F5 Networks, Inc. : F5 Enhances VDI offerings from Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft
02/07/2012 | 07:05am
F5 BIG-IP increases performance, improves security, and reduces
infrastructure costs of popular virtual desktop solutions
F5
Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV),
the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), today
announced support for leading virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)
solutions, including Citrix XenDesktop, VMware View, Microsoft Virtual
Desktop Infrastructure, and others. For customers using VDI
technologies, F5 offers a unified and comprehensive approach to manage
and accelerate network traffic, optimize performance, and centralize
access and security policies.
Leveraging Existing Infrastructure
VDI solutions offer an alternative to the increasing cost, maintenance,
and security concerns associated with company-supplied PCs. However, VDI
solutions can also increase infrastructure costs, introduce scaling
challenges in large deployments, and reduce performance due to the
inherent latency of wide area networks (WANs). Unlike other proprietary
solutions, F5® BIG-IP®
products do not require changes to the delivery infrastructure, thus
offering the perfect complement to all VDI deployments.
"Many organizations aren't aware that they can overcome the most
significant challenges of VDI deployments by leveraging their existing
network infrastructure, specifically, their BIG-IP advanced application
delivery controllers," said Erik Giesa, SVP of Product Management and
Product Marketing at F5 Networks. "BIG-IP products are unique in that
they integrate authentication, directory services, SSL offloading, and
other services throughout the desktop infrastructure so organizations
can optimize virtual desktop delivery with fewer resources, while also
supporting network and application access control for non-VDI enabled
applications. Unlike the current alternatives, BIG-IP gives
organizations the flexibility to implement a VDI solution that best
meets their needs today, as well as tomorrow, while keeping
infrastructure costs down."
BIG-IP Enhances VDI Deployments
BIG-IP solutions help organizations make the most of their VDI
deployments by delivering the following benefits:
-
Superior Performance and User Experience - With a large number
of virtual desktops, corporate networks can see a considerable
increase in traffic due to greater amounts of data being transferred
between clients and desktops in the data center. When clients access
their desktops using a WAN or the Internet, performance can quickly
deteriorate. BIG-IP solutions improve VDI performance by reducing
server load, optimizing TCP connections, and intelligently managing
both local and global traffic. In addition, BIG-IP provides Quality
of Service and supports Multi-Stream ICA, improving the
performance of latency-sensitive traffic such as VoIP.
-
Infrastructure Savings - Many add-on components are
often needed to maximize the performance of VDI deployments, which can
rapidly increase costs. Because BIG-IP integrates easily into most
existing infrastructures, it can substantially reduce the ancillary
costs associated with new VDI deployments. For Citrix
XenDesktop deployments, BIG-IP v11.1 provides additional savings
with its integrated web interface service, which eliminates the need
for Citrix web interface servers and ticketing servers.
-
High Availability and Scalability - In addition to
offloading computationally intensive tasks from servers and optimizing
TCP, BIG-IP's intelligent traffic management features enable it to
route users away from data centers that are overloaded or experiencing
downtime. This not only improves availability but also enables
organizations to easily scale their VDI deployments as their needs
change.
-
Improved Security - For most organizations, security is a
paramount concern as more workers want access to corporate resources
using personal devices such as smartphones and tablets. BIG-IP
significantly enhances security of VDI deployments by enabling IT to
apply unified access and security policies across all devices and
users, both internal and external.
-
Quick Deployment and Simplified Management - BIG-IP
solutions include native iApps?
templates for VMware
View and Citrix XenDesktop. Because iApps templates markedly
shorten deployment time, reduce the chance of manual configuration
errors, and make it easier to manage VDI deployments across multiple
data centers, BIG-IP also helps reduce operating expenses.
Supporting Quotes
Supplies Network offers an innovative cloud services solution designed
to help businesses realize greater efficiencies for their enterprise
printing requirements. "Implementing a successful VDI initiative on any
scale requires the ability to handle myriad challenges--network access
control; certificates; anti-virus, firewall, and browser checking;
bandwidth reservation and traffic prioritization; single-sign on--not to
mention ensuring the security and availability of back-end systems,"
said Daniel Shipley, IT Architect at Supplies Network. "F5's BIG-IP Edge
Gateway gives us all of that and more in a single device; in terms of
functionality and performance, it is unmatched by any other vendor. Our
VDI deployment would not have succeeded without F5."
"VDI solutions have the potential to provide many benefits--especially as
the mobile workforce continues to grow and users want access to mission
critical applications from any device, anywhere," said Mark Bowker,
Senior Analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. "But VDI solutions must
be implemented correctly in order to deliver the cost savings, optimum
security, and excellent performance required to preserve a consistent
user experience. Enterprises that understand the full capabilities of
their network infrastructure and are able to use those resources to
their maximum advantage have a greater chance of realizing the long-term
financial and operational benefits of VDI."
Availability
Support for VDI solutions is available today in version 11 of various
BIG-IP products, including BIG-IP
Local Traffic Manager? (LTM?), BIG-IP
Global Traffic Manager? (GTM?), BIG-IP
Access Policy Manager? (APM?), and BIG-IP
Edge Gateway?. Integrated web interface service and support for
Citrix Multi-Stream ICA are new features of BIG-IP version 11.1
products, also available today. No additional licensing is required to
support VDI.
Supporting Resources
About F5 Networks
F5 Networks, Inc., the global leader in Application Delivery Networking
(ADN), helps the world's largest enterprises and service providers
realize the full value of virtualization, cloud computing, and on-demand
IT. F5® solutions help integrate disparate technologies to
provide greater control of the infrastructure, improve application
delivery and data management, and give users seamless, secure, and
accelerated access to applications from their corporate desktops and
smart devices. An open architectural framework enables F5 customers to
apply business policies at "strategic points of control" across the IT
infrastructure and into the public cloud. F5 products give customers the
agility they need to align IT with changing business conditions, deploy
scalable solutions on demand, and manage mobile access to data and
services. Enterprises, service and cloud providers, and leading online
companies worldwide rely on F5 to optimize their IT investments and
drive business forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.
You can also follow @f5networks
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for more information about F5, its partners, and technology. For a
complete listing of F5 community sites, please visit www.f5.com/news-press-events/web-media/community.html.
F5, F5 Networks, Access Policy Manager, APM, BIG-IP, Edge Gateway,
Global Traffic Manager, GTM, iApps, Local Traffic Manager, and LTM, are
trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other
countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks
of their respective owners.
This press release may contain forward looking statements relating to
future events or future financial performance that involve risks and
uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as
"may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes,"
"estimates," "predicts," "potential," or "continue," or the negative of
such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions
and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in
these statements based upon a number of factors including those
identified in the company's filings with the SEC.
F5 Networks, Inc.
Alane Moran, 206-272-6850
a.moran@f5.com
or
Connect
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