• ARM is here to stay (witness Apple’s move to M1)
• Choice is good – competition is good, it keeps us all honest
• RPI4 often offers a smaller form factor than the equivalent x86 device
• Etc….

That’s all well and good, but why should you care?

Here’s why – because for the same reason that IGEL OS runs on all sorts of different x86-64 devices from HP, Lenovo, LG, Elo Touch, Advantech, OnLogic, etc., at IGEL we believe you need even more choice.  Hence our port of IGEL OS to the NComputing RX420 (IGEL) and RX440 (IGEL) thin clients.

“But surely,” (please don’t call me Shirley – sorry I couldn’t resist) you’ll tell me “some peripherals and add-on software are not available for what we need to do.” Maybe so, but the NComputing RX420 and RX440 thin clients are ideal for standard office, retail terminals, and other use cases, where there is limited need for unified communication within Citrix environments. Further, due to its small form factor and affordability, these endpoint solutions open up new market segments and are perfect for a host of use cases you may not have considered before, such as:

USE CASE 1: Digital Signage:

There are very few smaller, less power-hungry devices out there than the NComputing RX420 running IGEL OS, and it’s perfect for managing a display screen, with regularly updated information and displays.  No need to use a full-blown x86 thin client to do this – just hook up your RX420 with the HDMI adaptor cable and voila! You are good to go.

USE CASE 2: Industrial Control:

Once again, the small form factor and ease of installation with a VESA mount, or stuff it in a proverbial “corner” means the RX420 with IGEL OS is ideal for managing shop floor devices. You can even add code for customized control functions and the like.

USE CASE 3: Citrix-Powered Shared Work Spaces:

Use the NComputing solution with IGEL OS for the use case where you need a dedicated device running the monitor in a conference room. It’s perfectly easy to configure with the IGEL UMS, and low cost means you won’t break the bank in outfitting your shared spaces.  Plus, with the Citrix Casting capability it’s really nifty how you can walk into a conference room and cast from your phone or another device to the IGEL OS-powered NComputing endpoint.

USE CASE 4: Kiosks:

Libraries and other locations need a secure, un-hackable appliance to allow easy access to the internet through a browser.  The Chromium browser on the RX420 or RX440 powered by IGEL is ideal for an easily managed and secure appliance where internet access must be tightly controlled.

The post IGEL OS on ARM: Use Cases to Consider appeared first on IGEL.

Who cares? 

Well, I do for one, and so will a lot of our enterprise customers. Because now you can get a solid enterprise-class Arm device, with full enterprise support (e.g., 7×24 support, regular updates, a commitment to near “day one” support for Citrix and third-party integrations). And since we’ve been at this since May 2020, I can promise you (like everything IGEL does) we’ve been thorough with our integration and testing – with IGEL’s innovative, resolute German engineering, we’ve ensured the solution is fully integrated and works seamlessly with our x86-64 devices, all managed by one Universal Management Suite:

The Value of Choice

Here’s what one of our German customers has to say:

“IGEL OS(RPI4) for NComputing’s RX420(IGEL) is a useful development for us. It offers more platform choice for our endpoints. Support for the IGEL Universal Management across both x86-64 and Arm devices helps increase our options.  We’re pleased to see IGEL continue to deliver on its promise to be a platform agnostic solution provider,” reported Daniel Kraus, Manager Modern Devices Client Labs & Certification, ZF Friedrichshafen AG.

As you can see, “choice” is the important word here. In addition to this new development with NComputing, IGEL also recently announced that Lenovo joined the IGEL Ready program. This means that now, customers have the flexibility to choose from NComputing, Lenovo, LG, OnLogic, ClearCube, Dynabook, Advantech, (not to mention Dell & HP) and many more for their hardware platform on which to run IGEL OS.

On the Right Path

Talking about alternative devices, I was delighted to see Apple announcing an Arm-powered device;  it also makes me feel confident that IGEL is on the right path with our joint support for both x86-64 and Arm architecture devices. I can’t wait to visit Cambridge, to see all the cool things that the Raspberry Pi Foundation is doing and planning; clearly the next few years are going to be groundbreaking for IGEL:

“At Raspberry Pi, we’ve always seen ourselves, first and foremost, as a PC vendor. Inspired by the home computers of the 1980s, our mission is to put affordable, high-performance, programmable computers into the hands of people all over the world,” said Dr Eben Upton, CEO Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd. “I’m delighted to see IGEL, the leading thin client OS vendor, join the movement by enabling Raspberry Pi devices with its IGEL OS. Edge devices have become an increasingly important market for us, and adding IGEL to the list of available solutions will accelerate that trend.”

