The Social Security Administation Thursday hosted its tenth annual procurement conference at the Mikulski Auditorium, Baltimore. The conference focused on providing updates on its Socio-Economic Programs and discussed Initiatives for Digital Services. The conference is an annual event that allows small businesses to engage with contract representatives, SSA employees, contractors and other agencies.
Topics: VDI, virtualization, security, zeroclients, manageability
The one-day VMware expo Carolina VMUG UserCon is now over, having attracted hundreds of attendees in Charlotte yesterday. NCS staff attending the show met with nearly everyone and report that attendees were very interested in NCS virtual desktop solutions. As expected at VMUG events, sophisticated VMware users expressed hard requirements for improving manageability, driving down cost of ownership and improving security. In all of these metrics, zero clients from NCS Technologies outperform thin clients from the Tier One PC vendors.
An underlying thread to many of the discussions was an interest on the best remote display protocol to implement. Users are aware of choices including Remote Desktop Protocol, PCoIP, Blast and HDX. For the VMware environment, many agreed that RDP, HDX and Blast lacked the fuctionality required to deliver the full PC experience, and the consistency and manageability IT managers prefer.
Topics: VDI, virtualization, security, zeroclients, government, manageability, thinclients
Looking back at this very busy month, NCS executives spent a significant amount of time at government agencies, military bases, hospitals, at commercial establishments and participating at trade shows, promoting the ins-and-outs of desktop virtualization. At each stop we continue to find strong interest in PCoIP technology and in NCS zero client solutions, and curiosity about how they measure up against thin clients from the major PC brands.
These customers are becoming more aware every day that thin clients used for virtualization come with significant disadvanges. As they become experienced with thin clients, they are turned off that they are complex to administer. Thin clients often include a small hard drive, an embedded operating system and some memory. They are complex and expensive to use over the long run.
PCoIP zero clients, in contrast, use an integrated purpose-built processor (from Teradici) that does image decompression and decoding, transmitting pixels instead of data. A zero client PC does not need a general purpose CPU, local storage or an application operating system. PCoIP zero clients are secure and easy to manage and deliver low cost of ownership.
Topics: PCoIP, virtualization, security, zeroclients, government, manageability, thinclients
DOT Cybersecurity Summit 2017
Wednesday is Day Two at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Cybersecurity Summit 2017, DOT Headquarters, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, D.C. NCS Technologies is an important supplier of security solutions to the military, intelligence and other civilian government agencies. Please stop by the NCS booth and talk to Lauren Mayoral, an expert of civilian agency IT issues. All government agency employees and contractors are invited to participate at this important event.
There are many critical components to IT security, starting with the filtering done by the service provider and extending to the robust security infrastructure provided at the data center. Continuing this philosophy of "security through layers of defense", the next security peremeter after the data center is the desk top or end user. Today at the show NCS is promoting the Cirrus family of virtual zero client end point devices which focus on strong security at the desk top or end user level.
Zero client virtual desktops and laptops are recognized at the best security at the end user level. Instead of continually implementing patches and updates, users of zero clients have security peace of mind because they benefit from AES-256 encryption and because there is no hard drive or local storage to attack, no OS to infect, no persistent user data to steal and no antivirus software needed.
NCS zero client end points lead the industry in innovation, ease of use and low cost of ownership. NCS solutions rely on the PCoIP protocol, which compresses, encrypts and encodes the entire computing experience at the data center. Information is transmitted as pixels across the IP network to the end points. Users have a high performance, fully-functional computing experience - even with HD. VMware is our virtualization platform of choice. This platform improves the availability, performance and utilization of IT resources. NCS zero clients are also optimized for Amazon Workspaces and Microsoft Azure cloud environments.
Topics: VDI, PCoIP, virtualization, zeroclients, vmware
U.S. Department of Transportation Focus on Cybersecurity
This week the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is focusing on cybersecurity by offering two days of training and educational sessions. Hosted by the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), the security summit is open to all federal agencies and is taking place at DOT Headquarters, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, D.C.
Speakers from industry plus such agencies as DOT, NIST, HHS and OPM are talking about a broad range of cybersecurity topics including risks, management, industry innovation and operations issues.
NCS Technologies is a leader in supplying secure and reliable IT solutions to government agencies. NCS is an exhibitor at the DOT Cybersecurity Summit and is showcasing the Cirrus family of virtual zero client end point devices at this event. Please stop by the booth and talk to Lauren Mayoral, an expert of civilian agency IT issues.
A focus at this event is IT virtualization, particularly at the desktop or end point. NCS zero client end points lead the industry in innovation, ease of use and low cost of ownership. NCS solutions rely on the PCoIP protocol, which compresses, encrypts and encodes the entire computing experience at the data center. Information is transmitted as pixels across the IP network to the end points. Users have a high performance, fully-functional computing experience - even with HD. VMware is our virtualization platform of choice. This platform improves the availability, peformance and utilization of IT resources. NCS zero clients are also optimized for Amazon Workspaces and Microsoft Azure cloud environments.
