In Episode 178, the Citrix Session team dives into the latest on-premises release—Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2503. Join Bill Sutton, Geremy Meyers, and Todd Smith as they break down the top new features, including auto-scale insights, a redesigned Web Studio, enhanced storage load balancing, dynamic display rendering with Build-to-Lossless, and expanded integration of UberAgent with Director. Whether you're an admin optimizing cloud costs or an IT leader tracking app usage, this update brings serious power to your Citrix toolkit.

In this episode of The Citrix Session, host Bill Sutton is joined by Todd Smith, recently promoted Senior Manager for Account Technology Strategists (ATS) in the public sector at Citrix. Together, they dive into a pivotal blog article released at Citrix UNITE in New Orleans—“Citrix and NVIDIA Partner to Deliver AI Virtual Workstations.”

What’s Inside:

• What the ATS role really means—and why it matters more than ever
• How Citrix is evolving to support AI workloads using NVIDIA RTX virtual workstations
• The security, scalability, and flexibility of Citrix’s new AI integration
• Why protecting your data from public LLMs is now mission-critical
• Real-world AI use cases in enablement, call centers, and endpoint acceleration

Whether you’re a Citrix veteran or just exploring virtual desktops for AI development, this episode unpacks how Citrix is helping organizations innovate securely and efficiently—with existing infrastructure, enhanced GPU value, and powerful NVIDIA partnerships.

Key takeaway: AI isn’t just for “the nerds in the back room” anymore. Citrix is making it accessible, secure, and scalable—right at the edge of innovation.

In episode 176 of The Citrix Session, host Andy Whiteside, along with guest Geremy Meyers, dives into the transformative integration of Chrome Enterprise Premium into the Citrix platform. This episode explores how Citrix is enhancing browser management and security for enterprise environments, making it easier than ever for businesses to handle web and SaaS applications securely. Geremy, who oversees account technology specialists in the US, shares insights on the strategic partnership between Citrix and Google and the significant benefits it brings, such as improved malware detection, data loss prevention, and policy control within the Chrome browser. Tune in to learn how Citrix's latest move with Google can streamline operations and bolster security for companies leveraging Chrome Enterprise.

Join hosts Bill Sutton, Todd Smith, and Geremy Meyers for episode 175 of the Citrix Session Podcast as they dive into the critical aspects of upgrading to XenServer 8. In this episode, they discuss the impending end-of-life status of Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 cu1, scheduled for June 25th, 2025, highlighting the necessity for users to transition to the newer XenServer 8. The team outlines the enhanced features, including support for Windows 11 with VTPM, integrated PvS accelerator, added support for Nagios and SNMP, and the revolutionary Xen Conversion Manager which eases VM conversions. They also navigate through operational tips, such as leveraging a content delivery network for updates and the benefits of infrastructure as code with Terraform support. Whether you’re planning a migration or looking to optimize your Citrix workloads, this episode offers invaluable insights into making the most of XenServer 8's capabilities.

In this episode of the Citrix Session, host Bill Sutton and a panel of experts, including Andy Whiteside, Geremy Meyers, and Todd Smith, delve into the latest enhancements Citrix has made to improve both security and operational efficiency. They discuss the new feature, Session Remote Start, which enables faster logons and boosts productivity by allowing physical security measures like badge scans to initiate and prepare Citrix sessions even before the user reaches their desk.

The team explores how this integration not only speeds up the login process but also aligns with Citrix’s commitment to enhancing the user experience and administrative visibility. They cover technical aspects, potential use cases, and the implications of API-driven session management for various industries, especially those with high-security needs like healthcare and public sectors.

Tune in to learn how Citrix continues to innovate by merging physical security with digital access, aiming to transform how we approach workspace efficiency and user satisfaction.

Join us in episode 173 of the Citrix Session where host Bill Sutton, Director of Modern Workspace at XenTegra, and guest Geremy Meyers, ATS Director at Citrix, delve into Citrix’s latest strategic move—the acquisition of Unicon. In this episode, they explore how this acquisition integrates with Citrix’s current offerings, particularly focusing on Unicon's thin client operating system and cloud-based management stack. Discover the implications for enhanced security and management in VDI environments and how this aligns with Citrix’s goal to simplify access to both cloud and SAS-based apps. Whether you're a tech enthusiast or a professional navigating the Citrix ecosystem, this discussion will provide you with valuable insights into the future of workspace technology.