It’s still early days yet, so please try not to get overly excited! However, know that IGEL is committed to working closely with NComputing to ensure the success of this important launch. For now, the NComputing RX420 will be the ONLY Arm architecture RPI4 platform that IGEL supports. But, clearly, this is just a glimpse into the future of where IGEL will go as a leading edge OS provider for cloud workspaces.

Read the press release on IGEL’s teaming with NComputing and stay tuned for more news on IGEL OS support and enhancements.

The post IGEL and NComputing: “Arm’d” for the Enterprise! appeared first on IGEL.

Gartner’s annual Magic Quadrant for Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) was just released and it reveals that the landscape for UEM is changing dramatically. See the following MQ comparison of 2019 to 2020:

2020:

2019:

Among the changes, year-over-year, are the “critical flaws” Gartner finds in traditional client management tools (CMTs) as they work to support remote clients during the global pandemic. For context, Gartner also made a number of changes to their definition of the UEM market, namely from their previous focus on mobile devices to a focus on the broader management of both mobile devices and PCs – especially their ability to “remotely deploy and provision devices, applications and updates and security patches.” This certainly is in response to the dramatic move to remote work.

Yes, millions of Windows-based desktops which were traditionally managed by client management tools (CMT) inside the safety of corporate walls, are now distributed, by the millions, to be used from home. These traditional management tools, including their security and policy control, were not built to handle such distributed environments. Nor are they equipped to manage devices remotely over the internet, or at such scale!

To solve this issue, millions of VPN licenses have been acquired in recent months in the hope they will deliver the secure data access remote workers need. But as work from home employees access data over VPNs, the traffic volume is becoming crippling and CMT solutions have failed to scale for other critical processes including device provisioning, deployment, patching and management.

Now, you add in the need for workers to collaborate, using tools including Zoom and MS Teams, and VPN solutions are not only limiting endpoint security, but breaking down user productivity.

It’s not a temporary problem either. As companies announce that their employees can work from home indefinitely – take Twitter, Facebook, Square and Zillow as examples – the VPN band aide won’t work long term any better than it’s working now.

Work from Home’s Security Risk

But the security need at the endpoint remains critical. A look into the UEM landscape shows that vendors in this space are still gravely missing the critical need to better secure work from home staff. IBM reports that as many as 50% of remote workers are using unmanaged BYOD or personal devices to access work data. Bitglass found that 72% of organizations lack BYOD malware protection.

And this exposure is giving rapid rise to ransomware attacks. CarbonBlack found that 148% of organizations saw an increase in ransomware attacks since COVID-19, and 51% of those ransomware attacks hit financial services organizations. Malicious emails are also on the rise, battering corporations through work from home users reacting to spam and phishing email campaigns. NHS in the UK, Travelex and Garmin are just some of the examples of successful attacks.

IGEL: The Ideal Solution to the UEM Conundrum

Enabling enhanced remote security and end user experience were among the inclusion criteria for this year’s UEM MQ. But, it’s also clear, if you look at named leaders Microsoft and VMware, that Gartner sees long-term value in enabling remote management via cloud- and virtualization-enabled UEM.

For example, Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM), when combined with Intune and Configuration Manager, and VMware’s Workspace ONE are both commended for their support of clients that are “geographically diversified.” Microsoft MEM is also reportedly “the most used UEM tool on the market” and offers “security capabilities that are difficult to replicate piecemeal.” And VMware Workspace ONE gained high marks in the Gartner report for offering “a seamless, device-agnostic user experience” while also delivering ease of use and flexibility across “traditional and modern PC and mobile management techniques through the same console.”

Now consider the UEM power when you combine one of these leading solutions with the secure, easy-to-manage IGEL OS. The power of the combination ensures that you have a secure, scalable and manageable option for the remote workforce – whether they are using a virtual desktop or Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) implementation.

Specifically, the combination eliminates the need for a VPN – eliminating bandwidth concerns. It efficiently powers the use of unified communications and collaboration tools, including Zoom and MS Teams, by running the application in a virtual channel and locally processing essential real-time communications components. And it helps to eliminate the risk of BYOD solutions being used to access corporate data by quickly transforming any x86 device into a secure workspace. As a result, Voila, your data is secure, your users are productive anywhere they want to work, and remote management is dramatically simplified.

