Multi-tenancy is an architecture in which a single instance of a software application serves multiple organizations (tenants). It allows different organizations to share parts of the same IT infrastructure with the goal of reducing operational costs while keeping data secure.
Version 17.1 enables a multi-tenant architecture by introducing Parallels RAS Tenant Broker, which shares Parallels Secure Client Gateways and front-end High Available Load Balancers (HALBs) among tenants which may be represented as isolated Parallels RAS Farms and/or sites.
This architecture provides a consolidated and centrally managed multi-tenant infrastructure while still keeping tenants’ environments isolated from each other, thereby increasing resource usage efficiency while improving security. Organizations can provide a more efficient and faster onboarding experience for new users, reducing hardware requirements for each tenant while lowering IT operational and management costs.
Version 17.1 streamlines the management of user identities from different organizations by supporting the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 authentication mechanism. With SAML, IT can provide single sign-on (SSO) capabilities without sharing the local identity database. This allows federated SSO authentication and authorization processes for users while de-coupling the identity provider and service provider for simplified and centralized access of Parallels RAS hosted resources.
As part of the SAML SSO process, Parallels RAS 17.1 will also introduce the Parallels RAS Enrollment Server (ES), which communicates with Microsoft Certificate Authority (CA) to request, enroll and manage digital certificates on behalf of the user. This allows users to effortlessly switch between published resources—and launch them without being prompted to re-enter credentials—reducing login times and improving the user experience.
Parallels RAS and SAML SSO integration empowers service providers to concentrate on delivering better services. Reduce time spent on maintaining databases for tenants’ users while increasing security and reducing the IT overhead.
Moreover, SAML SSO provides faster onboarding of new tenants/customers. Users can log on once using their identities hosted at the identity provider (IdP) and gain SSO access to the applications hosted by SPs.
Extending its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) capabilities, Parallels RAS 17.1 will support provisioning of VDI and RDSH workloads directly on Microsoft Azure, treating Microsoft Azure as a VDI platform. This allows organizations to create, scale and manage required workloads on demand directly on Microsoft Azure, rendering faster deployments, simplifying management and reducing costs.
Microsoft Azure and Parallels RAS will enable organizations to scale infrastructure on demand by automatically monitoring and adjusting resources to maintain high performance for virtual applications and desktops. Auto-provisioning and auto-scaling of workloads can ensure the right balance between resources’ availability and compute cost when running on Microsoft Azure.
Parallels continues to support cloud adoption by enabling organizations to effortlessly implement private, public, hybrid and multi-cloud deployment—and deliver applications and desktops irrespective of where Parallels RAS components are installed.
Parallels RAS 17.1 provides the ability to use different hostnames and ports for network and application traffic, which might be required when integrating Parallels RAS with third-party load balancers, such as Amazon Web Services™ (AWS) Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) offerings.
Using Parallels RAS together with AWS ELB increases agility, streamlines management and cuts costs while reducing the deployment footprint. AWS ELB automatically distributes incoming application traffic and scales resources to address workload demands. Supporting both AWS Application Load Balancers (ALB) and AWS Network Load Balancer (NLB) allows organizations to use both the Parallels HTML5 Client portal and Parallels native clients simultaneously. Other third-party load balancers with the requirement to split network and application traffic load balancing can also make use of this new capability.
With a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates management solution in place, organizations can monitor all SSL certificates deployed within the Parallels RAS environment. This provides organizations with complete visibility and control over their SSL digital certificates and helps them preempt security breaches, outages and compliance issues.
Version 17.1 introduces new capabilities for organizations to manage SSL certificates from a dedicated screen in the Parallels RAS Console. This allows easier and centralized management of existing certificates used by the Parallels RAS Secure Client Gateways and High Availability Load Balancers (HALBs)—and also improves the experience when creating, importing and deploying new certificates.
The SSL Certificate Manager is especially useful when IT admins need to deal with a considerable amount of SSL certificates, typically found in large organizations and multi-tenant environments.
Scale Computing HC3 is a hyperconverged infrastructure solution that combines compute, storage, virtualization, backup and disaster recovery in a single appliance. Parallels RAS will fully support deployment on Scale Computing HC3 by enabling VDI and RDHS provisioning and management from a single pane of glass. The integration of Parallels RAS with Scale Computing provides a cost-effective and easy-to-use application delivery and VDI solution for organizations of any size.
Together with Scale Computing’s HC3, Parallels RAS provides an attractive offering for enterprises and service providers alike by allowing them to quickly address users’ and customers’ demands, while improving user experience with high-performing digital workspaces. This combined solution enables organizations to set up new users in hours rather than days, weeks or months by leveraging automation capabilities for faster deployment.
Version 17.1 will extend the current drag-and-drop functionality from client to server by providing users the ability to drag and drop files in reverse—that is, from the server to the client. Users can drag files from their published resources, applications and desktops to their Windows and MacOS workstations, thereby increasing productivity and improving the user experience.
The Parallels RAS Reporting Engine relies on Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), enabling real-time reporting about the Parallels RAS Farm activities. By extracting raw data from the SQL database, Parallels RAS Reporting Engine creates detailed reports about users’ activities, applications’ usage, servers’ resource utilization and more.
In version 17.1, support for Microsoft SQL Server will be extended to Microsoft SQL Server 2017 and 2019, allowing organizations to utilize the latest Microsoft technologies. Simplified deployment allows admins to reutilize existing SQL server instances rather than having to set up new ones. Moreover, in version 17.1 SQL Server and SSRS can be installed separately for further architecture flexibility.
By using Microsoft SQL for reports, organizations can keep track of the performance of Parallels RAS and Windows server components and act on enhancing them.