RDS Licenses for Citrix- Guidance

Question

My customer would not be using Terminal Server or Remote Desktop Services running a Windows server. Instead they would be using Citrix to broker sessions to a Windows virtual workstation hosted on VMware running Citrix’s VDA software “RemotePC”.

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/install-configure/remote-pc-access.html

They want to be certain on RDS CAL requirements for this scenario. According to this article they think it's not needed.

https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/q-because-im-using-citrix-solution-do-i-need-remote-desktop-services-client-access

Any guidance will help here or any documentation that we can refer our customer too.

Answer 1

Hello @Saurabh Vijay

In this case RDS CALs are not needed because you will be using a 3rd Party solution to create both virtual desktops as well remote sessions to those virtual environment.

This is completely normal, as with you Windows Server licensing you have included the usage of the features and platform functionalities from Windows, which are the base for the 3rd Party services.

What you would need is to consult with those software manufacturers, in order to verify what kind of licensing is needed to run their products and environments.

Hope this helps with your query,

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