VDI-in-a-Box is a single virtual appliance that provides all of the functionality needed to create, provision, manage, and load balance virtual desktops. VDI-in-a-Box has a built-in connection broker, load balancer, user manager, and desktop provisioning server. It does not require separate shared storage, high-speed interconnects, or multiple management servers. The appliance runs on commodity servers running a hypervisor such as Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, or VMware ESXi.

Windows desktop administrators manage a grid of VDI-in-a-Box servers centrally, using an intuitive wizard-driven interface that abstracts virtualization details, eliminating the need for storage specialists, network administrators or virtualization experts.

Citrix Receiver provides VDI-in-a-Box desktop users with secure connections to a high-definition user experience. Powered by Citrix HDX technologies, VDI-in-a-Box provides a superior user experience with Flash multimedia and applications, 3D graphics, webcams, audio, and branch office delivery. Although the desktops run on remote servers, the user experience is equivalent to that of a local Windows desktop. From the user’s perspective, logging on to a virtual desktop is the same as logging on to a local desktop.