Citrix and Microsoft Azure: 7 ways to create your ideal virtual desktop experience

It’s time to make the most of Azure—and your Azure Virtual Desktop entitlement—with added value from Citrix.

If you're looking for a simple, cost-effective way to support your growing hybrid workforce, you may be looking at Microsoft Azure and its offerings. As a cloud-based desktop as a service (DaaS) platform, Azure Virtual Desktop is popular since it’s included within Microsoft 365 enterprise subscriptions. But does it provide everything you need? 

With Citrix, it can. By building on top of the Azure platform and leveraging your Azure Virtual Desktop entitlement, Citrix eliminates the need for numerous point solutions by providing a highly-engaging user experience, enhanced security, comprehensive lifecycle  management tools, and much more–proven capabilities to empower your workforce whether you’re an SMB or global enterprise.

Here are 7 ways Citrix on Azure helps you streamline operations, enhance security, and increase cost savings.

 

Simplify hybrid multi-cloud

Azure Virtual Desktop lets you take full advantage of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. But what happens if you need on-premises resources to maintain compliance or leverage existing datacenter investments? 

Only Citrix lets you combine Azure-based virtual apps and desktops with resources hosted on-premises as well as in other public clouds. This hybrid multi-cloud enablement lets you move fast while creating the environment that works best for your business.

1. Image portability

MICROSOFT AZURE

Any on-premises desktops must be managed separately.

CITRIX AND MICROSOFT AZURE

With Citrix DaaS for Azure, images can be migrated from your on-premises infrastructure to Azure and back. Quickly add applications or install updates as needed—no extra effort required.

2. Always-on availability

MICROSOFT AZURE

With Microsoft alone, you’re wholly dependent on connectivity providers. That means everyone is impacted when an outage occurs.

CITRIX AND MICROSOFT AZURE

Together, Citrix and Microsoft ensure your users can stay productive during outages. Service continuity keeps local resources available to on-site employees when the internet is down, and lets remote users stay connected to virtual apps and desktops even if cloud components are unavailable. And if your identity provider experiences downtimes, cached authentication tokens kick in. 

$
20
K

With Citrix and Microsoft, to keep employees connected, a 1,000-person organization can save as much as $20,000 for what would otherwise be a 30-minute outage. And that's assuming employees make $40 an hour. For executives and specialized teams, the productivity gains are even greater.

Optimize day-to-day operations

 

As a Citrix customer, you can take advantage of comprehensive capabilities to speed up troubleshooting, simplify application management, and more. This not only accelerates Azure deployment and lifecycle maintenance, but also lets you reduce cloud spending.

3. Faster troubleshooting

MICROSOFT AZURE

Troubleshooting directly within Microsoft’s virtual desktop platform involves multiple steps. You’ll need to sign into the machine, open the task manager, ensure you have the right permissions, and locate the right process. If more than one user is on the same system, there can be a good deal of searching, too.

CITRIX AND MICROSOFT AZURE

Citrix adds tremendous value to Azure Virtual Desktop by leading you to the root of problems fast. Quickly look up an individual user to disconnect a session, terminate a process, or take any number of other actions based on each specific scenario. And with Citrix Analytics for Performance, you can find and fix issues long before users reach out for help.

4. Simpler application management

MICROSOFT AZURE

Basic application management tools let you make some adjustments. But for more granular app lifecycle management, you’ll need the capabilities that come with Citrix and Microsoft together.

CITRIX AND MICROSOFT AZURE

As a Citrix customer, you can maintain a single golden copy of each part of your virtual desktop, from the operating system and platform components to individual applications. This unique image management technology lets you modify a copy of the affected part, without having to touch multiple instances. It requires far less effort and greatly simplifies ongoing maintenance activities. With limited modifications to well-defined sections of a virtual desktop, rollbacks can be done much faster with Citrix and Microsoft.

5. Optimized costs

MICROSOFT AZURE

Optimizing your Azure costs can be complex, especially when it’s time to add more bandwidth and capacity. 

CITRIX AND MICROSOFT AZURE

A range of unique Citrix features, from increasing user density to ensuring storage disks are fast, allow you to consume fewer Azure resources on a day-to-day basis. There’s Workspace Environment Management to improve server scalability, comprehensive provisioning to help reduce costs, and built-in monitoring that comes at no extra cost. These and other easy-to-implement cost optimizations are often significant enough to cover a large portion of Citrix licenses.

Deliver secure experiences

 

Only Citrix lets you put granular policy and data protection controls in place without compromising the user experience. Leverage security features like session recording, secure watermarking, and more to continuously protect against the latest digital threats. All while delivering a superior user experience on any device.

6. Data loss prevention

MICROSOFT AZURE

For robust application protection, you’ll need a third-party point solution.

CITRIX AND MICROSOFT AZURE

With Citrix, built-in protections let you secure every type of app—SaaS, web, and virtual—across endpoints. And with Citrix Analytics for Security, you can automate actions to mitigate risks in real-time.

7. Superior user experience

MICROSOFT AZURE

Congested networks can cause graphics-intensive apps to become slow and unreliable.

CITRIX AND MICROSOFT AZURE

Citrix HDX ensures voice, video, graphics, and unified communications platforms (such as Microsoft Teams) are delivered in high definition at all times.

Ready, set…save

When it comes to embracing the cloud, there's a lot to think about. You need to secure sensitive data. Deliver an exceptional experience. Ensure your users can get what they need, when they need it, on any device. And you need to achieve all of this while keeping costs down.

While there are plenty of specialized solutions to help with different needs, managing multiple vendors can get expensive fast.

That’s why Citrix lets you consolidate multiple products into one simple solution—so you can easily create your ideal virtual app and desktop experience while keeping your budget in check.

$
98

By eliminating the need for third-party vendors and add-ons, Citrix customers save up to $98 per user, per-year with Citrix and Azure.1

Put your trust in the DaaS and VDI leader  

16
M

16 million cloud users — and counting

We had Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops in place in our on-premises data center, now we can rapidly spin up workloads in Azure and take advantage of capacity that we didn’t have on-premises before. 

Jethro Eastwood
Workplace Services Manager
QBE