1 - bandwidth-intensive app across a WAN.

As to what is what in their product line, it's been a while - I started when it was Winframe, then to Metaframe. I haven't used any of their newer "suites", but it's the basic Metaframe that provides what most people use.

- G

 

[Changlinn]

it almost works out cheaper now-a-days to go with window's terminal services, yes you still need a licence per client, but it is fairly fast and less temperemental than citrix.
If you must go with Citrix, I am pretty sure presentation is just so users can view your screen, for like online tutorials and what not, you will need I think metaframe... Thats what one of our clients use, but I just support it, didn't install/buy it.

Edit: the guy above posted same time as me, so in response to him; I didn't know it used windows licences as well, well that truly makes it sucky... stick with windows terminal services and remote desktop, which is standard on all windows os's above xp and can be installed on all below, and is default now with a lot of linux distros

 

[Boscoh]

We have a multifunctional application that provides access to inventory, sales, purchasing, billing, and ordering info. It's modular and the user only sees the modules defined in their permissions. We use Citrix Metaframe with nFuse (I think its called Web Access or something now) to provide employees working away from the office access to this...whether it be from their home when a customer calls them at 2am needing a product to be delivered the next day, or on-site in the middle of Louisiana using a laptop with a Sprint AirCard to check the status of a delivery to the customer location.

nFuse is just a way of delivering the client program used to connect to Citrix via a webpage the user hits to log in. Without nFuse, the client program must be installed manually on each machine that wants to access Citrix. We use our Neoteris (now Netscreen aka Juniper) SSL "VPN" appliance to provide access to the Citrix web page where users log in. The users dont even need to bother with the download of the Citrix client via nFuse now, because the newest version of the Neoteris firmware has the Citrix client built into the app it downloads to the client PC, so the user only gets one download when the log into the SSL appliance, then they are done. It's really nice.

Citrix rocks. If you need to provide access to a desktop or to a specific application only, and you need to be able to access it from just about anywhere, then Citrix is worth looking at.

On a side note....I noticed Cingular uses Citrix at their stores...it's how the employees access the application they use to create/modify/view your account.

 

[Changlinn]

but you can do the same thing with remote desktop and windows terminal server 2000/2003, you can use remote desktop via ie6, and a vpn tunnel for security.

 

[groovin]

thanks for all that info guys!

 

[Agamar]

I have run a normal Win2k TS, and both the WinFrame 1.8 and the new Presentation Server 3.0. The one advantage that Citrix has above a normal Windows 2k or 2k3 install is the ability to create a server farm (for failover). Yeah, you can do it with Windows 2003, but it just isn't the same as with the new Presentation server. That was the one reason we chose to go with Pres on a Win2k box (where you don't have to buy extra TS cals for users running Win2k or WinXP) rather than a Win2k3 Terminal server.