When Costs Must Be Reduced and Productivity Must Be IncreasedChallenges, Implications and Solutions for IT

White paper

Table of ContentsIntroduction ..........................................................................................................................................3Real Metrics of Business Impact ...........................................................................................................3Operational Initiatives ............................................................................................................................4Industry Challenges ..............................................................................................................................5The Implications for IT ...........................................................................................................................6A Foundation That Is Secure by Design ................................................................................................7An Infrastructure That Controls the Application Delivery Network – Instead of the Variables .........................................................................................................................8Solutions That Keep Pace with the Business ......................................................................................10 • Citrix for Operational Initiatives: Modernize the Business While Leveraging the Infrastructure ..................................................................................................10 • Citrix for Industry Challenges: Maximize the Assets You Already Have ...................................14

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IntroductionDecade after decade and across organizations throughout the world, each successive wave of computing, from mainframe to minicomputer to PC to client-server to the Web to Java to Web services, has been piled on top of its predecessor. Today, these technologies continue to provide organizations with best-of-breed capabilities, sound economic return, and strategic value – but the cost to maintain them drastically limits IT in its ability to support business growth.

In recent years, organizations and their key executives, along with industry experts from Gartner to Forrester to IDC, have come to recognize that IT groups must reduce the cost of owning and maintaining technology systems in order to re-deploy those funds to business-enabling IT projects. Driven by the diverse and far-reaching requirements that are shaping an organization’s ability to effectively compete and succeed in today’s business landscape, IT efficiency has become paramount: costs must be reduced, productivity must be increased. It is no longer acceptable to continue using most of the IT budget simply to support existing IT investments.

Improving IT efficiency, however, is not a simple matter. The IT infrastructure has become extremely complex. The user environment has changed completely, now characterized by its dynamic nature. The risks to security of information are vast, far exceeding the power of patches and passwords alone. As a result, if IT is to support the organization’s ability to compete, grow, and prosper, IT groups need to focus on a new way to approach IT operations – instead of focusing on the status quo.

Together, the new and broad challenges of today’s business landscape and the consequent implications for IT teams suggest that a strategic approach to improving IT efficiency will yield the best results, both immediately and in the flexibility to meet new challenges over time. This requires:

• a foundation that is secure by design, not by chance, to help eliminate the traditional compromise between security on the one hand and productivity and profitability on the other.

• an application delivery infrastructure, that eliminates the related costs, inefficiencies, and inability to support business goals that are inherent in a fragmented approach to IT operations.

• a solution that keeps pace with the business, to help IT execute rapidly and efficiently, reducing the need for custom integration of individual products, accommodating legacy and future technologies, and providing an architectural approach that designs for change to meet the business’s needs on demand.

This whitepaper examines the business benefits and business impact delivered by such an approach when it is used to address some of the key concerns, challenges, and issues confronting the Chief Technology Officer and the IT group today.

Real Metrics of Business ImpactAs the global leader and most trusted name in application delivery infrastructure, Citrix since 1989 has been helping organizations to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security, and lowest cost.

We expect to save about 600,000 euro every year over the next five years as a result of migrating to Citrix Presentation Server.

Jeroen Kuijlen, Director, ICT & General and Technical Services, CZ

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In fact, Citrix was the first company to understand how organizations use applications to run their business, and to develop an application delivery infrastructure with solutions based on the customer’s perspective. Instead of limiting IT solely to modernizing systems and optimizing business processes for better operating efficiencies, Citrix solutions make IT relevant to the business, giving IT the flexibility to change on demand and over time across technical, physical, and organizational dimensions. Without changing the overall environment, IT gains an agile infrastructure that connects application delivery to the business value of the application, enabling IT to keep pace with the business, to handle multiple challenges concurrently, and to drive productivity and profitability initiatives across the company and across business units.