Topics: VDI, virtualization, zeroclients, vmware
Cyber and Information Security Research Conference
NCS is right in the middle of the security discussions at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's 12th annual Cyber and Information Security Research Conference (CISRC). CISRC brings together cyber security researchers, program managers, CIOs, CISOs, decision makers, practitioners and vendors to discuss the challenges and solutions pertaining to cyber security. This event is the largest DOE/National Laboratory technology gathering to take place onsite at a government facility each year. Personnel and leaders come together from the National Laboratories, Department of Energy, NSA, Department of Homeland Security and the Cyber Sciences Laboratory. It's a great opportunity to see what technology the government wants to invest in, and for industry participants to forge partnerships with government IT and purchasing leaders.
NCS is a long-term supplier of innovative, secure computing solutions to the government. At CISRC, NCS is showcasing solutions that include SecureView virtualized workstations and desktops, and the Cirrus family of virtual zero client end point devices.
SecureView is a low-cost, multiple-independent-levels of security workstation-based technology which allows a single computer to host multiple guest VMs running at different classification levels. NCS is the leader in providing SecureView desktops to the government.
Topics: VDI, SecureView, zeroclients
Getting out of the office and talking to customers and end users quickly grounds you with exposure to real day-to-day issues. For those of us actively promoting virtualization technologies and solutions, it's easy to forget that for busy IT administrators, virtualization is just one of their many daily challenges.
Attending a user group this week reminds me that for many IT administrators, it is still murky to tell the difference between thin client end points and zero clients.
Topics: VDI, virtualization, security, zeroclients, government, manageability, thinclients
Getech is a Strong UK Partner
NCS has been selling the industry-leading Cirrus zero client laptop to UK markets since we partnered with Getech in 2015, and having strong partners like Getech has been integral to our international success. NCS is proud to work with Getech, one of our key international partners. Getech represents top tier brands, including BT, Dell, HP, and Samsung.
Getech: Thin & Zero Clients
Getech has been pioneer in distribution of thin client and zero technology throughout the channel since its inception in the late 90’s. The company has become the UK’s largest distributor of thin client products and held a steady market lead through a strong service ethic supported by in house technicians, strong vendor partnerships and a long standing team of sales specialists trained to be dedicated in product knowledge and customer service from pre sales to after care.
NCS and Getech: a Proven Partnership
NCS and Getech work closely together on meeting customer needs in the expanding UK IT markets. We look forward to continuing our work together, and are sure that we will have great future success! To learn more about Getech, please go here: http://www.getech-distribution.co.uk/
Topics: virtualization, zeroclients, thinclients
NCS Meets Healthcare IT Needs
HIMSS17, the year's largest and most influential Health IT conference, is completed. What did we learn this week?
Data Security - We learned that IT administrators remain very concerned about the security of patient data and of IT computing assets.
Desktop Virtualization - Administrators are continuing to explore ways to make their networks and computers less complex, easy to administer and less costly to own.
High-Performance Computing Platforms - Visitors expressed a desire to make sure their computing assets could adequately serve the needs for virtual reality applications and 3-D modeling.
When if comes to protecting patient data and over-all healthcare IT security, NCS believes VDI has a strong role to play. NCS is one of the industry's leading innovators in the virtualization space, and NCS is well known for its zero client virtual end points. Over the past few years we have educated IT administrators that implementing zero clients helps improve overall IT manageability and delivers strong security and cost effectiveness right to the desktop - where it is needed most.
NCS is a leading supplier of high-performance computing platforms, such as Vortex workstations and converged appliance offers, typically to enterprise and government agencies, such as defense and intelligence, needing CAD rendering, 3-D modeling and improved graphics performance through hardware virtualization. But the power of our high-performance computing platforms are equally cost effective and accessible for healthcare applications!
To learn more about NCS high performance desktop computers, please go here: http://www.ncst.com/products/categories/desktops
To learn more about the power of end-to-end VDI solution, complete with converged appliance solutions, please go here: http://www.ncst.com/content/ncs-virtual-desktop-infrastructure-vdi
Topics: VDI, Healthcare, zeroclients, thinclients, workstations
Day 3 at NCS Booth #5644
Our staff is busy meeting with industry participants at HIMSS17, the year's largest and most influential Health IT conference. NCS is showcasing a broad technology portfolio at our booth. It turns out that the talk around the show appears to be in three major areas: data security, virtual reality applications and 3-D modeling. Whether you are approaching these areas because of a need for desktop virtualization and VDI, or facing other challenges that call for high-peformance computing platforms, NCS has industry-leading solutions to address any challenge.
In healthcare we are well known for our Cirrus family of desktop and laptop virtualized end points and have success stories all over North America and overseas to prove it. Our higher-performance computing platforms, such as Vortex workstations and our converged appliance offers, are more typically found in enterprise and government agencies, such as defense and intelligence, needing CAD rendering, 3-D modeling and improved graphics performance through hardware virtualization. But the power of our high-performance computing platforms are equally cost effective and accessible for healthcare applications!
To learn more about NCS high performance desktop computers, please go here: http://www.ncst.com/products/categories/desktops
To learn more about the power of end-to-end VDI solution, complete with converged appliance solutions, please go here: http://www.ncst.com/content/ncs-virtual-desktop-infrastructure-vdi
NCS is one of the industry's leading innovators in the virtualization space, and NCS is well known for its zero client virtual end points. Over the past few years we have educated IT administrators that implementing zero clients helps improve overall IT manageability and delivers strong security right to the desktop - where it is needed most.
Topics: VDI, Healthcare, zeroclients, thinclients, workstations