Norskale
Faster Systems by Optimizing Citrix

Citrix has been a key part of IT infrastructures for the last 20 years. The functionality that Citrix provides its users is unparalleled but enterprises are now conflicted with some of the challenges they see in Citrix implementations.

Companies, on the path of expansion, try to minimize hardware costs and achieve a better ROI by attempting to accommodate more users per server. But this strategy typically leads to user density issues, and affects system performance and reliability. Another challenge many companies face is the dwindling quality of the user experience on virtual machines. This is characterized by poor response times which always cause a drop in employee efficiency.

Such challenges caught the interest of Norskale, a Citrix Ready Premier-Partner, and they have been developing software only solutions to address these very problems. Norskale software solutions optimize the way Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp and physical PCs consume RAM, CPU, and Input/output (I/O) drastically reducing hardware requirements by up to 70 percent while delivering desktops and applications that are faster and cheaper. “Our solutions monitor user behavior and analyze it in real time to optimize the process of resource allocation,” says Pierre Marmignon, CEO of Norskale. “Our process is non-intrusive and ensures that all users have the required amount of resources by optimizing the way applications run,” adds Patrick Lalanne, COO.

Norskale solutions have also harnessed the trending practice in IT to embrace mobility. With Norskale’s VUEM, CIOs can identify the type of device used by the employee and dynamically adjust workspace to improve its efficiency and security. It delivers the best possible login times as it is a fully featured User Environment Management (UEM) solution designed for performance. The platform is a replacement for logon scripts, group policy preferences, and desktop lockdown Group Policy Objects. It delivers stunning results. The solution keeps the system agile and ensures faster access and application execution times for an enhanced user experience.

It also simplifies the job of the IT team as it removes significant complexity from any existing implementation. “The settings are intuitively designed for easy learning and are accessible through the central console,” says Marmignon.

Another notable offering is Norskale’s Transformer which is an add-on module to VUEM. Transformer helps reduce the roll-out time of Citrix by giving CIOs the ability to convert a number of connected windows terminal into Virtual machine clients quickly. The solution transforms the PC into a customizable Kiosk interface where any access to the underlying Windows Operating System is disabled. “The Kiosk environment is tightly locked down and secure, and users can launch their virtual or hosted desktops, as well as other locally installed applications,” adds Marmignon.

Norskale has met great market success, attracting some of the leading enterprises for the ease of implementation, great cost reduction, and significant performance boost it provides. Leroy Merlin, a major player in the retail industry in Europe, is one such client that wanted to provide their employees with a mobile solution that offered fast access to their applications and desktops in a cost-effective manner. To meet this need, Norskale equipped the 20,000 users with hosted-shared desktops running on XenApp augmented with Norskale’s offerings to optimize the entire deployment.

Norskale being an industry leader is not alien to competition. The firm has consistently stayed ahead with innovative technologies that tackle big problems while being simple to deploy and non-intrusive. “We are pleased to see all our customers achieve significant ROIs while enhancing the quality of the service they provide to their users.” beams Marmignon. This fact has encouraged many CIOs to implement Norskale’s offerings into their IT architecture.

“For the future,” says Marmignon, “we plan to increase the level of integration Norskale currently has with Citrix solutions and by continuing to use our customers’ and partners’ feedbacks as a guideline.” “We will also continue to improve our existing algorithms and practices for delivering both Desktop-as-a-Service and Application-as-a-Service,” concludes Marmignon.