Addressing 3 500 delegates at the eighth annual Citrix iForum, in Las Vegas, on Monday, Citrix Systems CEO and president Mark Templeton introduced new access infrastructure technologies.
These included the 64-bit edition of Citrix Presentation Server, NetScaler and the "Tarpon" project.
Templeton said the technologies, in the Citrix access platform, enable access to any client-server, Web or desktop application, providing a platform for on-demand access to business-critical information.
Access infrastructure, he said, is being recognised by organisations as having a profound impact on business, and many are beginning to adopt a strategic and holistic approach to it.
Trends indicate that Web-based applications are the fastest growing within the enterprise space, but desktop and client-server application still plays a big part in the suite, Templeton said.
Despite a move towards application consolidation and centralisation, he noted that the number of applications that need to be delivered for business is constantly growing, as new computing possibilities arise.
This, said Templeton, also provides application delivery challenges relating to user expectations of improved cost, performance, security and availability.
"It`s time to take a step back and consider what the best set of tools is for managing application architectures, specific delivery challenges and user expectations," he said.
Application virtualisation
In terms of client-server applications, Templeton unveiled the latest version of the Citrix Presentation Server, the 64-bit edition, which facilitates application virtualisation.
"Virtualisation is a very powerful idea - it can separate the application`s physical layer from its logical layer," he explained.
By 'virtualising` client-server applications, the client can execute as close as possible to the server and the application data, and only the virtualised interface needs to be presented to the user`s computer.
Through its new presentation server, Templeton said, Citrix is building broad support for extended 64-bit operating systems and server architectures, offering performance and scalability gains over today`s 32-but systems.
Web applications
For Web applications, Citrix has identified optimisation as the best tool. Templeton said optimisation solves the fundamental problem of poor response times caused by complex, high-traffic Web applications running over inefficient networks.
The Citrix NetScaler system offers application acceleration, SSL acceleration and network-layer denial-of-service attack protection in an integrated network appliance that accelerates Web application performance by up to 15 times.
The newest NetScaler product is targeted at small to medium enterprises, Templeton said.
He argued that, for the first time, enterprises of all sizes can take advantage of the same technology that powers many of the world`s largest and most demanding Web applications.
Pull versus push
Lastly, according to Templeton, application streaming is the ideal solution for desktop applications, which are mission-critical to knowledge creators.
Unveiling the Citrix "Tarpon" project, he said this is a technology that uses a "pull-based" model for application deployments and updates. Leveraging application run-time isolation, this technology runs application on demand in an isolated environment, even when offline.
Templeton noted that this is a different approach from traditional software distribution, which creates an application installation package that is "pushed" to and installed on each desktop.
However, with the push model, applications are installed on the operating system, which can lead to installation complexity and compatibility issues, creating the risk of inter-application conflict.
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