• What you need to buy
• The benefits of Terminal Server
• The down side

After a long and troublesome birth, WTS has finally arrived and is proving to be a successful product for both Microsoft and its partner Citrix. In fact, a look at the number of terminal server courses being offered by different training centres shows a rapid increase over the last couple of months as sales have improved. Citrix have also been very buoyant during the same period and have been announcing new deals for its ICA protocol on a regular basis.

What you need to buy

Despite all of this, there are still a lot of complaints about the Microsoft licensing model with organisations such as Liverpool University complaining bitterly that the current costs outweigh the benefits. This statement demonstrates how badly Microsoft has managed to put across the financial case and the fixation that still exists on capital costs rather than life cycle costs. The latter must be extremely disappointing for Microsoft and many other companies who have been talking about the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) issues for the last two years.

Capital expenditure depends very much on the size of the office and the protocol you intend to utilise. The choice of protocol will also have a great impact on the administrative capabilities you get and the opportunity to save money through long-term administration. This money saving lies at the heart of Microsoft’s plans for Terminal Server.

A twenty-user office will typically require a Primary Domain Controller, a Backup Domain Controller, possibly an application or file and print server and twenty workstations. Each workstation will need it’s own operating system and if the users are accessing the Windows NT Servers, each workstation will need a Client Access Licence. All of this adds up and this is just the initial capital expenditure. Longer term, you face the problems of managing the workstations and ensuring that data is properly backed up.

A Terminal Server installation requires an additional server that will effectively become the processing point for the user applications. Substituting the workstations for thin clients such as the Boundless Viewpoint provides the cost savings and therefore the funds for this additional server. So, what are the real costs? We took three different examples and priced them out via a mix of list prices and on-line purchasing. We left out hubs, cabling, printers and other ancillary equipment that would not change between the different examples.

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As you can see, using the Microsoft RDP protocol is £1,440 cheaper than a more traditional network solution but the more comprehensive Citrix Metaframe protocol option is £3,354 more expensive. However, as stated earlier, this is just the initial capital cost and there are a number of hidden benefits which should not be overlooked.

The benefits of Terminal Server

One of the first benefits of Terminal Server is the fact that applications are installed once and then centrally managed. This eliminates two classic support problems: the user mangling the installation and updates as well as a network problem of bandwidth when using network installed applications.

As the user is only executing the application and they should have no access to alter or delete system files, the application is relatively secure. Updates can therefore be applied to the application and all users will use the updated application the next time they log on. These two solutions can result in a major cost saving. To identify how often installations take place, just talk to any support department.

In a traditional network installed environment, the user downloads all relevant files to their local computer every time they execute the application. As Terminal Server does not download files to the local computer but executes them on the server, this huge waste of bandwidth is avoided. The saving on bandwidth is offset by the communications between the client and the Terminal Server but this communication is still substantially less than the bandwidth that application delivery requires.

The ability to provide a degree of on-line tutoring when problems occur which can be extended to gather information on faults is shadowing. At present, this is often bundled inside packages such as Microsoft SMS (Systems Management Server) but the Citrix Metaframe client provides shadowing as a part of the protocol. An example of when this can be powerful is when a user calls the support desk to say they need help creating a macro, or formatting a document for printing. Using shadowing a support person can either talk the user through the process whilst monitoring their screen locally or they can take control of the users keyboard and mouse and demonstrate the solution. Either way, this can be done without having to leave the support desk and thus minimises travel time.

One major advantage of this technology is in the reduction it can have on lost data. As everything in a Terminal Server environment is controlled by the Terminal Server, you can strictly enforce storage to network devices and therefore ensure that data is in a position to be backed up nightly. Preventing loss of data and subsequent restores can be a considerable saving in time, money and response time, the latter is particularly affected when searching tape archives for files to restore.

The down side

So far, the only arguments against Terminal Server are those complaining about the cost of licensing. Such complaints have little foundation particularly as the prime complainants are the educational sector which already receives very healthy discounts, much more so than many SME’s (Small to Medium sized Enterprises).

The only real downside is the Terminal Server is frozen source code based on Windows NT 4 Server with Service Pack 3 and any service packs or updates must be coded specifically for Terminal Server. Applying the new Service Pack 4, for example, will comprehensively trash your Terminal Server and as yet, Microsoft has made no announcements on their service pack mechanism for Terminal Server.

Ian Murphy