Citrix Synergy in Los Angeles New Innovations to Equip People with Mobile Workspaces

May 20, 2014, Tuesday - Citrix Synergy, held in Los Angeles, California this year, concluded on a successful note.

The annual flagship industry conference by Citrix, held from 6 – 8 May at the Anaheim Convention Center, unveiled new mobility technologies and strategies that will provide support for people to work better from anywhere with mobile workspace solutions. The latest solutions also promise IT teams comprehensive control and management capabilities across the entire enterprise’s IT infrastructure.

The IT industry is witnessing a rapid explosion of new and heterogeneous devices and app platforms, coupled with the rising trend of consumerization, BYOD and an increasingly digitally-savvy generation who prefer to work whenever, wherever and however they choose.

Brad Peterson, Steve Daheb, and Catherine Courage at the Synergy 2014 Keynote.

Citrix Synergy focused on the four key aspects of solutions that businesses need in order to equip their people with mobile workspaces to enhance productivity and achieve strategic differentiation in today’s dynamic and mobile world.

Virtualization: Synergy discussed state-of-the-art mobility solutions for enabling IT to transform any Windows app or a complete desktop into a secured, on-demand cloud service. Major focus areas included how to optimize user experience on any device with new approaches to desktop and app virtualization, Windows app migration, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), remote desktop session (RDS) and client virtualization, including administration, service delivery, security and mobility.

Mobility: Synergy provided in-depth coverage of the latest mobility trends and how innovations and technologies are able to empower people to work from anywhere, all while providing IT with full configuration, security and management control of apps, data and devices. Key topics included mobile app and device management, app stores, mobile security, social and real-time collaboration, mobile data access and workshifting.

Citrix CEO Mark Templeton at the Synergy 2014 Keynote.

Networking: Synergy covered the latest developments in network virtualization, load balancing, software-defined networking, disaster and site recovery, app security and multi-tenancy in private and public clouds. Key topics included how businesses can be ensured of the best mobility, performance and availability by accelerating and securing enterprise applications across LANs, WANs, the internet and cloud.

Cloud: Synergy explored an extensive range of topics from automation, orchestration, and networking, to access and management for compute and application services.

Key focus was on automated, elastic, “anything-as-a-service” clouds that enable businesses to ensure the best security, performance and reliability, be it running off an on premise enterprise datacenter, or in an external cloud.

This month’s news update from Citrix highlights new and innovative ways for customers to advance and mobilize their businesses and employees by delivering desktops, apps, data and services to any user, on any device, over any network or cloud, via a single solution and in a secure fashion.

Citrix Workspace Suite
Citrix Workspace Suite is a new, single, flexible solution that unites virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies to improve employee productivity, simplify IT and fully secure enterprise content. The full suite of solutions supports multiple corporate or personal devices per user and provides instant secure access to all apps, desktops, data and services over any network, while simplifying how organizations manage their end user computing environment. Various technologies, such as application and desktop virtualization, mobile application and device management, native mobile productivity apps, enterprise file sync and share, WAN optimization and access gateway enable comprehensive management of application, desktop and mobile infrastructures. According to Gartner, the mobile workspace market is expected to grow 15 times in the next three years as organizations embrace business mobility.  With the spurt of new devices and app platforms, combined with the rapid growth in consumerization, mobility and BYOD initiatives, organizations are driven to find a way to manage and secure the diversity of today’s IT environments. With Citrix Workspace Suite, businesses can enable their people with comprehensive, secure and personalized mobile workspaces, and empower them with an unprecedented level of freedom, flexibility and choice in the way they work.

Citrix XenMobile enterprise mobility management and mobile productivity apps
The new release of Citrix XenMobile enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution is accompanied with new workflow-driven mobile productivity apps -- WorxNotes, WorxEdit and WorxDesktop. The EMM solution offers significant enhancements in user experience, platform security and support, as well as management integrations that improve scalability and speed time to value for business. The new workflow-driven mobile productivity apps are key business apps with intelligent integrations that seamlessly work together, resulting in a simple and intuitive user experience. Today, mobility is a top priority for organizations from healthcare providers to government institutions. Organizations recognize the need to securely deliver mobile workspaces that provide all the business tools and information their employees need, whether they are in the office, or on the move, in order to stay agile and drive business growth.

New ShareFile Connectors
The new ShareFile StorageZone Connectors help businesses by establishing direct and secure mobile access to data in its original location behind the corporate firewall. In addition, the new ShareFile Personal Cloud Connectors allow users to access their Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive accounts from ShareFile itself, providing enterprises with the flexibility to determine how and where users store files. In a nutshell, the new and enhanced Citrix ShareFile delivers the broadest storage access for users and gives users the ability to access and edit files from multiple data sources on their mobile devices with a single access point. At the same time, businesses have more control over their data encryption keys. This results in increased productivity and security.

Citrix NetScaler MobileStream
The now available NetScaler MobileStream technology delivers the most advanced cloud and mobile networking capabilities, significantly improving mobile network and application performance, along with network visibility, while tightening security for both the enterprise and the end user.  IT teams have started to embrace a mobile-first agenda, with the explosion of mobile devices in business and the exponential growth of consumerization. The technology improves mobile performance by virtually eliminating the impact of sporadic connectivity caused by legacy communication technologies and website designs, and transparently leverages wireless and cellular connectivity with intelligent dual network mode technology. This results in mobile apps loading and running five times faster, enabling employees to maximize productivity as well as enhance user experience.

Citrix Advances Innovation in Business Mobility
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix unveiled advancements toward its vision of providing ways for people to work better from anywhere with mobile workspace solutions. At this week’s conference, attendees will learn about how new offerings based on Citrix virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies can further enable secure delivery of apps, desktops, data and services to any user, on any device, over any network or cloud.

Citrix Announces Workspace Services, Cloud-based Platform for DaaS, Virtual App Delivery and Mobility
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced Citrix Workspace Services™, the first platform for designing, building and delivering mobile workspaces. The cloud-based platform allows both partners and customers to rapidly build and offer desktops-as-a-service (DaaS), virtual application delivery and mobility services from any cloud. Citrix leads the DaaS market today serving over 350,000 subscribers, growing 50 percent annually, through over 1,500 service providers who offer hosted desktops and applications. Building on this momentum, Citrix is introducing new capabilities for its partners and customers. Citrix Workspace Services is a cloud-based platform that enables partners, enterprises and independent software vendors (ISVs) to quickly and simply design and deliver mobile workspaces that allow people to work better and increase business productivity, agility and efficiency. Workspace Services builds upon a full range of Citrix technologies including the open architecture of Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop® virtual app and desktop delivery, the market-leading user experience of Citrix HDX™ technologies, the most robust mobility solution with Citrix XenMobile®, a comprehensive data fabric with Citrix ShareFile® and a global customer care service with Citrix GoToAssist®.

Citrix ShareFile Secures Files for Today’s Mobile Workspaces
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced new Citrix ShareFile® features that deliver the broadest storage access for users and the most choice for IT. The new features give users the ability to access and edit files from multiple data sources on their mobile devices and businesses more control over their data encryption keys, resulting in increased productivity and security. These capabilities are available in the company’s secure file sync and sharing solution ShareFile, Citrix XenMobile® and the new Citrix Workspace Suite.

Citrix and Cisco Join Forces to Power Mobile Workspaces
At Citrix Synergy™, Cisco and Citrix announced they are bringing their industry-leading technologies together in a tested and validated enterprise mobility infrastructure solution. The Cisco® Mobile Workspace Solution with Citrix – including the new Citrix Workspace Suite™ also announced today at Synergy – simplifies how organizations provide highly secure and optimized access to apps, data, communications and services on any device from networked locations.

Quest and Citrix Collaborate to Deliver DaaS for Business
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced that Quest, one of the first and largest desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) providers, has aligned with Citrix to offer services using Citrix market-leading DaaS technologies, including Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop® virtual app and desktop delivery, to provide workspaces-as-a-service for businesses. Citrix technology provides a complete mobile workspace solution that securely delivers apps, desktops, files and services to any user, on any device, over any network. Quest brings a deep understanding of managed and cloud services to its customers, providing customizable services to the healthcare, financial services, higher education, government, and manufacturing industries. Quest services are built on the Cisco Desktop® as a Service solution, which includes Citrix technology and brings scalability, performance advantages and simplified management to the Quest platform.

