The new services which consolidate and extend security capabilities for Workspace Citrix has had in place before, are targeted around Zero Trust messaging.
Citrix Systems has unveiled two new workspace security services designed to provide Zero Trust Network Access that will protect applications wherever work needs to get done. The new services, Citrix Secure Workspace Access and Citrix Secure Internet Access, are being introduced now to response to opportunity and customer demand created by COVID.
“COVID certainly put organizations into a crisis mode back in March,” said Ed Rodriguez, VP and GM of Canada Sales. “Most customers initially expanded what they already had, in expanding traditional Citrix environments to home users, but as we moved into the summer and fall, we have seen different reactions. They reprioritized initiatives and investments. You see a variety of different views from organizations about whether their employees will come back full time, part time or not at all.”
Part of the reprioritization involves changes in customer requirements around user productivity and security.
“Traditionally, these have involved tradeoffs,” Rodriguez said. “What Workspace is doing here is introducing these two concepts to provide that type of security that gives access to every application. It has security against keyboard logging and phishing, and provides browser isolation. The last mile is ensuring that the endpoint has the network connectivity that you need, as well as analytics. That’s the strategy and vision we have.”
The two new offerings are designed to further that strategy, by helping companies to accelerate their journey to a Secure Access Services Edge [SASE].
Citrix Secure Workspace Access is a new service offering that provides VPN-less Zero Trust access to corporate web and SaaS applications accessed from devices which it manages. It represents the next stage of security beyond Citrix Access Control.
“Secure Workspace Access is an evolution of Workspace from a year and a half ago,” Rodriguez said. “Citrix Workspace was originally organized towards organizing applications. This is the next layer – the security angle to get to Zero Trust.
Ed Rodriguez, VP and GM of Canada Sales
“We’ve embedded a browser within Workspace, and provides MFA, so you don’t have to provide user credentials, Rodriguez indicated. “Our isolated browser is straightforward and integrated through open source, with many of the same properties as Chrome browser, so there is no application compatibility issue.”
The other new service, Citrix Secure Internet Access, is a broad offering which includes secure web gateway, next-generation firewall, cloud access security broker [CASB], DLP, sandboxing and AI-driven attack detection.
“This is a new type of solution for us,” Rodriguez said. “We have had the technology before, but in different piece part offerings. With Citrix Secure Internet Access, we have unified all this as one experience. With the addition of SD-WAN, you complete the Secure Access Service Edge.” Some of the technology does leverage the capabilities of Citrix strategic vendor partners.
Rodriguez emphasized that Citrix is positioning the two new services as a core part of Workspace, not as add-ons for specific use cases – including Work From Home.
“There is a ubiquitous need for these offerings at this point,” he said. “We don’t see this as a use case play, in particular for those not sitting inside an organization’s four walls. We are not explicitly pitching it as Work From Home, but rather as Zero Trust.”
Rodriguez said that the two services open up new opportunities for channel partners
“The first partner angle we are seeing is designing and implementing an organization’s access and zero trust strategy, involving developing profiles and personas and layering in some new technologies,” he indicated. “The other is around the ecosystem side, further leveraging partnerships that add more capabilities that different ISVs have integrated into Workspace to extend it.
“Partners should dig in and take a look at these services,” Rodriguez added. “Most partners have shifted to looking at outcomes, and this fits into what outcomes customers are looking for. We are counting on partners to take these to the market.”
Citrix Secure Internet Access and Citrix Secure Workspace Access are available now.
