Thin clients for the plant
Microsoft's Terminal Services strategy gains favor with software vendors, and users such as PCS-Nitrogen
By Marty Weil, Contributing Editor -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 2/1/2001 12:00:00 AM
The conceptual appeal of the thin-client/terminal server computing model has been established for a number of years, but until recently that appeal has not been translated into a powerful market presence. Now that is changing, and quickly, especially with regard to plant operations software.
According to International Data Corp. (IDC), sales of thin-client computers and devices are soaring, with units sold expected to top 1.2 million this year-up more than 70 percent from last year's total. The Framingham, Mass.-based research and analyst firm expects thin-client unit sales to reach 9.5 million by 2004, a figure that indicates the concept is establishing more than a little momentum.
One factor that could spur this growth is Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp.'s introduction of Windows 2000 Server, which incorporates a thin-client computing feature previously called Windows Terminal Server (WTS) as Windows 2000 Server Terminal Services. Previously, users of Microsoft's Windows NT Server operating system had to purchase a Terminal Server Edition of NT to gain the functionality, which delivers the familiar Windows user interface to diverse client devices via a form of terminal emulation.
"This [Windows 2000 Server Terminal Services] is a good move by Microsoft," says Eileen O'Brien, director of enterprise thin-client research at IDC. "Thin clients are proven technology, and customers can use thin clients to access Windows applications."
While Terminal Services faces competition from other thin-client technologies-namely Java, the programming language and platform from Sun Microsystems, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based provider of network computing solutions-Microsoft-centric enterprise and plant operations software vendors are bullish on Terminal Services. Software vendors such as OSI Software, Wonderware Corp., and Great Plains, as well as end users like PCS-Nitrogen, are taking advantage of the thin-client capabilities inherent in Windows 2000 to cut total cost of ownership.
The Windows 2000 thin-client model consists of the WTS and WTS client software. "The [new Terminal Services] is a considerably upgraded evolution of the NT Terminal Server," says Pat Kennedy, president of San Leandro, Calif.-based OSI Software, whose Plant Information System is widely used in process industries to collect, store, and present plant information. "The terminal server is like a sophisticated X-Window-it projects what you would have seen on the server out over the Internet, empowering use of applications and services over the Web. The thin-client allows you to run these within a browser environment."
WTS benefits
One of the strongest appeals of the thin-client model is its removal of hardware barriers to the use of newer applications with 32-bit architecture. By providing application access out to virtually any hardware platform, WTS can drive down total cost of ownership.
"Windows Terminal Server allows you to run a Windows environment on a low-cost PC, old PC, UNIX computer, whatever-the idea being to extend the use of Windows-based applications to a broader set of devices and to reduce the total cost of ownership," says Andrew Hoover, director of manufacturing and engineering for Microsoft's Business Solutions Group, which works with independent software vendors to enhance the use of Microsoft technologies. "Generally, a user can achieve a cost reduction in the range of 33 to 37 percent using the WTS, but this will vary up or down according to the user's environment."
Hoover cites other reasons that would cause users to consider using thin clients in conjunction with WTS-for example, when a company has users in various locations with fragile connections to a server. However, he sees the key business benefits of using the WTS as being simplicity and choice. "In terms of managing the application, it's much simpler for an administrator to do so from the WTS," says Hoover. "We're allowing the benefits of a PC environment without the costs and hassles of maintaining that environment," says Hoover.
Although it's true that users don't have the same response time as when the application is on the hard drive, they do get the ease-of-use benefits of Windows-based graphical user interfaces, but with greater flexibility in terms of the types of computers used to access the applications.
Speed to the Web
Kennedy says that OSI made sure that its software runs reliably in the Terminal Services environment. OSI also has a number of customers that are pleased with installations using the thin-client/terminal server model. "They're very pleased with the lower total cost of ownership," he says.
Kennedy also notes that the thin-client model is ideal for enterprises whose environments do better without PCs, citing paper mills and cement plants as two types of installations where OSI has taken this approach.
Client-side hardware savings, however, is perhaps the biggest benefit to Terminal Services. Most customers with older machines would have to upgrade to run current Windows applications, but with the WTS, older machines can act as thin-clients, capturing value from the jaws of obsolescence.
Irvine, Calif.-based Wonderware Corp., a provider of industrial automation software and enterprise applications, has conducted a study showing how use of thin-clients can significantly drive down initial capital costs. The study demonstrated that use of a multi-user architecture with old PCs functioning as thin clients can cut costs by 72 to 75 percent compared with use of a client/server or mixed client/server and multi-user architecture with PCs. Using new thin client devices in the same environment still cuts costs from 43 to 48 percent.
A new vision
PCS-Nitrogen, Augusta, Ga., is an agrichemical provider that manufactures materials used in nitrogen-based fertilizers, including ammonia, urea, ammonium nitrate, and nitric acid. The company recently worked with Wonderware to employ WTS to solve lingering problems with its aging process control systems.
