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Remote Software Access

The Growing Remote Software Access & Distribution Challenge

Today's enterprises, from small and medium businesses to Fortune 500 companies, are increasingly geographically distributed, with remote and mobile workers representing a growing percentage of the workforce, spanning roles throughout the organization. Today, IT may even be required to provide support to individuals outside the enterprise's boundaries, at partners or customers.

Software distribution has become more challenging as the number of employees requiring remote access has increased. While electronic software distribution (ESD) solutions have automated the remote software distribution process, these solutions require:

• The entire application to be pushed out to (and fully-installed on) the target device before it can be accessed by the end user, despite the fact that most end users only require a small percentage of an application's functionality
• Each recipient of a distributed application to be a member of the domain, making it difficult to hard to push software to customers, partners and others outside the domain
• A complete redistribution and reinstall every time an application is updated or patched
• A support team to focus on hundreds or thousands of machines individually

Remote software distribution using traditional electronic software distribution solutions can take hours over WAN or extranet networks, and any issues, problems or conflicts that stem from the installation must be managed remotely.

	Imagine That
	Imagine if websites required push-based remote access. The first time an end user visited any website — remotely, across the Internet — the entire website — every page would be pushed down to the local machine, despite the fact that only a small subset of the pages would ultimately be needed by the end user. Quite a heavyweight, time- and network-intensive process when considering a site the size of Amazon.com! Furthermore, whenever a change was made to any given page (say, Tom Clancy released a new novel), the entire website would be sent out again. Clearly, the current pull-based mechanism is a vastly better model — the end user pulls down only those portions of the site that are of interest, on-demand. Given the small portion of any website that is of interest to any one end user, pulling just what is needed is clearly a better approach.

AppStream — Faster Remote Software Access

The AppStream Remote Software Access solution is perfect for remote delivery across the Internet or low-bandwidth extranets because it streams only the application functions that an end user actually needs, when those functions are needed. Because most end users require only a subset of any application's capabilities in normal use, this means that less software needs to be distributed and installed — in most cases, AppStream ultimately needs to stream less than ten percent of the application to support the end user's needs. In the event of an application update, only the updates are streamed to the end user, not the entire changed application — a fast, automated, transparent process.

AppStream — Better Remote Software Access

Streamed applications install locally on the machine, available for offline use — a key feature for road warriors who comprise a large percentage of the remote workforce — all the while letting IT maintain central control, guaranteeing consistent update access and versioning (for more, see Best of Both Worlds).

AppStream — Easier Remote Software Access

AppStream is easily-administered in remote access scenarios:

• AppStream's web-based management console and infrastructure allow IT staff to perform management tasks from anywhere within the corporate intranet or extranet.
• The AppStream Remote Software Access solution enables IT departments to easily provision applications to end users inside or outside corporate firewalls.
• AppStream supports the use of roaming profiles for today's increasing remote/mobile work force.
• AppStream integrates seamlessly with any existing enterprise entitlement system.

Capability		Benefit
	Enables use of applications without requiring a complete download and install	Efficient, accelerated remote software distribution across any network
	Delivers and installs PC applications to remote end users without IT intervention	Offers end users remote software access without central IT involvement
	Facilitates use of applications when disconnected from the network	Extends applicability to the ever-increasing mobile workforce
	Optimized for Intranet and low-bandwidth extranet access	Client-side applications running in seconds over remote networks
	Supports end user access from unmanaged machines (e.g. home & partner PCs)	Increases the productivity of the remote workforce
	Facilitates "Hoteling" – sharing machines in remote offices	Greater productivity from existing PCs
	Centralizes management & control over far-flung PC instances	Lowers administrative requirements while cutting down on support calls

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