Chapter 3: Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite


Overview

Citrix MetaFrame XP Access Suite is a complementary product suite to Microsoft's Terminal Services (included with Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Services Edition, Windows 2000 Server, and Windows Server 2003) discussed in Chapter 2. Today, Citrix serves nearly fifty million users, facilitating a seamless user experience in heterogeneous computing environments, as well as application delivery across bandwidth-restricted connections.

Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite is comprised of five software products:

  1. MetaFrame XP Presentation Server (MetaFrame XP)

  2. MetaFrame Presentation Server for UNIX (MetaFrame for UNIX)

  3. MetaFrame Password Manager

  4. MetaFrame Conferencing Manager

  5. MetaFrame Secure Access Manager (MSAM)

  6. Citrix Password Manager and Conferencing Manager

Password Manager and Conferencing Manager are the newest members of the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite. Password Manager provides a simple and elegant single sign-on solution for MetaFrame XP environments (although it also works in non-Metaframe environments), and Conferencing Manager provides an all-inclusive collaborative conference interface that leverages the shadow features of MetaFrame XP. These two products further enhance the user experience of the server-based computing environment.

In this chapter, we discuss the evolution of the MetaFrame Access Suite and dissect its Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol. We also cover the enhancements that MetaFrame Access Suite brings to Terminal Services, including:

  1. Secure, encrypted access for all enterprise users from any location, without having to open firewall holes. MetaFrame Secure Gateway provides a secure infrastructure by which users can access the SBC environment literally from anywhere, any time, any place, regardless of the firewall configurations (assuming the environment allows SSL [port 443] traffic). Although Terminal Services RDP traffic is encrypted, it requires that port 3389 be open both on the Data Center firewall and at the user's location(s).

  2. True Application Load Management. Microsoft's built-in Network Load Balancing can be effective for environments with 100 users or less, but enterprise environments absolutely require a more robust and flexible approach to determining which users are placed on which servers under what circumstances.

  3. MetaFrame Web Interface wizard-based deployment tool (formerly called NFuse). Not only does this tool provide an automated approach to deploying access to the SBC environment, but, just as handy, it provides an automated approach to deploying the ICA client itself. Conversely, the deployment and installation of the Remote Desktop Client with Terminal Services can be a daunting task when thousands of users need an update to the client.

  4. Universal Access to applications from any client device, to applications on Windows or UNIX platforms. Although Microsoft now supports client access from Macintosh OS X and Windows clients, Citrix not only provides support for Mac and Windows, but also support for over 200 client operating systems, including most flavors of UNIX and Linux, DOS, and embedded devices.

  5. Enterprise management tools. Citrix provides Resource Manager, Installation Manager, and Network Manager, as well as a host of embedded management tools that present administrators with critical information as well as the automation of enterprise SBC server environments.

Table 3-1 shows the value-add features that Citrix MetaFrame XP add to a Windows Server 2003 environment.

Table 3-1: Citrix ICA Value-Add Features

Application publishing

One-to-many shadowing

Customized billing reports

User collaboration

Program Neighborhood

Cross-server shadowing

Track user access to applications

Panning and scaling (handhelds)

Anonymous user support

Shadowing indicator

Centrally install applications

Pass-through authentication

Content publishing

Auto client update

Distribute service packs

Seamless windows

Content redirection

Universal print driver

Package customized install

Multimonitor support

Novell NDS support

Web-based client install

Web Interface for MetaFrame

Application save position

Delegated administration

Support for multiple farms

Non-Windows client access

End-to-end security

Centralized management console

Auto client printer detection

Integration with Network Management consoles

MetaFrame Secure Gateway

Connection control

Resource-based Load Management

Support for direct asynch

SSL/TLS 128-bit encryption

CPU prioritization

Schedule application availability

Client drive remapping

Support for digital certificates

Support for 1000+ servers in farm

Specify client IP range

Text-entry prediction

Socks 4 and 5 proxy support

Many-to-one shadowing

Application monitoring

Instant mouse-click feedback

SpeedScreen 4 browser acceleration




Citrix Metaframe Access Suite for Windows Server 2003(c) The Official Guide
Citrix Access Suite 4 for Windows Server 2003: The Official Guide, Third Edition
ISBN: 0072262893
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 158

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