This year is like a roller coaster ride that never seems to end. We’ve all faced new challenges that require creative solutions. In fact, what used to be distinct lines separating our personal lives and professional lives have suddenly become blurred.

Since many of us now work from home 100 percent of time, we’re developing new routines, understanding how to maximize our productivity and focus while discovering that flexible work environments are actually pretty cool! I personally enjoy being able to pick my son up after school, and I no longer spend two hours a day in traffic.

I guess I am a little bit spoiled though. At Citrix, I get to take advantage of Citrix Workspace solutions. Regardless of my work location or device choice, my entire workspace is delivered through a single window. I just enter one password for access to all my apps, files, data, email — everything I need to get my job done.

I’m certainly not the only one at Citrix getting work done these days. In September, we added a number of new features to our Citrix Workspace offerings. Here are some of the highlights.

Citrix Analytics for Security

Checklist for StoreFront

Analytics can’t happen without data, so we’re making it easier to connect to Citrix StoreFront with this new built-in checklist. This is a simplified way to started uncovering key security insights. For more information, see the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops data source.

StoreFront configuration checklist

Self-Service Search — Support for NOT EQUAL (!=) Operator

You can now use the NOT EQUAL (!=) operator in your query in the following features:

  • Custom risk indicator
  • Self-service search

You can use this operator when you want to exclude a country. For example, you could show all users logging in outside of Canada. You could then create a policy to apply actions such as Add to watchlist, Notify admin, or Disable user.

User Correlation

Analytics now correlates the users discovered from various data sources. This mechanism eliminates most of the duplicate users from the discovered users list.

For example, the user “Joe Smith” can have multiple user identifiers — JosephSm, joe.smith@citrix.com, and joe.smith — based on the data sources. Analytics now identifies this user with a unique identifier name. All other user identifiers are correlated and events received for Joe Smith from various data sources are linked to this unique name. For more information, see our documentation on Discovered Users 

Citrix Analytics for Performance

Group Policy Objects (GPO) Insights

A key goal of Citrix Analytics for Performance is to provide IT admins with prescriptive guidance on how to quickly resolve issues that have an impact on user experience. GPO Insights display client-side extensions (CSEs) taking the longest processing time during the selected time period. GPO Insights are available in the Session Logon Duration subfactor table. Click the Possible Reasons link in the GPOs row, in the Insights column.

GPO insights with prescriptive guidance related to client-side extensions (CSE’s)

Machine Statistics – Coming in Early October!

Citrix Analytics for Performance will provide IT admins with the ability to view and correlate user experience (UX) with resource consumption.

The self-service view displays key performance indicators of your Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops machines. Metrics like machine downtime, the latest consecutive failures, and performance indicators of the machine resources (CPU and memory) like the peak usage and the number of peaks, are displayed for the selected time period. Machine data will be included in the self-service search capability so admins can tailor the information to their needs.

Infrastructure visibility

Failure Insights – Coming in Early October!

Failure Insights in Citrix Analytics for Performance provides insights into session failures that occurred during a chosen time period. This feature is important in helping troubleshoot and resolve session failures faster.

A machine is considered a black hole if it has failed to service more than three consecutive session requests. The black hole machines section of Failure Insights shows the number of black hole machines identified in your environment during the selected time period.

Infrastructure visibility

With more people working from home, Citrix Analytics gives IT the peace of mind that comes with greater visibility into the behavior of every remote worker. This is incredibly important because not only do we need to understand the security posture of the remote worker, we also need insight into how their workspace solutions are performing. A poor performing remote workspace is going to have a negative impact on a remote worker’s ability to stay productive and engaged.

Citrix Analytics solutions are available for both on-premises and cloud-based Citrix infrastructures.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7  (Release 2009)

We added many new Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops features in September, including:

    • FIDO2 support via Windows Hello: Using asymmetric encryption and a PKI architecture, FIDO2 requires NO PASSWORD.
    • Session recording alert notifications via email: IT admins can now receive email notifications, with a playback link to predefined user activities.
    • Browser content redirection (BCR) for Linux VDAs: Allows for the ability to redirect contents of a web browser
    • Automated Configuration Tool: With this new automated tool, it’s easier than ever to migrate your on-premises Citrix environment to the Citrix Workspace cloud platform.
    • New Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops offerings: We’ve added new Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops cloud service offerings including Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Advanced service and Citrix Virtual Apps Advanced service. If you’re currently running on-premises Advanced Editions, you can now save more money with a “like-for-like” feature transition to the cloud.
    • Google Cloud Platform enhancements: For our customers running workloads in GCP, we’re introducing some new MCS functionality for Citrix workloads running in Google Cloud. This month, we’re introducing Shared VPC Support and Sole Tenant Support and Zone Selection.

For a deeper dive on new Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service feature additions, please check out our What’s New with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops blog post.

October is going to be an exciting month for Citrix, with our Citrix Summit series, which will focus on insights and innovation for our new era of flexible work styles. Register for the Citrix Summit Series.


For Citrix Investors

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