With annual revenue of $1.1 billion in 2006, Citrix today is relied upon by IT teams and their strategic executives at more than 200,000 organizations throughout the world, including 100% of the Fortune 100 companies and 98% of the Fortune Global 500. These customers are using Citrix solutions to do more than simply “keep the lights on”, reporting impressive results in improving IT efficiency with lower operational costs, higher productivity, and opportunities for innovation, thereby enabling them to better advance and support their organization’s business goals and objectives. For example:

• CZ – One of the largest independent health insurance organizations in the Netherlands, with 2,200 employees providing services to over two million people, uses Citrix to provide on-demand access for local, remote, mobile, and home-based employees to over 150 applications. The Citrix solution has enabled CZ to reduce IT staff for help desk and local support in two of its three headquarters, while at the same time increasing the level of IT service and flexibility, efficiency, and satisfaction of users.

• Gati Limited – This India-based pioneer in the express cargo industry and market leader in logistics, with more than 2,500 employees in 250 offices, and more than 100 franchisees, uses Citrix Presentation Server to provide on-demand access to the Gati Enterprise Management System (GEMS), a custom-developed ERP application that enables all Gati offices to carry out operations, from capturing pickup requests to tracking consignments. The Citrix solution has enabled Gati to reduce dial-up costs by 50%.

Operational InitiativesModernize the Business While Leveraging the Infrastructure

Consider this: typically 70% of today’s IT budget is being spent just on maintaining the complex mix of information systems that most enterprises have built up over time.1 As this dramatic statistic has gained increasing recognition in this century, there has come a consequent profound impact on the IT group and its key executives.

Organizations now are seeking IT cost savings through operational initiatives ranging from data center and server consolidation to centralization, with an eye to:

• Reducing total cost of ownership (TCO), such as costs for hardware depreciation, costs for organization moves and changes, or charges for remote data centers and business continuity requirements.

Citrix architecture has helped connect branches across the country without line disconnection, thereby improving internal efficiencies and enabling better decision-making.

G.S. Ravi Kumar, CIO, Gati Limited

1 “Best Practices: IT for Growth and Innovation”, Forrester Research, March 2005

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• Reducing capital expenditures, such as those associated with adding sites in diverse geographic locations.

• Improving capacity planning and control, such as leveraging centralized servers to efficiently use existing capacity and to scale to grow without additional investments at each incremental point of scaling.

• Simplifying operational management of IT services, such as leveraging centralized servers to efficiently use existing capacity and to scale to grow without additional investments at each incremental point of scaling.

This requires targeting the increasing complexity of the IT environment and successfully controlling its many moving parts, to relieve the pressure on IT and re-direct budget dollars where they really matter — toward growing the business. From the constant struggle to keep critically important business applications up-to-date, secure, and performing adequately, to meeting new requirements driven by such factors as today’s mobile workforce or the escalating security requirements of today’s regulatory environment, IT groups need a new approach to managing all of these moving parts — instead of the exhausting, frustrating, and expensive effort of trying to solve the challenges with only existing tools.

Industry ChallengesIn many industries, there arise special requirements in order to provide the various services and products around which they are shaped, a factor that introduces distinct challenges for the IT group when focusing on improving efficiency and better supporting business objectives and goals for their organization. These challenges might center on volume, say, or on confidentiality and privacy, or on sensitive financial data.

From government and education to industries such as financial services, healthcare, retail, e-commerce, manufacturing, or telecommunications, IT groups face special challenges that require power and capabilities beyond “keeping the lights on”. For example:

• For financial services institutions, time is literally money. Applications need to be consistently available, with performance that doesn’t waiver. Downtime and even poor response time can mean lost revenue, and lost customers. Security is likewise paramount. In many cases, confidentiality is legally required.

• Success in retail comes down to having what the customers want, when they want it, at a competitive price. Achieving that comes down to getting maximum value out of the supply chain and internal employees, to keep costs under control and preserve margins.

• Effective e-commerce Web sites come down to speed and availability of applications; without that combination, customers will quite simply go elsewhere, whether they’ve just started browsing a site or even if they’re at checkout. At the same time, providers know that they need to keep sites secure against attacks.

• Patient confidentiality has always been a concern in the healthcare field, but since implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), it’s also a legal requirement in the U.S. Healthcare providers thus put a premium on application security and accountability for patient records.

Citrix technology has enabled us to remotely deploy enterprise-wide applications with ease, resulting in significant savings in project man-hours and costs.

Mr. B.V. Dinesh, IT Consultant, Jyothi Laboratories Ltd.

