What’s new: The latest IGEL Universal Management Suite, Version 4.0, with an optionally deployable High Availability extension. It also contains an optional thin client Shared Workplace feature for simplifying multi-user scenarios.

Reading, UK, January 25, 2012 – IGEL Technology, Germany’s leading manufacturer of thin clients, has enhanced its product line with two optional functions. The thin client Shared Workplace feature, which can be separately licensed, allows user-dependent device configuration and is designed for shift worker or roaming user environments. In addition, the High Availability feature, which is a program extension of the new IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS) 4.0 remote management software, brings high availability to thin client management. The optional High Availability UMS extension is primarily intended for those customers with large IT environments and scenarios in which failsafe operation of the UMS is of mission-critical importance. Available immediately, the UMS now includes five test licenses for High Availability.

The new Shared Workplace feature, which can be optionally licensed, is an enhancement of IGEL’s thin client software. It allows user-dependent configuration based on setting profiles created in the IGEL UMS and linked to the user accounts in the Active Directory. Typical applications for the Shared Workplace option are those workstations used for shift work or in call centers, where different staff members use the same device and need their own individual settings, such as for session types or mouse-button configuration for right/left-handed operation. Another common use can be found in roaming environments, where users frequently switch workstations, such as in hospitals and at service/ticket counters, checkouts (POS) and customer-reception areas. After a user has logged on, the Shared Workplace thin client automatically receives the appropriate configuration for that user from the UMS server, which itself retrieves it from the UMS database of individual and group profiles. These profiles can be easily assigned to users in the IGEL Universal Management console simply by drag-and-drop. In environments with a larger number of Shared Workplace workstations, IGEL recommends concurrent use of the new High Availability UMS extension.
 
The High Availability extension: providing high availability and load balancing
The High Availability extension is an optionally deployable component of the new IGEL UMS 4.0. It is intended to address the needs of large thin client environments in which new settings need to be rolled out to more than 500 thin clients at once or in which the fail-safe rollout of new settings is mission-critical for the organization concerned. The technical implementation is based on a network of several UMS management servers. An upstream UMS load balancer handles load distribution. This method ensures that every single thin client can reliably get new settings at any time, even at the start of a workday shift when several hundred or even several thousand devices are essentially simultaneously logging on to the UMS server over LANs, WLANs and WANs and searching for new configuration profiles or firmware updates. To ensure maximum process reliability and highest availability, IGEL also recommends creation of both a redundant UMS load balancer and UMS database.

“With High Availability, we’ve enhanced the coverage of our software for thin client management with a cost-effective functionality for special environments. With Shared Workplace we add an incredible useful feature to our Universal Desktop Thin Clients,” explains Florian Spatz, Product Marketing Manager at IGEL Technology. “The first option will have major impact on avoiding downtime, the second one will lower desktop costs in multi-user environments.”

Price, availability and evaluation of the new tools
The Shared Workplace feature is immediately available in the latest firmware versions and can be used with the new Version 4.0 of the IGEL UMS. Shared Workplace licenses cost £24 per thin client and can be selectively used with individual thin clients.

The High Availability extension costs £749 for a package of 50 licenses (net end-customer price). Its use requires full licensing of all managed thin clients. Each version of the IGEL UMS 4.0 contains five test licenses, so that the new function can be evaluated free of charge without needing to be registered.