Citrix Unveils Latest XenMobile Release and Technology Preview of New Mobile Productivity Apps
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced a new release of its Citrix XenMobile® enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution and a technology preview of new WorxNotes™, WorxEdit™ and WorxDesktop™ workflow-driven mobile productivity apps. The new XenMobile release includes significant enhancements in user experience, platform security and support, as well as management integrations that improve scalability and speed time to value for business. The new workflow-driven mobile productivity apps from Citrix are key business apps with intelligent integrations that seamlessly work together, resulting in a simple and intuitive user experience. For example, people can join a meeting directly from their calendar, take notes and distribute them to all participants with just a few simple taps. As a result, mobile employees can be more productive on their tablets and phones, while IT retains control.

Citrix Introduces Industry’s Most Comprehensive Mobile Workspace Solution
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced the new Citrix Workspace Suite, which unites its market-leading virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies to make it even easier for people to work anywhere. Providing instant, secure access to all apps, desktops, data and services from any device over any network, Citrix Workspace Suite enables businesses to empower people to choose when, where and how work gets done, giving them a new level of freedom, flexibility and choice.

Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop Extend Lead in Mobile Workspaces
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix is providing an early view of upcoming releases of Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop®, the company’s industry-leading solutions for delivering Windows in the mobile-cloud era. New versions of XenApp and XenDesktop were released in March 2014, and Citrix is continuing a brisk pace of innovation in its flagship products to drive even higher levels of security and user experience for mobility and cloud on the unified platform for virtual Windows apps and desktops. At the conference, Citrix will provide an early view of refinements that enhance security capabilities, provide high-performance HTML5 browser-based access from any device, enable fast log-ons, simplify roaming apps across multiple devices and support for the latest USB 3.0 peripherals, as well as many more real-world, customer-driven features. In addition, Citrix is releasing a private technology preview of tools that will facilitate migration to the latest releases for existing customers. XenApp and XenDesktop are cornerstones of the new Citrix Workspace Suite, which unites its market-leading virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies to make it even easier for people to work anywhere.

Citrix Unveils NetScaler MobileStream Technology
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced the availability of NetScaler® MobileStream™ technology, which significantly improves mobile network and application performance along with network visibility, while tightening security for both the enterprise and the end user. With the explosion of mobile devices in business and the relentless growth of consumerization, IT has started to explicitly embrace a mobile-first agenda. In fact, according to industry analysts, 77 percent of enterprises state that providing mobility support for employees inside and outside the office is a strategic network priority. NetScaler MobileStream improves data security and mobility support, delivering the most advanced cloud and mobile networking capabilities in the industry. Coupled with the broader Mobile Workspace Suite, only Citrix offers the purpose-built mobile networking functionality that creates a complete end-to-end solution for truly empowering mobile workstyles.

Autodesk Wins 2014 Citrix Innovation Award
At Citrix Synergy™, Autodesk was announced as the winner of the company’s 9th annual Innovation award, designed to recognize visionary customers who are using Citrix solutions for delivering mobile workspaces to drive business innovation and IT simplicity. Autodesk used Citrix solutions to harness virtualization technology and create a new cloud-based development environment that has resulted in a faster, lower-cost, and higher quality process.  Autodesk engineers now have access to on-demand development resources via self-service; and without the need for physical hardware, engineers are able to work from anywhere. In addition, as Autodesk accelerates the development of next-generation, cloud-based tools for design, engineering, and entertainment; engineers can work on multiple projects in parallel and easily collaborate between different locations.

Citrix Podio Gives Users More Power to Design and Customize Their Workflows with the New ‘Creator’ Release
Citrix announced significant enhancements to Podio, the popular productivity and work management tool in its mobile workspace portfolio. The platform’s redesigned look and feel empowers any user to dramatically reimagine the way they organize their everyday work. Improvements include a faster user interface, intuitive new drag-and-drop design and more powerful ways to automate and link tasks within Podio.

Ascendas works with Citrix to roll out Citrix XenMobile Enterprise Mobility Management solution

The implementation of Citrix XenMobile allows Ascendas to leverage the enterprise mobility management solution to drive mobility for its employees, while achieving data security and compliance

Malaysia – May 7, 2014 – Citrix, a leader in virtualization, networking and cloud infrastructure, partnered with Asia’s leading provider of business space solutions, Ascendas Pte Ltd (Ascendas), to roll out Citrix XenMobile. The mobile device and application (app) management solution enables Ascendas and its employees to achieve greater productivity and mobility, while attaining data security and regulatory compliance.

Ascendas, headquartered in Singapore, has a total workforce of more than 1,000 people across its operations in Asia. The company serves a global clientele of over 2,400 customers in 25 cities across 10 countries. To manage its business efficiently, Ascendas recognized the need to ensure that its databases and applications are always secure, and accessible by all employees, regardless of time zone, geographical location or device type. Asiasoft Solutions, a leading IT solutions provider and a Citrix Platinum partner, completed implementation of Citrix XenMobile for Ascendas in January 2014. The solution is designed to enable Ascendas employees with seamless and quick access to the company’s Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) at all times. Employees are empowered to work from anywhere, any time and on the device of their choice, maximizing productivity.

According to Charles Reed Anderson, Head of Telecoms & Mobility of IDC Asia/Pacific, Singapore organizations will leverage Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) more than other countries in the ASEAN region. Citrix XenMobile simplifies access to apps and data, whilst ensuring the security and compliance of corporate data on personal devices. With the Citrix XenMobile solution, Ascendas employees are equipped with a single-click access to all their mobile, Software as a Service (SaaS) and Windows apps, seamlessly integrating their email and data sharing. The solution provides employees with a rich and consistent user experience across all different locations – be it at the office, at home or on business trips. Employees are now able to access corporate information from the Ascendas system, such as project and HR documents, on-demand. The ease of accessibility to information promotes tighter collaboration among local and regional employees. For example, a project manager off-site is able to submit and share real-time reports through secure file sharing and synchronization, enhancing operational efficiency. The ability to work from anywhere, anytime also increases employee productivity as they work on-the-go.

As more smart devices enter the workplace today, Ascendas needed a technology solution to help manage potential corporate data breach risks, while better supporting employees’ mobile access to information. The Citrix XenMobile solution ensures enterprise-grade security for Ascendas’ corporate information, as the IT department is able to blacklist or whitelist corporate apps, and selectively wipe corporate data in a device that is lost, stolen or out of compliance. This secures corporate content on employees’ device, preventing any compromise to confidential data, addressing security concerns that come with a mobile workforce. With a flexible, robust and centralized control of corporate data, Ascendas employees enjoy greater access to even the most sensitive corporate information on a wide array of mobile devices and applications.

In addition, utilizing Citrix XenMobile’s role-based management and support capabilities, IT control is streamlined and simplified as new apps for employee devices can be instantaneously and easily installed, and managed from a single point. This gives the IT department more comprehensive control of Ascendas’ IT infrastructure, while ensuring regulatory compliance is met.

Security: Cover All Bases to Protect What Matters

May 5, 2014, Kuala Lumpur - Today’s technology landscape is in a constant state of flux. While developments in IT are offering businesses increased efficiency with smarter solutions, businesses are also increasingly being exposed to more sophisticated security threats.

Critical business information is stored and accessed across multiple channels and devices. This means more points of entry for security threats. The speed, sophistication and implications of today’s security attacks are not something traditional compliance-based or perimeter-oriented security strategies can manage.

Organizations need a holistic security strategy that is intuitive, yet simple for both the IT team as well as business personnel to manage. Security strategies should be able to intelligently protect intellectual property, ensure data privacy and meet compliance mandates.

In a nutshell, security strategies need to keep up with the rapid pace of IT development and be one step ahead to pre-empt and be prepared for potential security risks. Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN, shares key steps organizations need to take to step up their information security game and make technology work for them.

1.Secure delivery of data from beginning to end
Understanding the many layers of security is pivotal to formulating a comprehensive and robust security strategy. Starting from the control point – the network from the datacenter, there are three different layers of security; application security; network and infrastructure security; and identity and access management.

2. Assured delivery of applications
Organizations exchange business critical data internally and externally on a daily basis. Executives, sales personnel, and administrative staff access both corporate and personal applications while at work over various devices. It is a feat to keep track of each and every website employees access, thus opening the floodgates to security attacks.

Enforcing full-featured firewalls at the application layer will provide the IT team the visibility and control required to protect against the majority of internet attacks that target app-layer vulnerabilities, and counteract a broader range of security threats. In the app-layer, IT teams can also equip the organization’s datacenter with data loss protection by being prudent and actively guarding against unexpected leakage of sensitive data in application server responses.

