Every day, it's the same thing when it comes to Internet access: A toilet could be overflowing in the restroom and most people would tiptoe around it, but if a typical user can't get to a web site, emergency phone calls fly to find out if the network is down.
It used to be that folks only wanted their MTV. Now, newspaper workers consider access to the Internet and e-mail as vital to their daily work life as pens, paper and coffee breaks. There are many legitimate reasons for surfing the 'Net, but when a fast-breaking news event such as last month's terrorism occurs, folks reach out through the Internet for information.
When that happens, network activity begins to pick up and response begins to slow down. On a more typical day, networks are bogged down because of streaming video and audio.
Information systems departments know quite well the capacity of existing bandwidth on their networks. But simply adding a new T1 line isn't always the most cost effective answer. The rising demand for Internet access -- in addition to the preponderance of memory-intensive applications -- means that rethinking the existing client-server setup is in order.
Most newspapers use the client-server configuration. In use since the 1980s, this type of information systems architecture allows for the easy interaction of numerous computers spread out within a building or across remote locations.
The client -- a laptop or desktop workstation -- launches an application residing on the client that sends requests to a server. The server, usually a big scary box sitting in a freezing cold room, accepts or denies the requests, processes them and returns the resulting information.
Similarly, browsers are seen as clients on the Internet, with web page servers housed all around the world. However, web browsers are considered "thin clients" rather than "fat clients" because they leverage the HTML markup language and the JavaScript programming language to achieve goals that have heretofore only been available in larger, dedicated applications. (There are some exceptions to fat vs. thin: Microsoft Outlook is often called a fat client because of the amount of memory it requires from the client machine.)
Larger networks employ a three-tier architecture, where the middle tiers balance loads and serve up information.
Newspapers contend with users accessing and processing disparate types of data. To publish a newspaper there are a variety of systems attached to the network:
And on the finance side, there are multiple transactions hitting databases to crunch and retrieve financial and marketing data.
The continued growth of applications such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, and the behemoths that they run in -- the various flavors of Windows -- forces the purchase of new equipment on a regular basis. The result of not having up-to-date equipment ranges from not attracting talented workers to risking shutdowns and delays.
Another major problem that is somewhat specific to newspapers is the need for cross-platform technologies. Many designers and photographers prefer to use Macintosh computers and applications to perform their work, while many business and advertising applications run only under Windows. To provide a unified environment, information technology professionals are required to find systems that will run under both operating systems.
A way out of the pickle
One option is to return, somewhat, to the early era of computing: mainframes and time sharing. Dumb terminals were great for accessing specific applications -- and back then, you couldn't surf the 'Net or check e-mail.
Citrix Systems Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., offers a solution to the ever-increasing need to deploy large numbers of computers and allow users constant access to business resources.
Citrix offers an application-server based model for network computing. All the applications reside on servers that are accessed by the client machines -- desktops, laptops or handheld devices. The Citrix software transfers keystrokes and screen refreshes, thereby greatly reducing the amount of bandwidth required. Further, Citrix offers clients that run on a variety of client hardware: Macintosh, OS/2, DOS and UNIX.
Founded in 1989, Citrix counts more than 100,000 customers worldwide. The company offers a variety of server-based options that include serving just a single application, to connectivity across a virtual private network (VPN). Among the products Citrix offers are MetaFrame application server software that works with Microsoft Windows 2000 and NT 4.0, Terminal Edition Servers and more recently, UNIX servers.
There is also Citrix Nfuse software, which enhances the MetaFrame package for enterprises interactively publishing to Web browsers. Existing MetaFrame customers can get it free.
"Server-based computing is the best of two worlds," said Steve Piper, senior product manager for Citrix. "It combines two different types of computing -- mainframe and PCs. WinFrame came out in 1995 and gets its name from Windows and mainframe."
The key to this type of network computing is ease of administration. While on the surface it sounds too good to be true, in the Citrix world information systems personnel only have to upgrade the server or servers rather than all the clients. In this push situation, all clients get the same version of the application at the same time. Consistency of software versioning removes many IS headaches when it comes to upgrades and support.
"One of the biggest costs for IS departments is administering PCs," Piper said. "Techs have to visit each and every machine. With MetaFrame, you only have the servers to maintain."
Extra support
Administration of a Citrix environment resides primarily on the application server and within the server farm. While that sounds fairly straightforward and not very complex, it can be a little deceiving.
