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Alternative to Citrix
- Thread starter Schlogg
- Start date
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
What is causing you so much grief?
On the contrary, I think Citrix MetaFrame is one of the best products on the market - providing the administrator is up to speed with how to use it.
There are competitive products, but none that support such a wide base of clients. If you're using Mac clients, then, at the moment, there is no alternative I know of.
The Mac client itself is, after the Linux and OS/2 clients possibly the weakest Citrix client - but I've had a sneak preview of the new Mac client; it's not bad.
Post back if you're having difficulties.
Hope this helps
On the contrary, I think Citrix MetaFrame is one of the best products on the market - providing the administrator is up to speed with how to use it.
There are competitive products, but none that support such a wide base of clients. If you're using Mac clients, then, at the moment, there is no alternative I know of.
The Mac client itself is, after the Linux and OS/2 clients possibly the weakest Citrix client - but I've had a sneak preview of the new Mac client; it's not bad.
Post back if you're having difficulties.
Hope this helps
I would have to agree with CitrixEngineer, I don't know of another product that gives as much flexibility to my clients than Citrix. If you gave some examples rather than just bashing, we might be able to offer some assistance.
-Mike
Michael A. Dontato MCNE, MCSE, CCA
mdonato@site-technologies.com
-Mike
Michael A. Dontato MCNE, MCSE, CCA
mdonato@site-technologies.com
Nostferatu
IS-IT--Management
"Citrix is one of the worst products I have ever come across and causes one of my clients continual grief."
Sure Citrix isnt perfect, but I think you need to understand what Citrix is actually doing, as far as alternative... PC Anywhere ? hmm... dont think I need say any more...
I would suggest you express your reasons why Citrix aggrevates you so much since it has almost totaly reversed engineered the way IT is distributed to the world, reverting back to the old dumb terminals and telnet clients of old, but now with a rich user environment that will support 16 bit graphical applications to anyone anywhere in the world...
Steve Marshall
Group IT
Technical Support Supervisor
(aka General Meddler)
The Expro Group
Reading
UK
Sure Citrix isnt perfect, but I think you need to understand what Citrix is actually doing, as far as alternative... PC Anywhere ? hmm... dont think I need say any more...
I would suggest you express your reasons why Citrix aggrevates you so much since it has almost totaly reversed engineered the way IT is distributed to the world, reverting back to the old dumb terminals and telnet clients of old, but now with a rich user environment that will support 16 bit graphical applications to anyone anywhere in the world...
Steve Marshall
Group IT
Technical Support Supervisor
(aka General Meddler)
The Expro Group
Reading
UK
You can't slam the product without some specific details. Your "client" as you put it could just be a moron. I can state that we use Citrix almost exclusively where I work. We have users in over 15 countries that access Citrix servers all over the world. Yes Citrix does have it's share of problems. NO "operating system" is perfect. Especially when it has to "sit on top of" a Microsoft product. But that is why we are all here to assist each other in solving problems and making Citrix better.
Jason Demmi
CCA, OCP
Jason Demmi
CCA, OCP
TheOtherKiwi
MIS
I haven't gotten a chance to play with this, but maybe you can and tell us about it:
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
Re: HOBLink.
It's a version of the RDP client - Microsoft have licensed it out for companies to develop. It works pretty well - I liked the Linux client, but it doesn't have any of the MetaFrame ICA features (of course).
The "Load-Balancing" they tout is just an implementation of DNS round-robin to see which servers are available, not LB as MetaFrame admins know it.
Check out VMWare, or Graphon Bridges;
I particularly like vmware's ability to run several operating systems on one machine through the system of Virtual machines. I got Windows ME, Red Hat Linux 7.1 and DOS 6.22 all running in "sessions" on a Windows 2000 machine.
The Graphon product was painful to use - I experienced a lot of graphical corruption; but give it a few releases and Citrix may have competition. Again, the Linux version impressed me - I ran the server daemon on my Linux box, and got a full KDE desktop on a Windows machine. AFAIK, Citrix have no plans to port MetaFrame to Linux.
I haven't tested VNC yet - but none of the products I've looked at really carry the capabilities of Terminal server - even less MetaFrame. I suppose you get what you pay for
It's a version of the RDP client - Microsoft have licensed it out for companies to develop. It works pretty well - I liked the Linux client, but it doesn't have any of the MetaFrame ICA features (of course).
The "Load-Balancing" they tout is just an implementation of DNS round-robin to see which servers are available, not LB as MetaFrame admins know it.
Check out VMWare, or Graphon Bridges;
I particularly like vmware's ability to run several operating systems on one machine through the system of Virtual machines. I got Windows ME, Red Hat Linux 7.1 and DOS 6.22 all running in "sessions" on a Windows 2000 machine.