Thus, as security concerns continue to grow around the endpoint and remote work, and more organizations experience increasing pain when managing physical devices remotely, IT doesn’t need to fret. Combining a UEM solution with IGEL OS-powered devices at the edge is the solution for reducing complexity and delivering location-agnostic device management for the secure device performance users want.

Feature image used under license from Adobe Stock.

The post Unified Endpoint Management Shake-Up: What it Says for EUC’s Future appeared first on IGEL.

 With aging PCs and a complex IT environment generating increasing helpdesk requests, the City of Tigard has turned to IGEL and its next-gen operating system to standardize and simplify its end user computing environment for a smooth-running City campus.

“We are a small IT shop and wear every technological hat here at the City,” said Mike Nolop, IT Manager, City of Tigard. “Almost every department’s IT system was unique, running on different operating systems and with very old hardware. We had no standardization and as a result were a very reactive IT department.”

Since its incorporation in 1961, the City of Tigard has grown to become a desirable and affordable community in the Portland metro area. Its more than 53,000 city residents enjoy access to more than 16 miles of paved trails and nearly 550 acres of parks and open spaces. With roughly 350 full-time, part-time, and temporary staff, the City has helped create a diverse economy, strong schools and outstanding parks, making Tigard one of the most liveable cities in Oregon.

VDI to standardize

The team took the decision to move from a Windows client server computing model to a modern Citrix Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment to bring standardization to City employees and to provide consistent services across the organization.

Following the deployment, the team still faced challenges. We were running Citrix virtual desktops on top of aging Windows PCs and this effectively required double management,” said Keelan Cleary, Sr. Network Administrator, City of Tigard. Users were having to log in twice, to both the Citrix virtual desktop and their Windows PC, before starting work. They were also still able to access their desktop PCs for personal applications, removing the management and security benefits of standardization.

IGEL extends hardware life

After investigation, the team realized that they could use IGEL to standardize the desktops and end user computing environment without having to invest in new hardware. They first tested the concept using the IGEL UD Pocket. No larger than a paper clip, UD Pocket can be slotted into the USB port of any PC, laptop or any compatible x86, 64-bit CPU based endpoint device and boots the IGEL Operating system. Once the user has finished accessing the IGEL Universal Desktop through the UD Pocket, they could simply remove it and reboot to return to using their local device desktop.

After the successful trial, the team began permanently converting all of its Windows desktops to IGEL OS endpoints; starting with soon to be end of life Windows 7 devices. IGEL OS 11 is purpose-built for enterprise access to virtual environments of all types. Currently in its 7th generation, the IGEL OS is revolutionizing computing by standardizing desktops for simple configuration and granular control, while giving users a familiar, trouble free workspace.

“It immediately increased reliability and all the issues we were experiencing on the underlying system disappeared, simplifying our support requirements,” said James Christopherson, Network Administrator, City of Tigard.

One example was the city library, where a USB-connected RFID reader for checking books in and out had stopped working because of incompatibility issues with the Windows PC and Citrix. Once the desktop was converted to an IGEL OS endpoint the system worked.

“It enabled us to simplify and standardize our VDI roll-out to all departments,” said Christopherson.

IGEL for high-end graphics applications

In addition to the conversion of existing PCs, the team is deploying IGEL UD2 endpoints to the Community Development Department, the Design team, and others that require NVIDIA graphics. These devices are ideal for handling their high-end graphics applications, for example, for CAD engineering drawings or for the graphic design of marketing materials.

Today, the City of Tigard’s virtual desktops are delivered to the IGEL OS endpoints using Citrix, backed by VMWare’s Hypervisor and vSAN Storage Platform. Liquidware is used for profile management, so that everyone’s settings can easily follow them from one desktop to another.

The IT team then uses IGEL Universal Management Suite software (UMS) to centrally manage the physical desktop hardware. Purpose-built to simplify complex enterprise environments, the IGEL UMS supports diverse operating systems, databases and directories. This smart, simple and secure management software lets IT easily manage any remote endpoint, from just a few to tens of thousands from one single console.

Christopherson said using the IGEL UMS was much simpler than updating its previous Window PCs using System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM). “We used to use SCCM with mixed results but with the IGEL UMS it’s very different. It’s much simpler and faster to roll-out new devices and roll-back and correct any unwanted changes.”

Multiple benefits

The benefits of the IGEL deployment are very clear to everyone involved in the project at the City of Tigard. “It has brought standardization and simplification,” said Nolop. “On the IT side, we can easily manage the entire desktop ecosystem and there is much less troubleshooting. The user also benefits from the same high-quality experience, every time, wherever they are working. The users are no longer locked to their hardware. They can move around, for example, moving from a front desk to a conference room and still have access to the same virtual desktop and session.  And if something fails, we can instantly change the desktop without having to manage a stack of inventory.”