For example, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series next-generation (next-gen) virtualized firewall and threat prevention technology combined with Citrix NetScaler SDX enables users to spin up virtualized application delivery control (ADC) and next-gen firewall instances for individual applications on a multi-tenant platform.

Having a data check feature that provides administrator-configurable protection for sensitive business information is equally important. With customized and defined rules, the application firewall can take appropriate action such as blocking responses, masking protected information or removing the protected information from the responses before sending it to the user.

3. Identity and access management to data/apps with granular access control policies
To top it off, IT security teams need to also explore another dimension – the user layer. Identity and access management encompasses three major pillars; authentication capabilities for validating user identities; authorization for verifying and enforcing which specific resources each user is allowed to access; and auditing capabilities to keep a detailed record of each user’s activities.

This is achieved mainly by supporting password changes and a wide variety of authentication mechanisms, to help ensure no attacks on the user layers.

Take for example, the planned collaboration to enable the integration of the Citrix Netscaler SDX service delivery networking platform with CA SiteMinder, CA Technologies’ leading access management solution. The strategic partnership consolidates the capabilities of CA SiteMinder Secure Proxy Server onto the NetScaler appliance, creating a solution for customers that will solve the issue of device, application and information diversity, all while simplifying user authentication and providing secure, high performance access.

4. Tying up back-end datacenter security
There is the network and infrastructure security to consider, too. Adopting a ‘secure by design’ approach, enabled by desktop virtualization, allows all data to reside in a centralized datacenter. This equips the IT team with complete control to ensure secure delivery of mission-critical data with customized encryption capabilities within the network, routing all connections to back-end servers.

Configured policies applied to incoming and outgoing Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)-based traffic, protects critical applications from protocol and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks at both L4 and L7 layers. In addition, it enables the logging and reporting of user activity in real time. This helps in monitoring and alerting any action that demonstrates a potential threat to data security or breach in compliance standards. Ultimately, there are many advantages to deploying an all-in-one secure network.  Server performance can be improved and security can be added to legacy apps, all while ensuring a consistent user experience with zero disruption.

5.All for a defense-in-depth strategy
All in all, enforcing a full-fledged security policy for everything Bring Your Own (BYO) is an essential element for organizations looking to pursue mobility. All gaps in security have to be kept in check. Organizations should also keep in mind to train end-users, in this case, employees, and educate them on how to work safely from any location on any device. Ultimately, this creates an informed, security-conscious work force – the company’s first line of defense against security threats. All these elements combine to provide organizations with a comprehensive defense artillery with which to combat attacks.

Google and Citrix Collaborate on New Ways to Deliver Business-critical Windows Apps to Chromebooks

MALAYSIA – April 9, 2014 – Citrix is working with Google to deliver business-critical Windows apps to Google Chromebooks.

Chromebooks are experiencing rapidly growing adoption across organizations of all types, including many of the largest enterprises, as they look to transition to new and innovative computing platforms.

One of the key needs for these organizations is to provide users’ anywhere, anytime access to Windows apps that are critical for business, such as line of business apps for HR, finance and sales.

Chomebooks for Business combined with Citrix XenApp® virtual app delivery solution and Citrix Receiver™ for HTML5, enable customers to deliver all types of Windows apps with the high-definition user experience of Citrix HDX™ technology, and operational scalability for the largest organizations. In addition to this ongoing collaboration around secure app delivery for Chromebooks.

Citrix also recently announced GoToMeeting® Free, a web-based collaboration platform that gives users quick and simple video conferencing for Chromebook users.

Chromebooks for Business with Citrix XenApp

To accelerate the adoption of Chromebooks for business, Citrix is announcing a promotional discount of 25 percent for XenApp Platinum edition – the flagship version that also includes Citrix AppDNA™ application management technology. AppDNA technology simplifies and speeds up the migration for Microsoft customers from Windows XP to the newest versions. The promotion begins today – April 8th 2014 – the date that Windows XP reaches end-of-life.

To help customers understand the benefits of Chrome with XenApp, Citrix and Google are running a joint educational seminar series, the first of which is on April 22, 2014, with another on May 13, 2014. In addition, Citrix, Google and joint partner, MTM Technologies, are holding the first in a series of customer roadshows at Google’s New York Chelsea Market office on April 23, 2014.  

 Citrix and Google have been working together since Chromebooks were first released to deliver business apps to Chromebooks. Along with the availability since day-one of Citrix Receiver, Citrix has built a Citrix Ready® verified ecosystem of Chromebook OEMs such as HP, Dell, Acer, Samsung and Toshiba to help ensure that customers can use the latest Chromebooks with the confidence that they will work with XenApp and XenDesktop® solutions.

New Technology to Increase Healthcare Staff’s Productivity and Mobility

Singapore, March 26, 2014 - The Health Ministry’s IT arm, Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS), and software company Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) today announced an agreement to leverage desktop virtualisation to enhance public healthcare staff’s productivity and mobility.

The technology will enable healthcare staff to access and share patient information more swiftly across locations and institutions, with high data security.

Desktop virtualisation is a software technology that separates the applications and data from the staff’s personal computer, storing information in the central database rather than in PCs.

With virtualisation, doctors and staff will be able to retrieve patient data, and enter or review treatment orders in the Electronic Medical Records system from any computer, as they move beyond their offices and hospitals to other locations, to provide timely patient care.

Desktop virtualisation also paves the way for doctors and staff to use other end devices, such as tablets and smartphones, to access the information in future.

The technology will also facilitate team-based care for improved patient outcomes, as staff can more easily and quickly collaborate online on a patient’s treatment, across specialties and Regional Health Systems.

With the agreement, Citrix XenDesktop® will deliver virtual applications and desktops for participating public healthcare institutions for five years, and is believed to be the first such agreement in the Asean public healthcare sector. IHiS designs and manages IT systems at all Singapore public hospitals, national specialty centres and polyclinics, supporting over 30,000 staff.
IHiS Chief Executive Officer, Dr Chong Yoke Sin, said: “The virtualisation technology will enable a consistent desktop experience for doctors and healthcare staff when retrieving latest data on the patient’s status across different healthcare facilities. This will promote efficient information sharing and seamless care integration along the care continuum.

“In this era of high adoption rates of tablets and smartphones, the flexible, virtualised environment will improve healthcare staff’s mobility and productivity, and thus patient care, without compromising data security.

“As data is not held in the staff’s PC, patient information is not compromised in situations when the device is lost. The centrally secured datacentre better protects patient data from intrusion or loss.”

Citrix Vice President, Asia Pacific, Mr Rob Willis, said: “Citrix has always recognised desktop virtualisation as a cornerstone for enterprise mobility. Our collaboration with IHiS enables us to seamlessly integrate the Citrix XenDesktop solution into the local public healthcare network’s IT infrastructure, ultimately minimising patient response time.

“We are delighted to work with IHiS to achieve its goals and we hope to continue supporting IHiS in its efforts to deliver the best healthcare technological solutions for Singapore’s public healthcare sector.”

As part of the IHiS agreement, Citrix will also provide training, examination certification and technical support to IHiS and its affiliates.

Citrix and CA Technologies Sign Agreement to Integrate NetScaler and SiteMinder

Native Integration of CA SiteMinder with NetScaler SDX Will Deliver Unified, Multi-tenant Policy Control Point for Mobile and Cloud Services

MALAYSIA – RSA Conference – March 6, 2014 – Citrix and CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) announced an agreement to enable integration of the Citrix NetScaler® SDX™ service delivery networking platform with CA SiteMinder®, a leading access management solution. This planned integration will consolidate the capabilities of CA SiteMinder® Secure Proxy Server (SPS) onto the NetScaler appliance, creating a unique solution for customers that will solve the problem of device, application and information diversity; while simplifying user authentication and providing secure, high performance access.

        Consumers today have become more mobile and the use of heterogeneous devices for information access has added significant complexity to how users securely access corporate data and applications. While critical network entry points need to support a range of traditionally separate functions, it has become more important for identity and access management solutions to seamlessly blend into the network infrastructure with simplified deployment.  A unified access infrastructure that works across applications and network layers is now needed. The planned integration of NetScaler SDX and CA SiteMinder will bring together the ability to host multiple networking instances on a single hardware appliance with the enterprise-class secure single sign-on (SSO) and flexible identity access management needed to authenticate users and control access to applications. The combined solution will lower total cost of ownership for the respective technologies, while delivering secure and simplified policy administration.

