Available in a Terminal Services Edition and an Enterprise Edition, the main offerings in the Tarantella product line provide remote, encrypted, Web-based access to server-hosted applications. The Terminal Services Edition operates as an add-on to the Windows Terminal Service architecture (and therefore works in Windows-centric environments), while the Enterprise Edition installs on Linux and Solaris servers and supplies Java/browser-based portal access to applications on multiple server platforms, including UNIX, Windows, and Linux.

Based on (and offering native support for) Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), Terminal Services Edition (TSE) operates as an add-on tool to Windows Terminal Services, providing enhanced security and load-balancing features for access to hosted applications. All communications between client machines and the Terminal Services Relay server are encrypted, and users are automatically authenticated via TSE's support for Microsoft Active Directory and NT Domains. Administrators can assign application access by user, group, or organizational units (OUs) among other possibilities, and when the user logs in, an application launch pad is provided to them allowing them to access those applications available to them. Available applications can also be installed on login as a menu in the Windows Start Menu, and additional client components allow for localized printing and the removal of the standard Terminal Services frame surrounding launched applications.

The Enterprise Edition (EE) is deployed on Linux or Solaris servers, and provides a Web-based access mechanism to applications hosted on multiple platforms. Users access the EE Server by way of their Java-based browsers and are granted access to applications that may reside on UNIX, Linux, or Windows application servers, among others. Software downloads are not required to most clients, though the vendor does offer specific native clients for multiple platforms (and Tarantella notes that, for some platforms such as Mac OS X and Windows Pocket PC, the native client is required); and the application servers themselves also require no modifications, installation and management is contained within the EE server itself.

With the Enterprise Edition, communications are encrypted via SSL and users authenticate themselves once to the EE server (multiple authentication methods and integrations are possible; including RSA SecurID, LDAP v3, NIS, Microsoft Windows Domains, UNIX passwords, and HTTP/HTTPS username/password). They are then provided with the applications they have been granted access to, and can make use of such features as copy/paste between applications (even if served from differing platforms), follow-me printing, and client specific drive mappings (for saving data locally).

For administrators, both editions provide centralized management, reporting, and auditing features via Web-based consoles (tracking which users have used which applications) and additionally support load balancing among multiple application servers.

Both Secure Global Desktop Terminal Services Edition and Enterprise Edition are now available. Visit the Tarantella Web site for further information.