posted on Friday, November 27, 2009 8:02 AM
The workforce continues to evolve and is more mobile than ever before. They are using an ever growing list of devices with access to more corporate information arriving from many different networks. Companies are also opening access to internal systems to partners, contractors, guests and other users along with their non-IT trusted devices. While this trend helps the mobile force be productive, it can also introduce threats to the network. Traditionally, internal access to tele-workers has been granted via VPN connections, this too can be cumbersome for organizations trying to manage the multitude of devices requesting access from various bandwidth & types of networks.
Last month Microsoft announced the release of Windows 7 and with that, enabling clients with Direct Access and BranchCache, new features announced as part of Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 R2 release. Earlier this week, F5 Networks announced ‘new Application Ready Solutions for Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2,’ providing support for Microsoft's recently released DirectAccess and BranchCache technologies.
Direct Access provides users with the same experience working remotely as they would have when working in the office. With DirectAccess, remote users can access corporate file shares, Web sites, and applications without connecting to a virtual private network (VPN). F5’s BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager now provides scalability and high availability for Microsoft’s DirectAccess deployments so customers can enjoy the same benefits of other ADC-optimized applications. BIG-IP’s load balancing capabilities are designed to route both incoming and outgoing traffic through the most appropriate path to ensure that users get either the most available server (for a new connection) or the most appropriate server (for established ‘sticky’ sessions) for that request. A nice solution overview, with illustration and iRule, can be found on F5’s DevCentral.
For BranchCache, we announced BIG-IP’s ability to both offload CPU intensive functions and optimize Windows 7 content requests even when a Windows Server 2008 R2 upgrade plan is still in the initial stages:
F5's support for BranchCache increases server capacity by offloading intensive computations used to alias web content requests from Windows 7 clients at branch locations. This solution also functions as a transition technology to bring the benefits of BranchCache to all Windows 7 client users where web servers have not yet been upgraded to Windows Server 2008 R2. - F5 Press Release.
Addressing the needs of the mobile worker and enabling IT with the tools to deliver, monitor and scale any application request from any user from any location. IT Agility, Your Way.
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