The Click-Down

Stop living in the past. With technology changing, it's important to be aware of the latest features, functionality, and best practices. Join tech experts as they interview the geeks that helped design, build and deploy the latest Citrix technology. They'll help you understand how the magic works so you can impress others with your Citrix knowledge and expertise. So subscribe, tune in, and geek out with us on The Click-Down.

Listen to the podcast:

May 9, 2024
Season 3 Episode 16: Citrix VDA for macOS

One of Citrix's most anticipated technologies has been released to technical preview! The Citrix VDA for macOS allows secure HDX access to physical macOS devices located in your office, datacenter, or hosting provider. In this episode, I answer several of the questions that have been asked since the technical preview announcement.

April 8, 2024
Season 3 Episode 15: Citrix + App Packaging

Citrix has long supported application packaging platforms such as App-V and, more recently, MSIX and MSIX App Attach. In this episode, I am joined by Yashu Arora, Sr. Product Manager at Citrix, as we discuss what Citrix has done in the app packaging space and what we support today and in the future.

March 20, 2024
Season 3 Episode 14: Citrix Workspace Environment Management (WEM)

In this episode, Wendy Gay and Amir Trujillo join me to discuss Citrix Workspace Environment Management (WEM). Whether you are new to WEM or a veteran, you’ll learn what WEM is and how it can help optimize resources, reduce logon times, and improve user experience. You'll also hear about the security features WEM provides, the WEM Tool Hub, and some best practices when deploying WEM in your environment.

March 4, 2024
Season 3 Episode 13: Citrix Community Site

In this short episode, I go solo to discuss the new Citrix Community and the newly released community.citrix.com site. I'll cover the new Citrix Community and what has been moved to the new site, including Citrix Tech Zone and Citrix Discussions.

Febraury 19, 2024
Season 3 Episode 12: Citrix Global App and Configuration Service

The Citrix Global App Configuration Service (GACS) provides a centralized mechanism for enterprise IT admins to easily configure, distribute, and manage user settings for the Citrix Workspace app across all managed and unmanaged devices. In this episode, I am joined by Prashant Yadav, a Lead Product Manager with Citrix, to discuss the Global App and Configuration Service and how it can help Citrix administrators on a day-to-day basis.

Febraury 5, 2024
Season 3 Episode 11: Citrix Automated Configuration Tool and Backup and Restore

The Citrix Automated Configuration Tool migrates workloads and aids in daily Citrix administration tasks for both on-premises and Cloud. With the Citrix Backup and Restore Feature, a snapshot of your Citrix configurations is always ready on standby. If inadvertent changes arise, choose a backup, select restore, and you’re up and running again with a few clicks. In this episode, I am joined by Yashu Arora, Sr. Product Manager at Citrix, as we discuss the Automated Configuration Tool and the Citrix DaaS Backup and Restore feature upcoming Tech Preview.

January 22, 2024
Season 3 Episode 10: Citrix Automation

Citrix has developed a custom Terraform provider for automating Citrix product deployments and configurations. Using Terraform with the Citrix provider, you can manage your Citrix products via Infrastructure as Code, giving you higher efficiency and consistency in infrastructure management and better reusability in infrastructure configuration. In this episode, Jason Samuel joins me to discuss this new automation strategy and what it means for our customers and partners.

January 8, 2024
Season 3 Episode 9: Citrix HDX Audio

In this episode, I am joined by Bjorn Paulson, Sr. Product Manager with Citrix, to discuss Citrix HDX Audio and the innovations introduced to enhance end-user experiences within Citrix sessions.

December 22, 2023
Season 3 Episode 8: Reflecting on 2023 and Looking ahead to 2024

In this episode, I am joined by Calvin Hsu, Vice President of Product Marketing at Citrix, as we look back over the past year on the Citrix strategy and focus, the products and features delivered in 2023, and what to expect in 2024 in the areas of product delivery, education, and the Citrix Community (CUGC).

December 11, 2023
Season 3 Episode 7: Cost Savings with Citrix Autoscale

In this episode, Nitin Mehta, Lead Product Manager at Citrix, joins me to discuss Citrix Autoscale and how this highly adopted feature has helped customers achieve significant cost savings in their hybrid cloud deployments.

