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UNC Health Care Leverages IGEL in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Deployment

Topics: IGEL, VDI, Citrix, Healthcare, Thin client

UNC Health Care selected IGEL Universal Desktop Converter (UDC) and IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS) for simplicity, cost-savings and security. This document outlines key findings on how IGEL helps organizations manage entire fleets of thin clients from a single console. In addition, you will see how IGEL Universal Desktop Converter provides IT organizations with the flexibility they need to convert any compatible thin client, desktop or laptop computer into an IGEL thin client solution, wi

UNC Health Care selects IGEL Universal Desktop Converter (UDC) and IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS) for simplicity, cost-savings and security.

“The need to provide users with access to their desktops from any device anywhere, anytime is driving a growing number of IT organizations to migrate toward VDI environments,” said Simon Clephan, Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Alliances, IGEL. “One of the key advantages that IGEL brings to the table is the simplicity that comes from being able to manage an entire fleet of thin clients from a single console. Additionally, the IGEL Universal Desktop Converter provides IT organizations with the flexibility they need to convert any compatible thin client, desktop or laptop computer into an IGEL thin client solution, without having to make an upfront investment in new hardware to support their virtualized infrastructures.”

UNC Health Care selected the IGEL UDC and UMS software for its Citrix VDI deployment following a “bake-off” between thin client solutions. “IGEL won hands down due the simplicity and superiority of its management capabilities,” said James Cole, Technical Architect, UNC Health Care. “And, because the IGEL UDC software is designed to quickly and efficiently convert existing endpoint hardware into IGEL Linux OS-powered thin clients, we knew that by selecting the IGEL solution we would also realize a significant reduction in our capital expenditures.”

Since initiating the deployment of the IGEL UDC and UMS software, UNC Health Care has also experienced significant time savings. “Prior to deploying the IGEL UDC and UMS software, it took our team 25-30 minutes to create a virtual image on each system, not counting the personalization of the system for each use case, now that process takes less than 10 minutes, and even less time when converting the system to VDI roaming,” added Cole.

Additionally, the ease of integration between the IGEL UDC and IGEL UMS with Citrix XenDesktop and other solutions offered by Citrix Ecosystem partners, including Imprivata, has enabled secure access to the health care network’s Epic Systems’ Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system.

Application Lifecycle Management with Stratusphere UX

Topics: liquidware, stratusphere, application lifecycle management

Enterprises today are faced with many challenges, and among those at the top of the list is the struggle surrounding the design, deployment, management and operations that support desktop applications. The demand for applications is increasing at an exponential rate, and organizations are being forced to consider platforms beyond physical, virtual and cloud-based environments.

Application & Desktop Delivery for Dummies

Topics: virtualization, applications, cloud, virtual desktop, dummies

In this book, you learn how solutions, such as Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS), replace traditional application deployment with on-demand application delivery, and why it's right for your organization.

Parallels RAS and Microsoft Office 365: Deliver a Superior, Cloud-Optimized Employee Experience

Topics: parallels, office 365, Microsoft, office 365 proplus, microsoft 365, windows 365

When used together, Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) and Microsoft deliver an enhanced method for employees to access Office 365. With increased security and management options, Parallels RAS delivers a superior employee experience on any device or platform—anywhere.

Anywhere Access to ERP Applications with Parallels RAS

Topics: parallels, erp, erp application, erp solutions, enterprise resource planning

Today’s employees work outside traditional times and locations, often on personal devices. Parallels RAS applications, including your business-critical ERP applications,  to  any device, anywhere.

How Parallels RAS Enhances Microsoft RDS

Topics: Parallels, Microsoft, RDS, virtualization, VDI

In 2001, Microsoft introduced the RDP protocol that allowed users to access an operating system’s desktop remotely. Since then, Microsoft has developed the Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) to facilitate remote desktop access. However, Microsoft RDS leaves a lot to be desired. This white paper highlights the pain points of RDS solutions, and how systems administrators can use Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) to enhance their Microsoft RDS infrastructure.

In 2001, Microsoft introduced the RDP protocol that allowed users to access an operating system’s desktop remotely. Since then, Microsoft has developed the Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) to facilitate remote desktop access.

