Citrix Licensing

[CAWJames]

Afternoon all,

 

We would like to move to a server-side technology for our users to access their desktops, and "obviously" Citrix is the market leader in brokers, but when their licensing ends up costing more than some pretty hefty hardware, I have to ask why do they have a Education Licensing program that has a barrier of a $20,000 minimum purchase, that wipes most of us little guys off the map! As I want concurrent licensing that increases the price 4 fold just because we don't want to have named users! We are a geographically disperse organisation with 4 centres around the Uk, not to mention people working from home(our head of DL is based in the Carcassone!!) Not to mention bringing in BYOD, simplified support, security etc.

 

We always knew VDi wouldn't be a cheap option and budgeted accordingly, asking for quotes for SSD based SAN's, multiple CPU and RAMMED servers, multi-sited DR, etc, so this rant isn't about why we can't do VDI for the price of a chocolate bar and a fizzy drink And nor is it about people supplying the quotes, they have been amazing, finding prices etc, but they all get stuffed up on the Citrix licensing

 

This is also annoying as I used to sell Citrix Access Essentials to small businesses in the mid 2000's, and i'm now hoisted by my own petard

 

So has anyone found any ways to make Citrix cost effective?

 

The Dell Wyse broker would have just about been cost effective, but now that's been shelved we are left with Citrix,VM-Ware and straight RDS(I know there are Linux alternatives and various open-source bits and pieces, but only interested in the main-stream ones at the moment, unless someone can really impress me ). We are probably going to run a split system of RDS for students(standard office desktop) and Citrix for our staff, to give us flexibility through XenApp and XenDesktop, SkypeFB integration, HDX, Netscaler, yada yada etc.

 

Sorry for the slight rant/slight question format of my post!

 

Thanks

 

James

[CyberNerd]

What are you trying to do VDI or XenAPP ?

 

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en/red-hat-enterprise-virtualization/

 

(I know there are Linux alternatives and various open-source bits and pieces, but only interested in the main-stream ones at the moment, unless someone can really impress me

Buy Citrix, you won't like the alternatives.

[CAWJames]

Both hence the Citrix, XenDesktop for the majority, but XenApp to those with workstations and more powerful machines who wouldn't benefit from a small portable desktop. I would build something some scratch with Linux etc, but a) it is not 5 years ago when I had plenty of play time and b) I want the cosyness of a big conglomerate with all the lovely support it can offer

[CyberNerd]

Both hence the Citrix, XenDesktop for the majority, but XenApp to those with workstations and more powerful machines who wouldn't benefit from a small portable desktop. I would build something some scratch with Linux etc, but a) it is not 5 years ago when I had plenty of play time and b) I want the cosyness of a big conglomerate with all the lovely support it can offer

 

That's why I gave you the Redhat link. They support it.

We phone them email, they fix it.

 

It will only do VDI - not RDP for that use RDP and a guacamole frontend.

[CAWJames]

Nice to know, will look into it.

 

thanks

[Paul23Foster]

Hi James,

 

We have help with both RDS and Citrix VDI designs, we assume that you are looking at the cost of the Citrix Campus License Annual Agreement which is based on the following:

[TABLE=width: 635]

[TR]

[TD]Programme Requirements

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Customer must be eligible for Citrix Education pricing

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]They must hold an active Microsoft Campus or School Agreement

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]They must license 100% of their students

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]The first order must be for a minimum of 1,000 FTE Students -

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD](If the school has less than 1,000 students they can purchase but it must be 1,000 licenses)

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Please note that these are annual licenses so there is no subscription with these.

 

By way of comparison what would you estimate would be the total number of concurrent Citrix users?

 

Paul

 

 

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

[CAWJames]

We aren't licencing students, just staff, as the very reason we cant use annual agreement is that they want a $20k equivalent initial purchase too, and we have nowhere near the minimum amount of students, we are only a small college and would need around 60 concurrent for staff, and anything from 10-200 for students. Hence why we might hybrid Citrix for staff and RDS for students

[Paul23Foster]

Assuming you have an EES OVS Microsoft agreement the additional cost for the RDS CAL would be less than 10 gbp per user/decvice per year (license qty needed will be based on full time employee same as EES). The Citrix concurrent cost based on 60 concurrent users of XenApp Enterprise with SA is approx 200 gbp per user year one then approx 20% of this cost for SA from year 2 onwards. We have worked with Uckfield Community Tech College on this to deploy Windows Apps and SIMS to Chromebook devices including the NetScaler and Storefront design / configs. We also have a reference design based on an optimised Server 2012R2 RDS pooled resources approach.

 

HTH

 

Paul

[john]

@Ric_ is a bit of a Citrix license guru so maybe can give you pointers on what to think about / you may need

[CAWJames]

Paul,

 

Are you representing a company? (I am pretty sure if you are, you need permission to advertise your wares)

 

£200 a user is where my snag is! £12k before we even start with BF servers, Netscaler licences and a DR site install.

[Paul23Foster]

James,

 

Yes, you are right, I have just joined so learning where the lines are drawn, have sent a message to the webmaster for guidance on what's appropriate communication wise and for more info re advertising, was only trying to clarify the options for you based on our experience. Is there a particular feature or a specific application that you believe dictates the need to go for Citrix?

[CAWJames]

The main draw is the ICA and HDX protocols as we have people going to be hanging on over VPN's and various other slower connections, also Skype for Business integration is a boon. We were looking at Wyse/Dell and VMWare, but Dell shuttered vWorkspace and I didnt like the VMWare solution.

[nadeem]

We've been working with a great Citrix partner who managed to find us some innovative solutions for licensing - PM me if you want their details - they really do know what they are talking about

[Ric_]

As others have said... forget about VMware Horizon (I have to administer some and it is truly terrible IMHO). RDS would be fine for very small scale use but you lose a lot. XenDesktop licenses have the advantage of also giving you XenApp so you can choose to use shared desktops, published apps or VDI and you have a single admin interface.

 

I no longer work in education so am a little out of touch but we pay about $155 a license for XenDesktop Enterprise User/Device licenses which isn't a huge cost (obviously this varies and depends on the quantity purchased at any given time). At the 40% discount stated on the Citrix website, that's just over 215 licenses to reach your minimum too. That's before NetScaler if you want to publish externally (NB: remember to size your NetScaler appropriately because the price ramps up quickly - the new VPX 25 seems sensible if you don't have crazy multimedia requirements).

 

I would recommend re-evaluating the named user thing... are you really going to take advantage of concurrency? You will still need per user CALs for RDS and you'll need a way of licensing Office, etc. on a per user basis because there's no other license types available that allow connections from machines that aren't owned/licensed by you.

 

Also... get in touch with Citrix and find out who your local rep is. These guys can be great and will put you in touch with who they know to be a good reseller. They'll often get field techs in to discuss different options for your deployment too so that you can maximise your investment.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Ric_