The Graphon product was painful to use - I experienced a lot of graphical corruption; but give it a few releases and Citrix may have competition. Again, the Linux version impressed me - I ran the server daemon on my Linux box, and got a full KDE desktop on a Windows machine. AFAIK, Citrix have no plans to port MetaFrame to Linux.
I haven't tested VNC yet - but none of the products I've looked at really carry the capabilities of Terminal server - even less MetaFrame. I suppose you get what you pay for
- Thread starter
- #9
Wow!, I feel like Daniel in the lion's den.
First - neither my client nor I are morons. Second, the better the software the lower the IQ needed to use it. Really top rate software would be usable by morons; exit Citrix.
An Administrator for a non-profit organisation with half a dozen workstations? Come on!
The product is over-priced and Citrix themselves are useless. They keep nominating red hot specialists to help with problems. The result - lots of money going out and just as many problems.
Recently they tried to sell an upgrade; the rep could not even say why my client should upgrade.
Client was told that anything which will run under Win NT will run under Citrix. Not true. Client's main software is FileMaker Pro which limps along.
Performance is poor compared with the old AppleTalk network.
Using the sidebar in Excel to scroll back and forth is virtually impossible.
Printers continually disappear from the network.Occasionally the disappearance is from just one workstation.
Frequent total system hangs - say, one per week.
I won't go into the nightmare with the internet, mainly because I do not often talk to my client about that - it is too dangerous.
Need I go on?
We are still looking for an alternative.
Paul J.
Cheers,
Paul J.
First - neither my client nor I are morons. Second, the better the software the lower the IQ needed to use it. Really top rate software would be usable by morons; exit Citrix.
An Administrator for a non-profit organisation with half a dozen workstations? Come on!
The product is over-priced and Citrix themselves are useless. They keep nominating red hot specialists to help with problems. The result - lots of money going out and just as many problems.
Recently they tried to sell an upgrade; the rep could not even say why my client should upgrade.
Client was told that anything which will run under Win NT will run under Citrix. Not true. Client's main software is FileMaker Pro which limps along.
Performance is poor compared with the old AppleTalk network.
Using the sidebar in Excel to scroll back and forth is virtually impossible.
Printers continually disappear from the network.Occasionally the disappearance is from just one workstation.
Frequent total system hangs - say, one per week.
I won't go into the nightmare with the internet, mainly because I do not often talk to my client about that - it is too dangerous.
Need I go on?
We are still looking for an alternative.
Paul J.
Cheers,
Paul J.
Nostferatu
IS-IT--Management
I would suggest you have been unfortunate with your supplier/consultant... but if you are willing to take the time, then I, and am sure others here would be happy to strip down each of your issues and resolve them, everything you have mentioned so far are things that nearly all of us have encountered, scratched heads over, then resolved time and time again.
The upgrade you mention, was that Metaframe XP ? or an upgrade from Winframe to Metaframe, should it be the former, I cannot see any reasonable reason why a userbase such as you have mentioned would NEED to upgrade, but as ever, with newer versions of software come fixes and enhancements, that although you would certainly be able to circumvent with Metaframe 1.8 FR 1 in many ways, would still benefit in an enhancement. If the upgrade is from Winframe to Metaframe, then there are NUMEROUS reasons why you would be better off upgrading, 32 bit apps for starters...
As far as the IQ required to use the software... If they can click on an icon on their desktop to launch an application, then its their application knowledge after that that will dictate how hard "citrix" is to use on a client level.
Should your apps be installed correctly, then there is NO reason why they should not be appearing on your clients workstations and look just like any other locally installed app.
Once again, i would suggest that you have been bitten by the useless consultant bug, one that hits everywhere, not just the citrix world unfortunately. If its done correctly, you will count your blessing for the ease of aministration/ trouble shooting and lack of required training on a user level.
I have rolled out citrix on an worldwide enterprise level 3 times (but im by no means an expert) each time I have had problems, but each time they have been resolved (mostly by Citrix engineer ! heh *THANKS BUD !!!*) so unless you wish to buy into even BIGGER problems with alternative software, I would suggest you slow down a little, get rid of your current consultant (and dont pay them if they havent delivered) give us some idea of the spec of your servers and any other details you can muster up, and im more than confident that we as a group can sort you out one way or the other.
feel free to mail me and i'll see about pointing you in other directions for any specific problems you may have should I or anyone else not be able to help.
