Stateless Computing Comes to Life with Upgrade of Symbiont Boot Appliance

Symbio Technologies--whose innovative approach to server-centric, stateless computing using stateless thin clients and a unique boot appliance has won certifications, awards, and contracts in the private and public sectors--has introduced an upgrade to its popular Symbiont Boot Appliance. Pioneered and developed by Symbio Technologies, The Symbiont Boot Appliance (SBA) is a rack-mount appliance that boots stateless devices with no internal operating system, embedded software, file systems, or network addresses. The new SBAv5 also allows creation of multiple virtual subnets, improving the

network architect's ability to separate the activities of up to 250 individual users from one another.

The Symbiont Boot Appliance boots and directs stateless thin clients to multiple application servers that run a wide variety of terminal services protocols. The new SBAv5 now supports LDM (X over SSH) and VNC, and adds a Java-enabled web browser to its capabilities, which already supports Windows Terminal Services (RDP), Citrix (ICA), Linux/Unix (X), VMware VDI, IBM 5250 and 3270, NoMachine, and virtually any midrange, mainframe and other legacy systems.

Other new features available for the first time on the SBAv5 include: --improved auto-detection of drivers--PTP camera support--support for unpartitioned removable media, including the ability to disable removable media devices or USB-only devices, and the ability to adjust mounts--support for widescreen monitors on many thin clients--local printer queues--encrypted thin client OS--additional firewall control--ability to perform firmware upgrades from a local file

Gideon Romm, co-founder and CTO of Symbio Technologies, said his company worked in conjunction with customers, including the U.S. Department of Energy and other government agencies, "to tailor our enterprise stateless solution to the particular needs of the federal government while keeping in mind the needs of businesses and other organizations as well.

"We asked dozens of senior IT staff what features would make their lives easier while maintaining the highest levels of security," he said, "so that we could build-in those features in version 5. "Our desktop solution eliminates the most troublesome part of the network--the PC: eliminate the PC and you eliminate the weakest link in the security chain. Our stateless thin clients coupled with the improved features of The Symbiont Boot Appliance do that very effectively and efficiently without over-complicating the deployment. When an IT administrator can set up and configure 250 ultra-secure stateless desktops in five minutes, that's something special!"