        With the solution from Citrix and CA Technologies that will be available later this year, enterprise IT will be able to consolidate hosting of the federated identity and SSO functions, VPN, application acceleration, application firewalling and load balancing into the NetScaler SDX platform without having to deploy discrete physical and virtual devices.  As businesses embrace flexible, multifunction network policy engines to improve performance and operational efficiency, this integration of best-in-class policy delivery, identity and access management keeps information delivery flexible and economical. And as businesses increasingly embrace cloud architectures, delivering the above policy control in a hardened, multi-tenant SDX platform will enable enterprises to have fine-grained control of virtualized apps, desktops and mobile services - allowing IT to cater to individual business unit needs without compromising on compliance.

Mobility: The Game-Changer in the Healthcare industry With Elderly Population reaching 922.7 million by 2050

24 February 2014, Kuala Lumpur - Asia is on track to becoming the oldest region in the next few decades, with the region’s elderly population projected to reach 922.7 million by 2050 .

With countries in the region experiencing aging populations, healthcare services will see a big rise in demand as the elderly dependency ratio increases.

This demographic shift creates unprecedented challenges for healthcare organizations as healthcare plays an important role in supporting economic stability.

According to IDC’s Asia Pacific healthcare predictions for 2014, mobility will be a key trend in the region, with high adoption rates for tablets and smartphones .

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN, shares three key steps ASEAN healthcare organizations can take to tap the potential of cloud computing and mobile workspaces to drive greater efficiency in the healthcare sector.

Simplify administration, increase operational efficiency

The significant surge in demand for healthcare services means that there will be more extensive medical data that needs to be captured.

The traditional method of organizing paperwork, using standalone PCs and external hard drives, could complicate the administrative process in locating information, such as medical records to databases, making it time-consuming.
Altogether, these factors impede effective administration and management of clinical and medical information.

Healthcare organizations that adopt a cloud computing platform in their IT infrastructure will be able to reduce or even eliminate unnecessary paperwork and data transfers among workstations.

Streamlining administrative processes, such as paperwork and requests for information, is essential in enhancing operational efficiency, particularly in times of high demand.

For instance, on the first visit, a patient’s registration details need to be stored only once and will be easily retrieved for future visits.

Being able to access and manage this business-critical information in real-time allows healthcare staff to minimize administrative errors as well as reduce the time required to find the right information. Such effective IT support will shorten the patient’s registration time, thus enhancing administrative productivity and patient experience.

Stay agile in case of emergency

Healthcare organizations can also benefit from a virtualized environment. A virtualized application and desktop delivery infrastructure enables mobility and greater productivity among healthcare professionals, resulting in overall improved patient care.

Virtualized apps and desktops allow for example, nurses and doctors to retrieve vital and up-to-date data directly from their home PCs, laptops or tablets anytime it is needed, while ensuring security of the data referenced.

Hence, they are equipped with the flexibility to work away from their conventional stationary workspaces, gaining complete, seamless and secure access on any device to all apps and data required for them to fulfil their duties wherever, whenever.

For example, doctors can complete paperwork on their office PCs and conduct rounds with their tablets to retrieve key Electronic Medical Records (EMR), such as X-rays, real-time for more up-to-the-minute, comprehensive diagnosis or monitoring of patients.

Doctors making home visits would be able to respond to patients’ needs remotely with EMR readily available from their mobile devices. Nurses can also log in to any mobile workstation and be easily updated with patients’ medical allergies when delivering medication to patients.

Guard patient privacy with virtualization

In today’s era of smart devices, the possibility of unauthorized retrieval of patient data through EMR is a major concern. This questions whether the security of patient data can be ensured. Healthcare organizations are being held responsible for the protection of patients’ personal and sensitive health information. Desktop virtualization can help healthcare organizations to achieve patient data security by storing all sensitive and critical health data on the healthcare institution’s data centers and isolating the data from any healthcare worker’s endpoint device.

This means that while app and desktop virtualization enables healthcare workers to retrieve data on their mobile devices, the data itself does not actually leave the data center and therefore, does not reside in the endpoint device. This guarantees that the data remains secure and intact, regardless of whatever happens to the actual device, for instance, if it was stolen, misplaced or damaged.

Simplifying healthcare administration, enabling mobility among healthcare workers and guarding patient data are cornerstones of effective healthcare IT today. The end result – both patient care and organizational performance are improved.

Ultimately, for Asian countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia, which are seeing rising elderly dependency ratios, delivering world-class healthcare services effectively and efficiently is key to developing a sustainable care continuum for patients.

Understanding the Mobile Revolution in 2014 Tech Trends to Watch Out For

22 January, 2014, Kuala Lumpur - 2013 was an exciting year in ASEAN IT industry.

The year saw the strong entry of technologies such as cloud, big data, and mobility platforms into the marketplace, helping to create significant business opportunities and new ways of working for enterprises across the region.

Many businesses began the process of transformation, restructuring their IT to take full advantage of the latest cloud and mobility platforms to introduce more efficiencies into their organizations.

With mobility on the hot seat, Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN, shares three key steps ASEAN organizations can take to tap the opportunities the mobile revolution will bring in 2014.

Delivering Anything-as-a-Service

In 2014, Asia’s cloud adoption will start to reshape with IDC predicting major strategic shifts in the cloud services space in each of the three major layers of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) . As IT budgets tighten, there will be a need to drive down costs and simplify IT infrastructures and businesses will increasingly look to adopt service-based offerings.

For instance, according to IDC, the growth of the desktop virtualization market will significantly outstrip that of the IT market as a whole this year, and desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) – a subset of the desktop virtualization market – will transcend even those expectations over the next four years and grow from US$13.8 million to US$123.3 million in 2017 . As such, DaaS – along with similar service based offerings – will be high on businesses’ list of priorities moving forward.

What businesses seek today are simply high-performing IT solutions that integrate seamlessly with the rest of the organization’s IT infrastructure. So, simplified and consolidated offerings are the most appealing. Implementing a cloud services delivery platform that enables enterprises and services providers to unify user management, provisioning and operational aspects of a cloud into a single cloud interface so organizations can deliver anything as a service.  

Break down the barriers to enterprise mobility adoption with mobile security

Both Forrester and IDC estimate that the number of mobile enabled workers will hit 1.3 billion globally by 2015 . Additionally, Forrester is predicting that smartphone penetration in Asia Pacific (APAC) will see the largest compound growth worldwide, at 20 percent measured last year .

Therefore, it is not surprising that globally, 71 percent of companies accommodate and encourage BYOD but it is also a shocking reality that 76 percent of companies estimate that 100 unidentified devices access their networks each day . It is no wonder that companies consider overcoming challenges regarding mobile security and providing the necessary support for mobile applications as the biggest barriers to deploying mobility platforms in APAC.

The large range of mobile enterprise apps and devices puts mobile security in the limelight. Heterogeneous mobile devices, such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets have become a critical fundamental of today’s workplace, but according to the Citrix Mobility in Business Report, 53 percent of the organizations in the region still lack formal mobility strategies .  In order to achieve a comprehensive and efficient mobility strategy, mobile security has to be high on the list.

IT can address mobile device security and compliance requirements with mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM) products. Providing secure access to mobile, remote desktop, SaaS and web apps from a unified corporate app store, and securing enterprise apps with just one single line of code is an effective option that provides the flexibility that mobile users want, while minimizing the cost of ownership to the organization.

Know the right IT roadmap for the future

Although challenges remain, the business advantages that mobility presents – flexibility, remote worker support, competitive advantage, business continuity, and increased productivity – should outweigh the potential downside.

Implementing mobility solutions has become an imperative for any business today. 63 per cent of enterprises in the region believe that enabling mobile working delivers a competitive edge and 36 per cent list mobility as being of utmost importance to their business .

As simple as it sounds, understanding an organization’s current and future business objectives is the very important first step that businesses need to take. To drive forward the most optimum mobility strategy, an organization needs to think further and wider. Other than tackling current IT challenges, what are the future IT protocols, business plans, objectives and priorities you see?

The enterprise mobility strategy needs to be one that is tailored to the present and to the future – only then will ASEAN organizations be able to truly reap the full rewards that enterprise mobility can bring.

What 2014 will mean for the ASEAN Enterprise

December 16, 2013, Kuala Lumpur - 2013 was a period of significant change in the IT industry across ASEAN as a host of new, innovative technologies – including cloud, big data, and mobility platforms – took hold in each country, albeit as different rates of adoption.