However, Microsoft RDS leaves a lot to be desired. This white paper highlights the pain points of RDS solutions, and how systems administrators can use Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) to enhance their Microsoft RDS infrastructure.

Microsoft RDS Pain Points:
•   Limited Load Balancing Functionality
•   Limited Client Device Support
•   Difficult to Install, Set Up, and Update

Parallels RAS is an application and virtual desktop delivery solution that allows systems administrators to create a private cloud from which they can centrally manage the delivery of applications, virtual desktops, and business-critical data. This comprehensive VDI solution is well known for its ease of use, low license costs, and feature list.

How Parallels RAS Enhances Your Microsoft RDS Infrastructure:
•   Easy to Install and Set Up
•   Centralized Configuration Console
•   Auto-Configuration of Remote Desktop Session Hosts
•   High Availability Load Balancing (HALB)
•   Superior user experience on mobile devices
•   Supports hypervisors from Citrix, VMware, Microsoft’s own Hyper-V, Nutanix Acropolis, and Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

As this white paper highlights, Parallels RAS allows you to enhance your Microsoft Remote Desktop Services infrastructure, enabling you to offer a superior application and virtual desktop delivery solution.

Built around Microsoft’s RDP protocol, Parallels RAS allows systems administrators to do more in less time with fewer resources. Since it is easier to implement and use, systems administrators can manage and easily scale up the Parallels RAS farm without requiring any specialized training. Because of its extensive feature list and multisite support, they can build solutions that meet the requirements of any enterprise, regardless of its size and scale.

From... to cloud ready in less than one day with Parallels and ThinPrint

Topics: Parallels, ThinPrint, virtualization, VDI, printing

Mobility, security and compliance, automation, and the demand for “the workspace of the future” are just some of the challenges that businesses face today. The cloud is best positioned to support these challenges, but it can be hard to pick the right kind of cloud and find the right balance between cost and benefits. Together, Parallels and ThinPrint allow an organization to become a cloud-ready business on its own terms, with unprecedented ease and cost-effectiveness.

Mobility, security and compliance, automation, and the demand for “the workspace of the future” are just some of the challenges that businesses face today.

The cloud is best positioned to support these challenges, but it can be hard to pick the right kind of cloud and find the right balance between cost and benefits.

Parallels Introduction
Parallels is a global leader in cross-platform technologies and is renowned for its award-winning software solutions that cut complexity and lower costs for a wide range of industries, including healthcare, education, banking and finance, manufacturing, the public sector, and many others.

Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) provides easy-to-use, comprehensive application and desktop delivery that enables business and public-sector organizations to seamlessly integrate virtual Windows applications and desktops on nearly any device or operating system.

ThinPrint Introduction
ThinPrint is a global leader in solutions that support an organization’s digital transformation, helping ensure users can draw on highly reliable and innovative print solutions that support today’s and tomorrow’s requirements.

Joint Value Statement

Together, Parallels and ThinPrint allow an organization to become a cloud-ready business on its own terms, with unprecedented ease and cost-effectiveness.

We support any endpoint device from a desktop PC to a smartphone or tablet, can deploy on-premise or in the cloud, and follow your business as it completes its digital transformation.

You may decide to start digitally transforming your business by delivering applications or desktops from an existing server in your datacenter and move to Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure later. You can also replace user workstations with newer, more mobile devices, or expand from an initial pilot group to new use cases for the entire company.

Whatever your plans are, Parallels and ThinPrint will help you implement them with easy, cost-effective solutions and the ability to adapt to future challenges.

Data Protection and File Sharing for the Mobile Workforce

Topics: catalogic, catalogic software, Office 365, Box, laptop, mobile, data protection

Critical data is increasingly created, stored and shared outside the data center. It lives on laptops, tablets, mobile devices and cloud services. This data is subject to many threats: malware, ransomware, hacking, device failure, loss or theft, and human error. Catalogic KODO provides a unified solution to these challenges with easy, automated protection of endpoints (laptops, mobile devices) and cloud services (Office 365, Box), along with organizational file sharing and synchronization.

ESG Report: Verifying Network Intent with Forward Enterprise

Topics: intent based networking, network verification, network model, forward networks, networking

This ESG Technical Review documents hands-on validation of Forward Enterprise, a solution developed by Forward Networks to help organizations save time and resources when verifying that their IT networks can deliver application traffic consistently in line with network and security policies. The review examines how Forward Enterprise can reduce network downtime, ensure compliance with policies, and minimize adverse impact of configuration changes on network behavior.

