DISCLAIMER: This document is a collection of feedback from the community IT professionals based upon experiences to stimulate debate, and not intended to be a scientific product comparison or detailed analysis. Responses may be subjective.
Introduction
At a recent company-wide meeting the Xtravirt consultants presented a debate discussing Citrix XenDesktop and VMware Horizon View and their merits across some particular areas.
Whilst our consultants came up with many compelling arguments for both solutions, we thought we would also survey the community and users to see what their thoughts were. Thank you to those of you who completed the survey and shared your views.
We’ve consolidated the survey responses from the community and our consultants, and summarised in the tables below.
Response summary
Question 1: Which solution is more mature?
| XenDesktop | Horizon View |
|---|---|
| XenApp has been in the market longer although XenDesktop and View were released in much similar timeframes | Has been a gradual improvement with no major changes in the architecture over the years |
| Has had multiple changes of the architecture over the last few years, however the current integrated architecture is a big improvement | Requires vSphere to realise all its features |
| Supports multiple hypervisors, therefore gives enterprises more options | Rules out customers with Hyper-V and XenServer however vSphere and View is a very well integrated proposition |
| Xtravirt have deployed successful XenDesktop solutions for scalable multi-1000 seat solutions | Xtravirt have deployed successful Horizon View solutions for scalable multi-1000 seat solutions |
| XenDesktop is an end-to-end solution. It has mature remote access and traffic optimisation with NetScaler/cloud bridge, desktop, application delivery and mobile management all integrated into the same solution | Rich set of technology, from application virtualisation (ThinApp), application delivery (App Volumes) Workspace App Store portal, physical device management (Mirage) to persona management (UEM) |
| Citrix provides a rich set of management and monitoring products | vRealize Operations for View provides detailed monitoring capabilities, balancing complexity with useful information |
Conclusion
Whilst Citrix has undoubtedly been in the business of delivering centralised desktop solutions for more years than VMware, however in the last 3-4 years VMware has produced a mature and proven desktop technology stack.
From Xtravirt’s experience in having designed and deployed multi-1000 user deployments, both Citrix and VMware are mature solutions and ready for production use at scale.
Question 2: Which solution is easier to support?
| XenDesktop | Horizon View |
|---|---|
| Each Flexcast component is modular, you only build the parts of the infrastructure you need | Seamless integration with vSphere. Smaller learning curve and less complexity |
| Two great consoles for core features. Citrix Studio for Architecture and Provisioning. Citrix Director for support and monitoring with EdgeSight built-in as standard | Single support number to phone no matter if it’s a hypervisor issue or broker |
| Significant improvements in v7.x in terms of installation and reduced complexity | Large community support and knowledge pool/td> |
| Large community support and knowledge pool | There are less moving parts |
| Large numbers of Citrix qualified people in the industry | Intuitive solution that can build on existing VMware skillsets |
Conclusion
The full Citrix FlexCast suite of products has a number of moving parts and the opinion is that it is a slightly steeper learning curve than View. However with the release of XenDesktop 7 this installation and management has become more integrated.
Citrix provides more options in terms of hypervisor support and some granularity of configuration, however View offers a more integrated approach to vSphere and is an easier product to learn and upskill on for someone that was starting from scratch.
Question 3: Which solution gives you more granular control?
| XenDesktop | Horizon View |
|---|---|
| Citrix Policy, integrated into Group Policy gives very granular control over all client, server and protocol configurations | Provides granular level of control using the various group policy templates |
| Citrix supports both GUI and CLI management | Horizon supports both GUI and CLI management |
| Many low level configuration options such as offering the ability to split ICA into multiple streams and provide QoS on each stream | Gives enough fine grained control to meet customer requirements without adding significant much complexity |
Conclusion
If we simply took a count of the number of configuration options Citrix provides vs. VMware Horizon View it suggests Citrix would come out on top. However granular configuration needs to be balanced with supportability and complexity. Both products provide a fine level of configuration options for most enterprise deployments, and whilst Citrix may have more options, View has been proven to provide a suitable level of management for enterprise deployments and multiple use cases.
Question 4: Which solution has the better protocol?
| XenDesktop | Horizon View |
|---|---|
| Close between the two, however the ability to split ICA into multiple streams and QoS those individually as it’s TCP, give Citrix a slight advantage | PCOIP gives a good experience and dynamically adjusts to the available bandwidth without impact on the end user |
| Citrix uses less bandwidth consumption | Will use more bandwidth if available which can sometimes give misleading results when comparing with ICA |
| Been around for many years and is well proven | Hasn’t been around as long as ICA but has been proven in many enterprise customers including those with high latency or high graphical capabilities |
| Has been developing and improving since mid-90’s and offers more granular control and uses less bandwidth | Multi-codec protocol provides intelligent image decomposition and optimised rendering |
Conclusion
Side-by-side, ICA arguably has the edge, however it’s generally not considered to be a compelling factor as it once was. Both ICA and PCoIP have been deployed by Xtravirt on customers with high latency, low bandwidth links. Both required some configuration optimisation to obtain the best performance in these challenging scenarios.
Question 5: Which solution addresses the most use cases?
Xtravirt viewpoint
| XenDesktop | Horizon View |
|---|---|
| Citrix Flexcast addresses many use cases. It provides delivery options ranging from streamed desktops, mature hosted apps, shared hosted desktops or hosted virtual desktops. | The Horizon suite delivers a similar number of use cases as Citrix including Shared Hosted desktops using PCoIP, hosted virtual desktops to physical desktop management |
| Citrix offers products such as NetScaler for load balancing as well as WAN optimisation | App Volumes and the new UEM profile management provide a great way to delivery applications and user environment management |
| Application virtualisation with Citrix XenApp and Citrix VMHA (Virtual Machine Hosted | View offers products for managing physical desktops such as Mirage and Horizon Flex |
| Applications) as well as built-in functionality for Microsoft App-V to make better use of the licenses included with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) | VMware now have acquired an improved user profile solution (UEM) which provides a more intuitive and powerful method for delivering use profiles and personalisation |
| Proven mature and reliable user profile management with Citrix Profile Management |
Conclusion
Both solutions provide solutions for a number of use cases. Shared Hosted Desktops (XenApp/ RDSH) are a strong selling point for Citrix and they offer a more powerful and configurable solution here compared to VMware’s offering. However VMware provide a strong, integrated solution in the hosted desktop category and offer VMware Mirage and for managing applications physical desktops as well as AirWatch for mobile device management.
Overall both solutions provide strong support for the majority of use cases found in the enterprise and it’s unlikely either will fall short of meeting the majority of typical customer requirements.
The Consultant View
The tables above are a selection of comments we received from the community and our internal consultants who are skilled and highly experienced in delivering both Citrix and VMware EUC solutions. A few years ago the common sentiment suggested Citrix had the edge, with their strong protocol, and XenApp offering. However with the development and refinement of VMware’s EUC stack, VMware have produced a robust and streamlined offering. For existing customers of either technology there’s unlikely now to be a compelling default reason to swap out one for the other, unless to satisfy specific needs. However for customers looking at some form of centralised computing solution for the first time or who are having issues with their existing deployment, a proof-of-concept of one or both will be worth conducting.
Whether you are running or exploring Citrix, VMware, Microsoft solutions, Xtravirt has the expertise to deliver the solution that is best for you. If you would like to discuss how we can help you with your IT transformation project contact us today.
