Part III: Implementing an On-Demand Server-Based Computing Environment


Chapter List

Chapter 10: Project Managing and Deploying an Enterprise SBC Environment
Chapter 11: Server Configuration: Windows Terminal Services
Chapter 12: Server Configuration: Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server
Chapter 13: Application Installation and Configuration
Chapter 14: Client Configuration and Deployment
Chapter 15: Profiles, Policies, and Procedures
Chapter 16: Securing Client Access
Chapter 17: Network Configuration
Chapter 18: Printing
Chapter 19: Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity in the SBC Environment
Chapter 20: Migration to Windows 2003 and Citrix MetaFrame XP
Chapter 21: Ongoing Administration of the Server-Based Computing Environment

Part Overview

As part of transitioning from design to implementation, organizations must be able to translate the theoretical values and concepts discussed in Part II of this book into actions. Simply put: Transition from concept to concrete. The authors felt that a more "real-world" set of circumstances and requirements was essential for managers, engineers, administrators, and technicians to focus on design principles and relate them to specific outcomes relevant to their own environments. To ensure a consistent approach, an "actual" set of parameters was needed, and the following enterprise customer was created as a case study. As a disclaimer, readers are reminded that no implementation was ever as easy as one envisioned in a textbook case, nor were the textbook cases "all inclusive." This study is no different; however, the authors intentionally designed a complex paradigm to showcase as many design elements and considerations as possible. Throughout Part III of this book, all references are in the context of this case study. Readers are strongly encouraged to take their time reviewing the description of our theoretical customer and keep that image in mind as they read the next 11 chapters.

Case Study: Clinical Medical Equipment

Clinical Medical Equipment Corporation (CME) is a fictitious company that designs, manufactures, sells, and supports a proprietary diagnostic and treatment module for the health care industry worldwide.

The CME Global Structure

Figure 10-1 shows the top-level wide-area-networking schematic of CME. CME maintains a data center at its five-building campus headquarters in Chicago, Illinois (Figure 10-2) supporting 1500 local users and another 1500 remote users at remote offices. The CME global structure consists of:

  • CME-CORP

    • Provides services to two regional offices (CME-WEST and CME-EUR) and the Manufacturing Plant (CME-MEX)

    • Provides services to all mobile users and the beta test site

    • Provides services to 50 directly connected Sales Offices with 15–20 employees, each under the administrative control of their respective region

      • WEST region: 10 Offices

      • EUR region: 10 offices

      • CORP region: 30 offices

    • CME-WEST located in Seattle with 200 users, responsible for the Asia-Pacific region

      • CME-WEST will be the disaster recovery site for CME-CORP

    • CME-EUR located in Frankfurt with 200 users, responsible for the EU, Middle East, and Africa

    • CME-MEX located in Mexico City with 300 users

    • CME-TEST, also located in Chicago, but on the university campus

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Figure 10-1: The Clinical Medical Equipment (CME) network schematic

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Figure 10-2: The CME Corporate Campus topology

The CME Computing Paradigm

Systems and capabilities required/planned at CME-Corporate include

  • Windows-based network for server services and applications, file and print services, database applications (SQL, Oracle), web services, and e-mail services

  • Macintosh clients for graphic arts and marketing

  • AS400 for legacy manufacturing data

  • Citrix MetaFrame XPe for user access to most corporate applications

  • Unix hosts for CAD applications and engineering

  • Citrix MetaFrame for UNIX, allowing non-UNIX hosts to access UNIX applications, and providing UNIX application access to remote users and users over slower WAN links

  • VPN access for remote offices and roaming users (50 concurrent users)

  • Web-based access to Citrix MetaFrame services (up to 200 concurrent users)

  • A test pilot of remote sales people using Sprint PCS cards with Internet Access

  • Wireless LAN access to Citrix for conference rooms, meeting rooms, and roaming users; wireless access (restricted to Internet access) may be required for visitors

  • Dial-up access for roaming users who are unable to access an ISP (up to 20 concurrent users)

