[THIN] Re: Looking for your Original/Innovative uses for Citrix for a presentation I am doing

  • From: "Andrew Wood" <andrew.wood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 17:23:46 +0100

I haven't had chance to test the apps mentioned - the doco was in effect a
preliminary study to examine whether it was worth reviewing the technologies
in depth. There are reviews out there - doug brown's just finished
Provisionnetworks I think - there are also some reviews on brian's site and
on  <http://sbc.vanbragt.net/> http://sbc.vanbragt.net/. 
 
As a quick summary I looked at -
 
TS on its own; Citrix (A & E) - Provision Networks TSE; Propalms; Genuit's
Thinworx, Jetro's CockPIT and an application called Go Global by Graph-on.
 
Of those, citrix and graph-on have their own protocol - everything else uses
RDP. There are studies that show ICA as slightly better than RDP, but its
not a massive difference - and depending on your network environment
possibly not a difference at all.
 
If we use Brian's 'feature set' as an example (
<http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?ID=494>
http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?ID=494) - say you want to
improve your base TS install - and you're looking at adding 

*       Application Publishing
*       Seamless Windows
*       Intelligent Load Balancing
*       SSL Gateway / Proxy
*       Intelligent Web Interface
*       Smart Access (disable/enable features based on location)
*       Workspace Control

So your first thought it citrix, but is there anything else?
 
Graph On publishes apps, its seamless, its got load balance - just doesn't
have the workspace control and smart access. You do get a cross platform
method of publishing apps tho' as it support windows, linux and a number of
flavours of unix. 
 
Thinworx, CockpIT, ProPalms and TSE all pretty much cover the same bases -
but none gives the smart access and workspace control. Thinworx, cockpit and
Propalms all gave the 'app publishing, load balancing, ssl gateway/proxy &
WI. All suggest that their environments are 'easier to deploy' - none have
the concept of zone data collectors for example.  Thinworx has a bit of a
problem as its 'controller' is a single box and I couldn't see a way of
making that fault tolerant. With Provision you get other features like their
profile management component, their printing add-on, IP isolation,
PNagentesque feature, Max CPU/Memory, access controls - some of which
(profile management/application blocking) aren't in Citrix. 
 
No one has an RM/IM type product - but it could be argued that in many
environments both these can be supplemented by alternative technologies that
can do the job as well, if not better. And if you want to monitor your
citrix/TS users, maybe something like Performance Guard, the eg Suite or
Edgesite (when it comes out) would be a better use of your money. 
 
Cost wise, for the environment I was looking at, cheap to expensive it went
- Propalms, Provision, ThinWorx, Graph-On, CockPit, CTX A, CTX E
 
And just as an example - Propalms was a third of the cost of CPS A,
ProvisionNetworks half. Software maintenance prices were typically much
cheaper as well.
 
Of course, you have to weigh up the savings in license (and possibly
hardware) costs over, say, support and maintenance, training. But all the
technologies employ similar ideals - its not always apples for apples but
its apples for something very appley.
 
Is that enough or do you want more? I was going to write something up a
little more formally with links an' that and a graph - could do if people
are interested.

 
  _____  

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Landin, Mark
Sent: 07 September 2006 14:42
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Looking for your Original/Innovative uses for Citrix for
a presentation I am doing


Anything you can share would be wonderful. Thanks!

  _____  

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Andrew Wood
Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 5:33 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Looking for your Original/Innovative uses for Citrix for
a presentation I am doing


:( 'fraid not in the format its in - its very specific to the environment.
It was being used to justify doing more investigation into a 'citrix
alternative' - which hopefully it will.
 
I'll try and sort a summary doc - with a pie chart showing a prices
comparison which was a bit of an eye opener :O
 
 

  _____  

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Landin, Mark
Sent: 06 September 2006 19:23
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Looking for your Original/Innovative uses for Citrix for
a presentation I am doing


Andrew,
 
 
I'd love to see your comparison document. In fact I bet most of us would
like to see it. Any chance?

  _____  

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Andrew Wood
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 10:55 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Looking for your Original/Innovative uses for Citrix for
a presentation I am doing


Yea - I'd agree Provision have the more feature rich of the competitors -
components like manage-it even citrix doesn't really have. But, there's also
propalms, cockpit, thinworx, even go-global if you just had something small
- all provide a similar service. Propalms are particularly aggressive in
their pricing structure.
 
I had to do a cost vs feature comparison document last week - I've said it
for a while citrix need to pull their finger out in terms of reassessing
their license costs as the 'competition' is running faster than they are
imo.

  _____  

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