Part 1: Citrix DaaS on Amazon Workspaces Core - Setup Guidance and Gotchas

Part 1:  Citrix DaaS on Amazon Workspaces Core - Setup Guidance and Gotchas 

In part one of this three-part series, we'll discuss an overview of both Citrix DaaS and Amazon Workspaces Core as well as how they integrate to deliver highly optimized virtual desktops within AWS.  We’ll also discuss the potential use cases along with the requirements of setting up Citrix DaaS on Amazon Workspaces Core, offering both sage advice and insights to steer you through what can be a maze of deployment. 

For those of you who are not familiar with Citrix DaaS (Desktop As-A Service), it’s platform as a service that allows you to deliver Virtual apps and/or Virtual Desktops via Citrix’s proprietary HDX protocol.  
 
Citrix HDX is widely leveraged throughout every vertical from finance to healthcare and manufacturing because the HDX protocol delivers high-quality voice, video, multimedia, and 3D graphics applications over low bandwidth connectivity. 
 
With Citrix DaaS, you have the option to deploy workloads on-premises or within  public cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure , Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Amazon Web Services (AWS).  Also, many customers have hybrid environments where Citrix Virtual App/Desktop workloads are deployed both on-premises as well as in the public cloud of their choice.  
 
Amazon WorkSpaces Core is a set of VDI APIs for third-party software vendors such as Citrix and/or Workspot.  
 
When we couple Citrix DaaS with Amazon Workspaces Core, we reap all the benefits of HDX along with AWS’s purpose-built compute instances that are optimized for virtual desktops.

 
Potential use cases for integrating Citrix DaaS with Amazon Workspaces Core: 

• Providing remote users access to a highly optimized dedicated virtual desktop that resides within the AWS cloud
  
• Flexible billing options for various types of compute instances.  You have options to pay hourly or monthly
  
• Replacing your existing Amazon WorkSpaces based virtual desktops with a more mature protocol (HDX), allow for more granular contextual based access, and advanced monitoring capabilities. 
   

One thing to note is that at this time, you can only deploy dedicated desktops via the Citrix DaaS and Amazon Workspaces Core solution.  Non-persistent and multi-session workloads are currently not supported. These dedicated desktops are going to be based off a custom Windows 10/11 image that is deployed from a personal system via VirtualBox or an alternate method and then uploaded into Amazon S3 via the AWS CLI.  The reason we must create a custom Windows 10/11 image is because Amazon does not offer a Microsoft desktop OS via the AWS marketplace. 

Once the BYOL Windows 10/11 image is created and uploaded into an Amazon S3 Bucket via the AWS CLI, it needs to be brought into the EC2 environment as an AMI (Amazon Machine Image).   

Prerequisites for Deploying Citrix DaaS on Amazon Workspaces Core: 

• A valid Citrix Cloud Subscription 
• A valid AWS Account with appropriate permissions 
• AWS CLI installed on your system 

• A Resource Location for AWS setup with-in your Citrix Cloud subscription 
• AWS account connected to your Citrix Cloud Subscription via a Cloud Formation Template 
• BYOL enabled for the AWS account using the Amazon WorkSpaces console 
• A Directory Service created and registered within the AWS Account.  There are two options supported.   

• Leverage this option if you already have or plan to deploy your own Active Directory domain controllers within AWS.  This will likely be the most widely used option.   

• Leverage this option if this is a greenfield deployment with no Active Directory environment or if you wish for the Amazon WorkSpaces machine accounts to be created in an Active Directory Forest and Domain that is managed by AWS. 
• Pre-create public and private Subnets within your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in AWS.
• This is where the WorkSpaces that are deployed via Citrix DaaS will reside.

In this first part of our exploration into Citrix DaaS on Amazon Workspaces Core, we've delved into the foundational aspects, understanding what Citrix DaaS entails, its integration with Amazon Workspaces Core, and the fundamental requirements for its implementation.  

As we progress into the subsequent parts of this series, we'll dive deeper into the technical intricacies, deployment, and real-world challenges that you may face.

Read Part 2