UARCO Gets Thin

Putting thin-client/server computing to the test

Achieving success as an early-adopter of emerging network computingtechnology, especially in a mission-critical WAN/LAN environment, is not for thefaint of heart. But that's what UARCO, a $550 million, century-old firm based inBarrington, Illinois, did. The company prints data mailers, cut sheets,pressure-sensitive labels, and various business forms at seven printing plantsacross the US. Four customer service call centers make more than 200,000 salesquotes yearly and provide order fulfillment services. But UARCO's sales andorder fulfillment was based on an inefficient mix of IBM AS/400s, museum-readyHoneywell hosts, and 5250 terminals running on Thicknet coax, and a smatteringof legacy PCs and several Novell 2.x LANs. What's more, the total costassociated with maintenance and downtime was growing yearly. A combination offactors, chief of which was re-engineering processes to improve efficiency andcustomer satisfaction, finally led UARCO to consider upgrading its technologyand ultimately incorporating a Windows NT solution.

Making a Transition
UARCO decided to completely transform the enterprise architecture and theorder fulfillment process. "We leaped from 1978 technology to 1997technology and deployed one of the largest NT-based thin-client/server LANsystems in North America," said Karl Gouverneur, director of technology architecture for UARCO. What UARCO did not replace, it recycled. "We salvaged 286, 386, and 486 IBMs, Compaqs, HPs, and clones. If it had a 20MB hard disk, a working video card, and 2MB of RAM, it qualified," Gouverneur explained. Technicians removed each PC's 5250 card (which UARCO recycled into cash), installed Intel's Ether-Express 10/100 NIC, formatted the hard disk, re-installed DOS and Windows, loaded Citrix WinFrame Client 2.0, and tested the configuration. Recycling held some performance surprises, too. "We benchmarked a recycled 386/16MHz running WinFrame with 100 users against a Pentium 100, and the 386 won!" Gouverneur said.

"We embarked on a $21 million, two-year effort to completelyre-engineer our systems and processes," said Gouverneur. UARCO completed the effort, dubbed Project Phoenix, in late summer 1997. The core of the project included deploying Citrix Systems WinFrame/Enterprise 1.6thin-client/server software, Baan TRITON 3.1b Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, Lotus Notes 4.52 for mail and messaging, and custom-developed applications.

The Baan ERP system and Lotus Notes, along with changes in work tasks,provided the framework for re-engineering the sales and quoting, ordering,manufacturing, billing, and financial processes. Gouverneur added, "We alsoupgraded every desktop, every network cable and port, every server and wiringcloset, and all furniture and electrical outlets for 12 UARCO facilities."Transforming each of the 12 sites was an intensive, high-pressure process.

"To roll out each site took about four months. Each site took abouttwo weeks to cable and one weekend--a Kamikaze weekend--to install finalcomponents. We shut down the facility, installed all components, and goteverything up and running Sunday night for testing so that users could log onMonday morning. We ripped everything apart, including desks, the electricalsystem, cubicles, carpet, wiring closets, and the server room, and re-assembledit all by Sunday night in a single two-shift, 24-hour operation."

A Low-Cost NT Solution
UARCO knew that NT had to be a part of the solution. As Gouverneur put it, "NTis flexible, secure, scalable, stable, and here to stay." He considereddeploying NT Workstation on each desktop, implementing Sun Microsystems'JavaStations, and several other alternatives. But UARCO's goal was to slashcosts through reducing the total cost of ownership (i.e., setup time, support,initial costs, repair, and management). So UARCO went the thin-client route withthe Citrix WinFrame/Enterprise solution on about 1000 nodes in a WAN/LANTCP/IP environment. (The prevalent Citrix WinFrame deployment is on dial-uparchitecture with multiple thousands of client nodes.) According to CitrixSystems' H. Scott Kaplan, central regional manager, "UARCO is one of thelargest Citrix WinFrame deployments to date in a LAN environment. UARCO has agreat team. They did a great job, and they know their technology."

Citrix WinFrame/Enterprise is based on NT Server licensed from Microsoft.It includes two added core technologies: Intelligent Console Architecture (ICA)protocol and MultiWin architecture. The ICA protocol lets the GUI execute on theclient while application logic executes on the WinFrame server. The MultiWincomponent extends the NT operating system, so that multiple users executeapplications on the same machine simultaneously (for more information on CitrixWinFrame, see Tim Daniels, "Citrix WinFrame 1.6 Beta," May 1996 andMark Smith, "Thin is In," September 1997).

Gouverneur was responsible for starting the technical architecturecomponents of Project Phoenix, including hiring additional technology planningand integration team members with heavy experience in NT, Novell, UNIX, TCP/IPinternetworking, hardware, and application development. "We used UARCOresources for most of our efforts, including designing, testing, andbenchmarking all aspects of the architecture, and for all server configurationand workstation setup. For temporary resource needs, such as the rollout of theinfrastructure, we used consultants from IKON Office Solutions," Gouverneursaid.

UARCO originally worked with a reseller for Citrix support, but quicklyrealized that the relationship lengthened the support process. Subsequently,Gouverneur's team worked with Citrix directly under a special support agreementwith assigned support technicians. "This arrangement reduced wait times andimproved the response from Citrix support," said Scott Sysol,engineer--network and system services, a key member of Gouverneur's team.

