Since we launched it last August, Citrix Workspace has really begun to take flight. We developed and designed the Citrix Workspace platform to address some of the key challenges our customers have, including:
- Declines in user productivity because of issues like application sprawl, broken experiences because of device choices and/or work location, and difficulty finding the information required to get work done.
- Overly complex IT management because of project silos that address each problem independently, resulting in multiple vendors, multiple management platforms, multiple reporting tools, and more.
And our initial releases are delivering results.
But we’re not letting up. We’re continually adding features to improve user productivity and IT simplicity and enable our customers to keep pace with the changing nature of work. Here is what’s new in February.
Citrix Endpoint Management Improves Enrollment Workflows
To improve platform security, Apple has announced a new workflow for end-users to manually install configuration profiles. While this change won’t happen until later in the year, Citrix customers have begun to see changes to the MDM enrollment experience.
With the CEM 19.2.0 release, we made available an improved MDM enrollment experience. For new deployments or re-enrollments, end users only receive one prompt during enrollment because CEM service now uses trusted SSL certificates in lieu of requiring installation of the XenMobile Certificate Authority profile. Current enrolled users will see no changes in their experience.
We continue to invest in our UEM capabilities and have expanded our device policies, including those for Android Enterprise, Chrome OS, and IoT devices. For a full list of what’s new this month in Citrix Endpoint Management, visit Citrix Docs.
Citrix Analytics Adds Key Monitoring Capabilities
The Citrix Analytics team has added several key new capabilities to enhance security insights for customers, including integration with Splunk, a market-leading software platform used to search, analyze, and visualize machine-generated data.
With the integration, Citrix exports risk indicators to a Splunk environment. Adding Citrix Analytics risk indicators to Splunk environments enables information security analysts to search, collect, and analyze data from multiple data sources on a single platform, greatly improving security monitoring. And you can configure your Splunk integration and turn your data flow on and off from the same location where you manage all other Citrix Analytics data sources (see image below).
Share Links Dashboard Risk Indicators
The new Share Links dashboard will help Admins understand the risk exposure of sharing links from Citrix Content Collaboration. Perhaps there’s unusual activity on an expired link or excessive downloads on a live link. Admins can proactively monitor and detect risky links. Below you can see an example of the Share Link Dashboard. Notice the full accounting for every Citrix Content Collaboration link that is shared.
Dynamic Session Recording
Citrix Analytics could always trigger a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops session recording based on conditional rules, which means turning on a session recording after the fact.
But what happens if the user is doing something malicious in the current session and never logs on again?
Now session recording can be triggered dynamically to record the current session. This helps capture live data for risk analysis and potentially take a corresponding action, such as disconnecting the session.
Microsoft Active Directory Integration
Rounding things out, Citrix Analytics can now connect to Active Directory and import user information available in your organization. This adds user profile information, enhancing visibility into risky users.
For more on these latest updates to Citrix Analytics, check out what’s new.
Improved Performance for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop Service
The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Service has again made improvements in performance and manageability. A new Machine Creation Services (MCS) input/output (I/O) write back cache driver has been implemented that can drastically reduce the read I/Os by up to 40 percent, leading to improved performance and less IO load on your infrastructure.
This new driver is initially available for on-premises and Azure VDAs only, but it will be implemented for other public-cloud platforms in subsequent releases. Additionally, we have implemented a new architecture for the way user sessions are connected to the VDAs, significantly improving the scalability of Citrix Cloud Connectors.
In addition to improving infrastructure performance, we’ve also simplified the provisioning process for IT admins. Previously, IT had to set up an SMTP server to receive alerts from the Citrix cloud-based Director. Alerts can now be delivered by email, similar to other alerts from the Citrix Workspace platform, without the requirement of an SMTP server.
Finally, a reminder. Citrix Hypervisor 8.0 will release soon and will include a new Linux kernel, which requires recertification by OEM vendors. For more information please check out our Citrix Hypervisor 8.0 pre-release blog.
February 2019 — In Summary
Our new Workspace features for February will help our customers do even more to improve user productivity and simplify the IT experience with:
- Streamlined enrollment workflows that get users on-boarded and productive faster.
- Improved performance for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service that allows users to work more efficiently.
- Enhanced analytics with newly integrated risk indicators that simplifies IT’s ability to automate security based on user behavior and risk analysis.
Make sure to check back next month, when we’ll have a new Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop release that promises to be full of new features!
