Citrix is complicated. There is a lot going on with all its moving parts. The title is a bit of a misnomer. You truly can’t explain it fully to a 6 year old, but you can give it a well-deserved introduction!

Citrix at 50,000 feet – For Adults

For those who can remember the days of the dumb terminal (is it even PC to use that terminology now?), your computer is a terminal to a remote desktop(s) that runs all the necessary software for you do your job. The good news is if your terminal dies or malfunctions, you can be up and running very quickly.

In most setups it is like this:

1. You login to your computer and / or Citrix Session.
2. One or more delivery controllers decide which is the best server in the pool of Citrix Application Servers you should connect to to load your apps.
3. You connect to the prescribed server and start running your applications.

It looks quite seamless, like it is running locally on your machine, but it is not. There can be interoperability between your local machine and your Citrix session (sometimes it is required) To keep things simple, most administrators tell users to run everything in the session. It makes for more efficient trouble shooting and support.

One very attractive feature is you can login to another device and poof, all your programs are there! If you must run a meeting and all your prep work was done at your desk, it is quite helpful that all you must do is login to the boardroom computer and you are ready to go!

Citrix at 50,000 feet – For Kids

Imagine you would like to watch your favorite streaming show. To get to those shows, you would need to get permission from at least one of you parents (delivery controllers), who would then let you watch it on a TV in the living room (Application Server). You get bored watching it in the living room, so you go to your bedroom and start watching your favorite show on your tablet(Session Transition). You pick up right where you left off in from the living room.

Isn’t Citrix Fun!

That is in a nutshell what it takes to operate with Citrix. Apart from having a strong password as well using MFA to make your environment even more secure, using Citrix is an ideal solution for large enterprises. If a six year can understand how Citrix works, imagine what they will be like when they join the work force!

You can use whatever explanation that makes it easier for you to understand. So next time you are working with Citrix you can say “hey… I know how this stuff works! And all it took was a 6 year to explain it to me…. LOL

As always for Quick IT Tips, please reach out to me either through this site, or by one of my other channels.

Happy IT’ing

Dan

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Dan

I am an IT professional with over twenty years experience in the field. I have supported thousands of users over the years. The organizations I have worked for range in size from one person to hundreds of people. I have performed support from Help Desk, Network / Cloud Administration, Network Support, Application Support, Implementation and Security.