We’re excited to announce that Citrix has added multi-tenant support for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service specifically for Citrix Service Providers (CSPs). Multi-tenant support is critical to helping CSPs manage all their customers in a single console and provides the ability to leverage economies of scale for CSP-hosted infrastructure. This enables CSPs to introduce competitive market offerings.
With multi-tenant support, administrators can manage clients as individual dedicated accounts while respecting the security construct of each customer in a simple dashboard. CSPs can customize each tenant to the customer’s specifications, and each account is contained as an individual tenant.
Customers managed by the CSP as part of the multi-tenant Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service are entitled to their own unique workspace experience. This gives each onboarded customer their own personalized, branded, and unique workspace URL (e.g. https://customer.cloud.com). End users logging into the workspace will only have access to apps and desktops provided to them by the CSP. This dedicated workspace experience per customer lets the partners take advantage of all the current and upcoming workspace features on a per-customer basis.
The high-level architecture of the various aspects of the multi-tenant support within Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service is shown below. For a detailed architecture reference, I recommend checking out Selma Wei’s recent blog on cloud reference architecture. Depending on customer needs, the partner can deploy dedicated resource locations or resource locations shared between multiple customers. Shared resource locations allow partners to share resources like the Active Directory, Cloud Connectors, and more, and tailor their deployments to be easier to manage and more cost efficient.
Citrix has made the process to add and manage customer tenants simple. For example, to add a customer, the admin can choose Customers from the dashboard. By clicking Invite or Add, the admin can quickly create a customer account. Adding the customer automatically adds the CSP as a full access administrator of the customer’s account.
After adding a customer to the partner’s account, the partner can perform the Add Service procedure to onboard the customer to the partner’s Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service subscription. When the onboarding is done, a new customer scope is created automatically in the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service. The scope is unique to the onboarded customer and is immediately available in the other configuration areas of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops like the Studio and Delegated Administrator module.
Customer scope allows the segregation of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops objects like Machine Catalogs, Delivery Groups, and more based on customer. Partners can set up Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops objects to be shared with one or more customers by selecting the appropriate scopes during configuration. These customer scopes are also exposed in the PowerShell SDK providing power users various automation options. Partners who want to setup IT admins who only have access to a subset of customers can use scope-level roles available in the delegated administrator module within the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service.
Another major advantage for CSPs using multi-tenant support is enhanced monitoring data. The monitoring console now enables partners to view monitoring data for select customers. Admins can choose the customer from a convenient pull-down menu and view customer data including sessions, performance, usage and custom reporting. This, in combination with the delegated administrator module allows partners to set up help desk users who only have access to a subset of customers.
Multi-tenant support is now available to Citrix Service Providers with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Service. Contact your Citrix representative if you’re interested in learning more about Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service.
If you’re attending Citrix Summit 2020, join us for CSP301: Explore multi-tenant Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service for CSPs on January 14 from 2:00 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. in the Northern Hemisphere Salon E 3-4.
I also recommend attending Selma’s reference architecture session as well: for CSP303: Deeper dive into Citrix Cloud reference architecture for CSPs on January 14 from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in room Northern Hemisphere Salon E 3-4.
