Response Summary Report #2 October 14, 2009 1. Which most closely matches the industry in which your organization operates:
Item
Count
Percent %
IT Consulting/Reseller
84
30.32%
Financial
48
17.33%
Healthcare
39
14.08%
Government
26
9.39%
Other
25
9.03%
Education
19
6.86%
Other Services
18
6.50%
Which most closely matches the industry in which your organization 18 operates: Manufacturing
6.50%
Total responses to this question: 277
2. What percentage of your end users will be using virtual desktops within the next 18 months?
Item
Count
Percent %
1-10%
94
33.94%
11-25%
65
23.47%
26-50%
40
14.44%
>75%
33
11.91%
50%-75%
31
11.19%
None
14
5.05%
Total responses to this question: 277
3. What is the best description of the use case for which you first deployed (or plan to first deploy) virtual desktops?
Item
Count
Percent %
LAN connected Task worker desktop (locked down, small number of 105 apps)
38.04%
Work from Home/Telework desktop
44
15.94%
LAN connected knowledge worker desktop, (most have admin rights, a large number of apps)
32
11.59%
Power user, designer, developer desktop, large number of apps
22
7.97%
Overseas/outsourced developer desktop
21
7.61%
Lab User
17
6.16%
Not implementing Virtual Desktops
14
5.07%
LAN connected Secure Desktop – multiple layers of authentication
13
4.71%
Other (please specify)
2
0.72%
All of the above (minus the last one)
1
0.36%
Conference and Training Rooms
1
0.36%
LAN&WAN connected stateless desktop, locked down, large number 1 apps
0.36%
Meetingroom Desktop
1
0.36%
special Applications
1
0.36%
WAN Connected knowledge worker
1
0.36%
Total responses to this question: 276
4. SEE APPENDIX 2 5. Do your virtual desktop users share the same endpoint devices (ie for lab use or shift-work)?
Item
Count
Percent %
Yes, some users share endpoints
114
41.45%
No, everyone has their own endpoint
91
33.09%
Yes, most users share endpoints
60
21.82%
Unsure
9
3.27%
Other
1
0.36%
Total responses to this question: 275
6. If you are using or plan to use VM-based virtual desktops, how do you intend to deliver most of your VM desktops?
Item
Count
Percent %
Non-persistent/pooled
159
57.82%
Don’t know
58
21.09%
Persistent
58
21.09%
Total responses to this question: 275
7. How would you view licensing a desktop virtualization solution on a PERUSER basis? That is, a license is required for every user that accesses a virtual desktop but that user can use any endpoint in any location.
Item
Count
Percent %
1 Very Unfavorably
137
49.82%
2 Unfavorably
61
22.18%
4 Favorably
33
12.00%
3 Somewhat Favorably
23
8.36%
5 Very Favorably
21
7.64%
Total responses to this question: 275 Average: 2.05
8. How would you view licensing a desktop virtualization solution on a PERDEVICE basis? That is, a license is required for every physical device that accesses a virtual desktop but any user can use that licensed device.
Item
Count
Percent %
1 Very Unfavorably
85
31.02%
4 Favorably
63
22.99%
2 Unfavorably
52
18.98%
3 Somewhat Favorably
48
17.52%
5 Very Favorably
26
9.49%
Total responses to this question: 274 Average: 2.61
9. SEE APPENDIX 3 Appendix 2 - Question 4: Please tell us more about the use cases in your organization. Open Text Responses: There's a little bit of everything in our environment (very large financial services company). On question 6: Both persistent and persistent/pooled will be used. We currently publish Windows Server desktops with XenApp and we've gotten a lot of end-user feedback requesting unique app configurations, some of which don't run on windows server, so XenDesktop lets us locally run those apps on the published desktops.