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• For online media providers to be successful, their sites must not only offer valuable content, they must also provide superior performance. If the applications are sluggish, viewers will quickly go elsewhere. Providing superior performance also requires strong defenses against failures and effective security measures.

The Implications for ITBusinesses today are running more than ever on applications, arguably positioning the application as the main intersection point between IT and the business. Given that customer, financial, operational, and market information are the lifeblood of any enterprise, effective delivery of applications is becoming one of the most important competencies that winning businesses will need. This creates the opportunity for IT to connect application delivery to the business value of the application, making IT relevant to the business.

However, at the same time, users are being pulled further and further from applications by technical, physical and organizational distance, introducing countless variables that endlessly and rapidly change. For example:

• technical distance – consider the proliferation of computing endpoints; Web-based changes in application design; software as a service and managed services being adopted more readily; and a systematic decoupling of computing components with Web services known as service-oriented architecture. IT must support all of these application and user scenarios, both new and old.

• physical distance – IT is consolidating the complexity of distributed computing into datacenters; datacenters are being aggregated to less vulnerable places; users are more mobile, getting work

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done from home, office hotels, and wireless hotspots; users and governments are demanding flex working and more virtual work styles; and work is being shifted offshore to places where it’s more efficient and effective. At the same time, companies must extend applications to external users, suppliers, and partners who can be anywhere in the world.

• organizational distance – boundaries between organizations are falling as business processes are decoupled and outsourced; virtual organizations are becoming more prevalent, allowing business to focus on core competency; and organizational re-structuring, driven by mergers and acquisitions, is accelerating.

This introduces many challenges for IT because the degree of difficulty of application delivery is directly proportional to distance. Absent the right approach to application delivery, application distance will force businesses to live with unacceptable application performance, to compromise information security in the interest of productivity and profitability, and to endure higher operating costs when delivering applications over the network.

A Foundation That Is Secure by Design As a company and through its many products and services, Citrix’s foundational approach to security provides the right degree of protection for delivering applications and extending access to users anywhere, anytime – without compromising security. We call it secure by design, because it enables organizations of any size to treat security as an integral part of their architecture, not as an afterthought.

• Application delivery. Citrix is the only company that offers a service-oriented architectural approach for delivering all classes of applications with the fastest performance, highest security, and lowest cost: application virtualization and application streaming for Windows applications and application optimization for Web applications. Enabling secure use of public networks, this combination offers unique opportunities for control of the endpoint environment, application execution, and information containment.

• Application security and control. To deliver application security and control across IT and business initiatives, Citrix combines the power of two key security capabilities – SSL VPN and Single Sign On.

• Policy-based controls. Administrators can set end-to-end policies that dictate what can be accessed from each specific access scenario. Policies can take into account users, groups, device types, network locations, and end-point security.

• Advanced authentication. In cooperation with partners, Citrix offers authentication with strong measures such as two-factor authentication, using tokens, smart cards and biometrics. Citrix is committed to ensuring that customers have the widest range of authentication options available, from leading authentication providers.

• Industry partnerships. Citrix works closely with industry security leaders, to create certified tight integration with our products and services. Customers can be confident that Citrix has established

Citrix software is a critical part of a groundbreaking project whose success will benefit the health of a nation, thanks to the collaborative research and teaching enhancements it makes possible. The progress made will allow others around the UK to build on the confidence that has been established within the NHS community to deliver more effective information systems and services — and potentially a more comprehensive approach to public sector information service provision in general.

Tony Rucinski, Assistant Director and Head of the Strategy Group, Cardiff University Information Services Directorate

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the partnerships needed to tightly integrate secure-by-design capability with the security eco-system, in areas such as authentication, identity management, and encryption.

• Industry certification. Citrix is continually evaluating industry and government certification programs, and ensuring that products are submitted and certified where appropriate. These programs include FIPS 140-2, Common Criteria, and Section 508 accessibility.

• Industry standards. Citrix is committed to both using and developing open, robust, secure standards for infrastructure security. We make use of established industry standards, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption, and are involved in the development of emerging standards, such as the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).

• End-point security. In partnership with industry leaders, Citrix leverages new and innovative end-point compliance-enforcement solutions, centralizing the assurance that end-points are secure and compliant before access is delivered.