In addition, the conversion to an IGEL OS has helped the City of Tigard deal with the looming issue of End of Life Support for Windows 7. With the move to IGEL, there is no need to migrate their devices to Windows 10.

Connecting mobile workers

Moving forward, the organization is exploring the possibility of using IGEL Cloud Gateway to connect its mobile workforce, such as Parks and Utilities field crews, to the IGEL desktops, as well as increasing the deployment of virtual applications.

To watch full details of the City of Tigard’s success using IGEL, watch this video.

The post IGEL Ensures Smooth Running Computing for City of Tigard appeared first on IGEL.

Working from home is becoming increasingly important, especially now as we all come together to stop the spread of COVID-19 across the globe. Businesses that would have never even thought of sending their employees home to work, have had to rapidly adjust to what is becoming the new “digital normal.”

One of the biggest challenges these businesses face in sending workers home is equipping them with the right technologies to securely access critical business data and applications. In some cases, employees have had to rely on outdated or unpatched home PCs to be able to work from home. There’s another solution you or your employer may not have considered and it could already be sitting in your family room or your child’s bedroom. It’s the gaming PC you or your kids are using to play Minecraft, Fortnite and other popular games.

So, what makes this gaming PC a good alternative to an older desktop or laptop computer? Chances are good that it is a well-configured x86 machine with an integrated NVIDIA GPU offering enhanced graphics and the powerful performance needed for today’s fast-moving electronic games. But wait – you are probably wondering if it is safe and secure? You wouldn’t want to download your corporate software on a device that isn’t secure, right? Say yes – you’ll make your IT team proud J. You are also probably wondering how you can get your kids, who are home from school and desperate to play games with their friends, away from the gaming console?

The answer to the first part of that question is simple – IGEL and NVIDIA. Together, we are making it possible for you to leverage your gaming PC for work, in a safe and secure manner, without impacting any of the currently installed software.

To learn how, visit igel.com where you will find instructions on using the IGEL UD Pocket or the “IGEL OS live USB stick for a single device.” With either of these you can  a) Plug in the USB device;  b) Boot to USB, (OK I’ll admit, this can be a little tricky – but Google is your friend here – just type in, “Boot to USB on a ______”); or,  c) Access the secure browser – type in your Office365 credentials and you are “off to the races” with your corporate email account.  IGEL can also help you gain access to your company’s corporate network with a VPN.

With IGEL nothing is stored locally on the user device – NOTHING, it’s all in the cloud – the USB device serves as your read-only hard drive and at no time is IGEL accessing your local hard drive. This means no malware, screen scrapers, key loggers or other threats during your IGEL session.

Best of all, IGEL OS is fully able to use the graphics capabilities of your NVIDIA GPU, so if you do have a video to watch, some complex manipulation of a 3-D solids model (who doesn’t?), you’ll appreciate the speed and responsiveness of the device. Not only that, if you are able to access a VDI or DaaS session in the cloud (you’ll need help from IT support to do that), then you will definitely appreciate the NVIDIA powered cloud desktops, which have been proven to run Windows 10 significantly faster than a regular desktop. Finally, when you’re done – just pull out the UD Pocket and presto – your device is 100% back to where it was the when you first plugged in the UD Pocket, nothing added, nothing taken away. (Your kids will be glad they can still play Minecraft when you’re done.)

But, good luck getting the device back once it’s back in your kids hands. If you know how to pry it away, please send me an email! I have a 20-year-old son back from college, with nothing to do all day but play games – it’s a challenge!

The post Your Gaming PC – Not Just for Gaming Anymore! appeared first on IGEL.

At HIMSS 2020, together with our partners Citrix and Coretek, we’ll be sharing some fantastic use cases on how healthcare organizations are finding IGEL the answer to modernizing legacy systems, making better use of virtualized workspaces and reducing their overall IT footprint to save costs.

You’ll find us in Citrix Ready Booth 1741, where you’ll have an opportunity to learn from IGEL and Coretek about how we are enabling improved user productivity and patient care with key features like single sign-on to secure roaming and data protection. Be sure to come by the booth on Tuesday when we’ll have a special presentation and an exciting announcement! You’ll also want to make time to hear Coretek’s Chief Technology Officer Brian Barnes’ talk on Wednesday, March 11^th, at 4:45 PM in the Innovation Pavilion, Hall E, Room 8900-109.

