Citrix: Advocate for end-user application performance

Over the past month, Citrix has been making a real case for application performance.

The company, which last week hosted its iForum conference in Orlando, announced it had upgraded several product sets aimed directly at improving end-users' experience with applications.

To start, in early October, Citrix announced a new version of its EdgeSight application monitoring product, which Citrix acquired with Reflectent Software in May of this year. EdgeSight for Endpoints uses technology that deploys agent software to client machines to capture how an application performs while interacting with end users. EdgeSight for Presentation Server helps IT managers track the individual performance of an application delivered to end users from a centralized Citrix server. Both address a critical need, according to industry watchers, for IT Managers to understand the last leg of an application's behavior on client machines.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

Over the past month, Citrix has been making a real case for application performance.

The company, which last week hosted its iForum conference in Orlando, announced it had upgraded several product sets aimed directly at improving end-users' experience with applications.

To start, in early October, Citrix announced a new version of its EdgeSight application monitoring product, which Citrix acquired with Reflectent Software in May of this year. EdgeSight for Endpoints uses technology that deploys agent software to client machines to capture how an application performs while interacting with end users. EdgeSight for Presentation Server helps IT managers track the individual performance of an application delivered to end users from a centralized Citrix server. Both address a critical need, according to industry watchers, for IT Managers to understand the last leg of an application's behavior on client machines.

"The correlation of infrastructure performance to end-user experience has broken down, driving the need for better management of applications within a production environment and active management of the end-user experience," George Hamilton, director of enterprise computing and networking at the Yankee Group, wrote in a report.

More recently, Citrix updated technology it acquired last summer with NetScaler. At iForum last week, the company unveiled a new appliance - dubbed Citrix NetScaler Application Switch Standard Edition with Global Server Load Balancing - which Citrix says is pared down to speed SSL connection, multiplex TCP connections, compress HTTP traffic and accelerate applications for customers that don't want the full-blown version the company offers. The switch equipped with the load-balancing module costs $27,500. It has been customized for support of Citrix Presentation Server.

The company also at its conference announced it would dive deep into desktop virtualization. Citrix unveiled its Desktop Broker, which is software that also works with the company's flagship Presentation Server 4.0 to enable IT managers to consolidate myriad desktop operating systems and applications on servers. Doing this lets end users access the operating systems and applications via a thin client instead of a full-blown PC. Desktop Broker is available now.

Read more about infrastructure management in Network World's Infrastructure Management section.