• Comprehensive reporting and auditing. A compliance audit could require reporting that encompasses the entire information lifecycle, including interaction with end-points as well as with the datacenter. Citrix’s solutions encompass both environments, able to provide comprehensive, auditable reporting that includes the user environment as well as the datacenter.

An Infrastructure That Controls the Application Delivery Network – Instead Of The VariablesBehind Citrix’s position as the global leader in application delivery infrastructure is the company’s strategic and systematic approach to developing solutions for application delivery: enabling applications to be delivered, supported, and shared on-demand with the best performance, security, and total cost of ownership.

Flexibility for Fast Response to Business Change

Recognizing the inefficiency of focusing on controlling variables that will change endlessly, Citrix focuses on controlling the application delivery network instead. Leveraging the new architectural approach of service-oriented computing for application delivery, Citrix provides the loose coupling between the application point-of-origin and the user point-of-access to support an infinite number of scenarios between these two points. This approach gives business the ability to change on demand in order to seize opportunities and gain competitiveness, and is at the heart of making IT relevant to the business.

Citrix NetScaler delivered a 67 percent increase right off the bat. It clearly reinforced for us that our customers were having difficulty getting onto the system, and that we were doing the right thing purchasing the NetScaler system.

Jay Winslow, Chief Information Officer, Security Service Federal Credit Union

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Optimal Application Delivery and Complete Line-of-sight Control for All Applications

Citrix is the only technology company with a complete solution to deliver, secure, optimize, and monitor application services from point-of-origin of the application to point-of-access by the end user. Citrix application delivery infrastructure provides optimal delivery and complete line-of-sight control for each class of application, solving the application delivery challenges at the six key strategic points-of-presence:

• Directly in front of Web applications, where most new application development is happening today

• Directly in front of Windows applications, where most existing line-of-business applications are deployed today

• Directly in front of desktops and desktop applications, deployed in the datacenter for delivery over the network

• At the gateway, where users gain secure access to all of their applications

• At the front door of the branch office, where more than half of all enterprise employees access their applications

• Directly on the end point, with full visibility into the end-user experience

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Solutions That Keep Pace with the Business

Citrix for Operational Initiatives: Modernize the Business While Leveraging the Infrastructure

Citrix streamlines IT operations and reduces costs in even the most complex infrastructure environments, extending the use of existing infrastructure. In fact, the more diverse the environment, the greater the value-add of Citrix solutions.

Help the business move fast

Citrix dramatically reduces the time and cost of delivering Windows and desktop applications – often from months to days or hours – to greatly improve the efficiency of product development, of integrating mergers and acquisitions, of getting branch offices up and running, and of any other business initiative. When it comes to Web applications, Citrix NetScaler application delivery systems can increase the speed of application delivery up to 15 times by leveraging multiple acceleration technologies, including data compression and content caching to speed application response times, and innovative TCP optimizations that enhance the efficiency of both client and server connections, while remaining entirely transparent to application users. Plus, Citrix makes it easy to scale to millions of simultaneous online users and hundreds of thousands of transactions per second with a high-end product line that processes application transactions up to 400 percent faster than the best high-end products available from other companies.

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New value that’s measurable, immediate and full of opportunity

When it comes to specific initiatives such as server consolidation and data center consolidation, which now are the focus of enterprises worldwide, Citrix delivers new high-value results, immediately – lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for new servers, higher return on investment (ROI) for installed servers, and increased productivity for your users and you, regardless. If your objective is cutting costs, you’ll use Citrix to reduce the number of servers for the users and applications you now have, reducing your TCO. If your objective is growth, you’ll use Citrix to expand the number of users and applications without adding more servers, expanding your ROI. Equally impressive, you’ll be introducing a new opportunity to fuel IT efficiency, both helping the organization achieve goals for the business and increase IT productivity right away.