In this episode of The Citrix Session, Bill Sutton and guests delve into Citrix's recent strategic acquisitions of Device Trust and Strong Network, examining how these integrate with Citrix's security framework and enhance hybrid work environments. Join Andy Whiteside, Aaron Banner, Todd Smith, and Geremy Meyers as they explore the implications of these new capabilities on zero-trust architecture and secure private access. Discover how Citrix is not just improving security measures but also facilitating app development within its platform to adapt to the evolving needs of modern enterprises. Whether you're a security professional or involved in enterprise IT, this discussion will provide deep insights into how Citrix's latest enhancements can streamline operations and fortify security protocols in your organization.

In this episode of The Citrix Session, host Bill Sutton and guests dive deep into the latest advancements in hardware and device security, with a special focus on Netscaler disk encryption. Our experts, including Jeremy Myers and Todd Smith, discuss how these innovations originated from financial and public sectors and are now setting a standard for security across industries. Discover how encryption not only protects sensitive data but also ensures compliance with stringent regulations. Join us as we explore how these technologies are being implemented to safeguard decommissioned devices and prevent unauthorized data retrieval, making a significant impact in the finance and government sectors.

In this episode of The Citrix Session (Episode 170), host Bill Sutton is joined by Andy Whiteside, CEO of XenTegra, Citrix experts Jeremy Myers and Todd Smith, to discuss the exciting new capabilities of Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) for macOS. Dive into how this game-changing feature enables Mac environments to be remotely accessed with the same efficiency as other platforms, perfect for developers, video professionals, and education institutions.

Tune in to learn:

• How Citrix VDA for macOS brings Macs into the fold of remote desktop solutions
• Key use cases, including developer environments, multimedia professionals, and education
• Integration with platforms like MacStadium and Amazon EC2 Mac instances
• Licensing models and platform compatibility
• How this innovation highlights Citrix's continued investment in cutting-edge technology

Explore how Citrix is meeting customer demands while setting the standard for the future of remote access!

In this episode of The Citrix Session, Bill Sutton, Andy Whiteside, and the team delve into the exciting integration between Citrix DaaS and Amazon Workspaces Core. Discover how this powerful combination simplifies virtual desktop delivery, enables the use of Microsoft 365 applications, and leverages Citrix's HDX protocol for optimized user experiences. From cost-effective deployment options to automation via Terraform, the team discusses how Citrix and AWS are better together in revolutionizing cloud-based VDI solutions. Tune in to explore the latest in virtual desktop innovation!

In this episode of The Citrix Session, episode 168, host Bill Sutton from XenTegra is joined by Citrix experts Geremy Myers and Todd Smith for an engaging discussion on the latest updates and insights into Citrix solutions. Andy Whiteside also joins in, sharing his humorous take on recent Citrix topics and providing a lighthearted but informative atmosphere.

Key highlights of the episode include:

• The latest Citrix updates that IT professionals need to know.
• Deep dives into provisioning services and their real-world applications.
• Expert tips on optimizing Citrix environments for better performance.

Whether you're a seasoned Citrix user or new to the platform, this episode offers valuable perspectives and actionable takeaways to enhance your Citrix experience.

Don't miss out on the practical insights shared by these industry leaders!

Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS) is one of the two image management technologies available in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and Citrix DaaS.  Historically PVS has been used to deliver Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop workloads (VDA's) to servers and virtual machines from a single image over the network.  However, it can also be used without CVAD/DaaS as a standalone product, physically streaming the OS disk to an endpoint device. These endpoint devices can be “dummy terminals” with no hard drives at all, zero/thin clients, high-end compute and graphics devices, and everything in between.  This can include additional use cases for Security and locations with devices without hard drives.

 In this episode we discuss the history of PVS and some of its applicable use cases.  We also cover some technical aspects of PVS and the benefits enabled by the roll-forward and roll-back of images. 

Host:  Bill Sutton

Co-Host:  Geremy Myers

Co-Host:  Todd Smith

In this episode of our podcast, Bill Sutton, Andy Whiteside, and Geremy Myers discuss the importance of resource centralization for IT advantage in incident recovery, inspired by a blog post by Adam Lotz, Director of Product Marketing at Citrix. We'll dive into the benefits and strategies of centralizing resources, explaining how this approach can streamline IT operations and enhance resilience during disruptions.

Resource centralization is key for maintaining operational continuity and minimizing downtime, which can have significant financial implications. We'll explore real-world examples and practical tips for leveraging centralization to ensure your IT environment remains robust and responsive, even in the face of unexpected incidents.