"This is a 1970s-vintage plant," says Walter W. Anderson, instrument and electrical supervisor at PCS-Augusta, the contract firm that maintains the facility. "The controls also are of that era, and our supervisory computer was failing. Consequently, our consoles weren't as reliable as they needed to be."
PCS Nitrogen decided to install a new distributed control system (DCS), as well as a variety of Wonderware's software products, including its InTouch supervisory control solution, to provide visualization capabilities for plant operators in the control room.
Using Wonderware's software, which leverages Terminal Services and thin-client hardware, PCS-Nitrogen is able to mimic the panoramic displays of its old analog instrumentation, which it plans to gradually phase out.
"We have a plant with control board after control board, which allows our operators to have a panoramic view of what's going on at all times," Anderson says. "The operators really didn't want to lose that when we put in the DCS, so the challenge was to install the new system and still maintain a panoramic view, saving our operators from having to page through screen after screen to get to what they might need. With thin-client technology, we can deploy lots of small, single-entity monitors that give our operators the panoramic view they want, at a much reduced cost."
With the thin-client solution, says Anderson, the system stays on a single database, but offers multiple nodes for viewing the process. This equates to lower cost because it eliminates the need to maintain multiple databases, and cuts hardware costs by using thin clients instead of PCs.
"With thin clients and terminal server technology, we improve decision support through better information," says Anderson.
WTS and browsers
Microsoft has recently extended WTS with the release of its Terminal Services Advanced Client (TSAC). Developed for Windows 2000, TSAC is a 32-bit, Windows-based ActiveX control that lets users run Terminal Services sessions from within Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and above. The new ActiveX control provides nearly the same functionality as the full Terminal Services Client, but it delivers this functionality over the Internet.
"Application service providers have been looking forward to this because it allows them to easily distribute Terminal Services applications to unmanaged desktops via the Web, regardless of a user's particular system or level of training," says Mark Aggar, product manager for Microsoft's Terminal Services Technologies. "They now can simply point customers to a URL."
The TSAC also gives enterprise application vendors a convenient way to integrate their existing WIN-32-based applications into a Web-based user interface. For example, Fargo, N.D.-based Great Plains, a provider of business management and e-Business software, is integrating the TSAC into its Solomon Desktop, which is a portal into its Solomon IV data, programs, reports, and functionality. Great Plains customers can now access both the Solomon IV financial applications and dynamic HTML applications using a familiar Internet Explorer-based front end, and without installing or running the application on their local computers.
"The TSAC gives us a very affordable, very scalable solution that we can roll out rapidly and use to get information to the people who need it, when they need it," says John Crawford, director of Solomon e-Business development at Great Plains. "It's a more affordable model for distributing select programs, and it's more affordable for the users as well, because they don't need the full 32-bit client."
Java momentum
Although it seemed for a time that Java had fallen out of favor with vendors of enterprise applications, recent enhancements to the broader Java computing platform-specifically, the availability of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-have software vendors once again touting Java-based architectures. For example, SpaceWorks, a Rockville, Md.-based vendor of sell-side e-commerce software, and e4eNet, a Waltham, Mass.-based provider of collaborative product commerce (CPC) solutions for the electronics industry, use the Java 2 platform.
The e4eNet system, which is offered under a hosted delivery model, uses both Java 2 and eXtensible markup language (XML) as key technologies, says Leigh Eichel, president of e4eNet. "Our solution focuses on collaboration across the supply chain," he says. "It's a true thin-client, Java application, developed with Java 2."
The CPC solution allows original equipment manufacturers in the electronics industry, electronics manufacturing services companies (i.e., contract manufacturers), and printed-circuit board suppliers to better collaborate on new product introductions, says Eichel. The use of XML facilitates connectivity with product-related data resident in multiple systems, while the Java 2 platform brings together and displays information, including bills of material, approved vendor lists, and design information, within a browser-based user interface. "The Java 2 platform allows our application to do some things that it would not otherwise be able to do," says Eichel.
SpaceWorks, whose sell-side Web commerce solution is called Web BusinessManager Suite, recently introduced Version 6.0 of the suite, based on the J2EE platform.
The suite incorporates J2EE technologies that include Enterprise JavaBeans, JavaServer Pages, Java Servlets, JavaBeans, Java Remote Method Invocation, Java Naming and Directory Interface, JavaMail application programming interface (API), Java Database Connectivity API, Java Messaging Service, and Java Transaction Service.
According to SpaceWorks, the J2EE technology increases interoperability of the Web BusinessManager Suite with independently developed applications, enhancing integrated business processes as well as performance. SpaceWorks also contends that J2EE will enable its customers to experience lower costs associated with the tailoring and future upgrades of the suite.
"The new J2EE platform for the SpaceWorks Web BusinessManager Suite once again illustrates the SpaceWorks tradition of delivering the strongest, standards-based B2B applications for conducting business on the Web," says SpaceWorks President and CEO Dave MacSwain. "J2EE, which is becoming the e-Business platform of choice, will help SpaceWorks clients enjoy numerous benefits, including the ability to run one common applications server for all applications."
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