  • Applications: Internally developed manufacturing applications utilizing an Oracle database, Microsoft Dynamics (with MS SQL DB back-end), Microsoft Office XP (other versions are used throughout the company, but standardization on the XP version is desired), Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Exchange, Parametric Technologies Pro/Engineer (and associated data management tools using an Oracle Database), AutoCAD, Microsoft Visual Studio.NET, Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, and a legacy, custom developed AS400 manufacturing tracking application

  • "Portal" access to limited CME applications for key customers and suppliers via Citrix MetaFrame Secure Access Manager

  • Interactive collaboration within applications via Citrix MetaFrame Conferencing Manager

The CME Business Model

The CME product integrates hardware, software, and logic, and as such, the next-generation product contains individually identifiable patient information as defined by HIPPA, thus requiring a network that can be adjusted to support HIPPA security standards when the next-generation product is deployed.

The CME Corporate headquarters campus consolidates the CME "brain trust." Virtually all product development, design, and business strategy efforts are conducted there. Seamless interoperability with dispersed sales and regional offices, as well as the ability to share services and resources with the manufacturing plant are essential. Senior staff members frequently travel from site to site and must have a consistent computing environment with access to necessary data and resources.

The CME regional offices are primarily tasked with sales-support coordination and ensuring acceptance (technical and political/legal) of the CME product in their respective region.

Sales and support offices provide direct site survey, installation, and on-going support for the CME medical module product. Per-site design and engineering is accomplished by the staff at CME-CORP.

CME learned from effective marketing strategies of other high-tech vendors and has deployed a "beta" test facility at the local university's medical college. The test facility is staffed by rotating groups of CME employees who provide real-world testing in a clinical environment, and who are also integrated with faculty, students, and clinicians. CME's strategy is to leverage their product into the academic side of the medical industry so that it becomes an essential tool in the industry at large—what students and clinicians learn in school they will demand in the workplace.

Corporate, regional, and sales office staff frequently travel to perspective customer and supplier sites and must have full access to corporate data and resources to do their jobs. Additionally, many employees require full home-based access to corporate applications to facilitate off-hours work, flexible schedules, and continuity for employees on temporary leave.

The CME SBC Business Case

CME managers determined their current IT structure was both expensive and virtually unmanageable, given the large number of sites, time zones, and applications. SBC was selected as the new paradigm and must solve current problems. At the top level, CME's goals for their SBC implementation are:

  • Reduce IT costs. Staff and hardware/software costs are skyrocketing as more sites are brought online. Most sales offices do not have "full time" IT staff and have resorted to hiring temporary workers to try and keep systems up-to-date. Data distributed throughout the enterprise cannot be accessed easily and sites are demanding increased bandwidth to support moving information from site to site. A prime target for hard cost reduction is the PC replacement budget. The ongoing cost of CME's five-year PC replacement cycle of 600 PCs per year is over $720,000 per year.

  • Standardize applications and application deployment. Regional and sales offices are seldom on the same version (or even the same applications) when it comes to office automation software. Regional versions of office automation products are purchased locally, deployed inconsistently, and incorrectly licensed. English versions of office automation products perform inconsistently on non-English OS platforms. New software versions are deployed at each site and often the first site is already deploying the next new version before the last site even has the current version installed.

  • Provide consistent service irrespective of location. Employees who travel or work from home lack real-time access to most of the information they need. Staffs have resorted to everything from Instant Messaging to remote control software to keep in touch and gain access to corporate information.

  • Provide the ability to rapidly activate new sites. CME projects a 50-percent increase in sales offices over the next three years. In many overseas locations, dedicated WAN access may be unavailable, take up to a year to install, or be cost-prohibitive.

  • Provide a secure infrastructure that is extensible to meet U.S. (HIPPA, DoD) and foreign-nation security requirements. Additionally, CME's technology is considered extremely proprietary and a likely target for industrial espionage.




Citrix Metaframe Access Suite for Windows Server 2003(c) The Official Guide
Citrix Access Suite 4 for Windows Server 2003: The Official Guide, Third Edition
ISBN: 0072262893
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 158

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