Citrix released Citrix Workspace app on August 6, finalizing the rollout of the Workspace Experience to all Citrix Cloud customers last week. In this article, we will review what is Citrix Workspace and why you should use it!
First, let’s take a look at what is Citrix Workspace.
What is Citrix Workspace?
Citrix Workspace is the evolution and convergence of all Citrix products into a unified solution. It is a cloud-only, first class end-user experience over a unified user interface (UI), allowing users to access any apps, desktops, and content from anywhere while only signing in once. Citrix spent time to make sure that all products look the same across all platforms, that they work well together, and offer a seamless experience across devices and locations. To achieve this, Citrix announced a controversial decision to rebrand all its portfolio in order to bring everything under the Workspace brand.
The vision of Citrix Workspace is to bring all apps (SaaS, Virtual, Mobile, Linux/Windows), content (On-Prem, Cloud), and devices (PC/Mobile, IOT) together in a single cloud-based interface. This also includes resources that are not Citrix resources, such as SaaS apps.
The force of this vision is to have everything Citrix has to offer in a single solution. No need to worry about which products to have, they are all integrated into Workspace. Everything you need in one container from any device and any location, making it the most flexible solution available to date.
You can learn more details about Citrix Workspace in this post: Citrix Workspace offers the most advanced user experience. Here’s why!
Now that you have a good picture of Citrix Workspace, let’s review 12 reasons why you should use this new platform from Citrix.
12. You are not locked in to any cloud provider
Citrix mentioned at Synergy this year that they are bringing flexibility into the workspace and will give customers choice. This initiative allows customers to have workloads in one or multiple public clouds (Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud or even Oracle Cloud) but also to keep it — at least partially — on-premises (Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer), Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, or VMware vSphere). The competition is only getting started between the providers, and the recent addition of the Google Cloud Platform will greatly benefit the customers.
11. ServiceNow integration for Self-Service
Citrix has just released the plugin to integrate your Citrix infrastructure with ServiceNow’s automation tools. It allows end users to request Citrix resources through self-service portals. Users can request virtual desktops or apps, and admins can automate provisioning, providing improved experiences for both end users and admins.
This new feature is for organizations that are active customers of Citrix Cloud and ServiceNow solutions. The Citrix ITSM Adapter is a cloud service that both on-premises customers and Citrix Cloud customers can use.
Note: the plugin is available in the ServiceNow store.
10. Seamless & integrated experience with a unified portfolio
Citrix Workspace Experience is now available for all Citrix Cloud customers as the default configuration, and provides an integrated experience to access applications and content from any devices. Users get a seamless work experience regardless of the type of app, device, network, or location, without a lot of extra steps.
Citrix also released Citrix Workspace app as the replacement of Citrix Receiver. Citrix Workspace app is a new client from Citrix that works similar to Citrix Receiver, and is fully backward-compatible. It provides the full capabilities of Citrix Receiver, as well as new capabilities based on your organization’s Citrix deployment (embedded browser for SaaS apps, integrated ShareFile client, etc.) making it much more than a regular upgraded version.
Note: Citrix Receiver LTSR and CR versions are still supported by Citrix.
9. Citrix ecosystem bundled into 3 editions
Citrix Workspace Experience is included with all editions of Citrix Workspace. But there is more! Citrix also included many existing products as part of the offerings.
- Citrix Workspace Standard ($240/user/year) is designed for customers who want to leverage Citrix Workspace for SaaS apps with features such as Secure Browser and Access Control.
- Citrix Workspace Premium ($300/user/year) includes the full mobile support, Content Collaboration (previously ShareFile), Analytics and Gateway.
- Citrix Workspace Premium Plus ($500/user/year) adds the support for Virtual Apps & Desktops and Citrix Hypervisor (previously XenServer)
8. Full mobile support
Citrix has integrated Endpoint Management (previously XenMobile) with Citrix Workspace to support EMM, including MDN, MAM and MCN. It allows users to enroll devices, install, and launch mobile apps with Single Sign-On. Citrix Workspace is context-aware, and supports progressive disclosure, meaning that it will only display mobile apps within the mobile workspace and not within the web or desktop Workspace apps. For now, Citrix Secure Hub is still needed to install Mobile apps, but Citrix said that it is working to integrate that application into Citrix Workspace as well.