November 27, 2023
Season 3 Episode 6: Citrix and Nutanix

Running Citrix on Nutanix allows you to deliver a hybrid multi-cloud DaaS solution that is secure, scalable, and affordable. Through the Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and multi-cloud deployments of Citrix DaaS, you can provide secure, on-demand, and elastic access to apps, desktops, and data from any device or location. Join me as I discuss running Citrix on Nutanix with Paul Murray, Principal Product Marketing Manager at Citrix.

November 13, 2023
Season 3 Episode 5: What’s new with HDX on Mobile and Tablets

In this episode, Citrix Sr. Product Manager Manav Jain joins me to discuss how Citrix has been working behind the scenes to improve your experience with the Citrix Workspace app on mobile and tablet platforms. Whether you need better security, a more immersive experience, or to enable your diverse workforce to get a desktop experience on mobile devices, Citrix has you covered. We want to ensure you are at your best, no matter where you or your team are.

October 30, 2023
Season 3 Episode 4: Citrix Environment Resiliency

As a Citrix Admin, one of your biggest fears may be having your Citrix environment unavailable for your end users to access their virtual apps and desktops. It is essential to have a resilient Citrix environment where your end users can access their resources in the face of unexpected events or failures. Join me as I discuss how Citrix provides resiliency to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and Citrix DaaS with Isaac Stasevich, Sr. Product Manager at Citrix.

October 16, 2023
Season 3 Episode 3: Citrix Provisioning (PVS) Best Practices

Citrix Provisioning, or PVS, has been in the Citrix portfolio since 2006, and since it was first introduced, the technology landscape has seen dramatic changes. Join us as we discuss the updated and new Citrix Provisioning best practices with Uzair Ali.

October 2, 2023
Season 3 Episode 2: Citrix ITSM and Service Now

How are Citrix ITSM and ServiceNow integration helping customers to enhance user experience and Citrix administrator's daily tasks? Join us as we discuss with Wendy Gay, Amir Trujillo, and Antoin Carroll how using features such as Virtual Agent, self-service, monitoring and ticket creation, access to apps and desktops, and more can be accomplished with the Citrix ITSM and ServiceNow integration.

September 15, 2023
Season 3 Episode 1: Hybrid Multi-Cloud

With Citrix’s renewed focus on hybrid environments and Universal subscription, this opens the door for a variety of different environment configurations across both our on-premises and cloud platforms for more customers. Alongside the Citrix platform, hyperscalers such as Azure, AWS, and GCP can deploy Citrix resources with greater agility and scalability than traditional data centers.

December 20^th
Episode 4: Factor this! Learn about nFactor Authentication

How can you enable zero trust while permitting the proper multi-factor authentication that depends on a person’s location, device, connection, and role? That is where nFactor comes in! In this episode, we chat with a couple of product team members about how nFactor can require different authentication factors based on factors such as these.

November 15^th
Episode 3: Building it layer by layer! All about App Layering

Image buildout and lifecycle management is a critical part of any delivery infrastructure. The operating systems, applications, and user data all need continuous updates to meet business requirements and security standards.

October 19^th
Episode 2: Out in the field! Insights from our consulting architects

Citrix consulting teams are continually working with the world’s largest organizations on demanding, mission-critical projects across all major verticals and use cases. The pandemic accelerated digital transformation and cloud projects and there were many lessons learned along the way.

September 19^th
Episode 1: Let’s Talk! Optimizing Unified Communications

Unified communications solutions, such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, and others are a critical tool for any organization. It’s how work gets done day in and day out, but are you delivering it in a secure way that minimizes risk? Join us as we interview James Hsu from Citrix Product Management to talk tech about why optimizing unified communications tools with Citrix is the right approach for your business, the delivery methods Citrix provides, a brief history of our innovative work in this space, and resources for getting started.

