IGEL has announced IGEL COSMOS, a unified platform to securely manage and automate the delivery of digital workspaces, from any cloud.
Offering a modular architecture, granular endpoint control and end-user freedom, COSMOS is designed to enable organizations to garner the full power of current-day and future clouds with extensive control, while powering user experiences for today’s hybrid work.
The most significant new advancement with IGEL COSMOS is that, for the first time, IGEL is completely separating the base IGEL OS from its validated and integrated applications and interfaces, while adding an additional separate component in the form of value-added cloud services.
Together, these three vital components comprise IGEL COSMOS. This modular architecture of “separate but equal” elements of endpoint operating system, management and control, and cloud services enables maximum IT flexibility in introducing or enhancing apps, desktops, services, and any other form of cloud-delivered digital workspaces as the cloud continues to evolve.
Featuring extensive management and control powered by the new IGEL UMS 12, the next generation of the IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS), COSMOS enables the parallel use, management and control of endpoints running both IGEL OS 11 and the new IGEL OS 12 operating system.
New cloud services, which are de-coupled from the OS, include the IGEL App Portal for use-case specific software applications offered from IGEL software partners and available for seamless download and implementation.
Additional cloud services include the IGEL Onboarding Service, IGEL Insight Service, and other services and portals all designed to enhance effectiveness and user experiences for both IT professionals and end users.
“Today’s workspaces are hybrid. Hybrid work, hybrid clouds and hybrid applications. While VDI and DaaS continue to provide organizations the safest way to deliver secure access to windows client server applications, a transition to SaaS and web-based applications has already started. IT organizations need to make sure they can evolve at their optimal pace and at the same time, enable employees seamless, yet secure access to their cloud workspaces,” said Matthias Haas, CTO, IGEL.
“The COSMOS platform has been designed for this new era of hybrid work. With a new modularized version of IGEL OS, a new version of our UMS management platform coupled with new cloud services that extend capabilities and enhance user experiences, COSMOS enables unmatched speed and flexibility to our customers across traditional and modern application delivery models, while still retaining security, management, and control across the entire endpoint estate,” Haas continued.
“Having deployed IGEL OS to our remote workforce, we have been excited to pilot the latest innovation from IGEL including UMS 12 and IGEL OS 12,” said Simon Barlow, Group CTO, Operations, AXA UK & Ireland.
“Our remote workforce, the agile application landscape and more frequent update cycles of unified comms require us to onboard, manage and update our endpoints faster and more efficiently than ever before. Based on our initial testing of OS 12, we are already confident that we can remotely configure, update, and patch our remote machines faster and more efficiently. With small updates and the ability to only update the Azure Virtual Desktop client, IGEL COSMOS allows us to be more agile without compromising security or change control. We are excited about the new cloud services which complement IGEL OS and UMS 12 and are proud to be included in the COSMOS platform launch,” Barlow continued.
“Having utilized the secure IGEL OS for our VMware VDI environment, we were excited to work with IGEL on the IGEL OS 12 pilot,” said Billy Cruz, Technology Services Manager, Desktop Engineering, COCC.
“The ability to update the VMware Horizon client independently from IGEL OS in the new offering allows us to deploy the latest innovation from VMware faster and more efficiently than before. The additional ability to now also update the Zoom and Webex offloading clients, independently from the VMware Horizon app, also provides additional flexibility and reduces the amount of time needed to perform management updates to increase employee experience. With a smaller attack surface and faster updates, we are excited about rolling out IGEL OS 12 in the future,” Cruz added.
Unified components of COSMOS
At the core of the IGEL COSMOS platform is the new IGEL UMS 12, which offers a unified view across a heterogeneous mix of endpoints running either IGEL OS 11 or the new IGEL OS 12.
This management and control console enables environments already benefitting from IGEL OS to easily migrate and leverage immediate value of COSMOS without requiring an OS upgrade on all their existing devices.
Released with COSMOS is the new IGEL OS 12 which is more lightweight and adaptable than ever. Offering increased flexibility, speed, and agile integrations, IGEL OS 12 has been architected to support any form of cloud-delivered digital experiences.
It also supports a faster, more efficient delivery of features and applications tuned to specific use cases via the IGEL App Portal.
Other key services tuned to IGEL OS 12 include fast user onboarding and deep insights into endpoint usage, security, status, and compliance of IGEL UMS-managed endpoints.
One of the most significant new cloud services adding additional value to COSMOS is the IGEL App Portal. The App Portal delivers a full range of validated applications from IGEL’s vast IGEL Ready technology partner community designed for use on IGEL OS-powered devices.
Since the App Portal operates separately and independently from the IGEL OS endpoint operating system, it streamlines the process of application integration, introduction, and qualification for IT teams since there is no longer any dependence on the classic, highly integrated software release process.
These apps can be qualified and delivered as a feature-rich experience for users, while reducing the app qualification, implementation and update processes for IT.
Applications include the Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop client, VMware Horizon client, Citrix Workspace app, Chromium Browser, Zoom Media Plugins for VDI and many more.
IGEL also offers an IGEL OS API (application programming interface) for software providers that want to validate their solution for availability using COSMOS and the IGEL App Portal.