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Is Citrix Workspace Environment Management a good product, but bad marketing, or?

In this article I would like to talk about a product from the portfolio of Citrix, namely WEM . About three and a half years ago, Citrix acquired a small software manufacturer called Norskale and their product Norskale VUEM. The announcement of this acquisition has been very well received by the Citrix community.Perhaps it was in response to the takeover of the then Norskale competitor that RES Software released a free version of its RES ONE Workspace product called RES ONE Workspace Core .

Over the past three years, under the brand name Citrix, the product has undergone quite small changes. I believe it is worth paying your attention to the fact that the name of the past manufacturer has not disappeared from all product consoles.

Of course, many readers will find my approach amateurish, not based on the official statistics of the manufacturer, but according to my personal estimates, based on communication with numerous colleagues, WEM is not very popular. Use of WEM is available to all holders of Advanced or Premium Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops licenses.

A few words about WEM architecture


I propose to start with a superficial review of the architecture and the stated purpose of this product. Citrix offers three usage scenarios:

Performance Optimization - this scenario offers the efficient use of system resources (CPU, Memory, I / O) based on an assessment of their performance in real time and subsequent instant change of their configuration. Possible resource savings of up to 70%.

Profile Management Setting - this scenario involves transferring the settings of various elements of the user environment from the GPO to WEM, such as, for example, network printers, folders, Login scripts. WEM offers graphical customization for Citrix User Profile Management. This scenario assumes a significant reduction in Login Time.
Security - This scenario appeared in later versions and is based on two key components:

  • Process Management - this functionality has moved from the Performance Optimization section and represents a ban or permission to start individual processes based on the Black / White List.
  • Application Security offers wider access (enable / disable) access to individual programs, scripts and DLLs for single users and groups. Application Security is similar to Microsoft AppLocker and even allows you to export the rules created there.

Transformer - Norskale positioned this product as an independent solution to turn Windows PC into ThinClient (convert any pc into a thin client). If you, like me, think that we are talking about some kind of Embedded Linux, then you are mistaken. Transformer is just an opportunity to hide Windows Shell for the so-called Kiosk Mode. Transformer is in direct competition with Citrix's own “Desktop Lock” product.

In my opinion, a decent set of options for a shareware product.

As for the architecture, everything seems very simple and logical: Broker, Agent, License Server, Management Console.

  • Broker (Infrastructure Service) – WEM , : , , AD.
  • Database – .
  • Agent – WEM. ( VDA), .
  • Admin Console – .

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- In my humble opinion, there are several similar reasons. The first of these, the initial inadequacy of WEM for a large infrastructure with many thousands or tens of thousands of users. For example, one Broker can serve no more than 3,000 agents at a time. Perhaps someone will object to my statement that with the help of external Load Balancing it is possible to combine several WEM Brokers into one infrastructure.

- The second reason, again in my humble opinion, lies in usability, or in its absence. As stated above, Broker is a key component, but after installing it, two consoles are independent from each other. The purpose of one of them (WEM Database Management Utility) is to create a database when it comes to installing from scratch, or to upgrade it when switching to a new version. The second console (WEM Infrastructure Service Configuration) is designed for infrastructure configuration. What prevented Citrix developers from merging the two consoles into one (for example, the Config Wizard in PVS) or transferring the settings to the management console (like the Wizard in the CVAD console)?

The management console itself is no less illogical and absolutely not intuitive. The method of "scientific poke" does not master it. To make it easier to remember what was happening, I divided Ribbons for myself according to the usage scenario: Optimization, General Settings and User Profile (UEM).

- Script User Environment Management. It is possible that WEM is somewhat outdated, as more and more products no longer require installation, but are provided to users as a web console. The need to group programs in the start menu was convenient in Windows XP and Windows 7. Connecting multiple network drives replaces a single SharePoint or ShareFile page. How urgent is the need for a huge number of network printers connected through a Windows GPO in 2020? And how important is it for a user to really log in in less than 20 seconds? Although I have no doubt that there are such.

- Scenario Resource Optimization. In my opinion, this functionality is the most interesting and attractive part of WEM, which has not lost its relevance to this day. The main problem lies in the positioning of this functionality. The promise of server scalability of up to 70% sounds too good for many clients to be true. From my own experience, I can say that WEM really effectively manages CPU resources and does this by changing the priority of processes in user sessions, so that the whole system remains operational even when the processor is fully loaded. WEM also quite effectively frees the memory occupied by the application in idle state (from RAM to pagefile).

In my experience, everything works correctly and reliably. But to convince the client that he can acquire less iron (by 70%) is extremely difficult. Most clients do not want to blindly trust and rely on only one program, but prefer to act according to reliable and proven schemes when calculating the necessary iron.

Possible Marketing Mistake


In their presentations, employees of Citrix or partner companies made a bet that WEM should be of interest to all licensed customers. WEM is always offered as a complete solution, involving the simultaneous use of all scenarios. In my deep conviction, this is precisely where the error lies.

How to captivate customers to use WEM?


Why not suggest using WEM not for the whole infrastructure, but for those Silos where performance problems already exist? Sometimes it makes no sense to try to improve everything at the same time, if you can solve a local problem.

Performance Optimization - the implementation of this functionality does not require special expenses, but can give a quick and visible result. Only one option Fast Logoff can easily demonstrate the usefulness of the product.

In conclusion, I can only say that WEM can reduce the load on the infrastructure and positively affect the User Experience, only you need to introduce the product not everywhere, but where it is really needed.

I am always glad to have constructive comments and a description of your experience with the product.

PS

Suggestion to colleagues from Citrix (Feature Request): If you combine the WEM agent and VDA in one product, then one of the WEM components will be automatically installed on all VDAs, which may be the first step to mass use of the product.

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