7 .Content Collaboration integration
Also a look at the @sharefile integration within #CitrixWorkspace on iOS! #CitrixCloud #Citrix pic.twitter.com/f0aqZcYD6a
— Nicolas Ignoto (@citrixguru) August 23, 2018
Citrix has also integrated Content Collaboration (previously ShareFile) with Citrix Workspace. Now, users are able to find all their documents directly within the Workspace regardless of where the files are actually located. This integration gives customers more flexibility, which saves them a lot of time (documents are all over the place in many organizations). Citrix has released a new Files client (download here) that is the replacement of ShareFile Desktop client.
Content Collaboration includes all the well-known features from ShareFile such as content tracking, workflows creation, content aggregation from multiple locations, integration with Citrix Analytics, and the compatibility with Microsoft Office 365 and OneDrive for Business.
6. Contextual access to apps and data
Citrix Workspace is providing additional value by allowing you to open contextual applications based on your data. For example, you have a PowerPoint .pptx file shared by your manager in your Workspace, and you don’t have PowerPoint installed on your desktop — no problem! Citrix Workspace allows you to open this file directly into a provisioned Microsoft PowerPoint virtual app. Citrix Workspace also promotes content flexibility, as it allows you to select which app you want to use to open the file. For example, you can pick between a Microsoft PowerPoint app installed on a XenApp server, or use Microsoft PowerPoint 365 to open the previous .pptx document. Citrix Workspace also supports content from multiple repositories either managed by Citrix or via connectors. It means that Citrix gives you the choice on where you feel comfortable putting your data and without impacting your users. The same files are available via the web or desktop app and within the virtual desktops with the Citrix Files drive (previously ShareFile drive). Citrix Workspace leverages existing ShareFile features. For example, if no relevant application is available to open that file, it will load (if possible) with the default viewer part of the Citrix Workspace. For example, images can be viewed without any specific application associated to it. All ShareFile features are still around, including collaboration, versioning, seamless protection of data, etc.
5. Ultimate aggregation with universal search
Citrix Workspace is the ONE solution to give you a compelling picture of all your applications. SaaS apps (managed or not), Virtual Apps and Desktops (located on-premises or in any public clouds), Files (located on-premises or in any public clouds) are aggregated in the same unified Workspace.
Also included is the universal search engine that allows users to search across all components that are part of the Workspace.
4. Unified administration
All features of Citrix Workspace share a unified administration console, and customers only need one console for all configuration and management tasks. Citrix created a cloud control plane with all of the Citrix services truly integrated on the back end.
3. Support for on-premises infrastructure with Site Aggregation
Citrix Workspace is available for customers wherever they are in their cloud journey. Site Aggregation is a feature of Citrix Cloud that allows customers to bring existing Citrix deployments located on-premises. With Site Aggregation, customers can benefit from the new Workspace Experience even if they are not using public clouds today or if they are currently maintaining hybrids environments. To get started with Site Aggregation:
- Setup a Citrix Cloud account
- Request a trial or buy
- Install at least 2 Citrix Cloud Connectors
- Configure Site Aggregation in Citrix Cloud
- Enjoy Citrix Workspace Experience
All Citrix Workspace-supported apps will live side-by-side with traditional on-premises apps and desktops. End-users won’t be able to tell the difference between how the apps and desktops are hosted.
2. Adaptive Security and behavioral Analytics
Citrix Workspace Premium and Premium Plus include Citrix Analytics. This new service aggregates data from across the Citrix portfolio and creates unique, individual risk profiles of users. This provides a wide-ranging view of user behavior across the environment. The emphasis is to look for abnormal behaviors and insights across all products that are part of the workspace to identify abnormal patterns with the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The difficult task of aggregating and correlating data across users, devices, networks, apps and files is automated.
1. SaaS app support with Access Control
Citrix supports 50+ SaaS applications out-of-the box (including Office 365, Workday, GSuite, etc.) with Citrix Workspace and Access Control (included in all editions) to prevent data loss and improve productivity. This support is provided by an embedded browser that is built-in Citrix Workspace app. Citrix Workspace provides additional security controls for SaaS and web apps beyond single sign-on (SSO).
How to get started?
Go to http://onboarding.cloud.com and register a new account.
Then submit a request for new trial.
You can also take a look at the following articles:
- Lab: Part 28 – Getting started with Citrix Cloud
- Citrix Workspace offers the most advanced user experience. Here’s why!
- Citrix Workspace Platform documentation
