Citrix Systems, a player in the application delivery infrastructure field, has announced a new solution in the industry designed to provide highly scalable secure access to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environments.

This release of the company's Citrix Access Gateway appliance includes integration with Citrix XenDesktop, allowing companies to deliver virtual desktops securely to thousands of end users based on their unique identity, location and security status. Unlike traditional virtual private network (VPN) and network access control (NAC) solutions, which control access solely to the network, Citrix Access Gateway provides intelligent access directly to approved applications and desktops through its innovative SmartAccess technology, an increasingly important requirement as data centre resources become more virtualised and physically separated from end users.

By providing highly scalable secure access for virtual desktops; Citrix aims to make it easier for IT organisations to realise the security and cost reduction benefits that come from centralising applications and desktops in the data centre and delivering them virtually to end users in any location. The new Citrix Access Gateway 8.1 release accomplishes this by introducing features like SmartAccess for virtual desktops, improved scalability for secure virtual desktop access and fast configuration and deployment.

"The new release of Citrix Access Gateway for XenDesktop solves a thorny issue that enterprises face today. Enterprise customers can now restrict the access and use of desktops and approved applications from a central location, without network reconfiguration or end client software changes," said Sanjay Uppal, vice president of product marketing at Citrix Systems. "By integrating scalable secure access with the Citrix XenDesktop product line, we wish to simplify the control of critical data centre resources without compromising security."