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Info Tech: December 16, 2010 eNewsLetter
December 16, 2010

F5 Simplifies Access Management for Citrix Applications

F5 Networks, Inc. , the company in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), enhanced support for organizations that run Citrix and other virtual desktop applications. Using the BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) or BIG-IP Edge Gateway (News - Alert)  solution, customers can consolidate and centralize authentication and access control for simpler and more predictable access management across all virtual desktop environments, including Citrix, Microsoft (News - Alert), and VMware based deployments.

F5 now offers an access architecture that supports a wide range of virtual desktop and virtualization technologies. F5 solutions secure, accelerate, and ensure constant availability for VMware View and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. By adding support for Citrix technologies, F5 enhances the breadth of its optimized virtualization solutions. This gives customers a choice of flexible solutions to meet their business needs, rather than the prior alternative of point solutions that only worked with an individual vendor’s offerings.

Many enterprise organizations face the challenge of supporting an increasingly distributed workforce. The profusion of new intelligent clients, from smartphones to tablet devices, requires organizations to scale application environments and accommodate multiple access methods. The challenge in a Citrix environment can be particularly acute.

Deploying Citrix Applications with F5 Solutions can reduce management time and OpEx, simplify configuration and deployment, centralized and comprehensive Access control.

For example, in a local Citrix XenApp environment where traditional client devices connect directly to the LAN, Citrix Web Interface servers handle user authentication and authorization. Adding remote users and mobile devices would typically require reconfiguring existing Web Interface servers, or adding and administering additional Web Interface instances to handle remote access. In either case, customers would need to deploy a Citrix Access Gateway solution and manage the Citrix Secure Ticket Authority (STA) service to provide authentication and grant user access. However, the introduction of Citrix support helps F5 customers avoid this added complexity.

In other company news, TMCnet reported that F5 Network has supported Swedish Pediatric Unit's annual "Holidays at the Hospital" event on Sunday, December 19. The celebration will feature holiday-themed games and festivities, local celebrities, and a gift drive for children receiving care and treatment at the hospital.


Mandira Srivastava is a TMCnet contributor. She works as a full-time writer, ghostwriter and blogger, and has more than two years of experience in print and Web media. She has also worked on company brochures, website content and product descriptions, as well as proofreading and editing content. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jaclyn Allard

(source: http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/127186-f5-simplifies-access-management-citrix-applications.htm)

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