Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.x is the leading app and desktop virtualization platform that delivers a high-definition user experience on any device and a cloud service from Citrix Cloud. With Citrix XenApp 6.5 nearing End of Life (EOL) on 30th June-2018, many Citrix customers are planning to upgrade to XenApp and XenDesktop 7.x.

To understand this market trend a survey was conducted across 795 Citrix professionals during November 2017 and February 2018 around the world by a Citrix Ready partner. The results of this survey conducted have been compiled into an industry insight report, which will be helpful for any Citrix professional considering upgrading to XenApp and XenDesktop 7.x.

The survey was designed to find out about organizations’ migration plans, challenges, and performance expectations, as they plan their upgrade path. Analysis of the survey results helped shed light on when Citrix customers are planning to complete their migration, the factors driving the migration, adoption of Citrix Cloud, and many other interesting trends.

Here is a preview of some of the key findings:

2018 will be the year of Citrix migration. 70% of organizations are expected to complete the migration to XenApp and XenDesktop 7.x by the end of the year as older versions are nearing EOL.

The Long-term Service Release (LTSR), with 5 years of mainstream support, as well as support for Windows 10 are other important factors driving customers’ migration plans to 7.x.

45% are considering Citrix Cloud in the near future, and only 5% of respondents are already using Citrix Cloud.

90% of XenDesktop deployments are on version 7.x.

93% are running XenApp.

40% are running only XenApp and 7% are running only XenDesktop where as 53% are running both XenApp and XenDestop.

66% of respondents are running XenApp 7.x, and 65% are running 6.x.

18% of respondents are still running very old versions of XenApp.

There is a significant overlap between organizations using 7.x and 6.x. This indicates that organizations have deployed newer workloads on 7.x and they have continued on 6.x for the older applications and workloads.

Organizations are using multiple tools for monitoring their Citrix infrastructures. 91% agreed that having a single-pane-of-glass monitoring solution would simplify troubleshooting.

At 59%, slow logon continues to be the most common complaint faced by Citrix administrators. Measuring logon slowness is rated the most important aspect of Citrix user experience.

In large organizations (5,000+ employees), usage of 6.x, 5.x, and 4.x is comparatively higher.

The actual migration process does not seem to be a big concern for Citrix professionals. Only 19% of professionals have some reservations and fears about the steps involved during migration. This mainly applies to those migrating from 6.x to 7.x and about the pre-migration and post-migration phases.

The latest version of XA/XD 7.17 is only supported on Windows Server 2016 and 2012 R2.

75% respondents are considering using VMware vSphere hypervisor for XenApp and XenDesktop 7.x deployments.

Majority of respondents (67%) are using Citrix Director for performance monitoring. 28% are still using EdgeSight, which reaches EOL on June 30, 2018.

83% large organizations are using up to 10 tools for Citrix performance monitoring.

37% are not able to pinpoint infrastructure issues affecting Citrix performance. Most of the Citrix admins want to prove it is not Citrix that is causing a problem!

Performance monitoring for Citrix administration teams has become increasingly reactive and admins are constantly in a firefighting mode. 86% of respondents feel faster problem diagnosis and troubleshooting is their most critical need.

25% of Information Technology, 15% of Health Care and 10% of Financial Services industries use Citrix products