Citrix Campus EOL

[Max_Power]

Been notified that Citrix Campus is end of life - nothing new, knew it was coming.

 

But a replacement doesn't seem to really be on the cards, I've been told I can purchase Cloud version of XenDesktop (XenDesktop Services) which can be treated as “a sort of replacement” for Campus licenses to quote the email from Citrix Vendor.

 

Just wondered what licencing model people are moving to instead or if they have already moved to the above? The "sort of replacement" doesn't fill me with much confidence.

 

Max

[m122794]

We're in the same boat - had to pay the extortionate price hike this year but word is that the Education sector may possibly get another "deal" similar to Campus agreements as Citrix re-think its recent pricing (stealing) policies. I really hope something decent comes of it as I'm just not sure how much longer we can justify Citrix financially in the current funding environment, but we're so heavily dependent on it functionally that we'll struggle to adapt if we're forced to drop it.

 

Cheers,

Graham

[mjk]

we had to ditch Citrix as their new pricing model would have cost us £20,000 per year.

Shame as we've been a loyal customer for over ten years.

[m122794]

I'm faced with a comparable bill and may have to jump as well - So what do you do now?

 

Thanks,

Graham

[mjk]

For Desktop virtualisation we now use RHEV.

It's been pretty good so far. There are free versions but we went with fully supported:

https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/virtualization/enterprise-virtualization

[Max_Power]

Cheers for replying @mjk and @m122794 I guess that confirms the fears of massive cost hikes. The campus agreement was financially viable as an alternative to replacing PC's year on year, but now it suddenly becomes questionable. Not managed to get a straight answer regarding the other proposed solution outlined above. But I have found details about mixing licence types between user / device licence and concurrent licences on the same site, just buy crunching numbers to see if I can buy a mixed economy.

[m122794]

Yes - but please don't fall into the trap of thinking user/device licences are a good idea in a Xendesktop VDI environment - you must have the (even more expensive) concurrent ones for this. User/device are fine if users always pick up the same desktop but if they have randomly-allocated desktops (which most people will use in Xendesktop/app scenarios and you have, say, 100 licences then all the licences will be used up after the first 100 hits...

[MacGeek78]

Off topic- but do you guys use photoshop & illustrator on virtual desktop?

[m122794]

Hi,

 

We don't use Illustrator any more but Photoshop is fine on VMs however you need to allocate at least 4GB RAM to the VM for it to work properly or it gets horribly slow.

 

Cheers,

Graham

[Max_Power]

Yes - but please don't fall into the trap of thinking user/device licences are a good idea in a Xendesktop VDI environment - you must have the (even more expensive) concurrent ones for this. User/device are fine if users always pick up the same desktop but if they have randomly-allocated desktops (which most people will use in Xendesktop/app scenarios and you have, say, 100 licences then all the licences will be used up after the first 100 hits...

 

Looking at using multiple delivery groups, with some device licences in one delivery group which are designated to specific devices on site, and then use the concurrent licences for other areas. When Citrix was implemented we maintained our PCs, we didnt throw them away, they just became the highly powered thin clients that never needed to be replaced, so in theory some could go back to thick clients again not ideal and a pain in the backside, but the licencing model is so expensive now without campus.

 

 

Also yes we use Photoshop and some staff use Illustrator - have 4GB allocated to VMs.