XenApp Essentials: Delivering Apps from the Cloud – What’s the Total Cost of Ownership?

Well here’s the short answer: You can deliver virtual Windows applications for as low as $19.10 per user per month including Azure compute costs, XenApp Essentials licenses and infrastructure as well as individualized user storage!  

If you’re an avid reader of the Citrix blogs, or even just keeping up with our updates, then you’re probably fully aware of how Citrix has partnered with Microsoft to make it easier for organizations to securely deliver apps from Microsoft Azure with Citrix XenApp Essentials.

With almost 6 months since its release, we’ve already received had a lot of positive feedback from the hundreds of customers who have deployed their apps on Azure using XenApp Essentials. For many of them, the decision was easy: they were already familiar with the fact that Citrix XenApp was the go-to solution for application virtualization and has been since Microsoft Windows became a staple in enterprise computing.

However, for a number of folks who may just be evaluating cloud options, the million-dollar question is – “What is the total cost of ownership of XenApp Essentials?”

In our recently published whitepaper, “XenApp Essentials Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Analysis,” we take a deep dive into the complete cost structure of a financial organization with 250 users accessing an Azure hosted Windows application that is secured, managed, and delivered by XenApp Essentials. In addition, when you are evaluating costs it is important to take into account competing solutions to see how XenApp Essentials measures up. This paper also demonstrates how XenApp Essentials compares to similar cloud-based solutions. This paper is designed to help you with your purchasing decision by providing you with a complete summary of key XenApp Essentials costs you should expect to incur on a monthly basis.

In general, the costs can be broken down as:

  • XenApp Essentials Cost
  • Microsoft Remote Access Fee (or RDS CAL)
  • Microsoft Azure Compute

How much does XenApp Essentials cost?

The cost of XenApp Essentials is a simple flat rate per user per month cost. XenApp Essentials is available in the Azure Marketplace at $12 per user per month. You can purchase XenApp Essentials for as few as 25 users on a monthly basis. The service will auto-renew on a monthly basis until you cancel.

So, let’s say you’re an organization that has swings in your business where you may need to onboard contractors for a temporary period and then scale back as needed. With a monthly term licensing option, this makes it easier for your organization to provide IT services as needed and scale back as necessary.

What about Azure compute?

Azure compute is typically the biggest variable, as it is dependent on specific user workloads. Since this is one area where we get the most questions from our customers who are considering XenApp Essentials, we designed this paper to adhere to Citrix best practice recommendations for sizing your environment.

Microsoft Azure compute comes in various sizes, but based on our scalability analysis of XenApp workloads on Azure, it was determined the most cost effective VM instance for the average customer is the D2v2 instance. Why? Well, with the D2v2 instance, customers get the most “bang for their buck,” because each VM instance can run 16 application instances. In plain language, that means 16 users per instance for task worker workloads!

One factor that differentiates XenApp Essentials from the competition is that XenApp Essentials has been optimized to deliver a high user-per-server ratio while still providing a high-performance user experience. While the 16 users per instance ratio is optimal for task user workloads, you should expected that high-performance power users may need a lower user-per-server ratio. However, XenApp Essentials optimizations still prove to be the more cost effective option for task workers as well as power users when compared to competing solutions.

Are there other costs?

In a nutshell, yes. There are other costs, such as file servers, storage, and cloud connectors. However, XenApp Essentials is based on industry-leading XenApp technology. XenApp delivers critical user experience, security, and management capabilities that maximize the overall costs savings while also improving administrator and user satisfaction. All of these details are explained in more depth in our Citrix XenApp Essentials Cost Estimate Kit.

What about XenDesktop Essentials?

Ah, I thought you’d never ask! We are currently working on breaking down the numbers and value that Citrix XenDesktop Essentials brings to customers looking to deploy Windows 10 desktops on Azure.

Customers interested in learning more about Citrix XenApp Essentials and Citrix XenDesktop Essentials, as well as all of our Citrix Cloud Workspace Services for Azure, are encouraged to visit the Citrix Booth (booth #745) at Microsoft Ignite in Orlando, Florida from September 25-29, 2017 or visit http://www.citrix.com/microsoft.

Find out more on how XenApp Essentials can help your business. Download the free Citrix XenApp Essentials Cost Estimate Kit.

Related Content: XenApp Essentials and XenDesktop Essentials: We’ve Only Just Begun!