Citrix and Coretek are key players in IGEL’s mission to serve healthcare organizations looking to manage many devices at many locations, and wanting to be able to use advanced solutions like Citrix Workspaces. IGEL and Citrix enable healthcare professionals to be mobile, secure and productive regardless of what device they’re using.

Coretek, an IGEL Platinum Partner, was recognized earlier this year as IGEL’s North America Innovator of the Year, and serves as a great example of our stellar partner ecosystem: now up to 23 Platinum partners and 26 Gold partners with a sales pipeline that has increased 100% year-over-year.  Leveraging Citrix, IGEL, Imprivata and other solutions, Coretek helps healthcare organizations create a complete, integrated virtualization framework that promotes peak user performance. As a result, productive clinicians experience fewer technology hassles and can focus more patients.

For an evening of extra fun, join Coretek and IGEL for an epic event on Tuesday night, March 10, 7:00 – 10:00 p.m., at Topgolf in Orlando. The bar will be open, and the dinner buffet will be served throughout the event. Come out of HIMSS swinging – no prior golf experience is required. Register now.

Then, when you’re ready for a breath of fresh air from technology, join us at a very fragrant event: an interactive, custom perfume making activity at the Citrix Ready Customer Reception, Wednesday, March 11, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m., Fiorenzo Italian Steakhouse, Hyatt Regency Orlando.

Finally, be sure to stop by the Citrix Ready Booth 1741 and hear more about our next-gen OS and how we’re moving healthcare organizations into a more productive, fully virtualized environment with superb partners like Citrix and Coretek.

We’ll see you in Orlando.

The post All Roads Lead to the Endpoint at HIMSS 2020 appeared first on IGEL.

The following is a guest blog post from Jaymes Davis, Founder & Director of Product Strategy at Tehama.

With the announcement of Tehama spinning out of Pythian, we can talk about some of the technology collaborations we have been working on in the background. Those that have read my blogs or posts know, I believe the pragmatic solution for enterprises is to embrace a Hybrid architecture. This approach will become the standard over the next decade as cloud, mobile, and social continue to fuel business winners and innovators.

Within the EUC category, workspace transformation is where the enterprise is having the fastest return on investment. This investment enables the enterprise to become agile and highly competitive in today’s global economy.  Examples of DaaS or VDI being used to increase call transactions by augmenting existing call centers with freelancers or to adopt new service models with new technologies that deliver virtual desktops as or part of a service.

When adopting traditional VDI or DaaS, two core challenges are often overlooked. Luckily these challenges can now be solved:

•     High hardware costs to update an antiquated architecture where both compute and management have been centrally provisioned.
•     High software costs to replace complex and poorly integrated solutions that don’t allow for centralized administration, orchestration, security, and compliance policies.

These challenges have driven the evolution of end-user compute requirements and influenced the design and capabilities of VDI and DaaS, its complexity has also increased exponentially. This has created an inability for VDI or DS to meet critical mass in the industry of over 20% penetration in most enterprises. Over the last decade, the industry has been able to solve some of the high implementation costs associated with hardware consolidation and capability, however, only at the expense of increased complexity.

Paul Vallée, the visionary and founder behind Tehama, had a vision in the early ’90s that the workforce of the future would be global and would present challenges of complexity, security, and scale. Tehama was designed to solve the challenge of orchestrating technologies to transform the digital workplace and meet the speed of innovation that enterprises demand in today’s ever-changing business landscape.

The separation of the technology stack from the End-User leads to a reduction of “technical debt” – meaning the burdens of patch management, server hardening and hosting are now operationalized at a cost or what’s generally referred to as TCO. Even as centralized compute versus distributed compute still provided the best TCO and ROI, it still didn’t address the physical control issues that arose from a distributed compute model that larger retailers, franchises, law firms, dealerships, and financial firms have to take into consideration. Hence VDI was unable to penetrate more than 20% of the enterprise desktop.

Recognizing the need for this secured technology stack addresses one side of the problem, however, the TCO has two critical parts to manage. The first part is the time to implement and the second part is time to value where distributed compute becomes cost-effective for the organization. As the number of users per hardware unit increased, so did the implementation costs for virtual desktops. Time to implement takes as long as six weeks to eight weeks based on complexity and time to value could be another six to eight weeks based on users and solution adoption. The only way to bridge this gap is to effectively address TCO from time to implement, and time to value, with something that can help business professionals get to productivity faster.