April 13^th
Episode 25: Managed DaaS

Over the past decade there has been a lot of changes on how to deliver virtual apps and desktops to end users. From MetaFrame to XenApp to Virtual Apps and Desktops service, Citrix has provided a secure way of delivering remote solutions to end users. So what is managed DaaS? How does this differ from Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service? Citrix managed DaaS provides you with a quick and easy way to deliver virtual desktops to your end users that is fully managed by Citrix. This means that you can deploy virtual apps and desktops in minutes even if you don’t have your own cloud tenant.

March 30^th
Episode 24: ZTNA how to protect your company in the current landscape

In this episode we invite Dorsan DeLisle, Lead Sales Engineer, to talk about ZTNA, trust issues, and what he sees in the field. We talk about the challenges admins face today and how they can adapt to this environment while still providing a great user experience.

March 9^th
EPISODE 23: 2203 LTSR Update—A lot has changed in 2 years

A lot has happened in the past two years. In December 2019, Citrix released its last LTSR, and now we are ready to release a new one. This new LTSR will roll out all the features and functionality updates from Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2003 through 2112, including great improvements, new OS support, and functionality. Our Long-Term Service Release, LTSR, is perfect for customers who want a predictable maintenance cadence and longer support model. Our LTSR has five years of mainstream support plus an additional five years of extended support, which can be purchased

February 23^rd
EPISODE 22: Are users being bad? Let Analytics for Security find out

IT administrators today are faced with unique challenges on how they can secure their environment and intellectual property. With remote workers, the IT perimeter that needs to be protected has grown exponentially opening opportunities to get into the environment. At the same time, end-users have a large list of requests most of which include excellent user experience and flexibility. So how can administrators deal with security threats proactively and reactively? Citrix Analytics for Security is continuously assessing the behavior of the end users and applies actions to protect your company information. It aggregates data across different Citrix services to generate valuable insights and focused actions.

February 9^th
EPISODE 21: Making remote work, work better

It has now been almost two years since covid began. Employers who pre-pandemic didn’t have a work-from-home & flexible strategy have realized the benefits. Employers have realized cost-savings by reducing their real estate footprint and have increased their talent pool. Employers have enjoyed the perks of hybrid work some of which include improved productivity, reduction of commute, and better work-life balance. In this episode of The Click-Down, we invite Amy Goldstein, Field Sales Engineer, to talk about Remote and Flexible work. We share personal stories on pros and cons of this new normal. We discuss the challenges that IT administrators have had to overcome and how they have been able to do so.

December 15^th
EPISODE 20: Citrix HDX

Citrix has provided secure remote access to end-users for decades. Security and user experience do not have to be mutually exclusive. With HDX, Citrix delivers unparalleled experience for access to virtual apps and desktops. HDX is a suite of proprietary technologies that delivers high-definition experiences to users of virtual apps and desktops. HDX includes technologies such as intelligent redirection, adaptive compression, and data de-duplication.

October 27^th
EPISODE 19: Citrix Value Add to Azure Virtual Desktop

As remote work continues to be the norm, Desktop-as-a service (DaaS) has become even more important to many companies. Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), previously known as Windows Virtual Desktop, is a platform for delivering virtual desktops and apps from the Azure public cloud. So, if a customer needed to deploy virtual desktops and already has entitlement to AVD, why would they want to use Citrix as well? Just like customers for decades utilized Citrix on top of RDS, Citrix provides a lot of additional value to customers deploying Azure Virtual Desktop.

October 13^th
EPISODE 18: Citrix Launchpad Work: Google Contact Center & Wrike

Wrike is a collaborative work management solution that allows you to track and manage your projects easily and efficiently. In this episode we invite, Sarah O’Donnell, Technology Specialist, to talk to us about what Wrike is and what problems it solves. We then dive deep into our partnership announcement with Google for contact center solutions. For this portion of the episode, we invite Danijela Nandi, Sr. Product Manager, to chat about why contact centers have become so vital today.

October 6^th
EPISODE 17: Citrix Secure Private Access

Our new solution Secure Private Access and Secure Access is a new cloud-delivered zero trust service. Secure Private Access allows you to provide secure and contextual access to all your applications and is integrated into one service. Secure Private Access allows you to provide secure and contextual access to all your applications and is integrated into one service. This new service was announced during the security Launchpad. In this episode we talk to Andre Leibovici, Principal Product Marketing Manager, to learn more.

