With the migration of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops workloads to the cloud, maintaining a responsive and delightful user experience in the face of common internet connectivity issues has become critical. Our Citrix Tech Zone team recently introduced two documents that I think you’ll find very helpful in achieving this goal.
The first is a test methodology and report, Measuring HDX User Experience Improvements from Citrix SD-WAN Network Performance Enhancements. The second is a proof-of-concept guide on Citrix SD-WAN Cloud-to-Data-Center Connectivity. These new documents complement the Introduction to Citrix SD-WAN for Citrix Workspace resource published back in March.
In a previous blog post, I explained why Citrix SD-WAN is our recommended connectivity solution for organizations putting Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops in the cloud. I described how Citrix SD-WAN optimizes HDX traffic with multi-stream AutoQoS and selective packet duplication and provides highly reliable connectivity between cloud-hosted VDAs and on-premises resources. The two new documents from our Tech Zone team:
- Quantify the dramatic improvements in user experience that Citrix SD-WAN delivers when a network link becomes congested or exhibits high latency, and
- Help you establish cloud-to-data-center connectivity over a secure “virtual path” while enhancing performance.
And soon we’ll follow up with documentation on a streamlined approach for setting up Citrix SD-WAN in Microsoft Azure using the SD-WAN Orchestrator service in Citrix Cloud.
Our Tech Zone team ran tests comparing the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops user experience over a traditional routed network with one using Citrix SD-WAN link bonding. Aggregate customer connectivity reports have shown that business internet connections in the U.S. are, on average, completely down for 3.5 hours per month and unusable (in an “up” state while effectively being “down”) for 23 hours per month. The test cases used were designed to replicate typical network challenges experienced at branch offices.
Results
Just how big an improvement to HDX user experience does Citrix SD-WAN deliver? The Tech Zone team observed huge improvements (from 194 percent to more than 500 percent) in interactivity, as measured by ICA Roundtrip Time, while running video and a large file transfer when faced with latency, congestion, and packet loss. These performance improvements can be attributed to Citrix SD-WAN’s ability to dynamically route traffic based on real-time network conditions and to identify and prioritize HDX data streams according to ICA class of service.
The PoC guide for cloud-to-data-center connectivity provides step-by-step instructions for establishing connectivity between an Azure tenant environment and on-premises resources. (Citrix SD-WAN VPX is also supported on AWS and GCP.) Citrix SD-WAN Orchestrator, hosted in Citrix Cloud, provides centralized management and monitoring of network connectivity. Zero-touch configuration and templates enable you to rapidly deploy branch appliances at scale, including for at-home workers with the SD-WAN 110 SOHO appliance.
As you plan for a hybrid multi-cloud deployment of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, be sure to include Citrix SD-WAN to deliver highly reliable connectivity and a superior user experience!