This is the challenge Tehama, Teradici, IGEL, and AWS teamed up to solve with the new technology collaboration of TTI on AWS. I’m proud to introduce our TTI on AWS Technology Collaboration based on a secured endpoint connecting to a cloud-hosted Tehama Room. Leveraging a “Uber-like approach” to End User Computing helps solve these two significant problems that we have identified as barriers for VDI and DaaS adoption and workspace transformation.

The TTI on AWS Technology stack is delivered via tightly coupled software from the Cloud. Tehama builds a “Room” for the workloads that support the many combinations of Graphical and Task-Specific workloads that give the best consolidation and capabilities at the lowest price. Tehama takes into consideration time to value by creating a drop-in appliance that securely communicates back to the Room from your enterprise network segment or Cloud resource.  Tehama Rooms are configured and ready to deploy desktops based on Windows and Linux within minutes. All while skipping the weeks of deployment or configuration or planning for traditional VDI or DaaS.

Tehama’s partnership with IGEL delivers Amazon WorkSpaces that come with a Windows desktop experience via the Teradici PCoIP software client. Teradici PC-over-IP (PCoIP) technology delivers a secure, high-definition and highly responsive computing experience.

With the Tehama Service Delivery Platform and an IGEL device, we have created a single-entry point to enhance your time to value with unparalleled security when compared against your traditional desktop or your DIY VDI projects.

Tehama’s Technology Collaboration focuses on these business outcomes:

Global Contractors and Outsourcing: Companies looking to outsource development while retaining close control of their data and source code can use Tehama to present developers with a fully functional desktop capable of installing development tools and rebooting without affecting other users.

Executive Travel Abroad: Many Executives traveling abroad are looking to reduce the time through immigration and national firewalls. Tehama is a utility-based desktop that persists for the executive and is secure from end-to-end via any device. Executives can travel without a physical laptop and boot from an IGEL device to load a secured Tehama Room and access their persistent desktop without risk of man-in-the-middle attacks or having their laptops stolen or compromised by malicious state or third-party actors.  (IGEL’s UD Pocket is a micro-thin client – about the size of 5-10 paper clips – that can be plugged into any 64-bit x86 device with 2 or more Gbytes of RAM to convert that device into a secure IGEL OS-powered endpoint.)

Extending PC Lifecycle Windows 7 EOS: Companies facing a PC upgrade cycle or Windows 7 EOS (End of Support) deployment of a significant operating system upgrade should instead migrate to a Tehama Windows 7 Virtual desktop computing model, redeploying existing PCs as Thin Client access devices leveraging IGEL.

Enterprise Desktop Replacement: Companies seeking to escape the constraints of legacy desktop computing and move towards utility computing will benefit from more advanced desktop virtualization configurations with dynamic provisioning and personalization of the virtual desktop made available to stateless user access devices.

Pandemic Planning: New mandates in nearly every industry require preparedness for pandemic scenarios also known as disaster recovery. Tehama provides the needed assurance that existing desktop application suites are deployable in a Tehama Room without the need for expensive VDI hardware sitting on the remote site vs. a Tehama gateway attached to a Room ready to provision desktops for users immediately upon evacuation notice.

Unifying IT Strategy: Companies that have already invested in virtualization strategies in the data center and are seeking to unify desktop and cloud processes have an opportunity to leverage Cloud and client-side computing loads across a common platform. Simplified disaster recovery, enhanced data security, and reduced risk can result from such consolidation.

Desktops Sandboxing Requirements: Companies needing to introduce a demanding new application that strains current PC hardware might elect to deploy the new app as a link from the native desktop to a VDI session. This offloads CPU demands from the local desktop, both extending the PC lifespan and ensuring the adequate performance of the new application. Tehama also allows for rapid application testing and assessment with consistent desktop images.

HPC or Graphical Desktops: This allows a Virtual desktop that needs to crunch numbers or provide stunning graphics resources from the platform to provision out those specific user’s desktop without having to upgrade the server compute environment.

Tehama is the foundation for your transition into delivering a technology stack based on building out a secured workspace transformation. The TTI on AWS technology Collaboration can provide Enterprise Speed and Redundancy in a private cloud to a hybrid cloud. More importantly, supporting a TTI on AWS is a “day one” value conversation for SME (Small to Medium Enterprise). This new “Uber-like” experience enables enterprises to build desktops on-demand, so delivering virtualization as a utility. The Tehama Service Delivery Platform significantly reduces the TCO, ergo increasing the addressable market for virtual desktops.