UARCO used Advantis, the US provider for the IBM Global Network, to linkthe NT Primary Domain Controller (PDC) in Barrington to all remote NT and Citrixservers. UARCO uses multiple WAN lines for this connectivity, from fractional T1up to full T1 speeds.

Gouverneur said, "We developed detailed work plans for each componentof the project, tracked actuals vs. budget, and presented status reportscompiled in Lotus Notes with custom project management databases." For thefirst WinFrame/NT rollout, Gouverneur said, extensive testing andtroubleshooting accompanied the team's rookie pains at the first and largestfacility. "We did about four months of unit, integration, system, andstress testing. Even with all this, we still had scalability problems withWinFrame that Citrix had never encountered. We implemented workarounds and hotfixes and eventually made it all work."

For example, the UARCO team encountered a print spooling problem and had todevelop a workaround. "We define printers locally on the Citrix WinFrameserver because of a remote procedure call problem with the print spooler,"Gouverneur explained. "Users who used to remotely connect to printers fromany server now have to go through the Citrix WinFrame server as the printserver. This connection creates additional unwanted load on the Citrix server,but we don't have a choice." Gouverneur and his team also reported severalWinFrame subsystem, blue screen, and printing problems to Citrix. The companyprovided several hot fixes that helped solve these troubles.

The UARCO team also experienced server hardware problems with HP'sNetServers, but isolated the trouble as buggy Pentium chips. Eventually, UARCOswitched to Compaq servers.

"The Monday after the cutover, we trained users in how to log on.Cutover team members helped users get started by setting passwords,familiarizing users with the new system, and showing users how to access thehosts. Our corporate training staff trained users on the Baan ERP software,Lotus Notes, and other apps. After that, the team enjoyed the successfulcutover, celebrated, and moved on to the next site," Gouverneur said.

Users access the Baan ERP system through a telnet session and refer torelated International Standards Organization (ISO)-compliant work instructionsin Lotus Notes to perform customer service in the call centers and totrack orders. On each user's node, other software besides WinFrame Clientincludes Microsoft Office, WRQ Reflections, SoftLinx Replix Fax 3.1, AnswerSoftSoftPhone Agent 3.0, custom Microsoft Visual Basic applications, andintranet Web applications.

Gouverneur's team left little to chance with its contingency plans. Sysolsaid, "We have a standby WinFrame server for all sites, fully loaded so wecan sustain the load if two sites are down because of concurrent outages formultiple hours. We've had only one power supply go bad once, so we have beenvery lucky. Citrix WinFrame licensing was the biggest stumbling block in the wayof maintaining a hot backup server, because Citrix requires a copy-protecteddiskette for each 10-user pack of licenses. This approach makes licensing astandby server for emergencies difficult and costly. It also makes remotelymanaging licensing of the servers difficult, because someone must put a diskettein the server's floppy drive." In a special arrangement, Citrix suppliedserial numbers that enabled a switchover to a hot backup server without anadministrator having to feed floppy disks to the server.

As for the users on the business end of the terminals, Gouverneur said, "Theylove it. I'd say we have up to 50 percent better productivity as a result of thenew solution." Gouverneur remarked that the WinFrame/NT solution not onlyincreases productivity, but also makes administration and support easier. Forexample, he said, "Our support staff can use the Citrix WinFrame Shadowcapability and take over a user's terminal to help solve problems."

Support, administered centrally from Barrington, includes three staffmembers for remote server administration, two for remote workstationadministration, and three to work the Help desk. Sysol said, "NTthin-client computing saves from 70 percent to 90 percent of the cost ofmaintaining desktop PCs, which would cost UARCO about $8000 per PC yearly. Weprefer administering a WinFrame system with Wyse Winterms over NT desktops. Thisapproach is easier because we have to distribute software only once instead ofindividually on hundreds of desktops."

UARCO management also prefers this solution. According to Gouverneur,officials expect a two-year payback on their investment, through higher qualityand customer satisfaction, improved communications, and lower training andsystem administration costs. For example, UARCO calculates a cost reduction from$16 million to $10 million yearly to provide 200,000-plus price quotes. Theproject also benefits sales, because accessing Baan ERP through WinFrame reducesorder fulfillment from hours to minutes. To read about some of the opinionsGouverneur and Sysol had about the migration, see "An Interview with UARCO."

Looking Ahead
The UARCO team isn't resting on its laurels. Gouverneur related, "Weare adding 300 more thin-client nodes for UARCO's Impressions division. Becauseof the unique business requirements, convincing this division to go with thethin-client model was difficult, but we had a successful pilot that sold them onthis idea."

Gouverneur is bullish on the future of network computing and thethin-client model: "The hoopla surrounding thin-client systems isjustified." But he cautions that IS managers need to scrutinize the networkcomputing model carefully to ensure that it will benefit users' specific jobtasks in a given environment. Thin-client computing isn't for everyone, despiteits attractive cost savings. "Customer service reps, administrators,clerks, knowledge workers, and analysts can benefit from thin-client computing.But give PCs to developers, graphics and mobile users, or anyone who needsremovable media, more than P5/200 power, or local mass storage devices,"Gouverneur remarked. Based on his experience as an early-adopter, Gouverneursaid, "I strongly believe the future is bright for WinFrame, and withMicrosoft's Hydra, it's even brighter."