An Interview with Pro Staff

Kevin Woodward, Pro Staff's network systems engineer/administrator, andKevin Smith, the company's IS director, both played key roles in the WinFrameand Winterm project. Here's what they had to say.

Q: What did you like about the project's implementation?

KS: The concept of basing an entire enterprise system on WinFrame'sapplication server, using terminals instead of traditional desktop computers asworkstations was unusual­no one had implemented this approach on such alarge scale. Seeing the successful implementation was exciting. We achieved themany advantages we hoped for: ease of management, simplicity, scaleability, andcost savings.

Q: What didn't you like about the project's implementation?

KW: Some of the same things that made this an exciting project also made itchallenging. Because most of this technology is so new, nobody is an expert onits implementation, especially with additional components: You're pretty much onyour own. Applications reacted in unexpected ways when we installed them inWinFrame's multiuser environment and handled the cluster failovers differently.Most of the really vexing problems involved fooling applications into believingthey were serving one user instead of 40 potential users on each WinFrame box.

Q: What would you have done differently on the project?

KW: The gotchas were related to Microsoft's workstation-centric approach topersonal computing. In WinFrame's multiuser environment, to make Word and Excelrefer to a new user's home directory, an administrator must log in as that userand set the default file locations in each application. This procedure adds anentry to the Registry that points the document path to the correct location.Like Office, Microsoft Exchange doesn't use the login to validate a user, butinstead uses a Registry entry created during client installation. To log in toExchange as a different user, you have to delete the displayed username, enterthe new username, click Check Names, click OK, and enter the application. If youdon't follow these steps, you lock up the application. Our solution was toinstall Exchange so that the username reads, "Enter your name here."This way, users can simply type in their name and log in. Another solution is toinstall the client for each user, creating a unique Registry entry on the serverand letting users see their name in the Exchange login dialog. Unfortunately,the client requires about 8MB of disk. We're working with our VAR, Citrix, andMicrosoft to find a better solution.

Q: What advice can you give your peers?

KS: The cost savings from using Winterm terminals instead of PCs,centralized software distribution and management, and the scaleability of theplatform will more than offset the initial configuration obstacles. As softwaredevelopers focus more attention on the WinFrame platform, they will tailor moreapplications to work seamlessly with Citrix's ICA protocol. In fact, Iunderstand Microsoft will begin to include ICA with future versions of Win95,Internet Explorer 3.0, and NT.