Mostly for work from home and DR. We do have a small subset of users that will use this for their primary desktop. internal, external, lan, wan and remote workers (various speeds) Access to several apps for selected VPN users. Later, we plan to roll it to bedside desktops and carts We currently explore the possibilty to give users with need for AutoCAD and GISapps virtual desktops, since the DB for the apps is centrally stored and the users is at decrantalized sites. Call center No formal use case has been created yet. We are planning on using OS Streaming for an upgrade to Win7. We have many shared desktops that allowed us to use the CCU license model before. Outsourced IT support functions LAN connected task workers & mobile workers connecting to a persistent desktop with limited apps from multiple devices (thin client at office, netbook for mobility, personal home computer). everything Outsourced workers in India Site-specific DR desktops Pandemic Work from Home Some potential desktop replacement We are going to virtualize the student labs. So the will be able to use the applications also from their laptops. Also in this we we are able to perform a rapid re-deploymen of the labs. Machines will be non persistent. Full desktop replacement for all subsidiaries worldwide, including (local) head office. Using XenApp to publish desktop managed by Powerfuse, apps delivered by App-V. 1600+ concurrent users/day doubling next year. Will require XenDesktop to offer exceptions and enable usb redirection. Optional work from home initiatives. Business continuity in a disaster recovery scenario would be the biggest driver in our implementation of virtual desktops. Computers labs with a non-virtual Linux install and a XenDesktop Vista with managed desktop and applications. The labs are used by students/staff/professors at random intervals throughout the year. The same person may only need to use labs a few times while another is more frequent and then both are gone (graduated or done with the class). corporate training and QA DEsktop replacement on a large scale with XenApp published desktops, XenDesktop delivered desktops for more complex users and XenClient - providing it does what it says on the tin for all laptops, desktops. Educational Institutions (High School and College) LAN/WAN users (including work from home telecommuters). Replacing old PC's in student labs with virtual desktops. Windows 2008 Terminal Services, RDP from anything with an RDP client. desk sharing,
University computer labs used for general work, classroom teaching, student and employee training, specific academic departmental projects, you name it. No No Really a combination of #1, 2, 4 above, mixed bag Would be used for development environments, across multiple OS'es. If an offline mode becomes good enough, I'd expect an offline version to be used. All users are essentially power users with needing to install different apps. - user acceptance tests (new software packages) - windows 7 company build tests - complex software projects that don't work on TS or via App-V Knowledge Workers 80% XA users but we want them all to have the possibiliy to use XD from example home and to have both a "private" XD and a "company" XD or XA enviroment. n/a n/a Installing badly written 3rd party software that don't trust on XenApp servers. Also for power users. I deal with many organisations as a consultant, however the primary 2 organisational groups I am dealing with now are education and government. Education is a desktop from anywhere at anytime and for government, it is a cost and "green" initiative. idea to reduce the cost of end point devices The more I type here the more I realize I could accomplish the main VDI goals with tools we already own, like strict GPO's, redirection, and XenApp receiver. The main benefit would be ease of deployment and a daily OS refresh. Hospital staff varied shifts, and lots of part time and temp staff. We would like to use it for knowledge worker. Offshore workforce, Automated Robot Processing Solutions, Associates requiring a second PC for testing Users mainly "hot desking" require the use of their own apps at all times. A Virtual desktop allows them to do that We will replace the desktop with a virtual solution. At the moment there no VirtualApplications, just the wish tu use VirtualDesktops with all programs on it. Citrix XenApp for all end-users/customers I work as a consultant and a Citrix Platinum partner. I see environments in all fields including financial, legal and non-profit. We see a lot of interest in VDI right now for all vendors. Significant amount of Educational users as well as a mix of IT support access and home connections for workers. We use it for our Meeting Room environment. There are 70 Meeting rooms in our company. 1000 users are able to us it. So we don't know how many users exactly use the virtual desktop. 50, 200, 500? Named user is the killer! High Resource requirements for modelling applications and Graphic Design - some
