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Terminal
Server and Citrix has caused computing to come full circle
By
Rob Williams
Wisconsin Information Technology, Inc.
Over
the last 20 years there has been a shift from the mainframes,
which were the dominant platform during the 60s and 70s,
to the pc platform and client-server technology. This has
had a major effect of both the workers and the IT staff.
The type of work and the level of control held by IR has
changes drastically. It has caused a dramatic shift in the
computing power, which we are seeing today.
The power on the desktop of today rivals the computing power
of some of the old mainframes. This has changed the way
managers analyze data and reduces the time required to get
the information into the necessary format to make business
decisions. The result of this shift in technology and computing
power has caused an increase in the IT staff required to
administer the technology in large environments due to the
complexity and amount of software and the frequency of updates.
The administrators hve to touch every computer to perform
the software updates, or install additional software such
as Microsoft SMS which distributes this software for the
administrator. This software also has a hefty price tag.
The hardware also required relatively frequent hardware
upgrades and updates in order to keep up with the software
requirements. The applications have steadily gotten larger
and larger to become as sophisticated to the level they
are today. This cost has escalated incrementally also and
has become a huge cost burden for large organizations.
The industry is starting to see a shift back to the centralized
computing environment over the last year or two. The ability
to perform an update on one computer and have the change
immediately available to all users has the potential to
save companies huge amounts of money. The solution I am
referring to is Terminal Server and Citrix. This solution
gives the software advantage of the client server environment
with the central control and administration of the mainframe
environment.
The hardware also needs fewer upgrades because the applications
are running on one server in the computer room and each
workstation sees a screen which is being generated on the
server. This portal into the server session requires very
little power to run at the desktop. 386 and 486 based hardware
can keep up to the screen updates generated in this environment.
This breathes new life into old systems and extends the
life cycle of the older hardware. Since increasing the power
at the desktop does little or nothing to speed up the application
you are running, you need minimal hardware to operate and
this hardware is less costly when you do update.
The only expensive piece of equipment in the scenario is
the file server, which needs to be large enough to handle
all of the sessions for all of the users at the same time.
The server has to have enough RAM to run all of the copies
of each piece of software all of the users are running.
It is very common to see these servers with well over 1
gigabyte of RAM. This is one of the most expensive parts
of this server when you are dealing with this quantity of
RAM. The CPU also has to be able to be fast enough to keep
up with all of the applications, which the users are running
simultaneously. This is the most difficult part of the server
to size. Over the last year, the XEON based servers have
been the best suited to fill this role. These CPU's are
very expensive compared to the Pentium II pr Pentium III
servers common in the market today. The prices for just
the processor chip range from $1000 to $2000. This makes
the prices for these servers range from $10,000 to $40,000
each. The shift in price from the desktop to the server
in the short term is almost a wash.
The long term benefits are the biggest savings in hardware
when you extend the life of the desktop hardware 3 to 5
years beyond what the life has been in the past. The largest
cost savings comes in software update installation costs.
Rather than install a software upgrade on every workstation,
you install in on one server and all of the workstations
are updated at the same time. This also saves money in applying
bug fixes. You fix one server and all workstations access
the fixed copy.
The drawback comes in when you have a problem. If one person
experiences a problem, everyone else has the same problem
at the same time also. This reduces the amount of time available
for fixing problems. The impact of the problem is noticed
more quickly. If a program goes into a loop, everyone on
the server is effected by it rather than one person.
The users also may not like some of the restrictions which
must be placed on them in order to guarantee system performance
stays at acceptable levels. No animated software or screen
savers can be run. The requirements of the system in order
to support these applications ends up slowing everyone down
to the point that the server can't run any of the sessions
well. The animations and screen savers will take as much
system resource as necessary for them to run smooth and
the system will drag to a halt. Most installations of this
environment will not allow any user to load their own software,
and there are no screen savers even loaded. This insures
the stability of the system. This is a reflection of the
mainframe environments popular 20 years ago.
The computing industry has come full circle and is going
more and more centralized. This shift will become more and
more attractive as the labor market for qualified network
professionals continues to tighten up. Microsoft Terminal
Server and Citrix will continue to gain popularity in the
corporate environment over the next several years. Corporate
computing is taking on a new face for old concepts.
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