What is Citrix?

Citrix

Citrix is an American corporation that produces software designed to facilitate secure access to applications and content. Citrix offers products for Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms. The company was founded in 1989 and currently has branches in several countries.

Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational software company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologies. It was founded in Richardson, Texas in 1989 by Ed Iacobucci, who served as chairman until his departure in 2000.

The company began by developing remote access products for Microsoft operating systems. It licensed source code from Microsoft and has been in partnership with the company throughout its history. Citrix came to prominence in the 1990s as a leader in thin client technology, purpose built for accessing remote servers. The company had its first initial public offering in 1995 and, with few competitors, experienced large revenue increases between 1995 and 1999.

The company acquired Sequoia Software Corp. in 2001 and ExpertCity, a provider of remote desktop products, in 2003. Between 2005 and 2012, Citrix acquired more than a dozen other companies, allowing it to expand into server and desktop virtualization, as well as cloud, Infrastructure as a Service, and SaaS offerings. In 2014, Citrix acquired Framehawk and used its technology to improve the delivery of virtual desktops and applications over wireless networks. In 2016, Citrix and LogMeIn announced a $1.8 billion product deal that would spin off Citrix's GoTo products into a new business entity, entitled GetGo, which would combine with LogMeIn's products.

Citrix is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Santa Clara, California, with subsidiary operations in California and Massachusetts, and additional development centers in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom. It currently services around 330,000 organizations worldwide. In 2014, the company was ranked 741 on the Fortune 1000. Citrix reported $3.28 billion in revenue and a net income of more than $300 million in 2015. In December 2015, Citrix employed approximately 9,500 people, but noted that its November restructure was due to eliminate nearly 700 full-time jobs.

 Citrix has multiple products and it's best known for  virtualisation of application and operating system . To achieve this there is need of at least one  server (Citrix server side software installed on a machine) and one or more client . Fro application virtualisation we need to install a different server and for desktop/server virtualisation we need to install a different software.

So in a nut shell you can assume citrix server/s is just an other software running on backend to achieve something specific in client server manner.

Citrix is an organization which is mainly dealing with the technology of Cloud and virtualization . Citrix does has wide range of products from Access Gateway to XenApp , XenDesktop, Xenserver and all .. Xen App is an application virtualization product . Xen Desktop is a Desktop virtualization product and XenServer is a Hypervisor. Using these products of Citrix, we can virtualize and make optimum utilization of hardware resources of the environment setup. Citrix is quite cost effective compared to VMware products

Citrix products include:

• Citrix Access Essentials
• Citrix Access Gateway
• Citrix Access Suite
• Citrix Application Gateway
• Citrix GoToAssist
• Citrix GoToMeeting
• Citrix GoToMyPC
• Citrix NetScaler
• Citrix Password Manager
• Citrix Presentation Server

 XenApp is application virtualization software produced by Citrix Systems that allows Windows applications to be accessed via individual devices from a shared server or cloud system. XenApp was first released in 2008, but earlier versions of the product were called WinFrame, MetaFrame, and Presentation Server.

XenApp is application virtualization software that delivers centrally-hosted Windows applications to local devices without the necessity of installing them.^[1] It is the flagship product for Citrix and was formerly known under the names WinFrame, MetaFrame, and Presentation Server.^[2]
XenApp software uses FlexCast Management Architecture (FMA), a proprietary architecture for Citrix virtualization products.^[2] It delivers individual applications, as opposed to entire desktops, to devices.^[3] It is also used with XenDesktop to deliver apps as part of a complete virtual desktop environment.^[4]
With XenApp, Windows applications can be used on devices that typically could not run them, including Macintosh computers, mobile devices, and Google Chromebooks.^[5][6] Conversely, it enables otherwise incompatible apps to run on Windows desktops.^[7]
XenApp is accessed on all devices via Citrix Receiver.^[5] The software can be delivered from on-premises data centers^[6] or public, private, or hybrid clouds