Indicative results from Mycelium 365 Citrix to Azure Virtual Desktop migrations for 20–150 seat Australian environments.
Versus continuing Citrix Universal subscription plus on-premises hosts, CALs and refresh cycles
Assessment through cutover and Citrix decommissioning; 8 weeks typical at 50 users
FSLogix on Azure Files Premium, down from 40–70 seconds on ageing Citrix hosts
Availability-set or zone-redundant host pools with autoscale schedules
Indicative ranges based on delivered projects. Actual figures depend on session profile, reserved instance commitments and Microsoft 365 licensing.
Every migration starts with a baseline capture on the existing Citrix farm so the business case is measured, not asserted. We record the same metrics 30 days after cutover and hand the comparison to your leadership team as part of the project close-out report.
| Metric | Typical Citrix baseline | Post-AVD target | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average logon duration | 40–70 seconds | Under 20 seconds | Azure Monitor / Log Analytics connection logs |
| Desktop-related helpdesk tickets | 100% baseline | 40–60% reduction by month three | Ticket categories in the managed service desk |
| Unplanned downtime during cutover | n/a | Zero — Citrix retained as fallback | Wave sign-off records and incident log |
| Compute cost per user per month | $180–220 AUD (licence + infra) | $95–130 AUD (autoscaled) | Azure Cost Management, 30-day post-cutover run rate |
| Essential Eight maturity | Typically Level 1, partial | Level 2 across patching, MFA and admin privilege | Intune compliance, Defender exposure score, Entra ID reporting |
| Out-of-hours compute spend | Fixed — hosts run 24/7 | 50–65% lower via autoscale | AVD scaling plan telemetry |
1. Undiscovered applications. The application list the business believes it runs is rarely the list actually published. We pull the real inventory from Citrix Studio and Director usage data over a 30-day window, so low-frequency but business-critical apps — the quarterly reporting tool, the one payroll add-in — surface during assessment rather than on cutover weekend.
2. Profile bloat. Citrix UPM profiles that have grown to 8–15 GB per user will not translate cleanly into FSLogix containers without a sizing and cleanup pass. We measure profile size distribution up front, redirect known-bloat folders to OneDrive, and size Azure Files Premium shares against measured IOPS rather than a rule of thumb.
3. Printing. Print is the single most common cause of post-cutover tickets in virtual desktop projects. Every print queue is mapped during assessment and validated in the pilot wave, using Universal Print or a cloud print connector rather than carrying legacy print servers into Azure.
4. Policy translation gaps. Citrix policies, GPOs and NetScaler access rules need a deliberate mapping to Intune configuration profiles and Entra ID Conditional Access. We produce a line-by-line translation matrix so nothing silently loosens your security posture during the move.
5. Licence overlap. Organisations frequently pay for Citrix months after users have stopped using it. We schedule decommissioning against your Citrix renewal date and give written notice guidance, so the saving lands in the financial year the business case promised.
Citrix's licensing changes since the Cloud Software Group acquisition have pushed per-user subscription costs sharply higher, and several legacy XenApp and XenDesktop SKUs are now on end-of-life or end-of-sale timelines — forcing organisations to revisit their virtual desktop strategy. Azure Virtual Desktop has emerged as the natural successor: it is Microsoft-native, integrates directly with Microsoft 365, Teams media optimisation, Intune and Entra ID, and uses consumption-based billing that scales down outside business hours. For simpler single-user workloads, Windows 365 Cloud PC offers a fixed per-user alternative on the same Azure platform. Australian data residency is preserved through Azure Australia East and South East regions, and the cloud-native architecture maps cleanly to ACSC Essential Eight controls — patching, application control, MFA and admin privilege restriction — without bolting on third-party tooling.
The two platforms solve the same problem but with very different commercial and operational models.
| Area | Citrix | Azure Virtual Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing model | Per-user Universal subscription, annual commitment | Consumption-based Azure compute; Windows licence included with eligible M365 plans |
| Infrastructure | On-premises or self-managed Citrix Delivery Controllers, StoreFront, NetScaler | Fully Microsoft-managed control plane; you only run the session hosts |
| Microsoft 365 integration | Requires HDX optimisation pack and Citrix add-ons for Teams | Native Teams media optimisation, OneDrive, FSLogix profiles, Entra ID SSO |
| Support model | Citrix vendor support plus partner; multiple escalation paths | Single Microsoft support plane; Mycelium 365 as managed partner |
| Indicative AUD cost (20 users) | ~$48k+ p.a. licensing + infra | ~$22–28k p.a. compute (autoscaled) |
| Indicative AUD cost (50 users) | ~$110k+ p.a. licensing + infra | ~$55–70k p.a. compute (autoscaled) |
| Indicative AUD cost (100 users) | ~$210k+ p.a. licensing + infra | ~$100–130k p.a. compute (autoscaled) |
Indicative ranges only — actual cost depends on session profile, reserved instance commitments and Microsoft 365 licensing.
Every Mycelium 365 Citrix-to-AVD migration follows the same proven phases. We start with an assessment — a full application inventory, user profile analysis (Citrix UPM / Profile Management sizing), Citrix policy review and dependency mapping for any HDX-optimised workloads. From there we move to AVD environment build: host pools sized to your session profile, FSLogix profile containers on Azure Files or NetApp Files, image management via Azure Compute Gallery, Entra ID join, Intune compliance, and networking aligned to your existing ExpressRoute or VPN.
A pilot migration moves a small representative user group across — typically 10–15% of the user base — so we can validate logon times, application behaviour, printing and Teams media performance on real workloads. Application testing covers every business-critical app, with MSIX app attach or App-V re-packaging where required.
Once sign-off is achieved, the full cutover runs in waves with Citrix kept live as a fallback. Finally, we handle decommissioning of the Citrix Delivery Controllers, StoreFront, NetScalers and any on-premises session hosts — including licence cancellation guidance so you stop paying for what you no longer use.
Most Australian Citrix-to-AVD migrations complete in 6 to 12 weeks end-to-end. A straightforward 50-user environment with a clean application set and standard FSLogix profiles typically lands inside 8 weeks, including assessment, pilot, cutover and Citrix decommissioning.
Timeline is driven by application count and complexity, the volume of custom Citrix policies that need translating to Intune and Entra ID Conditional Access, the mix of BYOD versus corporate-managed devices, and whether the source environment includes published applications, full desktops or both.
Mycelium 365 includes a 30-day hypercare period after cutover — daily check-ins, priority ticket handling, performance tuning of host pools and autoscaling, and end-user enablement sessions — before the environment transitions into ongoing managed services.
A structured four-phase approach to move from Citrix to Azure Virtual Desktop.
We audit your Citrix environment — apps, user profiles, policies, and infrastructure — to plan a like-for-like or improved AVD deployment.
Architect your Azure Virtual Desktop environment including host pools, session types, networking, FSLogix profiles, and image management.
Migrate users, apps, and profiles in phased waves with parallel running to ensure zero disruption to daily operations.
Complete cutover, decommission Citrix, and fine-tune performance, cost, and security for ongoing operations.
Every layer of your Citrix environment, re-architected for Azure Virtual Desktop.
Published desktops and applications mapped from Citrix to AVD host pools — single-session and multi-session configurations.
Citrix UPM or Profile Management migrated to FSLogix containers on Azure Files or Azure NetApp Files.
Citrix policies translated to Azure Conditional Access, Intune compliance, and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
On-premises Citrix infrastructure replaced with Azure-native networking, ExpressRoute or VPN connectivity, and autoscaling.
