{"id":4548,"date":"2013-02-01T10:49:46","date_gmt":"2013-02-01T08:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ingmarverheij.com\/?p=4548"},"modified":"2013-03-04T18:54:43","modified_gmt":"2013-03-04T17:54:43","slug":"you-dont-need-xendesktop-for-a-virtual-desktop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ingmarverheij.com\/en\/you-dont-need-xendesktop-for-a-virtual-desktop\/","title":{"rendered":"You don’t need XenDesktop for a virtual desktop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"XenDesktopFor years Citrix has a product to host applications from a centralized locations offering great flexibility and efficiency, called Citrix XenApp. In 2008 Citrix released XenDesktop, the VDI solution from Citrix. With this first release of XenDesktop it was possible to (only) publish a desktop hosted on a single user operating system (like Windows XP, Vista or 7).<\/p>\n

Citrix has tried to choose an appropriate name for their products to help customers understand what product offers what solution (and reducing the ridiculous times they rename their products). Although this is an admirable attempt they failed to reach that goal.<\/p>\n

A lot of customer assume that with XenApp they can (only) publish applications and with XenDesktop (only) desktops, how wrong can they be? <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Customers are confused<\/h1>\n

Customers confuse functionality, terminology with product branding (and marketing). A functionality like virtual desktops can be offered by both XenApp and XenDesktop, customers assume they need XenDesktop<\/i>. When an application cannot be hosted on a multi-user platform (or has strict requirements) they know there\u2019s an alternative: hosting the application on a Windows 7 (XP is history) machine via XenDesktop. Again the assumption is made they need to publish a desktop to the user, not just the application hosted on that machine.<\/p>\n

The result of mixing up functionality, terminology and products is that customers has requested the wrong solution to their IT department or (worse) implementation partner. In some cases the IT department or implementation partner succeeded in explaining the technologies resulting in proper requirements and a successful implementation. In other cases a \u201cVDI\u201d project is started, some projects actually implemented and in some (rare) cases implemented successfully. I\u2019ve seen customers that has a successfully implemented virtual desktops with Citrix XenDesktop, but ended up hosting 20 different desktops. Each desktop hosted a different set of applications, managing the environment becomes cumbersome.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

Get functionality, terminology and products right<\/h1>\n

Terminology got mixed up because both vendors and community initially did not understand the impact and possibilities of the products that were developed in the years that followed.<\/p>\n

When a user connects to a \u201cvirtual desktop\u201d he accesses an execution platform that is different than the where is keyboard and screen is connected to. A virtual desktop infrastructure (or VDI) is nothing more than a collection of components that enable the user to connect to this \u201cvirtual desktop\u201d with a remoting protocol (like Microsoft RDP, Citrix ICA, etc.). <\/p>\n

A virtual desktop can be hosted on a multi-user system (Citrix XenApp) or a single-user system (Citrix XenDesktop or RemotePC<\/i>). The same applies for applications, applications can be published seamless (!) on a multi-user system (Citrix XenApp) or a single-user system (Citrix XenDesktop) . Most customers (and implementation partners) are not aware of the ability to publish applications seamless from a single-user system with Citrix XenDesktop with VM Hosted applications. <\/p>\n

A virtual desktop on a multi-user system (XenApp) is called a hosted shared desktop  <\/em>and a virtual desktop on a single-user system (XenDesktop) is called a hosted virtual desktop<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

Flexcast<\/h1>\n

\"CitrixAlthough I\u2019m not a fan of marketing terminology like FlexCast I do believe the hit the nail right on the head. With FlexCast Citrix offers a platform to mix and match resources published from different sources seamlessly to the user, meaning user can connect to applications and desktops without knowing where they are hosted. <\/p>\n

I strongly believe a user should not be aware of what technology is used, it should application to do its job. For that it needs one desktop to hold its shortcuts to applications, no more. Wetter that desktop is on its physical machine (desktop or laptop) or somewhere in the datacenter that should not matter, but don\u2019t plague them with a bunch of desktops.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To conclude<\/h1>\n

The difference between XenApp and XenDesktop is not application vs. desktop but multi-user vs. single-user systems. <\/p>\n

A \u201cvirtual desktop\u201c can be offered on a multi-user system with XenApp and a single-user system system with XenDesktop. <\/p>\n

Do you have a \u201cspecial\u201d application that needs :<\/p>\n