Ensuring business continuity through centralized resources allows IT teams to respond swiftly and effectively during disruptions. By prioritizing centralization, businesses can significantly reduce the impact of system outages and maintain seamless access to critical applications and data.

In this episode of our podcast, Bill Sutton, Andy Whiteside, and Geremy Myers explore key resiliency features in Citrix DaaS that are critical yet often overlooked, misunderstood, or misconfigured by administrators. We'll delve deep into the Local Host Cache (LHC) and Service Continuity features, discussing how they enable highly available environments capable of tolerating infrastructure outages while maintaining continuous user access to critical applications and desktops.

Ensuring business continuity through a resilient environment is crucial. It allows users to access highly available resources during disruptions, such as power outages or unexpected downtime. This capability is vital as every minute of inactivity due to system outages can translate to significant financial losses. By prioritizing a highly available and resilient environment, businesses can greatly minimize the financial impact of downtime.

Host:  Bill Sutton
Co-host:  Andy Whiteside
Co-host:  Geremy Myers

XenServer has been a part of the Citrix family since the acquisition of XenSource in 2007.  It is a solid player in the virtualization market particularly for running Citrix workloads.  With purpose built features for improving the performance of virtual desktops such as Intellicache, Read Caching, PVS-Accelerator, and GPU virtualization many organizations leverage XenServer to host and deliver their Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and Citrix DaaS workloads.

Citrix recently announced that XenServer 8 is now included with their new subscription options:  Citrix for Private Cloud, Citrix Universal Hybrid Multi-Cloud, and Citrix Platform License.  In this episode we discuss XenServer generally as well as these new offerings and how they can be leveraged by customers. 

Host:  Bill Sutton
Co-host:  Andy Whiteside
Co-host:  Geremy Myers

In today’s rapidly evolving cloud computing environment, balancing operational costs, user experience, and environmental sustainability is challenging and time-consuming for IT organizations. The recent general availability (GA) of Azure Hibernation with Citrix DaaS addresses these challenges. Since its initial tech preview, over 160 customers have successfully trialed this feature, transforming the management of their Azure virtual desktop infrastructure.

Technology that drives actual cloud cost reduction

Azure Hibernation allows businesses to pause virtual machines (VMs) when not in use, significantly reducing compute costs. It saves the VM’s memory contents to the OS disk and deallocates the machine, stopping billing for compute resources and only charging for storage. Combined with Citrix AutoScale, this feature helps organizations manage VMs efficiently based on user demand, ensuring that resources are used only when necessary.

Host: Bill Sutton
Co-Host: Geremy Meyers

Building upon the robust security of Linux thin clients, Citrix is thrilled to announce the expansion of its Enterprise Browser offerings to Linux, marking a significant step in our access security platform expansion strategy. This empowers organizations to further secure access to web and SaaS applications, particularly for environments reliant on Linux thin clients, which are already locked down by design and managed by thin client vendors.

This release, currently available as a private tech preview, comes packed with powerful features that are waiting for you to explore. As part of this preview, let’s dive into its advanced capabilities, particularly in the context of enhanced security for Linux thin clients:

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Bill Sutton
Co-host: Geremy Meyers
Co-host: Monica Griesemer

If you’re ready to leverage the new LTSR but are still working on your upgrade plan, don’t worry. We have quite a few resources available to help you have a successful upgrade including our plan, upgrade, succeed blog series, the latest Citrix Master Class, an FAQ blog for answers to your most pressing LTSR questions from the Citrix Master Class, and our tech paper on parallel migration. 

We are also incredibly excited to announce that the Citrix Workspace app 2402 LTSR for Windows is now generally available! This Citrix Workspace app LTSR for Windows includes an extended 3 years of support to help ease your client update processes.

Moving fully to the cloud isn’t for everyone, and we know that. That’s why we’ve continued to invest in our on-premises solutions so you can leverage cloud capabilities on premises too. The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2402 LTSR includes several years’ worth of features to take advantage of. Some of these features were previously only offered in the cloud, and a plethora of on-premises features have been added since the release of the last LTSR in March of 2022. Additionally, customers on our current release (CR) track can leverage this release as a regular update within their environments. So let’s take a closer look at what the 2402 LTSR can do for you.

Host: Bill Sutton
Co-host: Geremy Meyers

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again – if you are on the Citrix Long Term Service Release (LTSR) track, you’ve most likely been missing out on a lot of great features. But I get it; there are many valid reasons for choosing this path, including extended support. The good news is that Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2402 LTSR is now available, and you can now take advantage of all the great features and enhancements made available over the last couple of years.

