Public sector overview

Modernize secure access without surrendering control

Executive overview

The stakes are high in public sector IT. Citizen services, classified data, and national resilience depend on it, and agencies are being asked to do more with tighter budgets and smaller workforces. The core challenge is giving people secure access to the applications and data they depend on.

Tax examiners need records, military personnel need mission-critical applications, and field staff need citizen systems. They need secure access across managed and unmanaged devices without storing sensitive data on the endpoint. Traditional cloud services aren’t built to deliver that access consistently across commercial, sovereign, and air-gapped clouds, edge sites, and on-premises data centers.

Citrix Platform for Public Sector, alongside the broader Citrix portfolio, makes that achievable across state, local, and federal agencies and from unclassified to top-secret environments. The platform deploys identically on-premises or in government clouds, so agencies get the same controls and the same user experience wherever they choose to run it.

Public sector challenges look different depending on where the agency operates

Every public sector organization is trying to solve the same problem: deliver secure access to apps and data. What changes by region are the rules governing that access.

U.S. government. U.S. agencies must comply with federal mandates (FedRAMP, IL5/IL6+, STIG, FIPS) without compromising accreditation requirements. They can run the platform in single-tenant mode, or as a FedRAMP-certified cloud service listed on the FedRAMP Marketplace.
European Union and other international markets. European governments modernize without surrendering digital sovereignty to non-European hyperscalers, pursuing multi-vendor strategies under the EU Data Act. They run the same platform in an in-region sovereign cloud or on-premises under frameworks including GDPR, NIS2, and DORA, while preparing for requirements that may emerge from the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act. Canadian, UK and Nordic organizations apply the same model under their own frameworks (ITSG-33/PBMM, CCS).

What unites them is one platform that adapts to each set of obligations without forcing a separate stack.

Public sector challenges

Sovereignty and independence, on the agency's terms

Sovereignty requirements across U.S., EU, and Canadian frameworks now sit alongside multi-vendor strategies to reduce dependency on any single cloud or platform provider.

Business outcomes with Citrix

Sovereignty and portability by design

Deploy secure access on U.S., European, or Canadian sovereign clouds, with data kept within country lines, no cross-geo replication, and portability across sovereign boundaries when the agency chooses to move workloads.

Cloud-first meets classified reality

Most agencies span commercial, government, sovereign, and air-gapped environments that traditional cloud services were not built for.

Modernize with flexibility

Modernize on the infrastructure the mission already runs on, without forced migration, forced consolidation, or forced re-platforming.

Staying audit-ready pulls effort from the mission

Proving posture year-round across overlapping frameworks (U.S. FedRAMP ConMon, STIG, and FIPS; EU NIS2, DORA, and CRA; Canadian ITSG-33 and PBMM) drains the same teams that keep access running.

Keep access running while staying audit-ready

Centralize policy, audit, and incident response at the access layer, so proving compliance becomes part of daily operations instead of a separate program that competes with service delivery.

The threat surface is outrunning the workforce

Remote work, third parties, and unmanaged devices expand exposure while cleared and skilled staff remain scarce.

Shrink the attack surface without scaling headcount

Enforce agency policy at the session, not at the device, so remote users, third parties, and unmanaged endpoints all sit inside the same control plane.

Fragmented IT drags down cost and capability

U.S. efficiency mandates and European budget pressures collide with aging desktop and access architectures, driving cost, security, and user-experience penalties.

Consolidate first, modernize second

Consolidate virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), secure access, gateways and identity into one platform and let Citrix Platform for Public Sector run the day-to-day, so budget and staff shift to mission priorities.

Common solutions across public sector

Environment or need	Primary Citrix capability	What it delivers
Air-gapped and sovereign	Citrix Platform for Public Sector	Single-tenant, customer-owned platform operated by cleared Citrix personnel across FedRAMP High, IL5, IL6+, sovereign cloud, and air-gapped environments.
Unclassified and edge	Citrix NetScaler	FIPS-validated gateway and application delivery for unclassified operations, including edge deployments, with hybrid post-quantum key exchange generally available.
Trusted AI adoption	Citrix NetScaler	Brokers every AI request with isolation, policy controls, and audit applied at the gateway, so agencies deploy trusted AI without vendor lock-in.
Post-quantum cryptography (PQC)	Citrix Platform for Public Sector and Citrix NetScaler	Pure post-quantum key exchange out of the box, built into Citrix DaaS Local from version 2603, with the FIPS 140-3 module in process.
Endpoint flexibility	Citrix Workspace app and Citrix UniconOS	Secure access from any endpoint, including Citrix UniconOS thin clients, with Smart Card authentication for CAC/PIV-based agency environments.
Global mission support	U.S.-based Tier 1 support and white-glove authority to operate (ATO) program	24/7 U.S.-based support with advanced engineering escalation for U.S., UK, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand government customers, plus white-glove ATO onboarding.

Take back control of your data with Citrix Platform for Public Sector

Citrix Platform for Public Sector solves the access problem by streaming applications and data from inside the agency's own environment. Users get a modern experience on any device while the data never leaves agency control. The same model meets U.S. requirements (FedRAMP High, IL5, IL6+, air-gapped) and European frameworks (GDPR, NIS2, DORA, Cloud and AI Development Act) through in-region operations and country-bound data isolation.

The platform is single-tenant, customer-owned, and operated by Citrix, so agencies retain ownership of both the data and the infrastructure it lives in. It is available through the U.S. GSA Schedule, the UK Crown Commercial Services framework, and equivalent programs elsewhere.

For U.S. federal agencies, it is administered through Citrix's FedRAMP certified government control plane, listed on the FedRAMP Marketplace as Citrix Cloud Government, with an Agency Authorization in Process for FedRAMP Class D (High).

The platform is built around three principles:

Security

Single-tenant architecture keeps every customer's compute, storage, and networking segregated.

A Fed-first development strategy means deployments are built to the most stringent federal security controls from day one.

Cleared Citrix personnel up to Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) with Full Scope Polygraph can manage the platform when the mission requires it.

Flexibility

Citrix Platform for Public Sector runs on-premises, in any cloud, multi-cloud, or hybrid environment.

As commercial off the shelf software, it sits outside Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification and similar cloud-service accreditations, shortening the path to production.

A rolling release model keeps the platform continuously updated, with predictable cadences and clear change notifications.

Consistency

The same hardened platform deploys across unclassified, secret, top-secret, sovereign, government and air-gapped environments, in fixed installations or at the edge.

Agencies get a single pane of glass to manage access to applications and data, no matter where those applications and data live.

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