DACS General Meeting
May 2008
Program Review:
Network Support Solutions—Remote Desktop

by Flo Ferrara, Acting VP of Programs

As promised, the May presentation given by The Network Support Company from Danbury along with a team Citrix Systems staff was very impressive. John Pugliese, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for The Network Support Company began the evening with a comprehensive outline of services. These include services in the industries of hospitality, finance, municipal, and education, to name a few. John pointed out that TNSC offers a broad range of remote, onsite and value added services to meet most small-to-medium-size (SMB) business community budgets.

Fred Zering, the Citrix CT/Upstate NY Field Sales Manager was introduced by John. Fred gave a brief summary of the Citrix Xen™ products. Not only about what they are today but how and why they evolved the way they have. Presentation Server is now called XenApp™. Fred explained that unlike the traditional method of delivering applications remotely, XenApp™ virtualizes applications by separating where the application is used from where it runs. All components are maintained and secured in the data center. IT consolidates application management centrally, while enabling users the freedom to operate from any location, on any device, over any network. Fred also spoke briefly about XenServer™ and XenDesktop™.

The floor was then given to Tom Kilstrom of Citrix, Inc. Tom spoke about application streaming and how with the Xen™ products IT can centrally manage all windows based desktop applications. The Edgesight™ product helps IT pinpoint root-causes of bottlenecks and allows for both proactive and reactive support. Citrix now has a single sign on password manager and a self serve reset tool. This allows the user to unlock an account by answering a series of security questions. Those of us who have staffed help desks can surely relate to that. Tom also spoke about provisioning server. How it can send down an operating system on the fly; and how that operating system can be any OS. The choice can be based on a menu or even the time of day.

And lastly, Marc Morris of Citrix, Inc. came on stage to discuss XenSource™. Xensource is the leading provider of enterprise-class virtual infrastructure solutions based on the open source Xen™ virtualization engine. XenSource™ is going to give VMware™ a run for its money according to Marc.

Virtualization will not only save organizations time and management efforts, but it is also another way companies can ‘go green’ by saving energy and decrease their carbon footprint.

So, to sum it up, with the completion of the XenSource™ acquisition, Citrix now adds two new product lines to its portfolio, XenServer™ for server virtualization and XenDesktop™ for desktop virtualization. Combined with the company’s existing application virtualization products, these two new additions seem to give Citrix one of the industry’s most comprehensive end-to-end virtualization portfolios.

If you would like to know more about these products, I am sure John Miniello or John Pugliese from The Network Support Company in Danbury would be happy to enlighten you.