It is always nice to see how Citrix fan-boys reacts on publications about VMware View. Especially when it comes to an comparison or XenApp for View trade in. It is often said that Citrix listens to their customers but they are seldom heard! People need simple solutions in a complex IT world. Why pay for a very high end piece of engineering like a Ferrari if I can get the job done with a Volkswagen! OK, it is nice to have a car that nobody else has and can do 320 km/h but in times were budgets are under pressure, I have a hard time defending expensive, complex and high-end solutions.

The fact that VDI is putting a significant load on the storage is true, but that counts for every VDI solutions including XenDesktop, so no differences there. Also the new upcoming version of View includes a basic profile management solution “Persona Management”. Which makes the use of linked clones a very workable solution.

When you compare installing View and XenDesktop you will see the following diagram.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When it comes down to management consoles the two solutions also look very different.

XenDesktop:
Multiple non-integrated consoles, wizards, and tools

VMware View Administrator:
Single Web-based Management Console

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sizing & scaling (Based on published documentation from Citrix and VMware)


 

 

 

 

 

VMware View Benefits from:

  • Better VM density
  • Fewer components

 

Citrix numbers do NOT include XenApp / Presentation Server or extra storage requirements

When I do a quick calculation for a full continuous operation company this shows me that the named user or device license model from Citrix is going to cost me a lot more money than the concurrent user model from VMware.

 

The questions I would like Citrix Engineers to answer are:

 

1)    How long will it take to deploy XenDesktop in my environment?

2)    How many XenDesktop customers are deploying VMware ESX for the backend and why?

3)    Which XenDesktop reference customers have deployed 1000+ seats in production? How long did it take and what is the TCO?

4)    How do you deploy and manage different types of desktops? Can they all be managed with a single management console?

5)    What is the cost per virtual desktop in a 1,000 user XenDesktop implementation?

6)    What is my year 2 and 3 SA if I trade-up with Citrix?