As organizations around the globe look to implement permanent flexible work initiatives, Citrix continues to be dedicated to enabling a work-from-anywhere approach to help keep you connected and secure, no matter where you are or what device you’re on.
The latest version of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7, version 2106 current release, is now available. Combine that with the latest cloud enhancements from our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service, and you’ve got innovation to bring the IT agility you need to adapt to change, deal with new work scenarios, and keep your business running smoothly.
Let’s look at what’s new.
Now Available: Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2106
We’re excited to announce the release of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2106. This on-premises release, along with our continual cloud service enhancements, will help you to deliver the IT agility you need for the next phase of flexible work. You can find the complete list of technical enhancements on our product documentation page, and here are some highlights of what’s new:
- Support for public preview for Windows Server 2022: With the release of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2106, on-prem components will now support the public preview of Windows Server 2022. Citrix plans on full support of Windows Server 2022 when it reaches General Availability.
- Single-session VDA install and upgrade — restore on install and upgrade failure: You can enable a restore-on-failure feature when installing or upgrading a single-session VDA, enhancing environment reliability. When this feature is enabled, the machine is returned to a restore point if the VDA install or upgrade fails.
- Session reconnection after disconnect from machines in maintenance mode: Using PowerShell, you can control, at the delivery group level, whether session reconnection is allowed after a disconnect occurs on a machine in maintenance mode. This applies to all VDAs in the group (single-session and multi-session) and gives admins more control over environment load.
- Remote PC Access disconnected session timer: With Remote PC Access, you can now configure a timer that logs off users after their session expires. If the user session remains disconnected for a set period, the timer logs off the user, allowing another user to access the same physical PC remotely.
- Session Recording — file transfer monitoring and event-only recording: File transfers from the endpoint to ICA session now include monitoring information on client-drive mapping for enhanced security. Additionally, we have added the capability for the Session Recording console to keep a record of events only that occur during a session, rather than record the sessions entirety, to decrease file size and save on storage space.
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Cloud Service Updates, Enhancements
Service Continuity General Availability
Citrix is excited to announce that Service Continuity has moved from technical preview to general availability. Service Continuity provides enhanced reliability for users, providing continued access to their active virtual apps and desktops in the instance of any outages, keeping workers productive even if they are unable to connect to cloud services. Users can connect directly to the resource location or through the Citrix Gateway service and remain productive regardless of the status of their cloud connection.
Automated Configuration Tool – New Enhancements
The Automated Configuration Tool for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops allows you to automate migration of your Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service deployment from an on-premises site, another cloud site, or a cloud site backup. With the release of the tool last quarter, customers have given glowing feedback on how much it has helped them save time with their migration. We are excited to announce that this quarter we will continue to add enhancements to help customers not only move from on premises to the cloud but continue to leverage the free tool to keep resource locations synchronized. New enhancements include:
- Merging multiple sites: Now you can merge multiple sites into a single cloud site while avoiding name collisions using prefixes and suffixes. For more information, see our documentation on merging multiple sites into a single site.
- Site activation: You can select whether your on-premises or cloud deployment controls resources such as reboot schedules and power schemes. For more information, see our documentation on activating sites.
- Warning to upgrade to the latest version: Customers will be encouraged to use the latest version of the tool and will get a warning when using the tool if they are on the older versions.
Take a closer look at what the Automated Configuration Tool can do for you:
DaaS Workloads Now Available on Citrix Virtual Apps Service
Citrix Virtual Apps service customers are now able to access simplified deployment of apps and desktops on Azure via Quick Deploy (DaaS model). Customers can pre-purchase or be billed for Citrix Managed Azure consumption to leverage Azure workload deployments through Quick Deploy functionality. This is perfect for DaaS use case scenarios like mergers and acquisitions, contractor or temporary workers, business continuity, or pay-as-you-go scalability. Customers are invoiced monthly for any consumption leveraged that is not pre-purchased.
Customers can enable the service by signing up for Citrix Azure Consumption Funds via the Azure Marketplace.
Workspace Environment Management Enhancements
Enhancements to Workspace Environment Management (WEM) this quarter include:
- Event Triggers support: This WEM feature can define event triggers that Session Recording will use to start and stop recordings, simplifying the process for admins to review recordings to locate specific events
- MSI Installers Support in Privilege: The feature supports applying privilege elevation to `.msi` and `.msp` windows installer files. The user can elevate the privileges of non-admin users to an administrator level necessary for Windows installer files. As a result, those users can run those files as if they are members of the administrators group.
- AppLocker merge mode support: Improved handling of rule conflicts, improving security and administration in multi-session scenarios.
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Standard for Azure (DaaS) Gets Citrix Studio and Enhanced Monitoring
Citrix continues to bring enhancements to our turnkey desktops-as-a-service (DaaS) offering, making it one of the most feature-rich DaaS offerings in the industry. This quarter Citrix has added the following:
- Citrix Studio included with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Standard for Azure. Manage delivery groups, machine catalogs, policies, restart schedules and more from one easy-to-use console. Customers can now choose a simple deployment option or switch to Studio and have more granular control at any time
- Enhanced Monitoring included in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Standard for Azure at no additional cost. Citrix has included many of the features of Citrix Director now in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Standard for Azure. Admins can easily review status of any VDA workload quickly and make adjustments as needed. Also, with the addition of application and desktop probing, admins can continually monitor the health and performance of their deployments.
- Additional Prepared Images: Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Standard for Azure now offers additional prepared images to the Master Image Library, including the latest Windows and Linux images, giving admins the convenience of ready-to-deploy or customized images that are up to date and easy to roll out.
Citrix Analytics
Performance Analytics
We’ve made the following enhancements for Performance Analytics to provide greater insight for IT admins:
- Gateway Service and Connector Visibility: Citrix Analytics now gives visibility into Gateway Service and Connector metrics
- Session Responsiveness: Improved session-level visibility into bandwidth consumption, network latency, application delay, and session duration
- Session Experience: Granular visibility into session experience and impacting factors for improved session responsiveness troubleshooting
- “Noisy neighbor” Identifier: Visibility into which processes are hogging resources causing poor session experience for multi-session OS
Security Analytics Updates
We’ve made the following enhancements for Security Analytics:
- Geofencing user access with Citrix Security Analytics: Geofence access through Citrix Gateway, Citrix Content Collaboration, or Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. User notifications are sent when access is requested from an unauthorized location.
- Access Assurance Dashboard: A new tool for security teams that helps them visualize end user access so they can implement proper defense strategies
- Session Recording Insights: Session Recording insights will provide a link to when the incident was recorded for direct review. This enables admins to save time by directly accessing and reviewing potential security threats
As you can see, Citrix continues to develop key tools and enhancements to our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops product family to help make IT more agile, enhance security, and deliver a great user experience to users anywhere. You can download the latest release of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops now or contact Citrix Sales to find out how you can get even more out of the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service.