Best of luck !!!
stephen.marshall@exprogroup.com
Steve Marshall
Group IT
Technical Support Supervisor
(aka General Meddler)
The Expro Group
Reading
UK
The upgrade you mention, was that Metaframe XP ? or an upgrade from Winframe to Metaframe, should it be the former, I cannot see any reasonable reason why a userbase such as you have mentioned would NEED to upgrade, but as ever, with newer versions of software come fixes and enhancements, that although you would certainly be able to circumvent with Metaframe 1.8 FR 1 in many ways, would still benefit in an enhancement. If the upgrade is from Winframe to Metaframe, then there are NUMEROUS reasons why you would be better off upgrading, 32 bit apps for starters...
As far as the IQ required to use the software... If they can click on an icon on their desktop to launch an application, then its their application knowledge after that that will dictate how hard "citrix" is to use on a client level.
Should your apps be installed correctly, then there is NO reason why they should not be appearing on your clients workstations and look just like any other locally installed app.
Once again, i would suggest that you have been bitten by the useless consultant bug, one that hits everywhere, not just the citrix world unfortunately. If its done correctly, you will count your blessing for the ease of aministration/ trouble shooting and lack of required training on a user level.
I have rolled out citrix on an worldwide enterprise level 3 times (but im by no means an expert) each time I have had problems, but each time they have been resolved (mostly by Citrix engineer ! heh *THANKS BUD !!!*) so unless you wish to buy into even BIGGER problems with alternative software, I would suggest you slow down a little, get rid of your current consultant (and dont pay them if they havent delivered) give us some idea of the spec of your servers and any other details you can muster up, and im more than confident that we as a group can sort you out one way or the other.
feel free to mail me and i'll see about pointing you in other directions for any specific problems you may have should I or anyone else not be able to help.
Best of luck !!!
stephen.marshall@exprogroup.com
Steve Marshall
Group IT
Technical Support Supervisor
(aka General Meddler)
The Expro Group
Reading
UK
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
I hope you didn't feel too bruised - as you can see, once you get into the Citrix admin thing, you can get seriously hooked!
I also recognise your situation - about 3-4 years ago, I felt pretty much the same; my organisation got stung by a pretty useless bunch of so-called consultants who left the department - and particularly myself - with large amounts of omlette to remove from faces.
However, we managed to get a solid, workable system, 1800 happy users and 50 public internet users within a year or so.
The end result can deliver much of the reduced TCO that Citrix promise - but, I agree, their technical support is not wonderful to any but the biggest companies.
For direct support, I like to have at least one VAR behind me - preferably a Citrix Platinum partner. These guys will get direct support from Citrix far quicker than most.
For interim suggestions - and possibly money-saving quick fixes - post here Let's hit these issues one at a time.
Please note; Whatever your consultants said, it is NOT possible to run every application that will run under NT on NT Terminal Server Edition - or W2k server. Microsoft acknowledge this. However, most will work, with a bit of patient tweaking ;-)
Hope to help
CE
I also recognise your situation - about 3-4 years ago, I felt pretty much the same; my organisation got stung by a pretty useless bunch of so-called consultants who left the department - and particularly myself - with large amounts of omlette to remove from faces.
However, we managed to get a solid, workable system, 1800 happy users and 50 public internet users within a year or so.
The end result can deliver much of the reduced TCO that Citrix promise - but, I agree, their technical support is not wonderful to any but the biggest companies.
For direct support, I like to have at least one VAR behind me - preferably a Citrix Platinum partner. These guys will get direct support from Citrix far quicker than most.
For interim suggestions - and possibly money-saving quick fixes - post here
Let's hit these issues one at a time.Please note; Whatever your consultants said, it is NOT possible to run every application that will run under NT on NT Terminal Server Edition - or W2k server. Microsoft acknowledge this. However, most will work, with a bit of patient tweaking ;-)
Hope to help
CE
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
Quick hit on 2 of your issues;
Excel has difficulties scrolling using the wheel mouse if the colours are >256. Try reducing the colour depth. This is a known issue, and will probably be fixed in an upcoming service pack or hotfix.
Printers disappearing and system hangs - are you running a regular reboot cycle? If not, I recommend you do so.
HTH
Excel has difficulties scrolling using the wheel mouse if the colours are >256. Try reducing the colour depth. This is a known issue, and will probably be fixed in an upcoming service pack or hotfix.
Printers disappearing and system hangs - are you running a regular reboot cycle? If not, I recommend you do so.