Deliver virtual desktops on demand

Citrix Desktop Server™ revolutionizes the way Windows desktops are delivered and managed by enabling the dynamic delivery of virtual desktops – desktops that combine full PC functionality with the cost-savings, manageability, and security of thin clients. Desktop Server provides a virtual desktop delivery system that delivers the best Windows desktop experience for any office worker and reduces the costs and provisioning challenges of desktop refreshes and new desktops for office workers. For example: desktop refreshes for migration to a new operation system can be accomplished more cost-effectively by extending the life of the endpoint and IT can deliver virtual desktops that provide the right desktop to the right users at the right cost profile. Centralized delivery of software updates and patches reduces the cost and effort involved in managing desktops, regardless of end-user location. Plus, through desktop virtualization, Desktop Server centralizes end-user desktops and data in the datacenter, thereby retaining control of the IP and reducing the security risk of data loss at the endpoint.

Deliver desktop applications without worrying about application and system

conflicts and without lowering security standards

When it comes to desktop application installation, IT typically has faced the challenge of dealing with application conflicts and operating system instability. Presentation Server provides the application delivery option of application streaming to enable IT to centrally manage and deliver Windows applications to any user, even when the user is not connected to a network. Applications are streamed to a protected isolation environment, rather than installed on the user’s device, thereby eliminating application conflicts and the need for extensive regression testing. Plus, IT can deliver Windows applications to desktops without lowering security standards, both delivering and updating applications without giving users administrative rights.

Consolidate resource requirements across the organization

Citrix enables IT administrators to manage Windows applications from a single location via a consolidated management console that centralizes control and administration of many moving parts. This means IT can use Citrix Presentation Server to consolidate its resource requirements across the organization to improve resource utilization, delivering economies of scale and purchasing leverage across multiple branches and divisions.

With Citrix, our nurses don’t have to remember any passwords except their Windows NT logon password. This speeds up and simplifies the roaming process, and supports compliance by eliminating generic logons. To enable our access strategy, we are standardizing on Citrix as the main platform to deliver information resources to users, while keeping total cost of ownership down.

David Valcik, Vice President, Infrastructure Services, Beverly Enterprises

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Extend the life of PCs and other client devices

Because Citrix enables Windows and desktop applications to be run on a central server instead of on PCs and other client devices, the life of these devices is extended by reducing the processing power needed on the client. The capability to run applications from a central location also enables organizations to reduce network bandwidth consumption, which increases application performance and further reduces IT costs. This rolls into a big plus for IT efficiency: it is far easier and more cost-effective for the IT group to install and manage both clients and application data on a central server than to try to manage separate clients and applications on every user’s device and desktop.

Exploit the efficiency of single logon for Windows applications

The Single Sign On feature of Presentation Server, powered by Citrix Password Manager™, delivers simplified user access and advanced password security. With automated application logons, password policy control, and self-service password reset, IT can reduce support costs and enhance the security of all password-protected Windows applications delivered by Presentation Server.

Reduce network complexity and operational costs for Web applications

Citrix® NetScaler® application delivery systems are an ideal replacement for aging load balancers and other traffic management devices, enabling organizations to reduce network complexity and operational costs, and streamline the application delivery infrastructure with the industry’s leading technologies.

Free server resources for more online users

Citrix NetScaler systems integrate hardware-based SSL acceleration to offload the compute-intensive processes of SSL connection setup and bulk encryption from Web servers. This reduces CPU utilization on servers, enhancing application response times and freeing server resources for more users.

Leverage a single architecture for fast action

The Citrix Access Gateway™ is the only SSL VPN appliance that securely delivers any application with policy-based Citrix SmartAccess™ control – anywhere. With the Access Gateway, IT becomes empowered to quickly secure applications when rolling out new line-of-business applications to users.

• A single application security point for immediate productivity. With an easy-to-use automatically downloaded client, users can be productive from any machine with Internet access. The IT infrastructure will be instantly and securely available to all users, from partners to mobile workers, branch-office employees, and new employees from mergers and acquisitions. IT can securely and cost-effectively deliver Web applications, Windows applications, and desktops outside of the datacenter, while maintaining strict control through SmartAccess application-level policies.

• A single control point for rapid security response. Because the Access Gateway acts as a single point-of-control to the complete Citrix application delivery infrastructure, when security incidents arise, IT monitors and mitigates all issues in one place, ensuring a rapid response.

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Know what’s happening at the users’ end

With its focus on end-users and achieving business goals, Citrix EdgeSight™ moves IT emphasis away from the “plumbing” – the networks, servers, and infrastructure that support business – to the business itself and the conductors of that business. By measuring performance and availability from the users’ perspective, EdgeSight cuts across organizational and geographic boundaries and monitors the actual end-user experience. The result: IT organizations have the insight, data, and tools they need to ensure that all IT resources are operating at peak efficiency – so that workers can do the same.

