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

Is there a better present than new features and a new Citrix release? Citrix continues to deliver on our commitment to hybrid environments quarter after quarter with releases for both Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and our Citrix cloud platform. We’re excited to wrap up this holiday season with more releases to help improve your efficiency, security, and end user experience. 

With all that being said, we’re thrilled to announce the general availability of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2311 to our customers! This release comes with site management improvements, SPA on-prem plug-in, new StoreFront UI, and more! As we promised at the beginning of the year with the launch of Destination: Hybrid, we have continued to deliver feature after feature to help drive parity between our on-premises and cloud platforms.

Citrix has been focusing our innovation efforts over four main categories, and we are aligning our feature announcements along these four groups:

• Operational and IT Efficiency
• Workload and Device Flexibility 
• Security and Compliance
• Employee Experience Technology

Let’s dive into the features and capabilities we have introduced in all four categories for this quarter across cloud and on premises!

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Monica Griesemer

In the dynamic landscape of enterprise browsing solutions, ensuring not just security but also comprehensive admin visibility is paramount. At Citrix, we take pride in our Citrix Enterprise Browser — a robust solution that goes beyond “just” enabling secure access to your web/SaaS applications to also providing unparalleled insights for administrators. In this blog, we’ll dive into the seamless integration between the Enterprise Browser and Citrix Analytics Service (CAS) for Security, showcasing how it elevates the admin’s ability to monitor, manage, and respond to potential risks effectively.

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

You probably use some Citrix features more than others depending on what your IT environment needs. With everything new we have added this year for better Operational and IT Efficiency, Workload and Device Flexibility, Security and Compliance, and Employee Experience Technology, you’ve probably adopted some new features too. But with so many new features, make sure you’re not missing out on existing ones that can make your environment more efficient and help you save money. These features work across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises solutions, so no matter where your environment is hosted you can take advantage of our cost saving solutions. If you’re interested in adopting any of these 5 features, make sure to check out our Citrix Product Documentation for more. 

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Bill Sutton
Guest: Monica Griesemer 

Looking back on one year post-acquisition and transformation into Cloud Software Group, it’s clear Citrix has undergone significant changes and many people have had a lot of questions. However, we’ve now firmly established ourselves as a company that delivers mission-critical enterprise software at scale, and that has provided the opportunity for the Citrix business unit to refocus on what’s most important: delivering high-performing applications and desktops from any cloud or on-premises data center. Better prioritizing what works best for our customers started with listening to your feedback and using that to inform our product strategy, so we could deliver the solutions that will make the most impact on your IT environment. We are the industry leader in this technology – if you need a reminder, visit our comparison page to see how Citrix stacks up against VMware, as well as all the value we bring to Microsoft solutions. 

We started with recommitting to supporting hybrid work environments, flexible infrastructure and vendor choice, and long-term innovation in line with what you need. And we’ve already made progress toward our goals with new releases, more investment in the technologies you need, and more deployment flexibility, which is unmatched by our competitors. 
Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Bill Sutton
Co-host: Todd Smith

Businesses today are increasingly focusing on two core challenges when managing their IT infrastructure: cost efficiency and environmental sustainability. The integration of Citrix DaaS with Microsoft Azure presents a compelling solution to address both challenges concurrently. Here’s how leveraging Citrix DaaS and Azure’s hibernation features can lead to significant savings, better user experience, and a smaller carbon footprint.

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

Citrix is bringing new features to your apps and desktops quarter after quarter. And we are just getting started as we’re rounding out the second half of the year. These past few months have come with improved security features, enhanced user experience technologies, and streamlined management capabilities. 

We continue to bring more features and capabilities across cloud and on-premises environments and are truly making hybrid the destination. That’s why we are excited today that for on-premises organizations leveraging our Citrix Current Release, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2308 is now generally available! This release comes with enhanced reboot schedules, SQL server 2022 support, vertical load balancing improvements, and much more for on-premises. We have now also introduced a Trial Universal Subscription! You can find out all about the great benefits of Citrix Universal License here. 

With that said, it is important to note that this blog encapsulates the biggest updates from the last few months across both on-premises and DaaS. Citrix is innovating in four main categories, and we have sorted the new feature announcements into those four categories below:

• Operational and IT Efficiency
• Workload and Device Flexibility 
• Security and Compliance
• Employee Experience Technology

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

Citrix is bringing new features to your apps and desktops quarter after quarter. And we are just getting started as we’re rounding out the second half of the year. These past few months have come with improved security features, enhanced user experience technologies, and streamlined management capabilities. 

We continue to bring more features and capabilities across cloud and on-premises environments and are truly making hybrid the destination. That’s why we are excited today that for on-premises organizations leveraging our Citrix Current Release, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2308 is now generally available! This release comes with enhanced reboot schedules, SQL server 2022 support, vertical load balancing improvements, and much more for on-premises. We have now also introduced a Trial Universal Subscription! You can find out all about the great benefits of Citrix Universal License here. 

With that said, it is important to note that this blog encapsulates the biggest updates from the last few months across both on-premises and DaaS. Citrix is innovating in four main categories, and we have sorted the new feature announcements into those four categories below:

• Operational and IT Efficiency
• Workload and Device Flexibility 
• Security and Compliance
• Employee Experience Technology

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

Virtualization takes many shapes and sizes. For your business, it may make the most sense to host your applications in the cloud, so that you can expand as needed for seasonal workforces or contractors. You may need to host some applications on-premises for compliance reasons. It may make even more sense to utilize a hybrid model and host some applications in the cloud and some on-premises. However, hybrid environments can increase complexity and reduce efficiency for IT departments if not managed correctly, multiplying the number of deployments that need to be managed.

With Destination: Hybrid, Citrix makes managing hybrid deployments simple and efficient. Many of our latest feature developments have been aimed at increasing operational efficiency across hybrid, cloud, and on-premises deployments. IT Admins can work from any management location they choose with Citrix, for a fully customizable solution, with no obligation to move fully to the cloud. This shift is part of our Destination: Hybrid initiative to meet you where you are, on-premises, in the cloud, or a combination of both. 

All of the innovations you will read about below save admins time and effort when rolling out application and desktop workloads. VDA upgrade service, Web Studio for on-premises deployments, automatic agent upgrades, and Autoscale for on-premises deployments offer a wide variety of new tools that will make your environment more efficient than ever, with less effort from your IT team.

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