The beginning of this year has been unprecedented in terms of change and the need for technology to play an even more major role in our lives. The Citrix virtualization team is always working to deliver the best to our customers, and these past few months have been no exception.
We are working tirelessly to do everything we can to assist our customers to maintain safe, secure, and uninterrupted operations throughout this global challenge. Citrix has new business continuity support content available to help you with your ongoing plans. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to your Citrix representatives for any questions or assistance.
For customers looking for solutions for work from home scenarios, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service Advanced and Premium customers already have access to Remote PC Access. The technology delivers a simple way to remotely log into a physical machine from practically anywhere on any device. This is a great way to easily provide remote access for employees who must work remote right now. You can find details on architecture and deployment in the Citrix Tech Zone to help you get started.
Despite the current challenges, Citrix is continuously working to bring new enhancements to our Citrix virtualization product line. Let’s look at what’s new with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops:
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2003
The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 version 2003 is now available for download. This release brings new functionality and enhancements to customers. Some of the latest updates include new versions of the Windows Virtual Delivery Agents (VDAs) and new versions of several core components. We have added enhanced browser content redirection routing, enhancements on build to lossless, and more. For a list of technical enhancements, you can review them on our product documentation page and to download the latest release, please check out the downloads page.
Data Masking with Citrix Scout
Citrix is enhancing Citrix Scout by adding a data masking option. When Scout is launched in the data masking mode, new options are presented to the administrator to allow masking sensitive data in the Scout bundle (log files, environment information files etc.) before uploading them to Citrix. This is exciting news for organizations that are looking for new ways to secure their information as it’s being shared to ensure data security in your organization. Check out this Citrix Scout blog post from my colleague Jose Augustin for more details about this new enhancement.
Citrix Workspace app 1912 LTSR for Windows
We recently released our Citrix Workspace app 1912 Long Term Service Release for Windows! This Workspace app release has been long-awaited due to the feature enhancements since the last LTSR client, Citrix Receiver 4.9. With an extended support lifecycle and cumulative updates, this Workspace app is perfect for organizations running Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 1912 LTSR. Check out the top reasons why you should move to the Workspace app 1912 LTSR for Windows in this blog post.
Citrix also continues to enhance our cloud services. Here are a few of the latest enhancements for our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service:
Citrix Provisioning for VMware Cloud on AWS (Coming Soon)
Citrix continues to show leadership and commitment to customer choice and to facilitating the seamless deployment of enterprise workloads in any hybrid-cloud architecture you choose. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service will soon add support for VMware Cloud on AWS in environments using Citrix Cloud. With a single management tool, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service will allow you to easily manage Citrix workloads to extend your virtual apps and desktops in vSphere as needed between either on-prem deployments or within VMware-based clouds This new feature also enables, for the first time, Citrix Provisioning Services in a cloud environment. Keep an eye out for more details soon.
Compliance Update
Citrix is happy to announce that Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service recently reached SOC 2 type II certification and ISO 27001 certification. This certification demonstrates that Citrix is following information-security best practices. Citrix also received 508 and FIPS 140-2 compliance for the 1912 version of LTSR, carrying on the compliance from the previous 7.15 LTSR.
Citrix Managed Desktops (DaaS) Updates
Citrix is also continuing to bring new features to Citrix Managed Desktops, our desktops as a service (DaaS) offering. New feature enhancements include:
- Citrix SD-WAN support to enhance performance and provide always-on connectivity
- Desktop backups (Tech Preview) provides automatic backup of persistent desktops
- Usage reports enables admins to see active and trending usage of services
- Linux VDA support (Tech Preview) to support Red Hat and Ubuntu Linux
- AMD GPU VM instance to deliver heavy graphical workloads from the cloud
For more details on these and other enhancements, check out our what’s new with Citrix Managed Desktops blog post.
Want more information on the latest Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops updates? We recently held a webinar that included our 1912 LTSR release, Microsoft Teams support and why Citrix brings value add to Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop (formerly Windows Virtual Desktop). The on-demand version is available now.