September 29^th
EPISODE 16: Citrix Image Portability & PVS on public cloud

Citrix Image Portability Service dramatically simplifies and streamlines the management of images across platforms which facilitates managing images between an on-premises resource location and one in a public cloud, like Azure. Citrix Provisioning has been a loved Citrix technology for over a decade. Citrix Provisioning (PVS) is a streaming technology that delivers OS images including applications, patches, updates, and other information to virtual and physical machines. PVS used to be a technology that was exclusive to on-prem customers. During the Launchpad event, they announced PVS on public cloud which is currently in tech preview.

September 15^th
EPISODE 15: Enabling Remote and Hybrid Learning

Back to school season is in full swing. The 2020 school year was especially hard on students and teachers alike. When covid-19 hit, most schools and universities were not equipped for remote learning. More than 200 million higher-ed students and over 250 million children age k-12 were affected globally. A lot of schools had serious IT challenges that forced them to reevaluate and change their IT infrastructure. The challenges schools faced were not unique to them and were shared with a lot of industries that had to shift overnight to remote or flexible work environment. In this episode we talk about how Citrix is able to help enable remote and hybrid learning.

September 1^st
EPISODE 14: How Citrix Autoscale helps you balance costs and user experience

When designing their environments, most admins have the challenge of finding the right balance between managing costs while still delivering a great user experience, especially when talking about cloud workloads. Citrix Autoscale, a feature of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service, provides a consistent, high-performance solution to proactively power manage your machines to balance costs and user experience.

July 28^th
EPISODE 13: Ransomware Part 2—How can Citrix help

We’re back for part 2 of our ransomware series. In the previous episode, we discussed exactly what ransomware is, why it has become so prevalent, and how you can get infected. In this episode we talk about how you can use Citrix to gain visibility into your environment and prevent ransomware attacks. With Citrix we provide solutions that increase security without compromising the end-user experience.

July 14^th
EPISODE 12: Ransomware Part 1–What Is It?

There have been many ransomware attacks that have made it to national news in the last couple of months. In this two-part episode series, we invite Citrix Lead Sales Engineer J.R. Goldman to talk about ransomware. During part one, we discuss exactly what ransomware is and why it has become so prevalent. We also examine how ransomware is spread, what effects it has on a business, and how attackers are able to infiltrate environments.

June 30^th
EPISODE 11: Zero Trust Network Access and Citrix

Cyber-attacks continue to grow and one of the most common threats are internal attackers. Combine this with more users working remotely from untrusted networks and personal devices becoming the norm, and it leaves IT with a greater attack surface they need to protect. Therefore, a lot of companies are now looking at a zero trust security model. With a zero trust architecture no one is trusted by default and users are adaptively granted access based on contextual awareness using patterns based on identity, time, and device posture. Join us as we talk in depth about zero trust network access (ZTNA) and how Citrix can help.

June 16^th
EPISODE 10: DaaS: What Is It, Why Use It, And When To Implement It

Desktop as a service, also known as DaaS, helps customers have a more agile environment to scale up and down as needed by removing the administrative overload that is required with a full on-premises environment. And in true Citrix fashion, we want to provide our customers the flexibility to design and architect their environment in a way that meets their needs. In this episode, Citrix Product Management Director Kireeti Valicherla and Citrix Senior Product Marketing Manager Adam Lotz talk to us about DaaS. They share how the industry defines DaaS and why it’s important and discuss how Citrix provides our customers with DaaS solutions. We also discuss the different architectural options available to our Citrix customers.

June 2^nd
EPISODE 9: Behind the scenes of Major League Baseball® and Citrix

Earlier this year, Citrix became the official Workspace and App Delivery Management Partner of Major League Baseball (MLB). In this episode of The Click-Down, we talk with MLB Chief Information Security Officer Neil Boland to learn more about how their IT organization is structured and works. Neil shares with us how MLB is using Citrix technology to improve employee productivity while keeping security top of mind. Neil talks about how they can ensure all the clubs have a security baseline to make sure their intellectual property isn’t compromised, especially when they’re on the road.

