Citrix Technology… the Thin Client Solution for Remote Processing

My first encounter with Citrix was around 1997. It was beneficial then as it is today. Citrix allowed me to control office computers from the comfort of my own home. Even a slow dial up connection was good enough to allow my laptop, with Citrix technology, to remotely control 3 desktop computers located in the office.

Citrix works by sending only the screen data from the office computer to the remote machine. In effect, the remote machine is a dumb terminal and sees the screen of the computer to be controlled.

Today, Citrix technology is used to enable business process outsourcing solutions. Corporations can package applications to run in the Citrix servers which in turn can be accessed anywhere in the world.

So a typical setup could be the following. A corporation has an IT data center located in a high cost but high technology enable country such as London. Citrix servers can be installed and applications such as SAP are packaged to run in the Citrix environment. Users in other countries, running the Citix client, can access the packaged application via WAN links with minimal data transfer.

The main benefit of Citrix is the reduction of data transfer, which in turn reduces the expensive telecommunications cost associated with wide area network links such as frame relay and leased lines. More info...