Dev work also We want to use virtual Desktops for our Meetingrooms in addition we want to use educational Desktops. We hope to start with our call center. Doing it mostly just to simplify managment and that VDI is the future, same as with server virtualization, it will come and you cant fight it. Used for development and labenvironment Remote Acces from non-SOE devices We are an educational (K12) organization that uses VDI in a lab environment (so those pesky high school students can't mess things up). We have about THREE TIMES the number of users that we have end points, thus this change would cause us to completely drop Citrix (and we'll be sure to drop them for both XenApp and XenDesktop). Initially our use will be for LAN users. Depending on the performance across the WAN, VDI may be used at remote offices. Being a government organization, the vast majority of the remote office users share devices between 4 shifts of workers. Heavy Users that do not make good sharers on Xen App. User too much CPU but do not want to throttle them back. Move the bank's branch stations to thin clients in an SBC model. Will probably use XenApp. Clinical Desktop @ government clinic Currently using Citrix, but want to use the XenDesktop features Roaming desktops for specialized workers who need to maintain "personal identity" k 40% task based worker (ts desktop experience), remaining 60% hybrid of traditional vdi, local streaming, and client hypervisor. Relying on client hypervisor to drive the reality of single image mgmt for need of full desktop experience. Student terminals in each classroom as well as 7 PC labs for student use. 800 - 900 total students using 300+ endpoints (currently a mixture of fat PC's and Wyse terminals) users use financial applications, scanning documents. Third party connections / partners use XenApp for testing/validation/development. na none We have some applications that are single user based and cannot be used in a Multiuser environment like a TS env. Also an application that is supporte only on Windows 2000 (YUCK!) cfxczx SW Developers, ICT Operations with special needs for tools I have patient bedside workstations that get used by several people a day. And since we are a teaching hospital we have a lot of students rotate through every semester. We have over 13000 users to 6000 workstations. Per named who be just to expensive. Windows 7 roll-out using repurposed PC's. Task workers using Thin Clients;
multiple customers in remote sites user have the office suite, and use SalesForce.com as a crm Virtualising difficult and heavy apps Mostly Shared Desktops (XenApp), some VMbased Desktops, about 10% Mobile Workers, increasing Developer desktops. Access for brokers outside our network to standardized desktop apps. Standardized, gobally accessible working environment including offline functionality Training Lab, Quality Assurance Testing, Conference Room PC's and Walk up workstations Initially rollout to datacenters, limited task worker access. We care less about sharing devices, most people have their own. We have shifts and BCP requirements that means CCU is important until we are at most people using this method at which point PU makes sense.
Total responses to this question: 79
Appendix 2 – Question 9: Please provide any opinions you may have on XenDesktop licensing and how it impacts use cases in your organization. Open Text Responses: Depending on how the licensing shakes out by the product release date, it could have a large impact. Politically we are still fighting the battle of VM View vs. Citrix Xendesktop. This could make the decision sway toward VM View (which I would support even though I find XD technically superior) VDI is already a tough sale; last thing we need right now is have to deal with this. It's actually fine for us because for budgeting purposes it's easier for us to account for a license per user than it is for some large arbitrary pool of licenses that will 'cover us'. It helps to know exactly how many users we have licensed for auditing purposes. I think this licensing model is only valid for wholesale desktop replacement and Citrix should have licensing in place for those customers that use it as a alternative as well as replacement. For me a per device case makes more sense as XD will be used to REPLACE desktops so their idea for licencing makes sense. It's only a ballache if you're buying XD with the main idea being to use XenApp for your applications. If you're did this you're dumb though. We will prefer licensing per VM-based desktop not matter how many people or devices we have it's too expensive, incomprehensible and it's a mess. It can be the show stopper for XenDesktop at our organization. It will impact my shared desktop environment and the CCU model used at this time. Also, it will double my annual maintenace cost with the 2 for 1 PNU model. With 170 employees we have almost a 2:1 device to user ratio (thin clients &
