Parallels RAS 22 Technical Preview: What's New for IT

IT teams face a growing challenge: verifying not just who is signing in, but whether the device itself can be trusted. With hybrid work, contractors, and BYOD, endpoint visibility has become a critical control point. The Parallels RAS 22 Technical Preview answers this with client device posture checking, expanded access controls, and a set of usability improvements across Mac, Linux, and iOS clients.

What was announced

Parallels has released the Technical Preview of Parallels RAS 22, focused on security, endpoint trust, and hybrid desktop delivery. The release adds client device posture checking, direct SMB file access from the User Portal, planned Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) Hybrid support, and multiple authentication and admin enhancements.

Device posture checks continue after login, giving admins an ongoing compliance view rather than a single check at sign-in. The new Files area in the User Portal lets users browse and open documents from existing SMB shares without a separate file client. AVD Hybrid support will allow organizations to run AVD workloads on their own infrastructure while keeping Microsoft's AVD experience, including the Windows App with Teams optimization.

Why this matters

For CIOs, CISOs, and IT directors, RAS 22 addresses two priorities at once: reducing endpoint risk and giving users a smoother experience. Device posture visibility closes a common gap for BYOD and contractor scenarios, while public IP access control and SAML as a second factor let security teams apply differentiated policies instead of a single blanket rule.

Procurement leaders benefit from the AVD Hybrid direction, which offers flexibility on where workloads live based on cost, data sovereignty, and infrastructure strategy — without locking desktops into Azure.

Technical details

• Client device posture checking: Continuous compliance validation across the environment.
• User Portal Files: Direct browsing and opening of SMB shares from the portal.
• AVD Hybrid (planned): Run AVD workloads on-premises with unified management.
• Access controls: Public IP-based policies, SAML as second factor, updated SAML design.
• Gateway hardening: API rate limiting and trusted farm verification.
• Session tunneling: Extended to Linux and iOS/iPadOS clients.
• Mac experience: True Coherence mode, Dock live previews, transparent image paste.
• Usability: Unified keyboard layout sync, time zone redirection without RDS role, improved password expiry alerts.
• Admin operations: Update agents in Drain Mode, RDSH uptime view, auto-scaler workload percentage, Grafana dashboards, custom certificates for Cost Insights.
• Experimental: Session recording and playback for audits and incident investigations.

Softprom and Parallels

Softprom is the official distributor of Parallels. Enterprise customers can access licensing, deployment support, and technical expertise for Parallels RAS 22 through Softprom's team.

This content was prepared as part of the Softprom DistriFlow project — an automated system for monitoring and adapting vendor news. Original source: original article.