Ensuring User Experience on Citrix and Other Virtual Desktop Interface Technologies

Citrix and other Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) technologies are key enablers of remote working at the time of social distancing. They allow for seamless access to applications and services employees consume in the office. In this new norm, productivity and customer satisfaction are executed from employees’ homes but user experience remains paramount for both employees and customers. Here are some of the challenges your organization may be facing delivering application services over VDI:

• The sudden move to all remote work causes shifts in the ingress/egress traffic patterns into the data center. Citrix ICA, EDT, and other VDI transports are extremely sensitive to latency that may result from high bandwidth utilization and poor QoS allocation. The network, especially VPN gateways, must be closely monitored to ensure they are meeting the demands of remote workers.
• The VDI infrastructure was not designed for this sudden shift in users and could be strained. Visibility into the performance of VDI infrastructure ensures that metrics and KPIs are available for both capacity planning and troubleshooting complex problems.
• Since the remote-to-datacenter connection of every remote worker’s network connection is different, there is a need for an objective measurement of VDI performance and underlying applications its serves to effectively maintain and troubleshoot the entire service chain. While objective user-experience analysis is a recommended action under normal circumstance, it is imperative in the remote-worker era to provide a basis for fault isolation and optimal utilization of IT operations staff.