The progression up the Gartner “Slope of Enlightenment” is anything but subtle for the innovations necessary to make desktop virtualization gain this traction. The Tehama Service Delivery Platform and TTI on AWS Collaboration ushers in this new era of workspace management for the future of work capabilities to reduce the cost of EUC as well as the acceptance rate. This technology innovation will lower the technical debt or TCO of DaaS/VDI and increase the business value of desktop virtualization to achieve a significantly higher share of the enterprise desktop.

The post Introducing Tehama, Teradici & IGEL (TTI) on AWS, a Technology Collaboration for Secured End-User Computing appeared first on IGEL.

 This week during Microsoft Ignite marks a new chapter in the history books of IGEL, and Microsoft. It was announced that the Linux-based IGEL OS will support Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop customers, enabling enterprises to centrally manage, control and secure thousands of endpoint devices. Read the announcement.

Microsoft Supports Linux at the Edge

Why is this so historic? It’s an official statement of Microsoft support for having Linux-based operating systems on the edge when connecting to Windows Virtual Desktop-powered cloud workspaces. Read this quote from Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365 in the Microsoft blog:

“IT pros are now able to provide the full Windows Virtual Desktop experience on Linux devices, adding to broad support across platforms that include Windows, iOS, MacOS and HTML5. Support for Linux devices is available now through IGEL, a key hardware partner, and we’ll soon extend this support model through a software development kit (SDK) so that a broader set of partners can innovate at the device layer.”

In fact, IGEL has been named as a supporting vendor for Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop value-added partner program “early adopters.” Here is the quote supporting this move from Scott Manchester, Group Program Manager, Windows Virtual Desktop and Remote Desktop Services at Microsoft:

“IGEL is a member of the Windows Virtual Desktop value-added partner program due to its ability to provide our mutual customers with a cost-effective and secure option to extend the life of desktops and laptops through its robust and secure edge OS for cloud workspaces. Customers will also benefit from the IGEL Universal Management Suite, which helps to simplify complex enterprise environments supporting the rapid adoption and scale of Windows Virtual Desktop deployments.”

What does this mean for the industry? We firmly believe that by having direct alignment with Microsoft, IGEL will help make customer adoption of Windows Virtual Desktop easier, faster and lower in cost. IGEL OS is not only perfectly suited for cloud-powered environments, it also helps enterprises extend the life of aging hardware and can work to rapidly address the challenge of Windows 7 and 10 migrations.

Watch this video of Jed Ayres, President and CEO of IGEL North America and Global CMO from Microsoft Ignite.

And a short video available on YouTube & Slack, with a few more details:

IGEL, Citrix and Ingram Micro Make Windows Virtual Desktop Adoption Even Easier

Furthering the rapid adoption of Windows Virtual Desktops, IGEL – in collaboration with Citrix and Ingram Micro – also announced from Microsoft Ignite a combined solution designed to simplify access to Azure-delivered cloud workspaces. Read the announcement.

Ideal for any organization that needs to migrate their aging Windows 7 endpoints before their end of support, this new bundled offering simplifies the delivery of high-performance end user computing with “anywhere access” in the cloud. Even for those that have already moved to Windows 10, this combined offer can virtually eliminate all the headaches associated with managing and maintaining hundreds or thousands of endpoints running full-blown Windows. Nabeel Youakim, Vice President, Product & Solutions Architecture at Citrix says:

“This new offer from Ingram Micro combines the unique strengths of both Citrix and IGEL to enable organizations to realize the full benefits of Windows 10 without the typical pain of migration. In particular, the new Windows 10 multi-session entitlements of Windows Virtual Desktops offer easy access to Windows 10 along and great economy for those looking to move to the Azure cloud. We used to say ‘the cloud is coming.’ Now it’s here with Microsoft Azure and WVD. With Ingram Micro’s new offer, Citrix and IGEL are playing a key role in making Windows 10 from the cloud the new reality.”

More information about the combined solution from Citrix and IGEL and available from Ingram Micro can be found in this solution brief, “Simplifying Access to Cloud Workspaces with Ingram Micro, Citrix and IGEL.” And to learn more about using IGEL OS with Windows Virtual Desktop, read the solution brief, “Fall in Love with Windows All Over Again.

Detailed sessions and hands-on workshops for using IGEL with Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop and Citrix and more will be featuring during DISRUPT 2020: the industry’s largest Cloud Workspaces Forum, which will be held in Nashville on January 27-29. Register Now.

The post IGEL Makes History at Microsoft Ignite – Delivers Linux-Based Edge OS for Windows Virtual Desktop appeared first on IGEL.