For example, 2013 saw private clouds gain traction this year, replacing PCs as the choice location to store data and access services.

What these technologies offer enterprises operating in these emerging markets are a combination of internal operational efficiencies and savings, and more importantly, the opportunity to create new revenue streams.

2014 will see the continuation of these trends and the emergence of others. For example, enterprise mobility management and Bring Your Own (BYO) initiatives will take firm hold in ASEAN enterprises in 2014. Indeed, the number of personal devices – ranging from smartphones and tablets to desktops and laptops – that will be used for work will grow. This will make it imperative for enterprises to develop strategies for managing data that take this into account.

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President, ASEAN, Citrix, shares his insights on four key trends and provides some examples of how enterprises have leveraged and benefited from them in the ASEAN region.

1. Embracing mobility at the workplace 
According to Gartner’s predictions of 2014 strategic trends, through to 2018, the growing variety of devices, computing styles, user contexts and interaction paradigms will increase access and mobility for employees. Enterprise policies on employee-owned hardware usage need to be thoroughly reviewed and, where necessary, updated and extended. Specific technologies will be needed to ensure employees and contractors have secure access to “everything, everywhere” regardless of device type (desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone) or of ownership (corporate or employee owned). This also provides end users with choices on the best way to complete their work tasks.

This is in line with the Citrix ‘Mobility in Business’ survey report released in 2013 where 47 percent of companies globally now have a formal mobility strategy in place with an additional 35 percent to follow suit within the coming year. This is becoming increasingly necessary, especially with the rapidly expanding use of mobile devices, mobile apps at the workplace, and file sharing and storage among employees.

One great example of how a global organization embraced this is Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT). As an international leader in business travel management, its Singapore team was looking for a way to provide clients with the most updated travel schedules. It worked with Citrix to create a ‘One CWT’ initiative, which involved an upgrade of the company’s existing IT environment to create a common platform to enable better control and delivery of desktops, applications and data, enhancing employee user experience, regardless of their location or device.

Through the ‘One CWT’ singular model, CWT employees were ensured business continuity and smooth operations with zero interruptions, supported by the integrated Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) feature, which automatically switches employee access to the nearest datacenter to increase access speeds, boosting efficiency for the mobile CWT employee, regardless of which region they are working from.

The redundancy brought about by the implementation also meant lower bandwidth consumption and increased cost efficiency and elimination of single points of failure. This is also useful for a number of call centers which may suffer from poor network access.

2. Building new processes for mobile apps and applications
Gartner also believes that through 2014, improved JavaScript performance will begin to push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream enterprise application development environment. Gartner recommends that developers focus on creating expanded user interface models including richer voice and video that can connect people in new and different ways.

Apps will continue to grow while applications will begin to shrink and building application user interfaces that span a variety of devices require an understanding of fragmented building blocks and an adaptable programming structure that assembles them into optimized content for each device.

For businesses, new processes must be put into place to provision, manage and secure these new applications and with tailored solutions for mobile, web and SaaS apps, enterprises can benefit from necessary security and control to allow users on both corporate and BYO mobile devices to use these apps while keeping corporate data secure.

Bank OCBC NISP, the fourth-oldest bank in Indonesia, faced a challenge in managing and controlling the applications and databases at its branches. Citrix helped to eliminate the complex updating and versioning of applications at each of the branches, translating into substantial savings in communication costs between the branches and the head office.

Overall, the productivity, control and availability were significantly improved while operating costs were reduced. Now, it takes only two days to get a new branch ready for operations – compared to seven days before – as the IT team simply has to upgrade its systems or applications just once on the servers at the head office.

3. Putting the house in order for the Internet of Everything
The Internet is expanding beyond PCs and mobile devices into enterprise assets such as field equipment, and consumer items. Most enterprises and technology vendors have yet to explore the possibilities of an expanded Internet and are not operationally or organizationally ready.

At Citrix, over the past few years, we have seen the number of Internet-connected devices rise exponentially, and for organizations, this means extending management technologies to these devices to ensure control and security. However, the real challenge is the number of devices that now are accessing the Internet.

Organizations need to scale network performance on-demand for cloud-like elasticity, expand capacity seamlessly to meet application traffic growth, consolidate core network capabilities like load balancing, security and acceleration for all datacenter applications and ensure smooth, reliable connectivity for all devices. Therefore, a cloud orchestration platform is required to scale up and out as all of these new devices – and their associated applications – come online.

4. Entering the era of personal cloud
The personal cloud era will mark a power shift away from devices toward services. In this new world, according to industry analysts, most people use three or more devices on a daily basis. Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Therefore, collaboration and file sharing technologies are required to allow users to attend meetings, socially collaborate, and access and share data at any time. Access to the cloud and the content stored or shared from the cloud will be managed and secured, rather than solely focusing on the device itself.

In 2013, Mydin Mohamed Holdings, Malaysia’s largest retail chain, showed the industry why it is the leader in the country with the implementation of a personal shopping system called Sam’s Self Scan, which incorporates cloud based asset and software monitoring to connect with customers, providing real-time deals and also help check-out their purchases with greater ease.

2014 will see the workplace of the future – one increasingly defined by a mobile workforce used to operating on multiple devices at multiple locations – take root in ASEAN. To build a workplace that will satisfy this generation of workers, enterprises will need a mobility strategy that covers the entire gamut from mobile device management (MDM) to mobile app management (MAM), and the infrastructure through which mobility is delivered, such as network performance and access. Other priorities will also include the increased use of SaaS and web apps and tools to support remote employees, such as tools for secure file sharing, collaboration and remote help desk services.

Network Optimization in the Cloud Era Necessary 80% of Newly Installed Wireless Networks Obsolete by 2015, says Gartner

Kuala Lumpur, November 29, 2013 - According to leading technology research company, Gartner, by 2015, 80 percent of newly installed wireless networks will be obsolete because of lack of proper planning, and could impact the implementation of enterprise mobility.

With the use of multiple devices at the workplace to access cloud services, web-based applications and real-time applications, the number of network connections per employee increases, thus straining the network at its capacity.

Therefore, enterprise IT needs a flexible, scalable and application-aware network to maintain the performance of the datacenter network as the end-user expects seamless connectivity between Wireless Local Area Network (WLANs) and mobile cellular networks.

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN, shares his insights on key considerations for businesses seeking to optimize their network’s performance.

Leverage the application
The application delivery controller (ADC) has become a strategic control point in many datacenters as the result of its ability to guarantee application availability, performance and security, and server infrastructure offload, while reducing datacenter total cost of ownership (TCO).

Often, the capacity of the ADC is pushed to its limit when an application operates at multiple gigabits/sec or when the user population for a critical application is doubled or tripled. This should be avoided and enterprises should utilize a software-based architecture that fully leverages multiple applications – physical or virtual. This way, even as the ADC expands to meet future growth, there is a single, consistent policy management view for the entire cluster so that all aspects of ADC administration remain constant.

Explore and maximize possibilities
A recent collaboration between Citrix and Cisco allows the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) to become the control and automation framework with Citrix NetScaler® providing several of the application services.

Citrix NetScaler® is the industry’s most advanced cloud networking platform. It has been positioned in the Gartner’s Leaders Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers Magic Quadrant for seven consecutive years for its ability to solve complex application deployment challenges.

APIC enables a policy-driven service insertion solution that automates the routing network traffic to the right services, based on application policies. The automated addition, removal, and reordering of services allow applications to change quickly, without the need to rewire, reconfigure or relocate resources and services.

Citrix NetScaler works in the APIC environment in an integrated manner, providing Layer 4-7 services, such as load balancing, application acceleration, optimization and application security. This application-centric approach is a key enabler of a truly agile, flexible and resourceful data center.

The integration between Citrix NetScaler and Cisco APIC unifies both the management and flow of data through hardware and software in the datacenter, providing the following game changer benefits:

1. A central point of control – one place in the network to control all functions that the network delivers so that application teams can focus on application policies, and the network can manage their provisioning and deployment.
2. Scalable and Elastic – by decoupling service nodes from service policy, elastic scale, with both physical and virtual ADC appliances, is enabled.
3. Investment Protection – the integration is designed to be fully compatible with existing NetScaler deployments and deployment models.
4. Open – committed to standardizing important innovations, Cisco and Citrix are driving the definition of the Network Service Header (NSH) protocol that supports the fluid movement of both service functions and application workloads within the fabric.

