XenApp XenDesktop XenServer

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/293493-xenapp-vs-xendesktop-vs-xenserver

They are extremely different, in fact.

XenApp is the old Citrix Presentation server. The product on which RDP is based. It isn't virtualization at all, just traditional remote access.

XenServer is derived from Xen, real virtualization. So equivalent to Xen, ESXi or HyperV.

The two aren't related in any way. The use of "Xen" in the name is purely a marketing move.

XenDesktop is a VDI solution. It is related to virtualization but it itself doesn't do virtualization.

 

http://discussions.citrix.com/topic/302801-embarrassingly-simple-question-what-is-xenapp-xenserver-xendesktop-xenclient/

I hate the fact that most vendor websites contain marketing crap that we have to sift through for hours to find out what the product actually does. Why can't they just say it straight?

XenApp is the new name for Presentation Server. This is, as you know, for shared hosted desktops or hosted applications. XenApp 6.5 is the latest version which also offers application streaming.

XenServer is a server hypervisor which allows you to separate the operating system and hardware so that you can virtualise the OS and host multiple servers or virtual desktops on one piece of hardware.

XenDesktop is a desktop broker which manages and brokers connections to desktops operating systems. These can be physical PC, virtual desktops, or physical hosted desktops such as data centre blade PCs. XenDesktop 5 and above also includes Machine Creation Services which will allow you to host multiple virtual desktops off of one virtual machine image, giving great savings in disk space, memory, and CPU; and also allowing you to centrally manage one or few OS images.

XenClient is a client hypervisor that lets users run virtual machine(s) on a client hardware platform such as a laptop. It can be use in conjunction with XenDesktop to take virtual machines offline, and then resync them to the network when back online.

Lastly, Citrix has a product call Provisioning Services that can stream server or desktop operating systems down to any endpoint device (physical or virtual). This can be used with XenDesktop in a similar way to Machine Creation Services to manage one virtual desktop image or it can be used for any type or server OS. It is especially nice for XenApp servers to stop configuration drift and limit the admin overhead required to update XenApp servers with new applications and patches.

If you buy XenDesktop Platinum you get everything I've mentioned included in the license.

 

 

http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/products-solutions/better-virtualization-of-xenapp-and-xendesktop-with-xenserver.pdf