Thin client
Some organisations have succeeded in extending the life of desktop systems by switching to the thin-client computing model, even when bandwidth is limited. One example is Owens Container Services, which operates from over 15 sites on the east coast of Australia, plus New Zealand and Fiji.
IT Manager Ross Pavey says, “If we’d gone ahead with a straightforward upgrade to the separate networks and client machines, we would have had to spend around $190,000.” Instead, the company built a Citrix MetaFrame server farm from nine existing Compaq systems so applications could be run centrally. Communications with remote sites was achieved by piggybacking on a frame relay network being installed by another division of Owens.
Apart from extending the life of the desktop systems, Pavey and his small team are able to install new applications with greater ease. “If we had to install a new application to all 100 desktops, we would need to have someone install the program on each client machine in three countries. Now it’s simply a case of install it once on a MetaFrame server.”
Owens is following a strategy of growth through mergers and acquisitions, and the MetaFrame strategy makes it much easier to integrate new parts of the organisation.
“With MetaFrame and NFuse Classic, we’re able to bring new business units online within a day. Even in cases where the new business unit doesn’t have Frame Relay access, they can get online to the network over the Internet via Citrix NFuse,” says Pavey.
Web veneer
Another life-extending strategy, this time for legacy systems, is to put a Web front end on the application. This enables the use of old mini or mainframe software without the need for a terminal emulation program on each PC. It can also reduce the need for training, and (depending on the licence terms) may increase the number of people that can use the application at little or no extra cost.
WRQ’s Reflection for the Web provides Web-based terminal emulation, avoiding the need for emulation software on individual PCs, but the traditional green screen look remains. If that’s becoming alien to most of your users, Reflection Webfront transforms such screens into Web-style forms, consolidating data from multiple screens if necessary.
If you need to go a step further and consolidate functions and data from multiple systems, the same company’s Verastream converts host functions into objects that can be used to build composite applications. For example, Singapore-based Tenet Insurance took a 12-year-old insurance application running on OpenVMS and built a self-service Web-based system that allows agents and actuaries to obtain the information they need, reducing operating expenses by 30 percent. Although the logic and data is provided predominantly by one host system, Verastream made it possible for Tenet to provide users with a more intuitive workflow without changing the underlying application.
These examples are by no means a complete list of the strategies to help make your IT dollar go further. We’d love to hear from you about your own experiences in making the most of the infrastructure you’ve already got—e-mail us at edit@zdnet.com.au