Looking ahead
Today, the complexity and inflexibility of massive IT infrastructures are slowing business down. IT professionals typically work in separate, inefficient siloes because current technology does not support a shared architectural model. In addition, there is no way to gain a single view of all the technology components that impact application performance.

CIOs are striving to break down these siloes and unify all components of IT, such as networking, storage, applications and security, to manage them as a single, dynamic entity without compromise.

This is where ACI can help. Coupling innovations in software, hardware and systems with a dynamic, application-aware network policy model, built around open APIs, will help to reduce application deployment from months to minutes.

This unified, integrated approach represents the next evolution in ADC technology, fundamentally changing and uniquely enabling a tight integration with the Cisco network infrastructure that is unmatched by any other ADC on the market.

Delivering applications with maximum security

November 6, 2013, Kuala Lumpur - As the business world increasingly becomes interconnected, several computing trends and factors in the environment have made addressing IT security more complex. Organizations are finding it harder to maintain and manage enterprise security in terms of sensitive code and corporate data, especially with the increasing usage of virtual applications in the workplace.

The traditional distributed approach to application deployment and management which entails installing, maintaining and supporting applications on individual endpoints, is becoming complex and expensive, especially with the proliferation of applications and devices.

Application virtualization improves the security, manageability and compatibility of applications by isolating them from the underlying operating system and other applications. With application virtualization, applications are installed via an integrated application streaming from a centralized location on the target device where they will execute.

The delivery of virtual desktops and apps on demand is also possible, thus providing self-service access for users and simplified management for IT.  Now, app selections can be instant and hassle-free, with users being able to choose apps from an easy-to-use app store that is securely accessible from any device, including tablets, smartphones and thin clients.

With such solutions, businesses can reduce computing costs, secure apps that are fast over mobile networks, and also enable mobile workstyles to increase workforce productivity and drive innovation.

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN, provides tips for businesses seeking to deliver applications with maximum security at the workplace.

1. Centralize
Applications should run on centralized servers, as this enables users to view and interact with real-time updates, but at the same time, fully protects information preventing any leakage from the datacenters. As the applications are managed and maintained centrally, any glitches with the software can be rectified in an efficient manner. Consistent user experiences across all devices are maintained, while protecting intellectual property.

2. Secure access, delivery and containment
Organizations should be prepared for employees to access data offline and should opt for a technological feature that supplements data protection and supports offline access for users. The solution should allow the encryption of a workspace, making it a safe zone, such that stored data is automatically wiped clean after an administrator-specified expiration date.  Complementing this with a remote kill functionality also mitigates risk in the event an endpoint is lost or stolen, whereby all confidential corporate data will be deleted automatically.

3. Implement fine-grained access and usage controls
To further strengthen enterprise security, organizations should also consider implementing fine-grained customized policies according to users’ identities. Considerations such as the type, duration and location of access should be determined before configured policies are implemented. This helps to build and enforce a tightly controlled environment.

4. Monitor closely
Organizations should also contemplate having a comprehensive monitoring system in place. For example, session shadowing enables a user’s session to be duplicated and displayed in real-time on an administrator’s workstation. This is helpful for administrators to identify and react to misuse based on malicious intentions, undetected compromises, policy gaps or errors. In addition, this functionality also provides extensive support for compliance with corporate policies, security and privacy regulations, and troubleshooting.

The management and protection of data is a key cornerstone of enterprise mobility. An integrated approach is required to enable IT to seamlessly and safely address business-driven challenges and extend application access to an increasingly mobile workforce.

Citrix Accelerates Employee Mobile Productivity With New XenMobile Release

Introduces New Collaboration Features and User Friendly Security

MALAYSIA – Oct. 30, 2013 – Citrix has announced a new release of Citrix XenMobile™, further extending the company’s leadership position in enterprise mobility management (EMM). The new release boasts great new features – unique to Citrix - that simplify and speed up manual processes for mobile users, like eliminating the need to enter long passcodes to get into online meetings or work apps. New enhancements also provide simpler and faster deployment options for IT organizations. Businesses are empowered to mobilize geographically dispersed workers and scale to hundreds of thousands of devices easily– all while addressing security and management concerns.

Mobility is a top priority for businesses. According to a new Citrix “Mobility in Business” report1, 63 percent of enterprises believe going mobile is the greatest driver of organizational competitiveness. More employees than ever before are expecting instant access to work apps and data on-the-go. Enterprise mobility deployments are becoming more complex with multiple devices and platforms, which demand varying levels of control. In order to really empower mobile users, businesses need a simple, scalable, and speedier deployment approach across platforms, apps, data and networks.

What’s New in XenMobile

• Mobile Users Can Do More in Less Time - New enhancements to email and calendar make every day tasks easier and faster for mobile users. With the new one touch feature, users can automatically launch and join an online meeting, using Citrix GoToMeeting® or other meeting services, directly from their calendar. Or the dial in option auto-dials the conference number and participant code - perfect for users on-the-run.

This highlights the strength of combining XenMobile with Citrix Worx Mobile Apps. By integrating GoToMeeting, Citrix ShareFile® and Citrix GoToAssist®, XenMobile uniquely delivers tightly integrated and enhanced management, access, security and support. Organizations can also select more than 100 third party Worx-enabled applications to further improve user productivity.

• Mobile Users Can Access Work Faster – Fast authentication enables mobile users to access work applications with a simple PIN. Similar to an ATM PIN number, this eliminates the need to type cumbersome passwords for each app. These PINs are combined with user specific digital certificates to ensure high security. Security is made both invisible and seamless, enabling doctors at a hospital, or an executive at an airport, to quickly and securely access their apps and resources by entering a single PIN.

• Businesses Can Respond Faster and Scale Up to Hundreds of Thousands of Devices – XenMobile allows IT to quickly mobilize users with single step device enrollments, auto configuration of secure email, and wizards based deployment. This easy process provides a quicker path to productivity for users while reducing support calls to the help desk.

And new multi-site support provides global load balancing capabilities. This seamlessly bridges geographically dispersed deployments. With XenMobile, businesses can quickly mobilize remote offices, or easily onboard new business units or subsidiaries of acquired companies with multi-domain support. IT can manage and support hundreds of thousands of mobile users, using multiple devices, globally.

Additionally, the new release integrates and extends support for the new Amazon MDM APIs, iOS 7 MDM APIs, and Samsung KNOX platforms. XenMobile further enhances industry leading app security and management capabilities with more than 60 different app policies for iOS and Android. XenMobile offers the industry’s most comprehensive mobility solution, enabling IT to manage and secure devices, apps, and data—while empowering users with the freedom to experience work and life their way.

Simplifying Virtual Desktops

October 8, 2013, Kuala Lumpur - In recent years, the rapidly shifting IT landscape has brought about more risks and challenges for organizations in terms of data management and security. Additionally, technological initiatives, such as workshifting, consumerization of IT and cloud computing, have added complexities to the way IT manages, controls and protects sensitive enterprise data.

As the workplace of the future becomes more diverse, organizations are leveraging virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to enable employees to access corporate desktops from any device, at any time, resulting in a more agile, responsive and secure computing environment with real market advantages.

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN, shares his insights on the top five considerations for businesses looking to simplify virtual desktops.

1. Cost
Regardless of the size of the organization, it is important to factor in all direct and indirect costs associated with VDI implementation in the total project cost, and assess the total cost of the physical servers, shared storage, management and any other infrastructure needed for production deployment. It is also vital to consider the ultimate size of the planned deployment and decide if it will take place in phases.

2. Simplicity
Traditional desktop virtualization deployments require enterprise resources and expertise, and typically take weeks to months to complete. Therefore, it is essential to calculate the complexity of the proposed VDI solution carefully, and evaluate the number of hardware and software components the solution will require, and focus on simplifying the VDI solution under consideration.

3. Scalability and high availability
Enterprises should plan for scalability in any solution implemented. A solution should be able to scale cost-effectively to match a business’ needs over time. Some enterprises may be used to overprovisioning costs, but as a first step, it is good practice to consider the impact scalability-related overprovisioning would have on budget.

4. End-user experience
Enterprises should first understand their employees’ workloads and evaluate how a particular solution would meet their needs. This is key as virtual desktops can boost productivity. During this process, it is also recommended that companies consider the networks their employees might connect from and check if the protocol is mature enough to support various end-point devices, such as tablets, mobile phones and printers. This is because VDI solutions may rely on different protocols to stream virtual desktops to users.