"We have some issues with load balancing and user profiles," said Carlos Valdes, systems support manager for the Miami Herald. "The profiles corrupt on occasion, and this requires extra support."
The Herald uses Citrix MetaFrame running on Windows NT servers to handle the computing needs of its 14 distribution centers.
"We chose Citrix to avoid deploying all those PCs," Valdes said. "The users access databases, Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook, and the Internet," Valdes said. "It does a good job of compressing the data and reducing bandwidth consumption."
However, Valdes said the paper has had to add personnel to support the Citrix setup that was installed in 1999. "We have 70 users on the Citrix servers and we have two systems technicians to support them now," he said.
Valdes also said that users can cause problems with the Citrix environment by loading third-party software on the machine. Although that's against most companies' policies, it still happens.
While he said there are no plans to widen the deployment of Citrix servers, the use of them for the distribution centers has been fairly acceptable. "It works," Valdes said.
It works, Piper said, because you can "run any type of application to any device with any type of networking protocol."
Bandwidth use reduction is a major concern, and the Citrix environment seems to handle that quite well.
"Users get 10 to 12 kilobytes a second when connecting to Citrix servers," Piper said. "It's a major benefit to reduce overall network bandwidth, and with Citrix you can do that because all of the corporate data resides in one location."
Publishing products on Citrix
"Citrix seems to speed things up a bit," said Fred Goff, director of client services for Net-Linx Publishing Solutions of Sacramento.
Goff said he and his staff tested two Net-Linx products in the Citrix environment: Coyote XE, the Windows-integrated editorial system client, and Coyote XA, the advertising version. "The setup seemed to work fine with both XE and XA," he said. "It's not something we have promoted or that we have installed, but we have tested it."
A newspaper system supplier integrating with a Citrix setup could offer a monetary benefit because newspapers wouldn't have to fund a PC overhaul for a new editorial or advertising system.
"If you don't want to invest in new PCs, it's a great way to go," Goff said. "Also, if you've already got a lot of PCs, it's something to consider."
Goff said Net-Linx hasn't done any more testing with its products in a Citrix environment, but if any customers think that might be an option, it's reasonable to think they would explore it again.
Aside from the issue of bandwidth, cost is a major incentive in exploring server-based architectures. The bulk of investment would be in the servers and the access licenses, but for the client side, virtually any type of personal computer will work -- Mac, PC, UNIX. Given today's budgeting woes, not having to replace existing machines (which might be running between 133 megahertz and 500 megahertz) could be seen as a boon to the budget.
Citrix software is installed on top of the server operating system, and the Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol "delivers low-bandwidth connectivity to virtually any client, without translation." In a typical server setup there are translation services that must occur when brokering requests from client to server.
ICA is at the core of the Citrix server architecture. The ICA technology includes a server software component, a network protocol component and a client software component. ICA is the glue that binds together the various devices and allows them to communicate as if they were thin clients.
"ICA is an architecture and a protocol," Citrix's Piper said.
Also built into the Citrix environment are management services such as load-balancing and security.
Aside from the boost in bandwidth capacity, dial-up remote users stand to gain the most from a network using Citrix servers. Dial-up connections can test the patience of Job; dialing into a Citrix server increases the speed noticeably.
VPN technology now provides another technological advance to remote computing. By adding the encryption technology of VPN to the Citrix scenario, remote users gain even more speed when accessing the company's network. Citrix offers Citrix Extranet, with encryption up to 168 bit and a two-factor authentication.
"For this type of authentication," Piper said, "there is something you know and something you have. Something you know is your user name and password, and something you have can be like a digital certificate loaded onto the client machine."
In addition to authentication is another level of security and control. The access control within the Citrix Extranet allows system administrators to dictate which types of access a user is allowed.
Citrix licensing is based on concurrent usage. Customers still have to pay for the Microsoft licenses separately, which are bought per seat. Customers also have to pay for any other software they want to run. Citrix licensing ranges from $290 to $400 per concurrent user.
As the need for bandwidth increases, and the need to share company information quickly and reliably also grows, Citrix offers an affordable solution. Enterprise computing began with mainframe design, moved into the PC -- and now is drifting back to a mainframe-like environment.
-- Jason Zappe, jz@colepapers.net
Citrix Systems Inc.
(954) 267-3000,
e-mail: robert.bartolotta@citrix.com;
Net-Linx Publishing Solutions,
(313) 677-4700,
(916) 929-9481,
e-mail: sales@nxps.com.