netbooks). Also, only 50% of users are utilizing a virtual desktop concurrently. Anyone and Everyone favors the Concurent User licensing model from a cost point of view. Citrix is involved in the bundling practise which is to their greedy marketing advantage. Citrix will bundle products that the customer is not likely to use. Citrix makes the customer upgrade to platinum because the features you need in XenApp are only in the Platinum version along with the un-needed products like Password Manager. We have to pay for Advanced Access Control and Password manager even though we will never use them. Citrix is changing the licensing model in their manipulated Greed Grab practice. Long Live XenApp! Its all most people need. Please! New licensing kills DR exercises/real events and pandemic work from home. Was planing to use XenD over View. Now I will stay with VMware because 60-70% of all users are logged in concurrently and we'll get a 2:1 trade that allows more flexibility, the move is good for us it blows For example with the older license model I can have a classroom of 30 PC's and have 30 XenDesktop conncurrent licenses. Now I need to guess how many of 50,000 people will use this classroom space??!?! Leave the current license model alone! per Concurrent user is better than device, Named user doesn't fit our current use case. I think it is fair to say that Citrix have bccked themselves into a bit of a corner here and I can see why...! They have finally woken up and smelt the coffee to provide us with a single product/licence SKU that provides a large number of ways to deploy a desktop and applications to an end point. I really think that when they release XenClient they will honestly have a product that I could buy for everyone of my desktops - regardless of the users role and device requirements. This however needs to be at a much lower price than XenApp to accomodate for mass adoption. The problem Citrix has is that the companies revneues streams are built primarily on XenApp. If they licence XenDesktop on a concurrent user basis then all they will do is reduce the cost of XenApp by 50% overnight and they will have huge holes in short term revenue until desktop virtualisation is ready for mass adoption. There are 2 ways they could address this none of which delivers what they need: 1. Concurrent Desktops - still eats into their XenApp revenue though as at least 40% of XenApp users will typically use a published desktop. 2. Device based - one of the major benefits is to not tie people to devices and the key benefit of virtual desktops is any device - home, work, mobile - it can't be
feasible to do it on a per device basis. I can't see a way out for them that doesn't ruin current XenApp revenues and they owe too much to their shareholders to do that!! Why not let customers choose between a low priced named user / named computer (as with TSCALs) and a high priced ccu? should be concurrent With Citrix going with PNU licensing on XenDesktop, it doesn't make sense anymore to migrate from traditional desktops to virtual desktops. The savings is not there anymore. It'll cost more to go to VDI, so we'll just have to stick with Traditional Desktops. We've just completed a test project regarding virtual desktops. Per-user licensing will effectively remove Citrix from any consideration of our college. Citrix has repeatedly costs more and more and due to this we are trying to get away from using Citrix. Before we were forced to use it because of it's functionality and the features it had. But now with 2008 Server, we can offer everything Citrix did for us without the added costs. We do loose some features and administrative logging, but for the costs that we save it is well worth it. would be to expensive wouold look at alternative suppliers Yeah, I'm one of the whiners, but I just saw a project I've devoted 5 months of my life to getting off the ground shot to hell by a licensing change that makes zero sense given our use case, so I'm ok with whining about it. No This per-user licensing BADLY impacts SMBs. The smaller the SMB, the worse it is. We have many people who use different devices. We also need people to be able to roam without worrying what PC/notebook they are logged in at. Also, people with PS 4.x Standard are being left out in the cold with no apparent similar upgrade enticement, and no inclusion of XenApp with XenDesktop. My company will have to stay with XA Standard or move to Provision/Quest's similar software, though we probably will stick with XA Standard just to not have to pay through the roof for software renewals. I loved the idea of lab manager being able to roll out several desktops to one developer when needed for a development project. I understand that it'd still be only one license under per-user, but now each developer would need to be approved eventually, which means that only a couple of developers are going to get approved. Having conncurrent usage allows us to give out say 10 environments and have them expire at some point and make sure that we never have more than 10 going. what a shit. impact: we choose another vdi solution from another vendor concurrent user licensing of Xen Desktop best fits our use cases, everything else is unfavorably, since we don't plan to assign virtual desktops to users for a long time period Currently we host 100 XenDesktops in a environment with 1000 potential users. The per user or per device option in XenDesktop 4 will rule out this product. In this case I need CCU licenses. Buying a new notebook for every user is also an option.. We want the CCU model, nothing else will work with 13000 named users and 3000 concurrent. Otherwise we will change to VMware View no matter that they dont have HDX.