5. Openness of the architecture
In evaluating VDI solutions, enterprises should consider if these solutions are open enough to offer options and flexibility in protocols and virtualization technologies. VDI solutions with open architecture can easily blend into the organization’s infrastructure, therefore removing any technology learning curve and additional expenses.

While licensing and hardware costs for VDI may be higher at the outset compared to alternative virtualization options, enterprises can expect several productivity and business alignment benefits.

Furthermore, centralized management, effective patching and workforce enablement can also be a key tool for desktop security as well.

Top Brands Bring New Apps to BlackBerry 10 Customers

BlackBerry Jam Asia Developer Conference to Showcase New Applications 

Waterloo, ON – More top brands are bringing new applications to customers on the BlackBerry® 10 platform. Today at the BlackBerry Jam Asia Developer Conference in Hong Kong, BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) will be showcasing the application experience on BlackBerry 10 and talking about new app partners.

“BlackBerry has a strong lineup of top brands building great applications for BlackBerry 10,” said Martyn Mallick, Vice President of BlackBerry World and Global Alliances at BlackBerry. “We remain focused on bringing relevant, sought-after apps to the BlackBerry World storefront, and we are excited to announce and welcome these new partners to BlackBerry 10.”

New apps now available and committed to coming soon include:

Business and Productivity
Bloomberg, Citrix Receiver, CommonDesk ARCviewer, Evernote, First Direct Banking On The Go , HDFC Banking, ICICI bank and National Bank of Canada

Security and Compliance
Cellcrypt Mobile, CommonDesk Compliance Engine, Fixmo Sentinel, Retain for BlackBerry Powered by GWAVA, RSA SecurID® Software Token and SafeNet MobilePASS and SafeNet Authenticiation Service (SAS)

Entertainment and Multimedia
ABC, ABC Family, Discovery, E! Online, GMM TV, History App, Hype Machine, KK Box, KlikMusik, MTV Coke Studio, NBC, Quickflix, Sohu TV, Ultimate History Quiz, and Wowloud

Gaming
Angry Birds—GO!, Bad Piggies, Despicable Me: Minion Rush, Doodle Jump, Icy Tower Classic, Icy Tower 2, Real Racing 3 for BlackBerry 10 and The Sims FreePlay for BlackBerry 10

Lifestyle and Sports
CBS Sports App, Kereta Api Indonesia, Kingsoft Powerword, MTV Nightfinder, The Perfect Year App by InsideHook, Qoo10, SBS Transit, Star Health and Zalora

News and Publications
Channel NewsAsia, Flipboard, FTChinese.com, Her World Indonesia, Infokomputer for BlackBerry, MSN App and Shanghai Daily

Social
Kaixin, QQ, Sina Weibo, and WeChat

Best Practices for Hybrid Clouds

September 3, 2013, Kuala Lumpur -  According to a cloud computing study by Tata Consultancy Services last year, the use of cloud applications in Asia Pacific is expected to peak at 50 percent in 2014, higher than Europe’s usage of 24 percent, and 34 percent in America.

Now, more enterprises in Asia Pacific are seriously considering the use of hybrid clouds in order to achieve maximum benefit from their cloud infrastructure.

Hybrid cloud strategies are a combination of public and private cloud services, enabling enterprises to increase their Return on Investment (ROI) on existing IT investments while providing the agility and scalability required quickly.

Whether an enterprise chooses a public, private or hybrid cloud service, there must be a transparent bridge between the enterprise datacenter and the cloud, allowing cloud applications to appear as though they are running on the enterprise network.

This is key in reducing the cost of cloud-specific Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and portals while avoiding the creation of cloud silos — a key concern for enterprises moving their corporate data and applications to the cloud.

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN, shares the best hybrid cloud computing strategies enterprises should adopt in order to reap the full benefits of this progressive technological solution.

Build in security features

A good hybrid cloud computing strategy is characterized by a built-in security feature for data in motion, between the enterprise datacenter and the cloud. This is usually fulfilled by a secured tunnel and seamless network bridge which allows data to traverse the network between the enterprise datacenter and the cloud. This enables a natural extension of the enterprise’s network and a fuss-free shift of resources to the cloud, without having to re-architect the application.

Leverage existing tools

The cost and complexity of moving applications to the cloud can be efficiently mitigated by consistently using the same tools and processes. By making cloud-hosted applications appear as though they are on the enterprise network, the same tools used to manage them in the enterprise datacenter can be applied to manage them in the cloud, too. This approach reduces investment in cloud-specific APIs and portals, avoiding the creation of cloud silos.

Globalize the server load balancer

Another distinct component of a comprehensive hybrid cloud strategy is the global server load balancing feature. It gives end-users a single, consistent path to their applications, regardless of the enterprise or cloud datacenter that hosts the application at any given time. This is fundamental in keeping applications running at all times despite the various ongoing changes in the network’s topology.

Enterprises seeking the benefits of cloud computing may face challenging requirements in their cloud deployment, ranging from the overall mix of traditional datacenters and available cloud resources, to the number and type of clouds to leverage. The key measure of success would be for enterprises to adapt to their chosen cloud approach and be able to capture value from any situation encountered.

IDC & Gartner Reports Portable PCs Vs Desktop Trend A Leap towards Workplace Mobility

August 6, 2013, Kuala Lumpur –  As the use of tablets overtake the PC as a workplace IT device of choice, enterprises need to ensure that workplace apps and software are well-suited for this alternative work platform.

In doing so, employees can enjoy the flexibility of working from their home or any other location, which can help to increase productivity and reduce employee turnover.

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN.

According to Gartner, PC shipments in Asia Pacific for the second quarter of 2013 stood at 26.8 million units, an 11.5 percent decline from the 30.3 million units seen in the first quarter of 2012.

This drop was larger than the global PC shipments decline of 10.9 percent, which has seen five consecutive quarters of decline. In its assessment, Gartner stated that it is the longest duration of decline in the history of the PC market.

In contrast, shipment of portable PCs in Asia Pacific is expected to rise from 110.4 million units at the end of 2013 to 127.5 million units in 2017, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

The findings from both reports suggest an evolving trend of end-users switching from desktops to portable PCs and smaller, mobile devices, which also reflects the rise of the mobile worker.

The number of mobile workers globally is expected to peak at 1.3 billion by 2015, with Asia Pacific witnessing the strongest economic growth. In Asia Pacific excluding Japan, the growth of mobile workers are expected to reach 838.7 million by 2015, which makes up the largest segment of global mobile workers, at 64.5 percent.

As the workplace and workstyles evolve, how can enterprises ensure that apps and software are well-suited to alternative work platforms?

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN, shares the top three ways in which enterprises can take a leap forward in deploying desktop mobility, and raise the overall productivity of their operations.

1) Enable intuitive and transparent functions
When a Windows app is enabled to function on a mobile device, employees do not have to modify their workstyles when switching from the PC to the tablet. This shortens their time-to-production during the shift to alternative work platforms.

2) Deliver a high-performance user-experience
As Windows is the most widely used software in the workplace, enterprises should implement solutions that replicate the Windows experience on tablets. These apps should be high performance so employees can access these apps, without compromising on the end-user familiarity with the software.

3) Mobilize apps and deliver as a cloud service
Cloud gives enterprises the ability to manage costs, extend capacity on demand, reduce lead-time for procuring and configuring hardware, and reduces hardware sizing risk that comes with fluctuating loads. With cloud, employees can also retrieve their desktops from any device, further empowering their mobility.

Desktop mobility is expected to grow as enterprises adopt it for business functions that do not necessarily require heavy computing. The impetus for mobilized desktops will also stem from employees as their experience of using cloud-hosted desktops mirrors their familiarity with accessing Windows apps and data from their PCs. Therefore, it is essential to extend the functionality and drive adoption of Windows apps on portable devices.

The large scale adoption of such a trend also represents a new world where the workspace is available anywhere, anytime, and not subject to hardware failure or loss.

Supporting this trend, the net revenue for Citrix Mobile and Desktop groups rose by 10.8 percent in Q2 FY2013, when compared to the same quarter last year – from US$345.1 million in 2012 to US$382.2 million in the second quarter of 2013.

The Citrix Q2 FY2013 results released on 24 July also showed that net revenue in Asia Pacific rose 12.6 percent from US$64.5 million in the first quarter of 2013 to US$72.6 million in the second quarter of 2013, outpacing the overall quarter-on-quarter increase of 8.5 percent.

