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Figure 1:
Application Virtualization | Source: http://www.appds.eu/Home/AppVirtual
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Overview
Virtualized application has transformed IT in such a way that it provides a streamlined approach to delivering Windows apps. This singly, centrally-directed app supports workforces based in every location and on any operating system, thereby boosting IT efficiency on top of performance.Introduction
Years ago, transferring applications to the web promises
straightforward growth cycles. Those promises never to hold true. Delivering
browser-based apps while at the same time refining manageability and user
aptitude, Web browsers causes countless indistinguishable glitches as some
Windows app, from repetitive updates to compatibility concerns. Virtualized
applications have had provided a simple way of delivering apps facilely and
securely.
IT organizations, many years back, develop a series of
advanced web apps for browsers and plug-ins that may have been outmoded today
or may currently pose safety risks. Many of these were being turned off by
vendors alike whether IT likes it or not. Of those web browsers that do remain
viable still poses some of the same issues as some other standard desktop
application, including repeated updates leaving developers small window to
service. Challenges are multiplied by the many web-based browsers now in everyday
use such as Chrome, IE (Internet Explorer), Firefox and Safari, plus
Microsoft’s latest Edge browser, and the resulting matrix becomes overpowering.
Virtualized applications proffer a way to bring about the
advantages of web-based apps without the downsides. By virtualizing a web-based
app on a single browser configuration or version, and then, again delivering it
the same manner to each user, IT then can solve compatibility issues while
improving manageability and security.
Citrix Secure Browser deliverance of web apps presents three top benefits, namely;
1. Lessens development and supports the cost of
browser-based apps
2. Lessens common security threats
3. Delight users with easy, crystal clear remote access
experience.
Delivering web apps with the virtualized application, IT
organizations can increase the same advantages of centralized delivery to this
important type of applications. Application virtualization makes the application
available to desktops, laptops, Remote Desktop Session Host (TST-Terminal
Server) and server-hosted VDI platforms. The benefits of application
virtualization include the following; delivery speed, the ease of application
support and management, installation, upgrade, and rollback. The physical set
up of applications is no longer required, thereby eliminating the possibility
of conflicts, resulting in energetic application distribution set-up.
The three main reasons for delivering web apps with application virtualization
1. Cost reduction on development and
support associated with browser compatibility problems
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Figure 2:
Virtualized Browser | Source: https://multibrowser.helpscoutdocs.com/
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A virtualized browser enables an organization to significantly
reduce web app management costs by streamlining app deployment and development
management. App management centralization and swift provisioning help
organization consolidate arduous jobs such as retrogression testing and shoving
out app updates to align with every browser release. This will make much easier
to dispense updates to the whole workforce, along with unfailing user
know-how all throughout any device and browser, and can significantly lessen
help-desk calls. Precisely as important, virtualization allows an unimpeded
update to web apps without pushing costly device-side upgrades to support the
provisions of the web applications operating system. Affordability aside, IT
can further scale up and down fluidly and economically.
2. Focus on common security threats
A centralized
application and data residing within the hardened data center add strata of
network security. Not any data resides on the device and nothing stays behind
as soon as the network connection is terminated, in the process, aiding
security and compliance system. Keystroke commands, mouse click, and screen
updates are only what traverses the network to the user’s endpoint device,
extremely cutting the risk of data exfiltration or exposure. Granulose access
strategy enforcement allows an organization to remove needless Virtual Private Network (VPN) holes and lessen the threat of
data loss or incursion through unsafe connections.
3. Delight users with well-defined secured remote access
Lately,
application layering has emerged as an alternate means to bundle and deliver
applications separately from the operating system, without the need of
reinstalling them on each desktop. Application virtualization removes the need
for users to worry themselves with technical specifics, they can just launch
any web app in any cutting-edge browser devoid of the need for a VPN and get to
work right away, as there is no need to install anything on the endpoint
device.