Named user licenses is ok for licenses itself but subscription advantage should be concurrent based at least Once again - the 800 lb gorilla gets to do what they want and everyone has to take it (or leave it). Check out Quest's vWorkspace. On technology alone, they're clearly a part of the Big 3. Concurrent usage works best for what we have, same as with XenApp One specific example is a deal I have been working on for 6 months and the initial costings were based on concurrency. In this orgaanisation they have 2000 people, however only 600 concurrent users. So obviously we worked on doing a design based on the CCU model. Now that has been thrown into dissaray (and just for the record, Citrix were involved in the design and client meetings) it has left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. shift workers and remote users do not fit the per device or per user model. The bottom line is, users will need to have value added AND cost reduction to go through the VDI process. As a solo Citrix admin I'm also wary of consulting costs and the time it will take to troubleshoot an entirely new platform. Licensing costs will need to be less than $250 for Enterprise or at least made more flexible. Would be very disappointed by any change to the Concurrent User model. With a finite number of devices, and several thousand end users, the users move from one device to another. With so many part time and temp workers the per user or per device is unreasonable. Per user pricing makes the most sense here due to eventual likely deployment to mobile devices (both laptop and smartphone). will not be cost effective We are thinking to stop the pilot program and see if Citrix will fix this mess. If not, we will look for other vendor such as Quest, VMware etc.. We are also afraid that Citrix will change the licensing for XenApp next. It's all about money. XenApp has CCU for a long time and I see no reason to change this for XenDesktop other than Citrix making another quick buck ccu licencing will be the best solution insteed of per user This is just a price rise on sheeps clothing. The on going maintence of the 1:2 offer need to explained to buyer. Nothing is ever free. If they will change it to PER-USER licensing it will definitely affect our environment and our plans to implement a wide scale virtual desktop environment. we might implement it on a small environment first due to financial problem and also we need to set a dedicated user that can use it. Per User at the current proposed price is overpriced to be adopted widely. Additionally, it falls flat in Citrix's major verticals of Healthcare and Education, where high concurrency is a fact of life. Per Device is a terrible idea at the current proposed price because mobile workers could easily have two or three devices (Home Mac, Work PC, Mobile Phone). Concurrent is the most flexible, and most folks already are doing the math that way. Assuming that all customers bought XenDesktop for a 1:1 basis and granting existing licenses a 1:1 conversion means that anyone using XenDesktop in a higher
concurrency than that is now on the hook to upgrade their user count just to maintain their current service level. Grumpy customers, anyone? And changing the pricing model during the last quarter of the year forces everyone who had XenDesktop in the pipeline for an end-of-year budget dump purchase to rework their cost model - with less than 90 days to go to purchase. As a reseller, we'll spend more time re-educating the customer on what they were already sold on than we will actually closing the deal. I see this as most likely slowing the demand for VDI in general. In my organization VDI was one of the strong interest points in a slow market. If nothing else this will probably shift the focus towards view a little more. This is not the right economy to make this change. While in the long run it may make sense I would have waited at least another year of stable budgets before jacking the cost up like this since right now people may think twice before including this in their 2010 budget. One of the reasons we liked the Citrix model was because of their concurrent connection. Now we are thinking of looking elsewhere. It doesn't match our use case and will cost us a lot more. We will have to review our use of citrix with management. It is impossible to license per end device. Per ccu or per vm session are what I need. We also want to use it in our production. Most of the users are shift workers. So we can share the license in the 3 shift model (concurrent license). Same for our subsidiary around the world. We share the licenses between the continent hubs. Named user licensing is fine - they should also offer named device licensing as well which would allocate a license to a named connecting device If Citrix switches licensing from concurrent to named user we´ll stop all our XEN Desktop projects VDI will be central point for connections to desktops. People will connect to them from their workstations/desks, from meeting rooms, from laptops, from home, from hotels, who knows... iphone :). Then it is pointless to talk about per device. Those who are complaining are people who have already implimented VDI as an application distribution point, not as a desktop replacement. For example call centers or any place that has a 24 hour workday's, that way you can use all your 100 devices for your 300 employes. Ofcorse you save money by paying per device when you have that setup but thats not what VDI is here to do. It is here to replace all the other desktops in the workplace. If you have a 24hour workday situation then use Terminal Server instead and not VDI. About citrix, they should have lowered their price when their policies changed just because majority of current setups today are in favor of per device. The future of the technology lies in the per user setup and citrix should have lowered its price to ease that transition. Where did the concurrent licensensing go? We want to provide a remote access VDI solution to 3500 users, but we only ever have approximately 100 users online concurrently. Instead of buying 150 CCU licenses, I now need to buy 3500. In this current economic climate, the licensing change would blow my budget to the point where the project will be scrapped. for us meaning opportunity to switch all users on xenapp