Accelerate all applications over any WAN, anywhere – from any

datacenter, anywhere

When information and applications must travel long distances over wide area networks, the process can significantly degrade performance, impact the user experience, and force expensive bandwidth upgrades. In today’s business environment, IT is under pressure to increase security by moving application and server infrastructure out of the branch office and other physically distant locations and into centralized datacenters, which has the effect of reducing application performance. Citrix WANScaler™ optimizes the broadband connection between the branch office and the enterprise datacenter, reducing user wait times, improving productivity, and accelerating response time for all applications – all over the world and without modification of any network components or the need to tunnel traffic.

Accelerate user migrations of desktops and operating systems

Because the client software is kept within the controlled environment of the datacenter, Citrix helps IT accelerate user migrations of desktops and operating systems by eliminating the need for IT groups to physically install and test applications on the end-point devices.

Quickly distribute patches for hundreds of servers and thousands of clients

With Citrix, Windows applications are located on centralized servers managed directly by the IT department. Instead of updating each of these applications individually, with the same patch distributed to each client and server, each patch only has to be installed once, on a single server which replicates the updates to all Citrix Presentation Servers. This makes it easy to manage patches for hundreds of servers and thousands of clients, including mobile devices that cannot easily be repatriated, eliminating the headache of testing patch programs before their deployment and the need to establish specific schedules for patch programs that are incompatible with the systems in use or those that need servers to be restarted.

Easily update operating systems and Windows applications

Because Citrix centralizes Windows applications, the majority of business applications can be hosted on servers, which means the operating system can be shared among all business applications and updated easily. The same Citrix Presentation Server can run the ERP solution, the office suite, the intranet and even the Web browsers. Instead of updating each of these applications individually, with the same patch distributed to each client and server, each patch only has to be installed once, on

All the implementation phases were glitch-free and in line with our timeframe expectations. Citrix Presentation Server not only delivered higher performance and reliability, but also scored high on manageability.

Mr. C.N.Ram, Head I.T, HDFC Bank

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a single server which replicates the updates to all Citrix Presentation Servers. Updating Windows applications also is greatly simplified, particularly in situations in which client software does not natively support automatic or remote updates. Presentation Server addresses this particular issue by allowing all clients, wherever they might be located, to benefit from the latest updated software every time they log on.

Efficiently update even problematic applications

With Citrix, updating Windows applications is greatly simplified, particularly in situations in which client software does not natively support automatic or remote updates. Presentation Server addresses this particular issue by allowing all clients, wherever they might be located, to benefit from the latest updated software every time they log on.

Improve IT services for the user

The advantages of Citrix extend to the user as well, enabling IT groups to offer everyone – from employees to partners, consultants, suppliers, and outsourcers – the ability to work from anywhere, with secure centralized information. Plus, with Citrix, user devices can be any form factor, run any operating system, and have low processing power, because both client and server software execute on a robust server.

Citrix for Industry Challenges: Maximize the Assets You Already Have

Citrix helps IT groups to address this range of requirements, enabling organizations to introduce new services faster, improve customer service, control risk, and reduce costs. For example, from one location, IT can deliver new applications without touching a single desktop, and deliver legacy applications over the Web without rewriting a single line of code. Heterogeneous environments resulting from mergers and acquisitions can be integrated into a single cohesive enterprise, with all users enjoying reliable, high-speed performance, even over low-bandwidth connections. And Citrix can help organizations do all of this while typically decreasing bandwidth consumption and increasing the capacity of existing server resources – benefits that go directly to the bottom line.

Confidentiality for sensitive data when serving millions of customers online

Web applications provide direct access to some of the most sensitive and valuable data in any enterprise – including financial records, credit card numbers, and customer identity information. But delivering these applications securely is particularly challenging because Web vulnerabilities are generally easy to exploit, and attacks cannot be detected by traditional security products. Web applications require defenses against a wide range of application-layer threats, such as denial of service (DoS) and worm attacks. Citrix® NetScaler® application delivery systems, which include built-in SSL encryption, have been architected to forward valid client requests to servers and to

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block illegitimate requests. Plus, because Citrix NetScaler’s single, unified device takes the place of a number of point solutions, overall network infrastructures are dramatically simplified, and overall operational costs are dramatically reduced.

