With the rise of remote work, organizations are increasingly turning to cloud solutions, and Citrix DaaS has emerged as a popular choice for deploying workloads to Google Cloud with Machine Creation Services (MCS). To meet this demand, we’re excited to announce that the Citrix engineering team has significantly improved the performance of the MCS Google Cloud plugin.

Citrix MCS Google Cloud Plugin Enhancements

Earlier in 2021, Citrix announced support for 1,000 VDAs in a single Google Cloud project, which was subsequently increased to 2,000 VDAs.

Today Citrix is proud to announce that the MCS Google Cloud plugin supports catalogs containing up to 3,000 VDAs in a single Google Cloud project, bringing performance improvements to power management operations.

Improved Power Management and Enhanced Provisioning

Power management is a critical aspect of machine catalog management.

The recent update to the MCS Google Cloud plugin brings significant improvements in provisioning and power management time. Citrix has tested the plugin using 3,000 pooled VDAs in a single Google Cloud project and has reduced the power-on time to 37 minutes from 85 minutes – a remarkable improvement! Power-off time was reduced to 33 minutes as well. To compare the power management performance between the earlier and new tests, the following table shows the time taken for power on and power off operations:

Metric 1,000 VDA Catalog
June 2021
2,000 VDA Catalog
Sept. 2021
3,000 VDA Catalog
March 2023
Power On (Minutes) 42 85 37
Power Off (Minutes) 20 42 33

In addition to the performance improvements related to power management, Citrix has made enhancements to provisioning operations. The updated MCS Google Cloud plugin includes optimizations that reduce the time required for provisioning catalogs containing large numbers of VDAs. These optimizations improve the efficiency of provisioning operations and enable organizations to respond more quickly to changing business needs.

Take advantage of new plugin

Starting with the release of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2305, customers will have access to the new and improved MCS Google Cloud plugin, which comes with a default configuration that reflects its performance improvements. This means that customers can experience the performance enhancements without needing to perform additional configuration steps when their deployment is upgraded to a release containing these changes.

Overall, the latest improvements to the MCS Google Cloud plugin are a testament to Citrix’s ongoing commitment to delivering innovative solutions that help organizations thrive in a rapidly evolving business environment.

The ability to support up to 3,000 VDAs per Google Cloud project and reduced power management times will continue to provide organizations with the flexibility and agility needed to support their remote workforces and achieve their business objectives.

With further improvements expected in the future, stay tuned as the MCS Google Cloud plugin continues to support the evolving needs of businesses.


Disclaimer: The development, release and timing of any features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion and are subject to change without notice or consultation. The information provided is for informational purposes only and is not a commitment, promise or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions or incorporated into any contract.