What is Citrix?

[Bad boy Warrior]

Is Citrix part of Windows Server family? What does it do and what are the advantages - any help is appreciated. Anyone know of any good starter sites for Citrix in case its something i need to know about?

Cheers peeps

[ps500]

Read about it here!

Citrix

[fdv]

The wikipedia also has a succinct description.

Their website IMO doesn't really tell you what the product actually does.

Citrix application delivery infrastructure integrates the best delivery methods for all applications to any location over any network, enabling IT to quickly respond to the competitive needs of the business.

Huh?? Competitve needs?

Will it "leverage my proactive future-proof infrastructures" and "uniquely empower value-added imperatives?"

Bottom line it lets many people use programs running on one computer. The licenses for running MS Office on every single person's computer can get expensive.

[CoffeeFiend]

Bottom line it lets many people use programs running on one computer.

Bottom line: it's a terminal server - to use apps remotely for various reasons.

The licenses for running MS Office on every single person's computer can get expensive.

No more than running office on a terminal server. Same license, same license cost, so exact same price overall.

[fdv]

(Jaw drops)

Same license, same license cost, so exact same price overall.

You mean you pay a per seat cost even if you run one copy? I didn't know that. (Not that I need to, we have a copy for every person here at work).

No wonder people are trying out FOSS like Open Office so much

[CoffeeFiend]

You mean you pay a per seat cost even if you run one copy? I didn't know that. (Not that I need to, we have a copy for every person here at work).

You need a license per user. You got 100 users connecting to that TS and using office? That's 100 licenses to buy, just like installing it on their 100 PCs. They've got many documents about licensing for terminal servers (like this one).

But the point of terminal servers isn't to "dodge" licensing fees - it doesn't help at all. It's mainly convenience:

-you can use cheap, maintenance-free thin clients (like the Wyse products) instead of full fledged workstations (which require maintenance, upgrades and all) - albeit at the cost of buying a very expensive monster server

-legacy apps that require an different OS or different environment than what's on the workstations

-applications which are just too much of a PITA to deploy and update (only 1 server to install onto and to keep updated)

-apps can be accessed from basically anywhere (including from laptops on the road or home PCs), no local installation required

-sometimes I've seen some very badly written apps that would be beyond painfully slow if used on certain network connections but that would run OK if the network connection between the terminal server and database/middleware servers was fast enough (hundreds of DB queries over high latency links makes for a excruciatingly slow app)

etc...

OpenOffice is OK, but it's not quite MS Office. The main thing going for it is the price really.

Anyways. Short form answer to the first post: if you don't know what citrix is, then you don't need it.

[nmX.Memnoch]

Another reason to use Citrix is for encrypting the connection. We have an older 16-bit application (yet another use for Citrix) that processes personal data. The application doesn't natively have encryption so we stuck it on a Citrix server that requires a 128-bit RC5 connection with SSL/TLS on top of that.

The other cool thing about it is that you can run the application in what they call a "seamless mode". Other than the connection splash screens it looks like the application is actually running on the workstation instead of a Citrix server.

[tain]

I was taught that MS stole most of the Citrix technology (via a licensing agreement) and created Terminal Services. They supposedly lost a lawsuit over it and that resulted in the quagmire of licensing issues for Terminal Services that we have today.

My professor told me, so it must be true

I've used Citrix Metaframe at work (as a user, not admin) to get a Win2K desktop from a Sun machine. Citrix performed well and was very useful for that purpose.

[CoffeeFiend]

I was taught that MS stole most of the Citrix technology (via a licensing agreement) and created Terminal Services. They supposedly lost a lawsuit over it

TS/Remote Desktop (RDP) was based on ICA indeed. I've heard about that lawsuit many times, but never found evidence of it being true. I can't find anything about it, it sounds like one of those urban legends. I'm not saying that there wasn't some disagreement though, but I have a hard time to believe it was blatant "theft". After all, Citrix doesn't seem to dislike MS that much - they've renewed that licensing agreement a couple times. Citrix gave to MS what they needed to have multiple user sessions at once (for NT4), and MS gave Citrix a license to the Windows source code.

and that resulted in the quagmire of licensing issues for Terminal Services that we have today.

How so? It's really not that bad.

Citrix has a slight advantage over TS (advanced configuration and features -- things like load management, more advanced printing, slighly better compression, etc) and they support other OS'es than windows, but it's quite expensive. It's like 350$ per concurrent user -- that's on top of the TS CALs (~150$ for each user that will need to connect - not concurrent users) and normal app licenses! Really nice, if you can afford it that is. I mean, decent thin clients with TS CALs already costs as much as a basic Dell. Now add Citrix, and it's starting to get rather expensive. Just for a dozen users, only half of which would connect simultaneously, you're looking at around 4000$ worth of TS & Citrix CALs.

[cluberti]

I was taught that MS stole most of the Citrix technology (via a licensing agreement) and created Terminal Services. They supposedly lost a lawsuit over it and that resulted in the quagmire of licensing issues for Terminal Services that we have today.

My professor told me, so it must be true

Citrix never sued Microsoft, and in fact, Microsoft had every right to build TS after it's agreement with Citrix. Citrix and Microsoft partnered so Citrix could build it's first product, and when Microsoft saw that it would be potentially a good product, Microsoft notified Citrix and built NT4 Terminal Server, and the rest is history. Citrix's investors sued Citrix for the Microsoft deal, but Citrix never sued Microsoft.

What else is that instructor telling you? Sounds like a Microsoft-hater...

[CoffeeFiend]

Citrix never sued Microsoft, and in fact, Microsoft had every right to build TS after it's agreement with Citrix. Citrix and Microsoft partnered so Citrix could build it's first product, and when Microsoft saw that it would be potentially a good product, Microsoft notified Citrix and built NT4 Terminal Server, and the rest is history. Citrix's investors sued Citrix for the Microsoft deal, but Citrix never sued Microsoft.

Ha! I thought so too. They seemed to be on pretty good terms anyways.

Sounds like a Microsoft-hater...

There's a lot of such people around nowadays who just love to spread FUD and blame Microsoft for everything - including bad mouthing the Melinda Gates foundation even though they're doing a lot of good. And they accuse anyone saying anything in favor of Microsoft of being shills and all (slashdot anyone?)

Anyways. It's nice to see that the technology is still evolving. Just noticed they're going to have WPF apps accelerated locally by the GPU, as well as Aero Glass and ClearType. Good stuff for sure!