uDocs Unicon™

Scout in the Cloud

Overview

With Scout in the Cloud, Citrix offers a fully managed cloud infrastructure for the complete Unicon Endpoint Management solution. The infrastructure is setup automatically, and the customer administrators get access to the endpoint management applications and can focus on the endpoint management.

With Unicon OS (elux), Citrix provides a lean and secure operating system which runs on endpoints like thin clients, desktop PCs, and laptops.

With Unicon Endpoint Management Suite (Scout) a few products and components enable administrators to manage these endpoints from a central location.

The management components consist of Scout, Elias and Scout Cloud Gateway (SCG); while each component uses a database.

Scout is the central management component running on a Windows Server. Scout consists of multiple components, each running as a service: Scout, Scout Board, DBLayer, Keep Alive Service.

Elias enables administrators to create and manage software images and packages. An image makes up the complete Unicon OS (eLux) system (operating system, drivers and applications), which runs on the endpoint.

Scout Cloud Gateway (SCG) is a VPN Gateway solution, which gives the possibility to securely connect external/remote eLux endpoints with Scout, so that they can be managed.

Running and maintaining the management components requires to setup the infrastructure, network and all the components. The required network and firewall rules need to be set and maintained. Components like SCG need to have a scalable infrastructure and high availability. Elias needs to be able to provide the images and packages to the endpoints and needs to be accessible.

When running on premises, the management components need to be set-up, maintained, updated, and managed by the customers’ IT departments, while the endpoint administration will be done by the same or dedicated administrators. This takes time and effort, and it is costly.

Nowadays, cloud offerings are common practice and software as a service is commonly used by many companies. The infrastructure is managed by the provider, and complex requirements like high availability, scalability, UpToDate software, backup and disaster recovery and support are part of the offering.

Citrix also provides a test environment for proof of concept (PoC) and tests. After a successful test, the production rollout can be planned.

When using Scout in the Cloud, instead of managing the whole infrastructure, customers can work with a ready to use cloud environment and focus on the endpoints and the end user experience. While the endpoint management solution is part of the cloud environment, administrators can use the web-based application for endpoint management tasks.

Endpoint Management Components

In a Scout in the Cloud environment, the following components exist:

  • Scout (Endpoint management)
    • Scout Server
    • Scout Board
    • Scout Board DBLayer
    • Scout KeepAlive
  • Elias 18 (Image and package management)
    • Elias Server
  • Scout Cloud Gateway (SCG ~ Remote endpoint management)
    • SCG Services
    • OpenVPN Server

Architecture

The Scout in the Cloud production environment facilitates the required resources and provides the optimal environment for production. The following features are key to the production environment.

  • High availability
  • Scalability
  • Backup and disaster recovery (Full backups are being performed daily)
  • Centralized logging (Logs are aggregated centrally for easy troubleshooting)
  • Monitoring
  • 24/7 Support
  • Software updates and maintenance
  • Image and package distribution via Blob Storage
  • Multi-region

The database is based on SQL for endpoint management (Scout). For Elias and SCG, Document DB is being used.

The administrator can access the management applications using a web browser, and the communication is secured via HTTPS.

The communication between the endpoint and the management component is secured via HTTPS (Elias software packages) and TLS (bidirectional communication between eLux and Scout and eLux and SCG).

Scout in the Cloud Production environment

Info

You also have the possibility to get an environment for testing, which can be provided by your ATS.

Scout in the Cloud