Project Alcatraz

Alcatraz Mobile PINPad - Technology Concept Release 4

New! Updated 16th December 2011

Alcatraz Mobile PINPad provides the ability to lock the screen of any application delivered by XenApp to mobile devices after a period of inactivity by using a simple PIN keypad.

Background

Alcatraz PINPad is part of the Citrix Labs Project San Francisco, an umbrella project covering many aspects of XenApp and XenDesktop on mobile devices. Project San Francisco includes:

• Enhancements to the Citrix Receiver to optimize mobile user experience.
• Enhancements to the XenApp platform to provide rapid and secure connections and reconnections to applications.
• Building and sharing application development knowhow for creating Windows applications that are optimized for mobile (touch) devices.

Mobile device computing is at the center of three major market trends:

1. Consumerization: End users expect to access corporate information from personal mobile devices, which is creating whole a new generation of security concerns.
2. An app-centric world: Mobile applications are typically purpose-built for completing a focused set of tasks on a touch device and are dramatically changing the computing experience.
3. The need for device independence: Corporate IT is struggling to deliver uniform apps and content to an increasing and fragmented range of mobile device platforms and form factors.

The Challenge

Enterprise mobile applications must be both secure and responsive. Alcatraz PINPad aims to maintain security while minimizing the time it takes for a user to launch and interact with an application hosted on XenApp in the data center. The following highlights why this is important:

• For the Mobile User - With a desktop connection to XenApp and XenDesktop, the time taken to securely connect to a session is in line with desktop expectations. In the mobile device space, however, the end user has become accustomed to the much more rapid application availability they experience from applications running natively on their mobile device. In addition, the user will tend to need to reconnect more frequently on the mobile device than on the desktop where a static network connection could be expected. As such, it is important to streamline that reconnection, without losing security.
• For the Enterprise Administrator - A major concern of enterprise IT is the mounting complexity of supporting the vast range of smartphones and tablets available to corporate users. Many users are in fact bringing their own devices and desire access to their email, calendar and contacts amongst other enterprise applications.

The catch - most of these mobile devices do not allow for enterprise management or control.

The use of Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop along with the Citrix Receiver ensures that all corporate data remains secure in the datacenter to mitigate the data leakage risk if a device is lost or stolen. Alcatraz PINPad adds an additional layer of application security and enhances enterprise mobile device management.

Introducing Alcatraz PINPad TCR 4

Updated Release! 16 December 2011

Citrix Labs is pleased to announce the availability of the Alcatraz PINPad Technology Concept Release TCR 4, which is intended to address the following:

• Enable rapid and secure application reconnect / re-connect
• Improve the user experience as users move from one network to another
• Enable enterprise control by enforcing the use of PINs on XenApp delivered applications

Alcatraz addresses the scenario when a connected device may be unattended, lost, or stolen and used by a malicious 3rd party. It allows a Citrix XenApp administrator who is delivering applications to mobile devices running the Citrix Receiver to enhance session security by adding an enterprise controlled PINPad lock. This PINPad, illustrated below, becomes active after application inactivity, very much like the phone screen lock mobile users are familiar with.

Additionally, one of the benefits of Alcatraz is that it requires no modification to existing applications delivered by XenApp from the corporate datacenter. This ensures that any smartphone or tablet that is left unattended or lost will not have an enterprise application left open for all to use.

Citrix Labs continues to assess market interest and opportunity for Alcatraz via this Technology Concept Release. As yet, no decisions have been made around commercialization of this technology.

Works best with Receiver for Android 3.0

The enhanced feature XenApp and Receiver set is currently available for Android devices. Support for Receiver on iOS and other mobile platforms are in the works. To experiment with projects such as Alcatraz and GoldenGate, the Receiver for Android 3.0 is not required, but it will provide a significantly improved mobile Receiver experience such as:

• Auto keyboard popup for text entry fields.
• Dynamic session adjustment based on the mobile devices screen resolution and DPI.

The Receiver for Android 3.0 can be installed by visiting the Android Market from your device and searching for "Citrix".

The perfect combination - Alcatraz PINPad with GoldenGate Mobile Email

To really experience the power of how enterprise applications can be transformed into Micro Apps and delivered to mobile devices in a secure way, we suggest that you also download and install GoldenGate Mobile Email which is designed to be used in conjunction with Alcatraz.

Alcatraz Download Information

The Alcatraz software can be downloaded here

Alcatraz Support and Feedback

Alcatraz is not a shipping product so support is not available through the normal Citrix support channels. Instead this technology concept is supported through the Citrix community. You can post your questions, comments, and suggestions at the Project San Francisco Support / Feedback Forum or you can send your feedback to: sanfrancisco@citrix.com. This forum and the sanfrancisco@citrix.com email alias will be closely monitored by the Citrix Labs team.