The network computer lives
Roberto Michel, Editor -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 10/1/2001 12:00:00 AM
We don't hear much about the network computer anymore. Just a few years ago, tech-industry luminaries such as Sun's Scott McNealy and Oracle's Larry Ellison were preaching that fat-client PCs were a waste—akin to putting a mainframe on every desktop. What people needed—the argument went—were thin-client devices providing access to Web-centric applications, with processing taking place on back-end servers.
Fast-forward to today, and there's no doubt that enterprise applications have been rearchitected to make use of the Web, but for the most part, the client device layer is still populated by PCs. We may use our browsers to access crucial information from Web sites and Web-based applications, but for the most part, those browsers are running on PCs, which are still required to run current Windows applications, the .NET vision notwithstanding.
But quietly, network-centric computing is taking shape, although it's happening in a way that is less about client-side devices, and more about intelligent equipment, devices, and servers working together within the scheme of entire systems. On the plant floor, for instance, the OLE for Process Control (OPC) standard has been devised as a means of interoperability between control devices and higher-level industrial automation software. In OPC lingo, control devices are "servers," and utilize an OPC-compliant software wrapper to communicate with higher-level systems.
A number of vendors, less well known than the Oracles of the world, are bringing forth network computing advances. MSI recently met with Comtrol, a vendor of serial device connectivity products, to get an overview of its DeviceMaster family of embedded microcomputers, which it says can function as "thin server" appliances.
Comtrol's thin servers contain low-cost processors, embedded memory, standard operating systems, and software—including an embedded Web server. These thin servers can be dedicated to specific tasks, and can be centrally managed in a distributed environment. They also function close to the actual process being managed. In manufacturing settings, DeviceMaster units could function as data collection middleware servers, for instance.
Vendors of industrial automation software are closely involved with OPC, and are helping to bring forth network-centric computing in plants. Also at the plant level, GE Cisco Industrial Networks, as well as eMation, have launched solutions that allow manufacturers of smart industrial equipment to manage their products remotely from customer sites.
In short, network computing lives, but it's not because we needed a new whiz-bang client device. Instead, networks will have computers disbursed throughout their topologies according to tasks, efficient allocation of bandwith and processing resources, and avoidance of data bottlenecks. In manufacturing, plant-floor controllers should be thought of as network computers, and in fact crucial to the value of the network, since they generate the data.
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