For IT admins, juggling licenses can be a complicated task. You might be managing specific editions or models of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops from a number of deployments. But what if you could monitor your on-prem deployments through the Citrix Cloud console? With the new License Server Usage Insights, you can!
Simplify Licensing Management
Having insight into Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops licensing is important to managing and operating a digital workspace solution and will help with:
- Managing solution uptime and reliability: For on-premises deployments, running out of licenses can result in a service outage for end users. Staying on top of license file expirations and overages is important to keeping your deployment healthy.
- Maintaining business compliance: Managing compliance requirements and processes is a reality in today’s business world. Organizations need insights and efficient tools to report into what software assets are owned, deployed, and in use. A strong compliance process helps mitigate business risk of audit and license overage fees.
- Mitigating solution cost: Understanding license usage trends helps you forecast future license usage costs and purchases, allowing you to right-size your Citrix offering to best meet business needs and objectives.
New enhancements to the Licensing Center in Citrix Cloud, combined with new capabilities on the on-prem Citrix License Server, help organizations simplify management of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops licensing, regardless of deployment type.
Easier Navigation of Licensing
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops comes in a variety of forms to meet a broad range of customer business needs and use cases, so licensing can be a complex to navigate. Multiple editions (Standard, Advanced, Premium) are available, as well as different license models (User/Device and Concurrent). Check out the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops features page for more information on specific offerings.
The new licensing center experience in Citrix Cloud makes it easier for you to understand which editions and license models are installed and in use across your deployments. License usage is organized and aggregated by edition and license model for clarity, and legacy product editions or versions are mapped to the product editions sold and referenced today. This helps customers understand what they own now and what specific editions they would need to purchase or renew to augment those existing licenses.
Manage Citrix Licensing Across All Deployments
In addition to license editions and models, customers often must manage Citrix licensing across multiple deployments. This cross-deployment management can be due to:
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Migrations from old environments to new
- Test and development environments alongside production environments
- Multi-data center and multi-cloud environments on a regional and global scale
- High availability and disaster recovery sites
Collecting, aggregating and reporting on licenses installed, available, and in use across multiple deployments can be time consuming and tedious. Historically, Citrix administrators had to access each license server independently, export license usage, and then combine it in a single, aggregated report. To monitor trends, this process must be organized and managed over time, often across multiple owners, teams, systems and deployments.
Citrix License Server Usage Insights in Citrix Cloud helps by aggregating license usage across multiple deployments in a single consolidated view and by keeping historical records of license usage. With reports now available in Citrix Cloud, customers can easily add multiple administrators to their account view, delegating license compliance and monitoring.
License Server Status
You can view the license server status in the Citrix Licensing Center:
Consider these basic rules when viewing the license server status page:
- License Servers report every 24 hours. They appear on this list and as “Reporting” if they have reported in the last three days. After three days, they will appear as “Not Reporting” and will fall off the list after not reporting for 30 days.
- License usage shown the “Usage” tab is sourced only from “Reporting” license servers. If a license server is on the list as “Not Reporting,” usage from that license server will not appear in the license usage reports.
- Historic license usage is not impacted by the license server reporting status. If a license server is decommissioned or stops reporting, usage from that license server will remain in the historic records for the previous month’s usage.
User/Device Licensing Model
Licenses Installed, In-Use, and Available
The reporting experience in Citrix Cloud is organized around three key data points that are made available via on-prem license servers reporting usage to Citrix Cloud:
- Installed Licenses: The number of licenses installed on each license server.
- Licenses In-Use: The number of licenses that are currently in use.
- Available Licenses: The number of licenses that are available to be used based on what’s left from the In-Use, relative to the Installed licenses.
Concurrent Licensing Model
Licenses Installed and Peak Licenses In-Use
The reporting experience in Citrix Cloud for the Concurrent Licensing Model is organized around two key data points that are made available via on-prem license servers reporting usage to Citrix Cloud:
- Installed Licenses: The number of licenses installed on each license server.
- Peak Licenses In-Use: The max number of licenses that were used in a specific time frame.
Last 7 Days, This Month, and All-Time
Peak Licenses In-Use are calculated by grabbing the maximum number of licenses used at one time in a specific time period.
- Last 7 Days: The Usage Peak number and timestamp represent the maximum number of licenses used at one time in the last 7 days.
- This Month: The Usage Peak number and timestamp represent the maximum number of licenses used at one time in the current calendar month.
- All Time: The Usage Peak number and timestamp represent the maximum number of licenses used at one time in the current calendar month.
Please Note: These numbers may not match the number of licenses in use on the license server. This is because the license server reports how many licenses are being used at that time. The Citrix Cloud Platform is receiving these individual data points and giving you a peak for these three different time periods.
License Server Usage Insights gives admins and users a single location where they can see how their license servers and licenses are being used.
Get Started with License Server Usage Insights
- Download the latest Citrix License Server. Version 11.15.0.0 and later supports the license server registration and usage insights features.
- Upgrade your Citrix license server(s). License servers are easily upgraded in place, and you don’t have to move or adjust any existing license files or deployment configuration.
- Enroll in usage insights and register the license server with Citrix Cloud.
- Login to Citrix Cloud and visit the licensing center to view license server status and usage insights.
Take advantage of License Server Usage Insights today to gain valuable new insights into your Citrix deployments and to streamline business and management processes around Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops licensing. This solution is available at no cost to all Citrix customers and is just a click away in the Citrix Cloud platform.
Learn more in the License Usage Insights documentation and the Product Registration documentation.
