Managing a Citrix Cloud Environment on VMware for 1,900 Users

A managed service provider was struggling to deliver virtual apps and desktops efficiently to a geographically dispersed workforce across several client organizations. Each client needed its own isolated domain, its own catalogs, and predictable performance regardless of where users were signing in from. The MSP recognized that a Citrix Cloud solution hosted on VMware infrastructure could address its scalability and performance concerns, but it needed a partner to design, build, and run that environment day to day. The engagement covered the full stack, from the Citrix Cloud control plane down to the ESXi hosts and VM storage.

BeyondScale set up Citrix Cloud for 4 different client domains, with 2 Citrix Cloud Connectors installed to establish the connection between the Citrix-managed control plane (Workspace, VDA, and Gateway services) and the on-premises VM stack. We created 12 catalogs sharing apps and desktops with approximately 1,900 users, using Active Directory security groups to control who could reach which resources.

VMware hosts all of the Citrix infrastructure servers, master images, and VDA workers, managed through vCenter on ESXi hosts. VMware DRS handles dynamic workload balancing across the hosts, and automated provisioning from the master images keeps catalog updates repeatable. BeyondScale manages the VM stack, the Cloud Connectors, the server and desktop VDAs, and ongoing monitoring of the environment.