Fast time-to-value and ROI for delivering Windows applications

With Citrix, application changes are made to centralized servers so they can be delivered to an entire organization over LAN, WAN, or Internet – immediately. The key is application virtualization, which minimizes the amount of data that need to travel over networks, while also enabling centralization over the organization’s valuable data assets. Everyone is working with the same data resources, they can be assured that they are always getting the latest information, and their ability to collaborate productively improves significantly.

Deliver virtual desktops on demand

Citrix Desktop Server™ revolutionizes the way Windows desktops are delivered and managed by enabling the dynamic delivery of virtual desktops – desktops that combine full PC functionality with the cost-savings, manageability, and security of thin clients. Desktop Server provides a virtual desktop delivery system that delivers the best Windows desktop experience for any office worker and reduces the costs and provisioning challenges of desktop refreshes and new desktops for office workers. For example: desktop refreshes for migration to a new operation system can be accomplished more cost-effectively by extending the life of the endpoint and IT can deliver virtual desktops that provide the right desktop to the right users at the right cost profile. Centralized delivery of software updates and patches reduces the cost and effort involved in managing desktops, regardless of end-user location. Plus, through desktop virtualization, Desktop Server centralizes end-user desktops and data in the datacenter, thereby retaining control of the IP and reducing the security risk of data loss at the endpoint.

Desktop Server and Presentation Server complement each other: IT can use Desktop Server to deliver desktops to the end user and then use Presentation Server to virtualize or stream the applications to those desktops. By centralizing both the desktop and the applications within the datacenter, IT can optimize their manageability, cost savings, and security, without compromise to the end-user experience.

Leverage a single architecture for fast action

The Citrix Access Gateway™ is the only SSL VPN appliance that securely delivers any application with policy-based Citrix SmartAccess™ control – anywhere. With the Access Gateway, IT becomes empowered to quickly secure applications when rolling out new line-of-business applications to users.

• A single application security point for immediate productivity. With an easy-to-use automatically downloaded client, users can be productive from any machine with Internet access. The IT infrastructure will be instantly and securely available to all users, from partners to mobile workers, branch-office employees, and new employees from mergers and acquisitions. IT can securely and cost-effectively deliver Web applications, Windows applications, and desktops outside of the datacenter, while maintaining strict control through SmartAccess application-level policies.

The Citrix Access Gateway is really going to enable us to do things we could not do before. We could no longer give the level of support we desired with an IPSec VPN implementation based on scalability issues with our manpower. We could not really look at a mobile solution like wireless. We could no longer really look at anything like that if we didn’t have an aggregation point that we were comfortable with to be able to support the numbers as the connectivity into our network continues to expand… This solution gets it right, and the Access Gateway has been able to respond to both the economic and technical situations as well as any customer could ask. You’ve got a baseline feature set here that kills pretty much anything that is out there. Plus, you add on the new innovation like remote control and host check and it’s really a no-brainer.

David O’Berry, Director of Information Technology Services, South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services (SCDPPPS)

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• A single control point for rapid security response. Because the Access Gateway acts as a single point-of-control to the complete Citrix application delivery infrastructure, when security incidents arise, IT monitors and mitigates all issues in one place, ensuring a rapid response.

A big help with regulations on access and audits

With Citrix, the IT group can eliminate security breaches that infiltrate when users have more passwords than they can manage, instead of inefficiently and hopelessly trying to chase down sticky notes loaded with passwords. That means secure access to all business-critical information. And that means a big help with regulatory compliance. The Single Sign On feature of Presentation Server, powered by Citrix Password Manager™, enhances application security for Windows applications. Adding great internal controls over access to information helps the organization easily handle the vast number of regulatory requirements now sweeping across industries throughout the world. This minimizes the likelihood of severe penalties for security breaches under regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States or the European Union Data Protection Directive.

End-user performance optimizations and reliable access for Windows applications

Responsive application performance for users is ensured through screen display optimizations, caching, and compression. On the server side, application-level load distribution, CPU management, and memory optimization ensure that users get a reliable, consistent access experience.