HTH
PronetSolutions
IS-IT--Management
Was just browsing... I can help if you are interested. I have been designing solutions around Citrix for four years. I designed a Citrix solution for one of my clients who ownes 68 hotels with 5 users at each location plus 75 corporate users. Citrix saved the company 1.3 million dollars in network infrastructure ungrades and 1/2 mil. annually on recurring telecommunications and support costs. I say this only because if there were another solution to come close I would have tried it. Here is a tip for FileMaker Pro. Do not make the terminal server the Host. This will kill your terminal server. Choose any other workstation in the LAN to be the host and 90% of your problems will disappear. Again, if you need qualified assistance I can help. Citrix really is your best bet!!
mailto:admin@pronet-solutions.com
mailto:admin@pronet-solutions.com
I agree with the consensus here, heck, i am a user and even taught myself how to develop a rather sophisticated access 2000 application which i plopped on our citrix metaframe server and it runs like a charm, the users love it, it's really fast and we're saving a bunch of money too.
There are positive and negative aspects to using Citrix. The worst bit is the effort required to get it running in a usable fashion. I say usable because we have had Citrix servers for over 12 months and there are still problems with client sessions. When purchasing a commercial product (for lots of money) that should be tried and tested, one does not expect all the problems. Maybe we are so used to Microsoft and Citrix releasing duff products that we expect it and willing to waste lots of time and money fixing their errors.
Citrix is good once it's working.
My company is just at that size (about 50 users) where we could have chosen either to use thin client computing or replacing desktops. I chose the thin client route and there have been times when I wish I had not. For smaller companies I think the issue which path to follow become harder to define and justify, and once a path is chosen it is very hard to change.
Citrix is good once it's working.
My company is just at that size (about 50 users) where we could have chosen either to use thin client computing or replacing desktops. I chose the thin client route and there have been times when I wish I had not. For smaller companies I think the issue which path to follow become harder to define and justify, and once a path is chosen it is very hard to change.
- Thread starter
- #16
This is a rather belated thank you for all the offers of help.
First, let me explain that I am just a humble (Ha!ha!) DB developer observing from the sidelines. I have no intention of getting into Citrix in a big way.
My comment re FileMaker limping was not about performance; it does weird things. The best is a fairly regular message saying "There has been an error ..files.. will not be available." The files are available. Hosting anywhere but the file server makes access either impossible or very slow.
Other products behave in equally weird ways.
I don't think I have ever seen so many weird problems in one location and they virtually all started with the installation of Citrix.
The customer does not have a regular re-boot cycle. It is not really necessary when NT re-boots of its own accord every day or so, or else makes a re-boot necessary.
I can see that Citrix has really good potential; so did Windoze95 and 98 and ..... If only it worked - 99.5% of the time.
Thanks again.
Paul J.
Cheers,
Paul J.
First, let me explain that I am just a humble (Ha!ha!) DB developer observing from the sidelines. I have no intention of getting into Citrix in a big way.
My comment re FileMaker limping was not about performance; it does weird things. The best is a fairly regular message saying "There has been an error ..files.. will not be available." The files are available. Hosting anywhere but the file server makes access either impossible or very slow.
Other products behave in equally weird ways.
I don't think I have ever seen so many weird problems in one location and they virtually all started with the installation of Citrix.
The customer does not have a regular re-boot cycle. It is not really necessary when NT re-boots of its own accord every day or so, or else makes a re-boot necessary.
I can see that Citrix has really good potential; so did Windoze95 and 98 and ..... If only it worked - 99.5% of the time.
Thanks again.
Paul J.
Cheers,
Paul J.
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
The "acid" test is whether an application works with Microsoft Terminal Server or not. Since MetaFrame is an extension to the Operating System, not the O/S per se, it follows the same rules that TS follows.
The phrase I hear most often when admins talk about Citrix is that it has a "Steep learning curve".
IMO, MetaFrame is really easy to pick up, but it's all the subsystem stuff you need to learn, such as profiles, policies, server tuning, DNS and network optimising that takes a while to learn.
Since this thread was started, there is a new competitor on the market - a product called Blue Moon. I'm going to run some tests on it as soon as I get a spare moment - probably in the New Year at the rate work is coming in
Anyone else tried it?
The phrase I hear most often when admins talk about Citrix is that it has a "Steep learning curve".
IMO, MetaFrame is really easy to pick up, but it's all the subsystem stuff you need to learn, such as profiles, policies, server tuning, DNS and network optimising that takes a while to learn.
Since this thread was started, there is a new competitor on the market - a product called Blue Moon. I'm going to run some tests on it as soon as I get a spare moment - probably in the New Year at the rate work is coming in
Anyone else tried it?
I believe a product called Tarantella can be used to web enable NT or Unix applications, but needs hefty hardware. A lot of people use it for running StarOffice on Sun hardware. PepsiCo in Brazil dumped Citrix to use this for Oracle apps running on NT.
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
I dumped Tarentella in favour of Citrix's MetaFrame for UNIX solution. I've deployed it on Solaris, AIX and HP-UX, and it works a treat - if only Citrix would get the Client Drive Mapping feature in there ;-)
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