Receiver Selection

Receiver Selection

Citrix Receiver is an easy-to-install software client that provides access to applications, desktops and data easily and securely from any device, including smartphones, tablets, PCs and Macs.

The following section provides a series of design decisions that should be considered when deploying Citrix Receiver.

Decision: Receiver Type

While most organizations should simply deploy the latest Citrix Receiver compatible with their endpoint, it is important to recognize that there are certain differences between editions. The following table should be referenced to determine the most appropriate edition of Citrix Receiver for each user group. For the latest feature matrix, please refer to CTX104182 – Receiver - Client Feature

Matrix.

Decision: Initial Deployment

There are several deployment options available for delivering Citrix Receiver to an endpoint. Although it is usually a best practice to have a full version of Citrix Receiver deployed to an endpoint to provide the greatest level of functionality, it is important to consider fallback options such as the Java Client and the HTML5 Receiver for those situations where an installation of Citrix Receiver is simply not possible.

Experience from the Field

Furniture distributor – A furniture distributor maintains a configurator application for various furniture options. The configurator application is accessed via a limited functionality kiosk that is deployed at various furniture outlets, including small, independent retailers with little to no IT staff present. The kiosks are completely locked down in many situations, to the point where even the running of Java applications is limited. The kiosks do feature a modern browser (Google Chrome), and therefore, are able to utilize the HTML5 Receiver in order to provide access to the configurator application.

County government – A government IT organization provides services to all agencies operating in the county. A mixture of full desktops are applications are deployed to both Windows based desktops and iPads. Since the desktops are joined to the Active Directory domain, GPOs are utilized to deploy and configure Citrix Receiver. Mobile users accessing the Citrix environment via an iPad install and configure Receiver from the App Store. To allow for seamless provisioning, e-mail based discovery was configured. This allows users to configure Receiver for both internal and external access through NetScaler Gateway by entering in their e-mail address.

The following mechanisms are commonly used to deploy and update Citrix Receiver:

• StoreFront – If Citrix StoreFront is available, administrators can deploy Citrix Receiver via a Receiver for Web site. When deployed, a Receiver for Web site enables users to access StoreFront stores through a web page. If the Receiver for Web site detects that a user does not have a compatible version of  Citrix Receiver, the user is prompted to download and install Citrix Receiver.

• Internal download site – Users may be prevented from downloading software from the Internet, even if they have permission to install applications. Administrators can create an internal website for supported Citrix Receivers. Templates for such a site are available from the Citrix Downloads site. When a user accesses a deployed site, it will detect the operating system on the user’s device and guide the user to a local Citrix Receiver install suitable for their device.

• Windows store – The Citrix Receiver for Windows 8/RT is available from the Windows 8 store. This Receiver is available for ARM or Intel based Windows 8/RT devices only. It supports native Windows 8 style and gestures.

• Mobile device – Many mobile devices have unique methods of deploying applications. It simply may not be possible to deploy Citrix Receiver via traditional methods, therefore the following options are most likely to be selected for mobile devices:

Markets and stores – The latest supported Citrix Receiver is available for Android and iOS on the deployment portal of choice for these platforms. For Android devices version 2.2 and higher, this will be the Android Play platform. For iOS devices, this will be the Apple Store. Other mobile deployment methods – Many mobile platforms offer proprietary methods of deploying software. For example, it is possible to utilize BlackBerry Enterprise Server to deploy the BlackBerry Citrix Receiver 2.2 to supported devices.

• Master image – Most organizations support a limited number of master desktop images, which are deployed to each business owned desktop, laptop, server, or virtual desktop. A common mechanism to ensure access to virtual desktops and applications is to include a supported version of Citrix Receiver in the master image. Subsequent updates to Citrix Receiver are handled either by utilizing the Citrix Receiver updater plug-in and Merchandising Server, enterprise software deployment tools, or manually.

• Enterprise software deployment – Many organizations employ an enterprise software deployment (ESD) tool. ESD tools can be used to deploy Citrix Receiver to managed endpoints. ESD tools cannot be used to deploy Citrix Receiver to unmanaged endpoints, such as employee owned or partner devices.

• Group policy – Deploy and configure Citrix Receiver via Microsoft Group Policy. Sample start-up scripts that deploy and remove Citrix Receiver and Receiver Enterprise are available on Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop media: Citrix Receiver and Plugins\Windows\Receiver\Startup_Logon_

Scripts

• Manual install – All supported versions of Citrix Receiver are available from the Citrix Receiver Download site. Upon landing on this site, client detection is performed and a platform and operating system specific link is provided to allow users to download an appropriate edition of Citrix Receiver. It is important to note that no configuration will be accomplished via this download, so email based discovery will need to be performed. This option is likely to be utilized in a BYOD environment.

• Merchandising Server – Citrix Merchandising Server can be used to deploy Citrix Receiver. In addition, Merchandising Server can be configured to update Citrix Receiver and all supported plug-ins, or a sub-set depending on the needs of an organization. To achieve this, Merchandising Server periodically communicates with the Citrix update service, which maintains a list of components and their updates. Merchandising Server is not recommended as a long-term solution because it will reach

end of maintenance in August 2014 and end of life in August 2015. For more information, please refer to the Citrix support article – Lifestyle Milestones for Citrix XenDesktop.

Selecting the appropriate deployment method is based on the type of Citrix Receiver selected. The table on the next page should be referenced to help identify the appropriate deployment options for

Citrix Receiver.