Reduced network complexity and operational costs for Web applications

Citrix® NetScaler® application delivery systems are an ideal replacement for aging load balancers and other traffic management devices, enabling organizations to reduce network complexity and operational costs, and streamline the application delivery infrastructure with the industry’s leading technologies.

Scaling to millions of simultaneous online users and hundreds of thousands of transactions per second

The new high-end offering of Citrix’s market-leading NetScaler application delivery product line raises the bar for Web application delivery with the ability to process application transactions up to 400 percent faster than the best high-end products available from other companies. Unlike traditional networking vendors that focus solely on network-layer performance and packet processing, Citrix delivers application-specific performance gains for the most complex and demanding Web applications and far outdistances competing offerings with the power to accelerate application transactions with more than 275,000 Web (HTTP) requests per second and 28,000 secure (SSL-based) transactions per second.

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Comprehensive Web traffic management

The Citrix NetScaler Application Switch distributes traffic and directs client requests to the right application server based on layer 4 or application-layer request data. In addition, the Application Switch provides multiple methods to monitor the health of application servers to ensure continuous application availability.

Security for Web applications

Citrix’s patented Request Switching technology enables forwarding of valid client requests and blocking of illegitimate requests. For example, the Application Switch includes built-in defenses against damaging denial of service (DoS) attacks and content-inspection capabilities to identify and block application-based attacks, including DoS and distributed denial of server attacks such as TCP SYN flood attacks, connection layer attacks, SSL flood attacks, and HTTP GET flood attacks.

Ultra security against attacks which evade network firewalls and IPS devices

The Citrix Application Firewall option further improves security of Web applications and infrastructure by preventing the theft of sensitive information that might be exchanged via a Web portal, such as credit card numbers, financial data, and personal identity information. Such application-layer attacks, which target application vulnerabilities, account for nearly 75% of all attacks on the Internet today, according to Gartner, and range from buffer overflow exploits to SQL injection attempts, cross-site scripting attacks, and parameter manipulations attacks.

Visibility into the actual user experience

With its focus on end-users and achieving business goals, Citrix EdgeSight™ moves IT emphasis away from the “plumbing” – the networks, servers, and infrastructure that support business – to the business itself and the conductors of that business. By measuring performance and availability from the users’ perspective, EdgeSight cuts across organizational and geographic boundaries and monitors the actual end-user experience. The result: IT organizations have the insight, data, and tools they need to ensure that all IT resources are operating at peak efficiency – so that workers can do the same.

Accelerated applications over any WAN, anywhere

When information and applications must travel long distances over wide area networks, the process can significantly degrade performance, impact the user experience, and force expensive bandwidth upgrades. Citrix WANScaler™ optimizes the broadband connection between the branch office and the enterprise data center, reducing user wait times, improving productivity, and accelerating response time for all applications – all over the world.

The Citrix NetScaler system significantly outperformed the other solutions in terms of saving connections to servers, reducing load on servers, and increasing overall performance. It was the clear winner.

Sean Means, Director of Operations and IT, Ingenio, Inc.

NoticeThe information in this publication is subject to change without notice. THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. CITRIX SYSTEMS, INC. (“CITRIX”), SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR TECHNICAL OR EDITORIAL ERRORS OR OMISSIONS CONTAINED HEREIN, NOR FOR DIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR ANY OTHER DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE FURNISHING, PERFORMANCE, OR USE OF THIS PUBLICATION, EVEN IF CITRIX HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES IN ADVANCE. THE USE CASES IN THIS PAPER ARE PROVIDED ONLY AS POTENTIAL EXAMPLES AND YOUR ACTUAL COSTS AND RESULTS MAY VARY.

About CitrixCitrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in application delivery infrastructure. More than 200,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security, and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100% of the Fortune 100 companies and 98% of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 6,200 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2006 was $1.1 billion.

©2007 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix®, NetScaler®, Citrix Access Gateway™, Citrix Desktop Server™, Citrix EdgeSight™, Citrix Password Manager™, Citrix Presentation Server™, Citrix SmartAccess™, Citrix WANScaler™ are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Windows® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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