Overall, for the second quarter of fiscal year 2013, Citrix achieved revenues of US$730 million, compared to US$615 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2012, representing a 19 percent revenue growth.

Securing enterprise mobility in Malaysia’s BYOD world

By Mark Micallef, Area Vice President, ASEAN, Citrix

The explosion of mobile devices is a huge challenge for IT organizations in many enterprises today. The emergence of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in Asia – and the mobile workstyles that it enables – brings with it significant benefits to the enterprise including a more productive and happier workforce and increased efficiency.

In the Citrix Workplace of the Future report released in 2012, Malaysia is ahead of its global counterparts in the number of devices used in the workplace, with an average of 6 devices per person, higher than the average of 4.43 devices globally and 4.39 devices in Asia Pacific. This indicates that Malaysia is a step ahead in embracing enterprise mobility.

As employees bring their smart phones and tablets into the workplace to access the corporate network, business applications and enterprise data, it is essential for IT teams to improve security of the multiple access points.

With the increasing diversity of devices entering the workplace and the growing need for compliance today, a secure enterprise mobility solution will require both mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM).

Mobile device software works well when all the devices the IT department manages are company-issued as the software allows IT to restrict the types of applications the end-users are allowed to download onto the device.

But when personal devices are brought into the workplace with a multitude of settings, controls and operating systems, the standalone mobile device management software will not give IT the granular control that they need. This raises the risk of security issues beyond acceptable levels in today’s compliance-centric world.

Enterprises, therefore, require a comprehensive approach that extends beyond device management to include mobile application, as well as content and services management. This allows IT to enable the end-user to be fully productive without compromising on security requirements.
Securing your enterprise one app at a time

There are three key factors of a comprehensive mobility management solution.

• Separation of corporate apps and data from personal apps and data
Segregating corporate apps and data from personal apps and data on a user device allows IT to create specific policy-based controls for apps that prevent corporate data security from being compromised.  With the segregation, IT can use mobile data leakage prevention software to lock, wipe and encrypt apps and data specific to the enterprise.

• Restrict access to the corporate LAN via Micro VPN
By allowing the mobile device access to the corporate network via a Micro VPN over the SSL VPN, IT is able to restrict access to apps it considers illegitimate. Micro VPN functionality does not require a device-wide VPN that can compromise security on untrusted mobile devices. As a result, the internal network is not exposed to viruses or malware that could infect the entire corporate system, and corporate mobile apps and personal mobile apps are able to co-exist on one device. A mobile application management solution with a micro VPN technology fills a significant gap left by traditional secure remote access technologies.

• Granular control for enterprise IT team
By giving enterprise IT granular control over all native and HTML5 mobile apps, enterprise IT is able to set strong authentication and endpoint analysis before permitting users to download and install applications on their devices.

Mobile Application Management will come to the forefront as a key enabler of enterprise mobile security in the months ahead as it gives IT teams the ability to centrally control and configure policies based on users’ identity, device, location and connectivity type so as to restrict malicious usage of corporate content.

In the event a device is lost or stolen, business applications and data can be disabled, locked or wiped remotely. The overall effect is a solution that increases employee satisfaction and productivity, while ensuring security and IT control.

Citrix Synergy Los Angeles New Cloud Solutions Introduced to Power Mobile Workstyles

Re-imagining desktops, apps and data for a mobile world

June 6, 2013, Kuala Lumpur - Citrix Synergy concluded last week in Los Angeles, California, with a bang. The annual flagship event by Citrix, held from 22 – 24 May presented technologies and solutions that support flexible and scalable access to all the resources workers need, while providing powerful management, protection and control capabilities for IT teams.

As IT decision-making is increasingly being shaped by the forces of BYOD, personal cloud services and a millennial generation with new ideas about where, when and how work is done, Citrix Synergy focused on four key aspects of solutions for businesses to embrace mobile workstyles to succeed in a dynamic and mobile world.

The four key aspects:
 Mobility: Synergy explored diverse facets of mobility and the latest solutions and technology for enabling mobile workstyles. Major focus areas included the best ways to implement bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs; how to protect corporate resources and email while maximizing access and sharing; tools for efficient mobile device management; and new approaches to self-service functionality that support IT consumerization.

 Virtualization: Synergy provided extensive content on desktop and app virtualization, focusing on such issues as how to efficiently deliver the right desktop to every user and group, and ways in which to better enable mobile workers to work offline, as well as solutions for accelerating app migration to a virtualized environment. Synergy also explored the future – transforming app and desktop virtualization into true cloud-style service delivery.

 Networking: Synergy provided in-depth coverage of networking trends, solutions and technologies. Key topics included next-generation application delivery controllers for high-traffic websites and private clouds, the most effective ways to deliver seamless access and single sign-on to Windows, SaaS and cloud-hosted apps, network optimization in cloud environments and enhancement of application performance and availability in public and private clouds.

 Cloud: Synergy targeted the latest solutions and technologies for cloud design, infrastructure, operations management and scalability. Major focus areas included delivering both legacy and cloud era workloads in the enterprise, providing multi-tenancy in a hosted cloud, leveraging cloud for disaster recovery and the strong trend of IT as a service.

This month’s news update from Citrix highlights new ways for customers to mobilize their businesses by delivering desktops, apps and data as true on-demand cloud services from both private and public clouds, transforming how they operate, collaborate and innovate.

1. Xen Desktop 7
Xen Desktop 7 is the first release of Project Avalon, a multi-phased initiative to deliver Windows as a cloud service. As the pressure mounts on enterprises to respond to the demands of an increasingly mobile workforce, most businesses have adapted Windows apps that were not meant to be mobile as a stop gap solution. With Xen Desktop 7, which is powered by HDX Mobile™ technologies, IT can enable any Windows app to function intuitively and transparently on mobile devices, providing a seamless mobile-friendly experience. Over 20 additional partners, including Cisco, HP, IBM and Microsoft, have signaled their support and are optimizing their solutions for Xen Desktop 7. Xen Desktop 7 will be available in Platinum, Enterprise and VDI editions on a per-user, per-device or concurrent basis from June 2013.

2. Citrix XenMobile Enterprise Edition Solution
The new Citrix XenMobile Enterprise Edition combines mobile device, app and data management; a unified corporate app store; Worx Mobile™ productivity apps; and “one-touch” live support into an inclusive solution for delivering mobile services to businesses. As the consumerization of IT has led to an influx of consumer apps into the workplace, the risk to the security of corporate data, network and compliance increases. IT therefore must find a way to mitigate this risk while enabling users to take advantage of the powerful benefits mobile apps provide. Worx-enabled apps are developed with a simple and powerful SDK that leverages Citrix MDX app container technology to add features, such as data encryption, password authentication, secure lock and wipe, inter-app policies and micro VPNs, to any mobile app. This allows IT to add a single line of code to instantly embed enterprise capabilities into any mobile app. The XenMobile Enterprise Edition solution is licensed with per-device and per-user options on an annual or perpetual term, starting at US$65 per year per device, and will be available from June 2013.

Reaffirming Citrix XenMobile’s unparalleled value proposition, on 29 May, Gartner affirmed Citrix as a ‘Leader’ in the 2013 Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management (MDM) Software report, based on its assessment of Citrix’s comprehensive MDM solution which was launched globally in February 2013. Citrix XenMobile™ also received the highest score for overall use case in Critical Capabilities for its comprehensive solution that gives users mobile device, app and data freedom, while also enabling IT to meet its management and compliance requirements. With XenMobile, Citrix continues its leadership in providing organizations with a single vendor for all enterprise mobility needs.

3. Sharefile StorageZone Connectors
The new ShareFile StorageZone Connectors helps enterprises provide secure mobile access to data behind the corporate firewall, extending the value of SharePoint and network drives in a BYO world. As mobile access to enterprise data is a critical component in enabling user productivity, with organizations requiring an enterprise-class solution to deliver it, the new ShareFile StorageZone Connectors provides IT with comprehensive control to secure enterprise data everywhere. The new StorageZone options with Microsoft Windows Azure also offer IT the added flexibility to store data in Microsoft-hosted datacenters, in addition to Citrix-managed clouds or on-premise within their own datacenters. Through unique integration between ShareFile and XenMobile, IT can choose ShareFile as the common data platform and enable seamless interoperability to open, edit, sync and share data securely on any mobile device. ShareFile StorageZone Connectors, StorageZone Options for Microsoft Windows Azure as well as ShareFile and XenMobile integration will be available from June 2013.