As Citrix® & Microsoft® Terminal Services infrastructures become ubiquitous, many remote administration tasks have become easier, faster and less expensive. Hardware requirements have shrunk. End-user desktop environments are easily deployed and more stable. Software & hot fix distribution is performed once for the benefit of many.

However, virtualization introduces new challenges, particularly to Remote Administration products which have been designed to support traditional distributed environments.

In a distributed environment, the user logs onto a machine and gains access to the physical screen, keyboard and mouse. Every subsequent action happens locally and the machine becomes the entry point to any remote administration task. In a Virtual Desktop environment, the user logs onto a machine (the thin client) and opens a virtual desktop session on a server (Microsoft® Terminal Services Server or Citrix® XenServer). We now have two physical machines as well as a virtual desktop to consider.

Most remote administration solutions are designed to work with the console session of a remote machine (that is the session attached to the physical screen, keyboard and mouse). This paradigm fails for virtual users as their session cannot be accessed.

Goverlan Remote Administration Suite v7, a product from PJ Technologies, is designed to support both distributed systems and virtual desktop environments. It is capable to performing remote administration tasks and to initiate remote control sessions on the console session of machine, as well as on active virtual user sessions.

Goverlan v7 is fully compatible with the Microsoft® Terminal Services servers and Citrix® XenServer. It automatically detects if one or more user sessions are active while administering a remote machine. If no virtual user session is detected, Goverlan automatically focuses on the console session. If more than one session is found, Goverlan allows the administrator to switch from one user session to another.

Using Goverlan, an administrator can manage the drive mappings, printer connections, start-up programs, send instant messages, chat, or remote control any of the available users sessions on a machine.

The Goverlan Remote Administration Suite v7 product is available for $699 per administrator with no additional client node fee.

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