Can Terminal Services 2008 Replace Citrix, in the Terminal Services forum on BrianMadden.com

Just wondering what everyones thoughts were with Terminal Services 2008 replacing Citrix. I currently have a small farm of about 34 Citrix servers in which we publish both applications and desktops. I was doing some searching online and through the fourms but I couldn't locate anyone speaking directly to the topic. Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks

If you look at the features Citrix brings to the table, it's still going to be a while (in my humble opinion) before TS alone provides the same things. When you look at WI/CSG, CAG, the ease and flexibilty of load balancing, not to mention that the ICA protocol is still MUCH thinner than RDP, and is available for just about every platform out there, I still say there's no contest.

OK.... I've put that out there... let the games and/or flames begin! :)

I totally understand... but from my viewpoint were not using those features... well we are using the Web Interface and Load Balancing, but none of the other citrix features like Install Manager, Resource Manager, Secure Gateway, etc. We literally publish and desktop and applications, print, and access it from the web interface.

Also I was reading that Microsoft put in a new load balancer on 2008 so you don't have to deal with alot of the pain you would have to in the past... I mean it will still be interesting to see how much you do have to deal with... I just created a new load balancer and implemented it yesterday in all of 5 minutes.... Don't know if MS can compare with that.

It would be interesting to see how TS 2008 Matches up with the Speedscreen technologies in citrix though.

From what I recall, I don't think the MS LB can be dropped across apps, it was strictly server-based (but I could be wrong... if I am, please correct me!)

ehhhhhhh this is what I could get


Terminal Services Session Broker: TS Session Broker, a new feature in Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate, provides a simpler alternative than Microsoft Network Load Balancing for Terminal Services. While not limited to a specific number of servers, the feature provides significant value to farms of two to five servers. With TS Session Broker, new sessions are distributed to the least-loaded server within the farm—optimizing performance—and users can reconnect to an existing session without having to know specific information about the server where the session was established. IT managers can use the feature to map the Internet Protocol (IP) address of each terminal server to a single Domain Name System (DNS) entry. This configuration can also provide fault tolerance; if one of the farm servers is unavailable, the user will connect to the next least-loaded server in the farm.

More indepth on it makes it sound like it can only balance based upon session load... Man that is terrible
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/902a6081-9ecd-45ec-96ee-f51097d71c8c1033.mspx?mfr=true

I see two camps of people using 2008 TS w/o a 3rd party management suite:

1. Those that have never used one.

2. Those that want to get rid of Citrix.

People that have used and are good at managing their current environments are likely not going to rip and replace for something with significantly less features.

No centralized management console

TSweb shows all apps to all users

No client to server content redirection

No concept of server silos, i.e. Session Broker assumes all apps exist on all servers.

No Java or Linux client

Seamless Clients only for XPSP3 & Vista SP1

EasyPrint only for XPSP3 & Vista SP1

The list goes on.... nice foundation, but not enough to replace Citrix.

I wonder why they threw out this 2-5 server number, other than to please Citrix.

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's terrible, as 10 months ago they had no session load balancing capability whatsoever. Most people load balance with session count anyway.

I'd love to put together a list of things that Citrix can do compared to TS 2008 and post it... Any ideas on where to start besides googling all the features of TS 2008. Sounds like what you've posted here is a great start.

I'd be very surprised if such a list didn't exist already on the Citrix site, although they'd have to be careful how they phrase certain thingsm to keep the MS hounds at bay.

I have an Excel spreadsheet that shows the differences between 2003 TS, 2008 TS, CPS Enterprise and Provision Networks VAS Enterprise. Is there a way to post an Excel or PDF File here?

I don't see a way to post a file either.... I'd love to see the sheet anyways. Can you email it to me?

Here's the URL:

http://www.sessioncomputing.com/xls/TS_Vs_PS_VAS_Rev1_Unofficial.xls

If anyone has more features of any product listed, corrections or clarifications, please let me know and I'll update the file.

This is a great thread.. I've been working on an article about this for awhile which I'll release next month to coincide with the Server 2008 release. The short preview: I agree with Patrick. I don't see 2008 really eating into Citrix's business too much, although if I were a pure-TS customer I'd like the changes.

That seems to be the general concensus with anyone I've spoken with. If you're in bed with Citrix already, you've got nothing to worry about. If you're pure TS, it's welcome news. No reason to ditch Citrix because of it, that's for sure.