Citrix VDA for macOS - Remoting Mac for Enterprise with HDX
Many enterprises have a long time need for remote access to their Mac devices powered by a secure and comprehensive delivery platform such as Citrix DaaS/CVAD. Mac users will not accept any compromise regarding performance and graphics/audio fidelity degrading - this is exactly where Citrix HDX user experience technology comes into play given our over three decades experience in this domain We have architected the Citrix VDA for macOS with the following (not limited to) personas/use cases in mind:
- Developers, where all iOS, ipadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS development and test work is performed in a macOS environment with XCode and related tools.
- Designers, in multimedia and entertainment industry (Film, Audio, Game, 3D Simulation, etc…) where macOS-based applications are heavily used and well-loved by professionals
- Other knowledge and office workers in the financial vertical, educational institutions, medical industry.
From our initial architecture design of this solution and throughout Tech Preview, we have planned and implemented major features and capabilities to align with these user personas. In addition, customer and partner feedback was taken into consideration which has taken us to the GA functional scope below in four categories:
HDX Features:
- Graphics / Keyboard / Mouse
- Clipboard (Bidirectional)
- Audio (Bidirectional)
- Multiple client audio redirection support
- Common Gateway Protocol (CGP) / Session Reliability (SR) / Auto Client Reconnect (ACR)
- TCP / EDT (EDT is enabled by default)
- Secure user sessions using DTLS / TLS through NetScaler Gateway or Citrix Gateway Service (enabled by default)
- Adaptive Graphics / Selective H.264 (enabled by default)
- Adaptive Throughput (enabled by default)
- Multi-monitors (up to 4*4K in high bandwidth environment)
- High DPI
- V4 Reducer (network package compressing algorithm)
- MTU Discovery
- Dynamic Keyboard Layout Sync
- HDX Screen Sharing
- Webcam redirection
- USB redirection for mass storage and graphics tablet
- Advanced mouse keys support
- Support for Citrix Workspace app on all platforms
Management plane functionalities:
- Citrix Policies
- NDJ (Non-domain joined) VDA
- Rendezvous V2 (both TCP and EDT)
- DaaS management console integration
- CVAD Web Studio integration
- VDA Installer and VDA Configuration tool
- Proxy configuration through PAC files
- Session management improvement
- SSO (Single Sign-On) experience
Mac specific capability support:
- Apple Silicon native support and optimization
- macOS Fast User Switching support
- Trackpad experience
Supportability:
- Log on Performance and ICA RTT Data in DaaS Monitor
- Logging and Log Enhancement
- xdlcollect
- ctxsession
- vdaversion
- ctxoptimizer
- HDX Monitor Lite
- XDPing
- App Center Crash Report