May 19^th
EPISODE 8: Off to the Races with Formula 1 Red Bull Racing Honda and Citrix

Formula 1 is an exciting, exhilarating sport to watch. With 23 races over nine months on five continents, it takes a lot of planning behind the scenes to ensure things run smoothly. As a Red Bull Racing Honda Innovation Partner, Citrix has provided the team with a better way to work by delivering the experience, security, and choice they need to unlock productivity and innovation. In this episode of The Click-Down, Chief Information Officer of Red Bull Racing Honda, Matt Cadieux, joins us to provide an inside look at everything that that has to happen behind the scenes to have a successful race.

May 5^th
EPISODE 7: A Look Into Wrike, Citrix’s Latest Acquisition

With more and more employees working remotely last year, collaborating, and keeping track of projects became a challenge. Different teams utilize different tools making it hard to stay on top of deadlines and tasks that need to be completed. Earlier this year, Citrix finalized the acquisition of Wrike, a leader in the collaborative work management space. Wrike empowers end-users to track, report, and collaborate across different project. In this episode, we invite George Kuruvilla, Global Strategist, to talk to us about which problems Wrike is solving and how it integrates with hundreds of tools that your company might already be utilizing.

April 21^st
EPISODE 6: What is SASE?

The explosion of SaaS applications, a global pandemic forcing a majority of the work force to work remotely, and attacks becoming more sophisticated, was the perfect storm for SASE to gain popularity in the last 12 months. In this episode, we talk about what SASE is and why it’s important. We invite Eric Beiers, Principal Security Architect, to demystify what SASE is and how he has seen customers approach it. Finally, he discusses how Citrix offers a complete SASE solution that meets all of the recommended and mandatory components defined by Gartner.

April 7^th
EPISODE 5: How Citrix Can Help with Mergers & Acquisitions + Tech Updates

Merging two companies takes a lot more planning than signing the paperwork. IT administrators need to architect a solution to allow end users to access resources from both companies, all while maintaining security requirements to keep the intellectual property secure. In this episode, we walk through how Citrix can help in mergers and acquisitions. We interview Citrix Lead Systems Engineer Brian Olsen, who shares how a customer utilized Citrix during an M&A. We also share tech updates to ensure you are up to speed on everything you need to know with Citrix.

March 24^th
EPISODE 4: Improve your environment with Citrix Performance Analytics

Information overload can make it overwhelming for administrators to parse through data and find relevant information. Citrix Analytics for Performance aggregates site performance metrics into simple dashboards to improve the end-user experience and optimize your sites. Citrix Principal Product Manager Vivek KR explains how these dashboards are generated and how administrators can take advantage of Citrix Analytics.

March 10^th
EPISODE 3: How to Empower Users with Citrix Microapps

Citrix Microapps allow administrators to present single uses cases to end-users through Citrix Workspace. This enables end-users to complete these tasks without having to navigate through complex business applications. Through the out-of-the-box templates for microapps we are able to create an easy and effective way to perform departmental workflows. We have also added Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop service templates to provide end-users with self-service actions right from within their workspace. Join us as we talk to Nathan Mote, Sr. Product Manager, and Phil Wiffen, Technical Marketing manager, about the power of Citrix microapps.

February 24^th
EPISODE 2: Citrix Service Continuity—What Happens When the Cloud Fails?

Everything fails at one point of another. So instead of preventing failure, we need to be prepared for when things fail. What happens when the cloud fails? How can we ensure an optimal undisruptive user experience even when services are down? In this episode, we invited Fernando Klurfan, Principal Product Manager, to talk to use about Service Continuity, a new Citrix Workspace feature, currently in Tech Preview, that minimizes the dependency on the availability of the different cloud components. Don’t wait for the cloud to fail—listen, learn, and be prepared!

February 10^th
EPISODE 1: Citrix Automated Configuration Tool

Imagine if there was a way to automate moving? All the time saved, could be used to do other things. The Citrix Automated Configuration Tool helps you migrate and export your configurations to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service. So, if you were hesitating to make the move to cloud because you didn't have time to do it manually, now you have automation to help.

January 20^th
TRAILER: Introducing The Click-Down