Which Terminal Server Solution is the Right One?

Transcription

1 Which Terminal Server Solution is the Right One? By Paul R. Honor I work as a Consultant specialising in thin-client or terminal server solutions, and for several years the only answer to the question this article poses was Citrix MetaFrame. There were options such as Tarantella and ThinPATH and I would always mention those but I never had a customer chose anything other than MetaFrame. That changed about a year ago when two things happened, first Microsoft improved their RDP protocol to a point where it can be considered to be similar to Citrix ICA. Both are very thin and both offer 128 bit encryption. The second change was the arrival of New Moon Canaveral iq, the name is a bit of mouthful and the company, unknown in Europe, got off to a slow low profile start. But Canaveral iq is an excellent product and in May 2002 version 1.5 was released and that showed the real capabilities of New Moon s technologies. My job requires me to be non-biased and help my customer make an informed decision based on the best available data, previously that was easy, but now for the first time there is a real choice. It is a fact that a lot of smaller users will be better off using pure Windows 2000 Terminal Services and leaving MetaFrame or Canaveral on the shelf; whereas a corporate user wanting to extend across time zones and languages would be well advised to look at MetaFrame XPe first. So; Which Terminal Server is the right one? The advice I normally give at this point is stand them next to each other and use them to publish you required application to a few real users. This is easy to do because each manufacturer gives you a grace period before you have to activate the licences. Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services allow you 120 days before the licence has to be activated. Citrix allows you 35 days before you have to activate the licences and New Moon allows you 30 days. So decide what application you are going to pilot on your terminal server and start with Windows 2000 TS all by itself and use the new client that you can get from the Microsoft web site, a very good TS web client can be found there as well. What do you get if you stick with Windows 2000 Terminal Services? It limits you to one server because it does not offer application load balancing, and it will be no different in Windows.NET. But that does not mean it is a limited product, if all you want is to make a set of standard applications available to an office of 20 or 30 people without them having to have a PC and local storage on the desk then this is your answer, why pay more? To be honest you could add more servers by using Microsoft IntelliMirror but they will not be application load balanced. This is a quick and easy solution to set up and manage and just about all of the Windows Based Terminal (WBT) devices you can buy will connect to a Windows 2000 Terminal Server without any additional components. The Microsoft RDP 5.x protocol is quick and very thin so if you want to place the server in a data centre and have the terminals in a branch office, this is a very real option for you.

2 What if I Want More Than Plain Terminal Services? Having got your Windows 2000 Terminal Server working and having tried plain Terminal Services you now decide you want more control and increased resilience, therefore you need to extend the Windows 2000 Terminal Server platform and you have two real options. Citrix MetaFrame XP or New Moon Canaveral iq. These products both add Application Load Balancing, Application Publishing, Web Interface, and Centralised Licence Management. When looked at on paper they seem very similar but both products have strengths and features that appeal to different groups of users. For instance if you want to deploy all the features promised by Citrix MetaFrame you have to commit to the top of the range XPe version, whereas Canaveral iq has a one size fits all policy and all of the features come in the standard package. There is no better way to find out what will meet your requirements best than actually putting them to the test. However that is not an option when writing an article for a magazine so because I have used all three MetaFrame XP variants and Canaveral iq in live situations I will list the main points of interest. This is not exhaustive and nothing beats getting feedback from the end users, but I hope it convinces you that Terminal Services are now a real alternative to client-server deployments. MetaFrame XP and Canaveral iq Head to Head The following tables were compiled by comparing the most current versions of both products. Citrix MetaFrame XP 1.0 Service Pack 2 and Feature Release 2 against New Moon Canaveral iq v 1.5. The base server for the comparison was an IBM x330 with 2 CPUs and 2Gb RAM and 2 disks in RAID1 configuration. Operating system was Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 with Terminal Services setup in Application Server mode and Internet Information Server. The Windows Based Terminal was a VXL WinLinx TC 4000.

3 End User Experience Windows MetaFrame Canaveral 2000 XPs XPa XPe iq Desktop Connection Manager Desktop Icon per Published App. Web Based Connections Seamless Published Applications Local Time Zone Support Access to Local Resources (if any) Universal Client (Unix, MAC, etc.) Panning and Scaling for PDA Users Applications Windows MetaFrame Canaveral 2000 XPs XPa XPe iq Application Publishing Application Load Balancing Scheduled Application Availability

4 Track User Access to Applications Centrally Install and Uninstall Apps Centrally Distribute Updates, SPs etc.. MSI Support User Shadowing (training or support) Management MetaFrame Canaveral XPs XPa XPe iq Centralized License Pooling Centralized Data Store Support for SMTP monitoring Support for Tivoli, CA Unicentre etc. Tools for System Capacity Planning Built in Comprehensive Reporting of Users Activity 3 rd party Application License Usage Reports Full Web Based Management Console

5 Notes Not a built in function, requires add-on component. Web based console has very limited functionality, mainly monitor only. These are Windows 2000 functions and can be considered central because normally only one Terminal Server is used.

6 Summary Any article like this is going to be subjective, but I have tried to pick out the functions that will be important to an IT user as well as the Administrators. I am also fairly certain that this picture will change regularly because Citrix are unlikely to leave areas of weakness unchanged, and likewise New Moon are certain to be preparing the next release of what is still a young product. Data Systems (Computers) Limited is an independent UK based terminal server specialist and are proud to be both a Citrix Silver Partner and a New Moon Systems Accredited Reseller The author is amongst other things a Citrix CCA and a New Moon NMCSE