To accommodate these demands, the recommendations for laptop and desktop PC configurations continue to escalate – particularly as enterprises move users to Windows 10. In fact, Gartner recently recommended that to get the most out of Windows 10 – including performance, battery life and life span – it should be configured on notebooks and desktops with at least 16GB of DRAM and 256GB of SSD storage.

If you ask IGEL, those requirements make it simply crazy to run Windows 10 on local machines. Not only does that mean devices intended to run Windows 10 locally are more costly to procure, they still require the added cost and effort to maintain, backup and patch.

If this doesn’t convince you that Windows belongs in the data center, consider this:

IGEL devices only need about 1 GHz CPU, 2GB RAM and just 2GB of SSD storage to effectively run IGEL OS to connect to Windows 10 hosted in the data center or cloud. If your user workloads are particularly “heavy” you may want to advance to devices with 4GB RAM and 4GB of SSD storage. We venture to bet that nearly any device you have on hand already meets these criteria. So why buy more, new hardware?

With IGEL you’ll still deliver a high performing and reliable Windows experience, or better. You’ll greatly improve your IT efficiency by simplifying the Windows management, update and patching process while also eliminating the need to remotely patch Windows endpoints across your mobile and remote workforce. You’ll also have the option to use Windows Virtual Desktop, Microsoft’s new desktop-as-a-service offering, to gain even greater control over Windows’ resource usage, reduce hardware costs in the data center, and access advanced features like Windows 10 multi-session. Finally, you can avoid or defer that costly endpoint hardware refresh and recoup a huge CapEx savings – money that could be spent better on more strategic initiatives.

You don’t need to fork over the big bucks to invest in new PCs and laptops to use Windows 10. And after that, you don’t have to fall back into the costly and disruptive hardware refresh cycle every four years. Read about why you should keep Windows where it belongs: in the data center or cloud in this whitepaper, “Fall in Love with Windows All Over Again.” You’ll see just why migrating and living with Windows 10 is the perfect time to adopt a more modern approach to your endpoints while at the same time saving money, simplifying management and improving security.

The post Given Mounting Requirements for PCs and Laptops – The Choice is Clear appeared first on IGEL.

European drivers know, speed and lane discipline are of the essence on the autobahn. The same can be said for enterprises’ expectations of how fast they can get to the hybrid cloud and which particular version. Equally important is how quick they can deploy the most powerful graphics-rich VDI solutions for users who all demand absolutely everything as fast as they can get it – whether it be creating professional graphics or using virtualized AI tools.

IGEL and NVIDIA are partnering to satisfy the expectations of business users as IT moves their desktops to the cloud.  “If it ain’t at least as fast and graphically responsive as the fat client, then it ain’t happening.”  Just as the graphics world has evolved from NVIDIA’s earlier days of pioneering graphics processing, ‘the cloud’ has morphed into endless variations of multi-cloud architecture.

Think back even five years ago when no one would have thought they’d be putting all their Microsoft Office data in the cloud. Today, more than 85% of enterprises have migrated to Office 365.  IGEL believes now that Microsoft is on-board with WVD, that most Desktops are going to move to the cloud… most likely hybrid cloud at first.  That plus Windows 7 EoL in January means it’s decision time, Windows 10 on the endpoint or in the data center – either way you’re going to need more power and particularly graphics acceleration to get the performance your users expect.

So, how does a customer put it all together – fully using the cloud to competitive advantage? How do they ensure users at the endpoint have what they need when running VDI? It takes the following three elements:

1. IGEL: IGEL OS-powered devices at the edge, coupled with IGEL’s centralized universal endpoint management and cloud gateway for off-premises devices.
2. NVIDIA: Accelerated graphics for virtualized desktops and applications.
3. VMware Horizon 7: Access to all of their virtual desktops, applications, and online services through a single digital workspace on any cloud.

With NVIDIA in the data center running VDI, IGEL OS at the endpoint, and VMware providing the autobahn track, if you will, enterprises can deliver the graphics-rich VDI environment that users need to be effective in their work today.

Full Speed Ahead!

Stop by IGEL’s booth #1563 at VMworld where we’ll be demonstrating with VMware’s Test Drive portal. Read more here. And be sure to put our NVIDIA booth theatre presentation in your calendar: Wednesday, August 28^th at 2:15 PM. Our topic is: Why VMware Horizon 7 is better with IGEL and NVIDIA.

See you there!

The post IGEL and NVIDIA: Your Autobahn to the Hybrid Cloud appeared first on IGEL.