Oracle Secure Global Desktop (SGD) software provides secure access to both published applications and published desktops running on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

and

IBM i IBM i (the ''i'' standing for ''integrated'') is an operating system developed by IBM for IBM Power Systems. It was originally released in 1988 as OS/400, as the sole operating system of the IBM AS/400 line of systems. It was renamed to i5/OS in 2 ...

systems via a variety of clients ranging from fat PCs to thin clients such as Sun Rays.

History

SCO and Tarantella era

The origins of Oracle Secure Global Desktop goes back to 1993, when the

Santa Cruz Operation The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. (usually known as SCO, pronounced either as individual letters or as a word) was an American software company, based in Santa Cruz, California, that was best known for selling three Unix operating system variants ...

(SCO) acquired IXI Limited, a software company in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, UK, best known for its X.desktop product. In 1994 it then bought Visionware, of

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

, UK, developers of XVision. In 1995 the development teams from IXI and Visionware were combined to form IXI Visionware, later the Client Integration Division of SCO. From there, the

Tarantella Tarantella () is a group of various Southern Italy, southern Italian Italian folk dance, folk dances originating in the regions of Calabria, Campania, Sicilia, and Apulia. It is characterized by a fast Beat (music), upbeat tempo, usually in Ti ...

product was devised, with the goal "any application, any client, anywhere": access to applications of any type (hosted on back-end servers) from any client device that supported a

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

-enabled

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

. The first public release of Tarantella software was in November 1997. In November 2000 version 3.0 of the product was released. SCO sold off its Unix business and was renamed Tarantella, Inc. in 2001. Further 3.x releases followed in subsequent years, adding more integration features in competition with similar software from Citrix Systems.

Sun era

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

acquired Tarantella, Inc. in July 2005. The product underwent massive development in the following years. It was named Sun Secure Global Desktop. The November 2007 release of version 4.4 introduced a web-based management console that replaced the Java-based Object Manager and Array Manager tools that were first introduced in version 3.0. Sun Secure Global Desktop 4.5 came out in 2009. In this version 4.5, SGD provides SGD Gateway. This allows clients to access the infrastructure in a different physical network. The SGD Gateway splits the traffic.

Oracle era

In 2009, Oracle announced that it was acquiring Sun Microsystems. At that point the product was given its present name of Oracle Secure Global Desktop. On April 30, 2013, Oracle released version 5.0 which used

HTML5 HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...

to provide remote access to applications, especially for mobile devices such as the Apple iPad. Since that time, there has been a progression of follow-on releases: :5.1 January 2015 :5.2 April 2015 :5.3 June 2017 :5.4 March 2018 :5.5 January 2020 :5.6 January 2021 As of April 2021, the current version is Oracle Secure Global Desktop 5.6.535.

Overview

SGD is considered by industry insiders to be a competitor to Citrix's products for remote application delivery. A large range of client devices can connect to a Secure Global Desktop Server, including Microsoft Windows PCs, Solaris desktops, Apple Macintoshes, Linux PCs, thin clients such as those from Sun and Wyse, and mobile devices. The client requires only a

with a

Java Runtime Environment Java is a set of computer software and specifications that provides a software platform for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms ...

installed. A client device connects to the Secure Global Desktop Server either via a supported

-enabled browser or via Native Client software (this "native client" can be downloaded from a SGD installation's login page, i.e. instead of logging in and letting the Java applet handle the connection automatically for you, you could instead do it manually by downloading this "native client" from the SGD main login page, install it locally, and then launch it and connect via this). When you connect via a browser the first time as a client, the SGD client (the client-side of the aforementioned Java component) is downloaded so you can then SSL-encrypt your connection. The system officially supports

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curren ...

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...

, and

Safari A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...

, but other browsers might work too for as long as they have access to a working

-plugin. The latest

is recommended but at least version 1.5 is required. The Desktop Client connects to the Secure Global Desktop Server via the Adaptive Internet Protocol (AIP). AIP is bandwidth- and latency-aware and can adjust compression and performance dynamically on links as diverse as a 56K modem or a 100Mb LAN. Session Resumability and Mobility is a feature allowing remote access to desktop applications from essentially any Java-enabled browser in the world. This makes it possible to run applications in one's office, then go to another location such as a customer site or one's home and transfer your existing desktop session to a computer there. Centralisation is an important feature for organizations concerned with secure data being stored on remote devices such as notebook computers, and the associated risk for theft of the device and its data. Applications accessed via SGD run in the centralised server room, meaning that all data is backed up and secured via the normal datacenter practices of the organization. There is a potential for increased performance and efficiency, since the actual computation is performed on larger systems with more resources; centralisation also makes resources considerably easier to manage. Applications can be assigned to users or groups of users using the Object Manager which can automatically present new applications to users dynamically without them needing to log out. Profiles can be created to group similar types of users; these profiles control the applications that a logged-in user is allowed to use. When a new application or an upgrade to an existing application is required, an administrator can just push these changes out to the users. This simplifies Desktop SOE migrations. SGD's password-caching feature, authentication tokens, and ability to integrate with

Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. Windows Server operating systems include it as a set of processes and services. Originally, only centralized domain management used Active Direct ...

and

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed Directory service, directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) networ ...

gives it the ability to easily set up single sign-on to applications: a user logs into SGD once, and then can run applications without having to perform an additional login—even if there are usernames and passwords used for the different back-end applications. With the same SGD infrastructure one can host an organisation's internal desktop applications, but also be able to access desktop applications remotely without the need for expensive VPN solutions. The Firewall Traversal Feature makes it possible to put an application server in an organisation's DMZ with only port 443 (

HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It uses encryption for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protoc ...

) accessible from the outside world. An SGD server can be accessed via HTTP or HTTPS. SGD also integrates with the Sun Java System Portal Server making it possible to deliver desktop applications via a Secure Portal using a

Portlet Portlets are Pluggable look and feel, pluggable user interface software components that are managed and displayed in a web portal. A portlet responds to requests from a web client with and generates dynamic content. A portlet is managed by a portle ...

, including the ability to mail, calendar and other Portal features. Sun Java System Identity Manager can also manage all user accounts and passwords via one webform, including integration of LDAP, Active Directory,

Oracle database Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle DBMS, Oracle Autonomous Database, or simply as Oracle) is a proprietary multi-model database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation. It is a database commonly used for ru ...

or other commercial or home-grown access control repositories.

Features

*SGD integration into the

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

Launch Menu and Windows clients' Start Menu; clients can connect to an SGD server when they log into their client automatically, without the need to open up a browser. Desktop icons can be created to start applications via SGD without the user being aware of SGD's presence. *LDAP and Active Directory supported as login authority sources, multiple LDAP/ADs can be configured *Windows support *Support for Client Drive Mapping and Local Printer Mapping *Support for serial port forwarding *Oracle Secure Global Desktop Software runs on Solaris 10 ( SPARC and

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

), Solaris 9 and 8 (SPARC only),

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial Linux distribution developed by Red Hat. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version for x86-64. Fedora Linux and ...

5 (x86 32-bit). Oracle Enterprise Linux.

References

External links

Oracle Secure Global Desktop product pageDocumentation for Secure Global Desktop 5.6
an
web site
Sun Microsystems software 1997 software {{Sun Microsystems