Are you struggling to choose between AVD or Citrix? In this episode, Consultant Robert Buktenica together with Solutions Architect John Gallacher compares whether AVD or Citrix might work better for you.
TIMESTAMP
00:07 Introduction
00:24 The Brew
01:07 AVD/Citrix, what’s your preference?
02:49 Is there a situation where Citrix is better fit?
04:19 Is there a situation where AVD is a better fit?
06:17 Conclusion
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
Robert Buktenica: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to The Late Night Brew, where we talk brews first and then we get around to the business stuff after the fact. Joining me once again, the man who is great at avoiding questions, John Gallacher. Welcome back, mate.
John Gallacher: Thanks, mate for having us back on once again.
The Brew
Robert: Of course. Now, you know the drill at this point, the important bit, what are you having?
John: I’m well accustomed now tonight. Buk, I’m having a Tennent’s Lager. It’s definitely not a craft, trendy beer. It’s just one of those traditional very default lagers we have here in Glasgow, and I’m a massive fan of it, so yes, enjoying that tonight.
Robert: Hey, there’s nothing wrong with the classics, they’re there for a reason mate. I am enjoying a Citra Pale Ale. Kind of hard with the light. Flying Fish actually, and they call it the XPA, it’s a pale ale with apparently a bit of hops. It’s quite nice, I’m not going to admit, it’s a little citrusy.
John: Nice. Elegant as well.
AVD/Citrix, what’s your preference?
Robert: Yes, I know. All right, picking up from where we left off: AVD, Citrix, what’s your preference?
John: Yes, let’s certainly get to it. I think Buck, I’ve been a massive Citrix advocate for 15 years. I’ve loved the technology, I love talking about it, implementing it, playing with it but I think if– you asked the important question of which is my preference. I think that I’d have to think about the whole concept of ‘it’s the customer that counts’. You’re right.
I could run shout from the rooftops about Citrix all day long but ultimately, at Insentra we’re very much about seeking to understand before being understood. I think it’s a very, very important message. We’re not in the business of socialising, we don’t go in there with this agenda to try and force our preferred solution. So really, from our point of view, it’s about understanding the customer’s needs, and really making sure we get the best outcome for them and making sure it ultimately addresses their business problems.
I think it is one of those problems that I see throughout the industry whereby you have someone that might be aligned to a certain technology or a vendor, and that’s what they maybe overly promote. But for us at Insentra, our strong partnerships with both Microsoft and Citrix, and they are very tightly intertwined, so really for us it’s about identifying what their needs are and giving them advice on what we think is the best way forward.
Robert: Definitely. No, it’s good to not have the ‘you’re holding a hammer so everything looks like a nail’ approach.
John: Yes, exactly.
Is there a situation where Citrix is better fit?
Robert: That being said, though, I’m curious, is there a situation where Citrix is a little bit better of a fit?
John: Yes. I think, just to be careful of thinking about AVD as a technology, it’s one service of the Microsoft huge suite while Citrix has got a whole stack in a massive portfolio. Looking specifically at the comparable service, which is virtual apps and desktops, I think that in my experience, and what I see out there in the field is that if a customer has got a need for deploying their virtual apps and desktops across multiple clouds, potentially on-premises as well as like Azure and AWS, Citrix is definitely a solution for that.
I think to add, it also gives the administrator or the engineers that look after the platform, it gives them a great experience as well because it’s a unified console, unified management across all those platforms. It doesn’t actually matter where the apps and desktops are hosted. So that’s very, very, beneficial for the management aspect but then also, you’ve got the user experience.
If you have those users that if they’ve got to failover or work out of a different data centre, you have that real consistent feel, regardless what the underlying platform is. Obviously, with an Azure Virtual Desktop at this point and time, and I can’t really see it changing because of the nature of the service, but it’s kind of an Azure-based service. So, it’s not that you can leverage that service somewhere like AWS or on-premises.
Is there a situation where AVD is a better fit?
Robert: Right. The flip side of that, of course, is AVD, where’s the situation where it’s a little bit better of a fit?
John: I think that, again, in my experience especially since the pandemic that there has been quite a big adoption or quite a lot of interest shall we say for AVD, I think there are customers out there that may already have that buy-in to the Microsoft ecosystem, they might have the M365 license and still they might have Windows 10 subscription that allows them to use an AVD deployment.
That’s going to be quite a nice cost-saving there. If they haven’t got this overly complex requirements around where it’s deployed, how it’s deployed, AVD is potentially a good fit. Again, I always recommend that, especially for customers that are just moving into virtual apps and desktop space or delivering the apps and desktops via a virtual service, it’s definitely a good place to start. It’s potentially a cheap option, it’s simple, easy to stand up and make sure it’s potentially the right fit for the customer.
Robert: Awesome, I appreciate that. I mean, really to rehash, I think each part of the question or each answer to the questions is it really depends, it falls down on what you’re looking to do, how you’re looking to do it, what’s your staff like and really, it requires sitting down and asking a bunch of questions to make sure that we’re putting forward what’s going to be a better fit for the org.
John: It does and essentially, we’ve been doing lots of Citrix since its inception, AVD as well, so we’re pretty well versed across both solutions and beyond so whether it’s professional services for consulting, advisory, implementation, or even managed services, we’ve got a solution or service that will fit the bill.
Conclusion
Robert: Awesome. Well, I think that does wrap up both the time for the episode and this series, so I hope everyone has really enjoyed it. Feel free to reach out with questions, we’re available, we’re here to help, happy to help. Until next time, and until the next series. Have a great night, John. It’s much appreciated, mate.
John: Nice one.
Robert: Cheers.