This post is focused exclusively on our high-definition experience (HDX) capabilities. More specifically, the key HDX features and enhancements that we’ve introduced since the last LTSR (2203) was released. If you are still using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 1912 LTSR, you should also take a look at my other post that talks about key features released between Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 1912 LTSR and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2203 LTSR.

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Bill Sutton

In today’s dynamic work landscape, remote access and virtual desktop solutions have become essential for organizations striving for flexibility and productivity. Citrix has been at the forefront of empowering businesses with innovative technologies, and now, with Intel’s new roadmap of GPU offerings, users can expect even more versatility and performance in their virtual desktop experiences.

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Bill Sutton
Co-host: Todd Smith

New year means time for new resolutions and new budgets. If your IT team has big plans to invest in new infrastructure and high-value projects this year, adopting a bring your own device (BYOD) policy can help your organization save money without compromising on functionality. BYOD programs aren’t the right choice for everyone, but if your business needs fall under any of the following, a BYOD program may be right for you:

• End users with locally installed applications on native endpoints who work in a hybrid or remote environment
• Third-party contractors or partners who need to securely access your corporate resources from their employer’s device 
• Employees who hold extremely mobile roles and need a device that works on the go, such as a laptop or tablet
• Thin or fat client users who work in a hybrid or remote setting for some portion of time

Citrix technology allows employees and contractors to securely access corporate resources from any device, including personal devices. The advantage of choosing Citrix for your BYOD policy is that Citrix offers an exceptional range of features, including a high-quality user experience, simple operational management, Zero Trust security, and reduced hardware costs. Plus, Citrix can save your business over 1 million dollars annually with a BYOD program when you switch 10,000 users from a managed endpoint program to a Citrix BYOD program. 

Let’s take a closer look at how Citrix can ease the implementation of BYOD policies and reduce infrastructure costs.

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Monica Griesemer

Enterprises invest a tremendous amount in a variety of solutions to secure and deliver enterprise apps, data, and network access. With different solutions for web, SaaS, and Windows, dependencies on various infrastructure and devices, and additional complexity around internal and external access, enterprise IT environments have become increasingly fractured and costly to operate. That’s why we are taking a simpler approach by building a unified platform that gives you zero-trust access, best-in-class app and desktop virtualization, and high-performance application delivery with comprehensive security.

Host: Bill Sutton
Co-host: Todd Smith
Co-host: Monica Griesmer

Citrix’s recent acquisition of vast limits GmbH, the German-based company behind uberAgent, marks a significant enhancement to the suite of Citrix observability solutions. 

This strategic move not only broadens the capabilities of Citrix’s existing solutions set, encompassing Citrix Director, Monitor, Probes, Analytics for Performance, and Analytics for Security, but also introduces a new era of end-user computing (EUC) observability. 

uberAgent’s capabilities aren’t just limited to Citrix. You can leverage its monitoring capabilities to observe Windows AVD and W365 Cloud PCs as well.

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Bill Sutton

Citrix is gearing for HIMSS 2024 with a guest blog series featuring insights and innovations from some of our key partners. This first post is written by Jason Mafera, Healthcare Field CTO at IGEL Technology.

You can visit Citrix and IGEL at HIMSS booth #3212 to hear more about how the partnership is helping to redefine healthcare IT, empower providers, and enhance patient care.

For healthcare providers, it’s not a matter of IF but WHEN you’ll be impacted by ransomware, which unfortunately is still finding victims and impacting care delivery. After seeing a post-pandemic drop, the rate of ransomware is accelerating again. Two groups getting attention lately are CIOp and BlackCat (ALPHV). ClOp’s MOVEit Transfer hack to date has affected 15 million people and 121 organizations. BlackCat (ALPHV), skilled at exfiltration, threatened to leak photos and sensitive data of a plastic surgeon’s patients and, according to a Check Point report, previously leaked patients’ photos and medical records after an attack against American healthcare provider LVHN earlier this year.

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Bill Sutton
Co-host: Philip Sellers
Co-host: Todd Smith

Our last Long Term Service Release (LTSR) was released in 2022, and since then we’ve introduced many new features via our Current Releases (CR). That means 2 years of new features are coming to our newest LTSR. We also know a lot of customers are on our 1912 LTSR, so there are almost 4 years of new features to discover. It is especially important for 1912 customers to begin prepping for an upgrade, as 1912 goes EOL in Dec 2024. Citrix previously announced that our new LTSR will be coming early 2024, which means it’s time to start planning your upgrade!

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Bill Sutton
Co-host: Philip Sellers