Outdated
remotely access VPN can become a sticking point of seamless productivity,
delaying and irritating users, exactly the same for the need of using a
specific browser and a version of it to run a particular web app. The web app
merely renders in a browser tab, purely like an outdated web app. In the
meantime, all the data stays secure inside the data center, along with cache
data, and in no way exposed to the threat on the endpoint. Business apps and data remain discrete from personal
content, aiding IT to maintain policy and security control devoid of any
meddling with the user’s personal apps and data on corporate and BYO devices.
The competency of hosting browser apps in superfluous data centers helps ensure
efficiency by streamlining business continuity.
Web-based apps frequently fail to live up to its perceive expectations
Web-based apps are nowadays an everyday element of many
organizations’ IT policy - but in practice, web browsers can trigger lots of
the similar problems as any Windows app, from frequent updates to compatibility
concerns. The charm of web-based applications is simple to understand. The
aspiration was to get rid of the necessity of developing and deploying a
distinctive client for all app or to test across many operating systems by
moving from legacy client/server apps to lightweight apps that are accessed by
means of a web browser. Users would be able to access instead most of the apps
from a web browser, as well as users using non-Windows platforms. These
benefits have made web-based applications a mainstay of many organizations’ IT
policy, although significant drawbacks still remain.
Web browsers
can likewise lay bare the organization to security threats such as the inception of network communications, the loss or theft of downloaded data to
the local computer and illegal access to web apps bookmarked in a particular
browser. From a user standpoint, security requirements can cause obstacles to
productivity, as the demand for the use of a VPN for isolated access points
undermines the expediency that the web apps are expected to provide.
Though
organizations will no longer have to agonize vis-Ã -vis the many operating
systems, it does have to be concerned with ensuring the compatibility of web
applications with several web browser its employees use. Frequently,
organizations are compelled to keep on using out-of-date browser versions
primarily because of the web application is written on them, a methodology
that’s specifically complicated for legacy web browsers that are no longer
supported. But even with the latest standard browser, there’s still a need to
test it against Apple Safari, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox
and now the Microsoft Edge, which accordingly differs significantly from one
another. All of these browsers are often updated as well, even more often than
time-honored thick-client Windows apps, adding up back a great
deal of the development operating expense the organization sought to eliminate.
The answer to
these problems are not the abandonment of the web-based development because of the
merits of this methodology are still fundamentally fit, but rather, it needs IT
to zero-in on the performance, management, and security problems of web apps so
that it can deliver the full worth for
the organization.
Benefits of Citrix Secure Browser
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Figure 3: Citrix
Secure Browser | Source: https://docs.citrix.com/
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What is Citrix Secure Browser?
The Citrix Secure Browser service isolates web browsing to
protect the corporate network from browser-based attacks. It delivers
consistent, secure remote access to internet hosted web applications, with no
need for user device configuration.
Citrix Secure Browser is available as a complete service by
way of Citrix Cloud. With this possibility, Citrix runs the infrastructure and
servers, turning it into a true turnkey solution. The Secure Browser can be
established in minutes with these three simple steps: publish the web app and
delineate the URL for the organization’s end users, run-through the app on a
virtual browser, and dispense the URL to the users. The secure browser allows
users to select any browser minus any need for IT to test each plugin, type or
version.
Globally, over
330,000 plus organizations depend on Citrix solutions in helping their more
than 100 million combined users to grow to be more productive while
simultaneously perfecting the manageability, mobility, and security of their IT
environment and that includes Citrix itself.
Conclusion
Though
web-based apps were instituted as a method to sidestep the deployment and
maintenance problems of traditional client/server apps, its progress frequently
ends up filling in for another set of problems. Nonetheless, an app is still an
app, whether web-based or Windows apps, meaning that the very established
advantages of virtualization for Windows apps are extendable as effectually to
web apps, letting IT streamline app development and boost accessibility without
incurring fresh challenges for manageability, security and user experience.