Again, a complete switch to per-user licensing would cause us to sever all ties with Citrix for both XenApp and XenDesktop. Such a move would prove once again that Citrix has no respect for their customers. Anything other than a concurrent user-based licensing is a rip off. CCU gives architects the ability to put the right technology at the right spot. XD4 licensing as it is today does nothing more than protect the cash cow of XenApp and force partners to only go after PC deployments. When in reality, XD4 should also take some of the XenApp use cases with it as well. I like the current model (concurrent licensing) that Citrix employs across most of their product line. The biggest reason organizations change their model is grow revenue, to find a way to squeeze more dollars from the customer. It will slow the growth of our Citrix implementations and restrict our choices. Although it may open the doors for alternative products (VMWare, etc.). Neraly half of our organization consists of shift workers. The PNU licensing model will put VDI from Citrix out of reach for that subset of users. There needs to be licensing options for Citrix customers. Think Burger King ("have it your way.") We use XenDesktop for Remote Access Scenario. Changing from concurrent users to Per Uses would have a big impact as the racio is about 10 users with acces to 1 concurrent user. n/A My company deals with time zones, and the concurrency license aids this greatly - As east coast users log off, the bulk of the west coast just ramps up - the per user model will most likely prevent adoption of the technology Leave the model concurrent. If it not broke don't try to fix it! I think it suites the VDI use case. For our branches we will use XenApp. Our current desktop deployment is via XEN APP. Not sure if we should consider expanding our hosting of desktops to work around resouce limitations, give users more personalization, or hedge our bets on XenClient and desktop streaming to endpoints. Once again, Citrix is showing its arrogance and greed. For the 6,000 potential endpoints in our environment, making licensing per-device instead of per-user virtually eliminates Citrix from the picture. Since we'll only have a few hundred users, having one license per desktop would be ridiculous. one of the great advantages of XenApp Advanced and above is the concurrent user licensing. If Citrix want people to adopt XenDesktop, the concurrent licensing model must remain with an agreement with MS on VECD or something similar l Why not provide both CCU and PNU? Allow customer to use as best fits their environment. In current form, it stinks. It will END our XenDesktop use. Both methods mentioned in the survey (per user and per device) will more than double our costs. A CCU licensing scheme is the ONLY scheme that makes sense in an educational setting. concurrent licensing is favourable, named user licensing is not favourable We currently use XenApp and thin clients for our staff. We've been looking at migrating to XenDesktop and moving over users as we replace the thin clients and also delivering the classroom desktops through Xen. While our concurrant user count
or per device would be affordable, we will definitely not proceed if the licensing is per-user. Why should we pay for a full user when we have retension perioad of weeks or month for theese users ? na none There needs to be a concurrent user license model as well as a per/named user micensing model. Having both oth hese licensening options is the best way to go and will make everyone happy. They also need to introduce a term license with both cuncurrent and per user options. cdas I cannot use per-user or per-device licensing. I need the same concurrent user licensing that Citrix has always had. My users work in shifts from various environments. Migrating away from concurrent user licenses means I will find a different solution. BS Im just glade we are only in proof of concept and not have way throught the roll out. concurrent user licensing or go home. citrix has already extracted too much money out of me. We have 270 occasional remote users with a mx concurrency of 10% Citrix will be losing many customers for requiring per-user licensing. We were planning a large roll-out based on XD3 concurrent-use licensing. Now, XD4 licensing changes everything. ideally the ability to purchase a licensing model that suits the end customer, CCU v Per machine v Per user as different pricing options per device licensing aligns the licensing to microsoft application licensing and therefore makes it simple. per user is o.k. ut means we would have to manage two licensing schemes. It's great, as in our large enterprise with many departments and affiliates we have a good knowledge about ouzr total amount of users, but we know rareley about the total number of devices in use. The per user (named user) licensing model would allow us to assign licenses directly to users when odering our VDI product internally. That's good for us. The price for the licenses will put us off evaluating the product Why not concurrent users? Per concurrent user is the only way to go. Not by device! Not by user! The only licensing method I would consider is per-concurrent user. Period. Give people at option, a CCU option and a Per User option. Per device is interesting as a lower cost than CCU option. Bottom line choice.
Total responses to this question: 96