August 18 Update: Great news for Citrix Virtual Apps customers. The Citrix Virtual Apps Premium service is now available with concurrent licensing! Talk to your Citrix sales rep today for details on this new offering and how we can help modernize your deployment with Citrix Cloud services.

We have great news for our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops customers who want additional licensing flexibility. Our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service in Citrix Cloud is now available for purchase under a Concurrent licensing model.

For companies that have been on the fence about transitioning their on-prem Citrix environments to a hybrid-cloud deployment, or those investigating cloud for business continuity benefits, this unlocks new deployment flexibility.

We see Concurrent license adoption across a wide swath of verticals, including healthcare, customer service, and education. Customers have seen great success moving to Citrix Cloud, offloading their Citrix infrastructure, and adopting new functionality. Plus, there are the benefits of Citrix product integrations and insights that are only possible in the cloud.

What Does This Mean for Current Customers?

For our current on-prem Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops customers, the availability of Concurrent licensing in our cloud service makes it easier than ever to transition to our fastest-growing offering, giving you access to new functionality and flexibility in your deployment. This is especially important for customers who are hitting capacity in their current data centers, who are looking at infrastructure upgrades, or who want greater ability to burst workload capacity into public clouds.

For customers who have already made the leap to our cloud service offerings, we believe the majority of our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service customers are in the right space with their licensing today. However, our sales teams will be happy to help you evaluate your options and guide you on decisions we can apply at the end of your current licensing term.

If you are looking for new ways to expand your current deployment, we’re happy to help, as well. Today, your cloud licensing should be either all User or Device or all Concurrent to get clear visibility into your usage, but we expect to add support for mixed license types later this year.

Licensing Basics

Let’s look at some of the differences between User/Device and Concurrent license models to help you decide what’s best for your organization. Citrix has two different ways to account for users:

  • User or Device: Licenses are assigned to either an individual user or an individual device for a period of time. If a license is assigned to a user, that one user can have unlimited connections to virtual apps and desktops from unlimited devices. If it is assigned to a device, multiple users can have unlimited connections from that one piece of hardware. These licenses are assigned for a period of days, and after inactivity, the license can be released back to the pool. This is our most common licensing model, and it works well in most corporate environments with users who have individual or shared workstations and multiple devices.
  • Concurrent: Licenses allow a single connection from any device to a virtual desktop or set of virtual applications. The license is released for reassignment immediately once the session ends. The biggest advantage to Concurrent licensing comes when you have a rapidly changing set of users over time accessing the same end-point. Examples include  “follow-the-sun” call center models, with shifts of workers in different physical locations globally who access a shared desktop; or classroom applications, where the user population changes rapidly.

User or Device License Accounting

Accounting for User or Devices has some variance for our cloud vs on-premises products as well, and we’ve worked to simplify this in our services offerings.

Inside Virtual Apps and Desktops on-premises products, the Citrix licensing subsystem intelligently allocates User or Device licenses in a best-fit scenario based on account activity.  If a single user is connecting from multiple devices, the system will allocate a single license for that user. If multiple users connect from a single device, the system will allocate a single license for that device. License assignments in this mode stick for 90 days, after which they are returned to the pool of available licenses.

In our Virtual Apps and Desktops cloud service, User or Device mode accounting is simplified – the licensing system counts unique users and devices independently, and the lower of the two is used as the licensing count for the customer. License assignments in the cloud service persist for 30 days, at which time administrators can release them to the pool.

Concurrent Licensing: Simplified Accounting

Because Concurrent licenses are released to the pool immediately upon session termination, they offer a different type of flexibility. Administrators who purchase 1,000 licenses know that they always have the ability to host 1,000 sessions, regardless of how or where connections are coming from.

Learn more about monitoring your cloud licensing usage in our product documentation, or check out our Citrix Licensing FAQ for more information on on-premises licensing.

Making the most of your entitlements

Most importantly, Citrix is committed to helping you make the most of your entitlements and make the best licensing decisions based on usage. As we continue to refine our license insights data, you’ll have more and more visibility into what goes on in your environment and can streamline your business while enabling new work scenarios. Reach out to Citrix today if you’d like to discuss your options and see if Concurrent licensing is a good fit for your environment.