ESG research recently uncovered that 66% of organizations view their IT environments as more or significantly more complex than they were two years ago. The complexity will most likely increase, since 46% of organizations anticipate their network infrastructure spending to exceed that of 2018 as they upgrade and expand their networks.

Large enterprise and service provider networks consist of multiple device types—routers, switches, firewalls, and load balancers—with proprietary operating systems (OS) and different configuration rules. As organizations support more applications and users, their networks will grow and become more complex, making it more difficult to verify and manage correctly implemented policies across the entire network. Organizations have also begun to integrate public cloud services with their on-premises networks, adding further network complexity to manage end-to-end policies.

With increasing network complexity, organizations cannot easily confirm that their networks are operating as intended when they implement network and security policies. Moreover, when considering a fix to a service-impact issue or a network update, determining how it may impact other applications negatively or introduce service-affecting issues becomes difficult. To assess adherence to policies or the impact of any network change, organizations have typically relied on disparate tools and material—network topology diagrams, device inventories, vendor-dependent management systems, command line (CLI) commands, and utilities such as “ping” and “traceroute.” The combination of these tools cannot provide a reliable and holistic assessment of network behavior efficiently.

Organizations need a vendor-agnostic solution that enables network operations to automate the verification of network implementations against intended policies and requirements, regardless of the number and types of devices, operating systems, traffic rules, and policies that exist. The solution must represent the topology of the entire network or subsets of devices (e.g., in a region) quickly and efficiently. It should verify network implementations from prior points in time, as well as proposed network changes prior to implementation. Finally, the solution must also enable organizations to quickly detect issues that affect application delivery or violate compliance requirements.

Evaluator Group Report on Liqid Composable Infrastructure

Topics: evaluator group, Liqid, composable, composable infrastructure

In this report from Eric Slack, Senior Analyst at the Evaluator Group, learn how Liqid’s software-defined platform delivers comprehensive, multi-fabric composable infrastructure for the industry’s widest array of data center resources.

LQD4500 Gen4x16 NVMe SSD Performance Report

Topics: Liqid, NVMe, PCIe, Fastest SSD, SSD, Best Data Center SSD

The LQD4500 is the World’s Fastest SSD. The Liqid Element LQD4500 PCIe Add-in-Card (AIC), aka the “Honey Badger" for its fierce, lightning fast data speeds, delivers Gen-4 PCIe performance with up to 4m IOPS, 24 GB/s throughput, ultra-low transactional latency of just 20 µs, in capacities up to 32TB. What does all that mean in real-world testing? Download the full LQD4500 performance report and learn how the ultra-high performance and density Gen-4 AIC can supercharge data for your most demand

ESG Showcase - Time to Better Leverage Your File and Object Data

Topics: datacore, unstructured data management, public cloud file storage, public cloud object storage, object storage management, scale out file and object storage

The need to handle unstructured data according to business relevance is becoming urgent. Modern datarelated demands have begun surpassing what traditional file and object storage architectures can achieve. Businesses today need an unstructured data storage environment that lets end-users easily and flexibly access the benefits of the file- and object-based information they need to do their jobs.

IDC: SaaS Backup and Recovery: Simplified Data Protection Without Compromise

Topics: Commvault, SaaS, Software-as-a-Service, Metallic, BaaS, Backup-as-a-Service

Although the majority of organizations have a "cloud first" strategy, most also continue to manage onsite applications and the backup infrastructure associated with them. However, many are moving away from backup specialists and instead are leaving the task to virtual infrastructure administrators or other IT generalists. Metallic represents Commvault's direct entry into one of the fastest-growing segments of the data protection market. Its hallmarks are simplicity and flexibility of deployment

Metallic is a new SaaS backup and recovery solution based on Commvault's data protection software suite, proven in the marketplace for more than 20 years. It is designed specifically for the needs of medium-scale enterprises but is architected to grow with them based on data growth, user growth, or other requirements. Metallic initially offers either monthly or annual subscriptions through reseller partners; it will be available through cloud service providers and managed service providers over time. The initial workload use cases for Metallic include virtual machine (VM), SQL Server, file server, MS Office 365, and endpoint device recovery support; the company expects to add more use cases and supported workloads as the solution evolves.

