CITRIX SYSTEMS
Citrix Systems Incis based in Florida in the US. The company was founded by Ed Lacobucci in 1989. The company operates in many countries around the world providing services like desktop virtualization and servers, cloud computing, SaaS (Software as a Service) and networking technologies for greater than 200,000 business organizations in different countries.
The various technologies that Citrix System has put in to place to provide services to their customers are as follows; Citrix’s cloud computing platform (Citrix Cloud Center (C3)),Citrix Delivery Center and families of various Online Citrix Services. These products and platforms by Citrix are aimed at simplifying the computing for the users and organizations that use Citrix solutions, they also enable the delivering of applications like an on-demand service that is available to any user from any location with any device.
Citrix Technologies
Citrix Deliver Center
The basic Citrix Technology, Citrix Delivery Center, is mainly composed of the Netscaler, XenApp, XenDesktop and XenServer. Citrix Delivery Center is mainly used for the purpose of virtualization of servers, applications and desktops. The technology also enables the centralization of the servers, applications and desktops in to one datacenter and then broadcasts all of them as one on-demand service.
Citrix Receiver
Citrix Receiver is the very foremost universal client for Information Technology delivery of services. The Citrix receiver can be installed in a computer (pc or Mac) or even an iPhone. This enables desktops and applications to be delivered like an on demand services platform and people need not manage, have ownership to or mind the location of the physical device. The receiver is mainly created on an ICA (Independent Computing Architecture) which is a proprietary protocol designed by Citrix for application server systems. The Independent Computing Architecture points out the requirements for transfer of data between the client and server computers. The ICA is not restricted to any platform.
Citrix XenApp
Citrix XenApp(which was previously known as Citrix Presentation Server and Citrix MetaFrame Server), is a platform and product that enables application delivery and virtualization which is meant to allow the users to be remotely connected to their corporate applications. Citrix’s XenApp can be used to host the required applications on the organization’s central servers which will enable the users to interact with the applications remotely or even deliver them for local execution. From the year 2007, Citrix XenApp has used various technologies to virtualized and stream applications to enable the delivery of these applications to users’ devices as an on demand service.
Citrix XenClient
With the development of Citrix XenClient many business organizations can be able to reproduce the gains of Desktop Virtualization to notebooks and laptop users. The XenClient provides the laptop users with very great level of flexibilities, control and overall security. It also acts as a hypervisor on the client side that is tailored to make desktop Virtualizations runs on the client side devices directly.
Citrix XenServer
Server Virtualization is one of the most beneficial technologies. It allows several virtual machines to be run and coordinated from one physical server. Citrix has implemented this technology by using their state of the art Citrix XenServer. The XenServer is a full and well coordinated platform for server virtualization that was created from the XenHypervisor. The XenServer has been designed to provide very fast and secure management solutions for server virtualization.
Alternatives to Citrix System
While Citrix Presentation Server is a an international corporation that offers products that enables easier, fast and safer access to applications, there are other international products that have simple and complex advanced services. These corporations include Hob link Terminal Servers and Microsoft Terminal Server among many others.
Hob Link Enhanced Terminal Servers
Hob Link Enhanced Terminal Servers is a product that is java based and platform independent product with compatibility features of accessing applications such as the Microsoft windows terminal servers. They are user friendly and are very compatible with operating systems and peripheral devices manufactured by different vendors.
The product contains java based client features that enables secure communication with the server systems. Hob link Enhanced Terminal server has got some advantages such as support of multiple clients, Advanced or Enhanced Local Drive Mapping Properties, support of desktop applications and enabling the connection of the client the host systems. Enhanced Local drive feature promotes the security on the local drive mapping by giving specification on how to determine the directories or folders on the disk that are hidden, read or writable only. This product also enhances usage of java features in administering management of users. It is also found at affordable costs in the market with java technology that provides secure combination with windows terminal servers.
Even though the Hob link Enhanced Terminal Server is platform independent, the corporation produces complicated products that gives users difficult time in choosing the right desired product and is also vulnerable to crashing.
Microsoft Terminal Server
Another international server based corporation that offers similar functions like the Citrix presentation server is the Microsoft terminal server. This Microsoft terminal server is a platform that allows access to remote servers and applications on the internet by the users. This server only runs on windows based operating system such as the Windows server 2003 and windows 2000 server supports workstation running on other operating systems such as the Linux machines, mobile devices among others.
Unlike the Citrix Presentation Server, Microsoft Terminal Server restricts users to connecting to the virtual desktop but rather allows implementation or execution of user’s applications on the server. moreover, it totally different with the Citrix presentation Server in that it does not have application publishing feature instead it connects the user to the server by entering the user’s name.
Despite being limited in some features, it supports multiple numbers of users to access the server simultaneously. Microsoft Terminal server has got some advantages including easy upgrading and installation procedures. The product has got affordable costs and is mainly implemented in smaller environments by use of Published desktop. However the product has several drawbacks such as lack of a number of important features that are compatible with operating systems like windows 2008. The terminal server also incompatible with other application software limiting the satisfaction of user requirements. It is also vulnerable to security threats due to lack of central management mechanisms allow several users to accessing the server once. In addition to this, the terminal server is likely to breakdown due the workload it can manage is subjected to.
Conclusion
The determination of what of the above or related products to used is a very crucial in order for an organization to achieve their goals in a very effective way. The key to selecting the best product for an organization is making sure that the selected product is