Metallic is designed to offer flexibility as one of the service's hallmarks. Aspects of this include:

On-demand infrastructure: Metallic manages the cloud-based infrastructure components and software for the backup environment, though the customer will still manage any of its own on- premise infrastructure. This environment will support on-premise, cloud, and hybrid workloads. IT organizations are relieved of the daily task of managing the infrastructure components and do not have to worry about upgrades, OS or firmware updates and the like, for the cloud infrastructure, so people can repurpose that time saved toward other activities.

Metallic offers preconfigured plans designed to have users up and running in approximately 15 minutes, eliminating the need for a proof-of-concept test. These preconfigured systems have Commvault best practices built into the design, or organizations can configure their own.

Partner-delivered services: Metallic plans to go to market with resellers that can offer a range of services on top of the basic solution's capabilities. These services will vary by provider and will give users a variety of choices when selecting a provider to match the services offered with the organization's needs.

"Bring your own storage": Among the flexible options of Metallic, including VM and file or SQL database use cases, users can deploy their own storage, either on-premise or in the cloud, while utilizing the backup/recovery services of Metallic. The company refers to this option as "SaaS Plus."

VPN vs. VDI - What Should You Choose?

Topics: Parallels, ParallelsRAS, VDI, virtualization, remote working, VPN vs VDI, VPN

Many organizations are using Virtual Private Networks (VPN) to provide employees with access to their digital workspaces. However, as VPN is posing a global data security risk to businesses, IT departments may want to re-think their strategy when it comes to providing remote access. What are the differences between VPN and VDI, and which one should you choose?

Confronting modern stealth

Topics: kaspersky, Fileless, APT, Endpoint, Sandbox, EDR

How did we go from train robberies to complex, multi-billion-dollar cybercrimes? The escalation in the sophistication of cybercriminal techniques, which overcome traditional cybersecurity and wreak havoc without leaving a trace, is dizzying. Explore the methods of defense created to defend against evasive attacks, then find out how Kaspersky’s sandboxing, endpoint detection and response, and endpoint protection technologies can keep you secure—even if you lack the resources or talent.

Explore the dizzying escalation in the sophistication of cybercriminal techniques, which overcome traditional cybersecurity and wreak havoc without leaving a trace. Then discover the methods of defense created to stop these evasive attacks.

Problem:
Fileless threats challenge businesses with traditional endpoint solutions because they lack a specific file to target. They might be stored in WMI subscriptions or the registry, or execute directly in the memory without being saved on disk. These types of attack are ten times more likely to succeed than file-based attacks.

Solution:
Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business goes beyond file analysis to analyze behavior in your environment. While its behavioral detection technology runs continuous proactive machine learning processes, its exploit prevention technology blocks attempts by malware to exploit software vulnerabilities.

Problem:
The talent shortage is real. While cybercriminals are continuously adding to their skillset, businesses either can’t afford (or have trouble recruiting and retaining) cybersecurity experts.

Solution:
Kaspersky Sandbox acts as a bridge between overwhelmed IT teams and industry-leading security analysis. It relieves IT pressure by automatically blocking complex threats at the workstation level so they can be analyzed and dealt with properly in time.

Problem:
Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) expand laterally from device to device and can put an organization in a constant state of attack.

Solution:
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) stops APTs in their tracks with a range of very specific capabilities, which can be grouped into two categories: visibility (visualizing all endpoints, context and intel) and analysis (analyzing multiple verdicts as a single incident).

Attack the latest threats with a holistic approach including tightly integrated solutions like Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response and Kaspersky Sandbox, which integrate seamlessly with Kaspersky Endpoint Protection for Business.

After the Lockdown – Reinventing the Way Your Business Works

Topics: Parallels, VDI, virtualization, remote working

As a result of the Covid-19 lockdown experience, temporary measures will be scaled back and adoption of fully functional “Remote” workplaces will now be accelerated. A reduction in the obstacles for moving to virtual desktops and applications will be required so that businesses can be 100% productive during Business Continuity events. The winners will be those organizations who use and explore the possibilities of a virtual workplace every day.