One of the biggest challenges today with building client applications is the infrastructure issues of deploying and managing applications. In both business and consumer scenarios, application developers are looking for a platform that makes it easier to deploy applications to the desktop and to upgrade them seamlessly. The uptake of Web-based applications has been to a great extent due to these benefits, but people are increasingly also looking for applications that more fully exploit the speed and interactivity of the local PC. For example, AJAX applications have attracted attention lately, but the difficulty in building and debugging such applications leaves developers continuing to search for a better solution.
Enter the "Express" Application, a model that builds on top of ClickOnce (introduced with Visual Studio 2005) and provides a safe security model for applications deployed to a local cache that offers much of the power of the Windows Presentation Foundation combined with a lightweight path for maintenance and upgrade of an application.
Express applications run in a security-constrained sandbox and are hosted in the browser, running in the Internet zone. They deploy silently to a machine without an interactive security prompt and are locally cached. This is in contrast to regular trusted applications that typically have full access to the machine, run outside a browser window, and are installed into a \Program Files directory rather than being cached.
Application designers should select the optimum model for their needs based on the depth of their integration with the underlying platform. Applications that need to take full advantage of the client system such as large storage, start menu presence, offline capability, and so on should be full-trust applications. An application where a more Web-like experience is desired may be a good candidate for the Express application model (for example, visualizations, data-driven apps, and interactivity where the data comes from the server). The following flowchart highlights the major model choices."
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That is some pretty interesting stuff. The last paragrah still sums it up..not all applications are going to be a good candidate for this. So you'll still need a full blown PC for these apps.
However it is this paragraph from above that the Thin Computing industry needs to start to take notice of:
"Express applications run in a security-constrained sandbox and are hosted in the browser, running in the Internet zone. They deploy silently to a machine without an interactive security prompt and are locally cached. This is in contrast to regular trusted applications that typically have full access to the machine, run outside a browser window, and are installed into a \Program Files directory rather than being cached. "
Sounds sort of like what Softricity is doing only in a browser..right?
I am not sure what sort of "FM" that Microsoft is doing here to accomplish this but if I was a programmer I certainly would be jumping on the bandwagon here as it certainly gets us closer to the panacea of the virtual desktop, I spoke about in an earlier post. What a great time to be alive.
~Jim~
Provision Networks Launches VIP Program for Terminal Server Community
Microsoft MVPs and Server-Based Computing Experts Join
September 7, 2005 – In Washington, DC, at the Health Information Technology Summit (www.hitsummit.com), Provision Networks, the global provider of server-based access infrastructure solutions for the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Terminal Server platform, today announced that the launch of its VIP (Very Important Professional) program, embracing the members of the terminal server community and recognizing their efforts, past, present and future, for educating, supporting, and proliferating the use of server-based access technologies worldwide.
Provision Networks produces and markets the Provision Management Framework®. The Provision Management Framework, Enterprise Edition is a full-featured access infrastructure solution that leverages the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 platform, and delivers anywhere, anytime access to applications and network resources. Enterprise features such as Seamless Windows, Application Publishing, Load Balancing, Access Control, a Web Portal and an SSL Gateway embrace the RDP protocol and enhance the deployment, manageability, performance, and security of Terminal Services environments of all sizes.
“The VIP program is a very important first step for us in reaching out to the technical community, embracing their efforts, supporting their goals, nurturing their needs, and most importantly, for recognizing their priceless contributions to the server-based computing industry as a whole,” said John Brennan, Vice President of Corporate Strategy with Provision Networks.
“The Provision Networks VIP program is a global recognition program for individuals who share both their practical technical expertise and experiences with their peers,” said Jody Simpson, Vice President of Media and Investor Relations with Provision Networks. Ms. Simpson continued to say: “We are happy to be part of the terminal server community, and are excited and proud to recognize the following world-class individuals:”
Mr. Matthew Harris – A Microsoft Terminal Server MVP, Matt has worked for an educational organization for a number of years as a network administrator.
Mr. Jim Kenzig – CEO of The Kenzig Group and the pioneer of the server-based computing online forums, Jim’s website (http://www.thethin.net/) is one of the most highly visited resources on the Internet.
Mr. Thomas Koetzing – Based in Germany, Thomas is a terminal services expert, and owner of the CITRIX4GE site (http://www.citrix4ge.de/), a source for support and advice regarding terminal services and related technologies.
Mr. Rick Mack – Based in Australia, and working for Volante Systems, Rick is one of the foremost experts on terminal server technologies. Rick has been involved in the industry since its inception over twelve years ago.
Mr. Jeff Pitsch – An expert in terminal services technologies and major contributor to the online forums, Jeff is also the owner of http://www.sbcgatekeeper.com/, a site dedicated to helping administrators secure their Terminal Servers.
Mr. Patrick Rouse – A Microsoft Terminal Services MVP, Patrick is the owner of http://www.workthin.com/, a site dedicated to the terminal services industry, and is currently the IT manager for a medical practice in Southern California.
Dr. Bernhard Tritsch - A Microsoft Terminal Services MVP, author of several books on terminal services, and Chief System Architect at visionapp, GmbH in Germany, Benny also owns and manages http://www.wtstek.com/, an online resource for the server-based community.
Mr. Stefan Vermeulen – Based in the Netherlands, and working for Cognos, Stefan has become an expert on terminal server printing, and launched an online resource for the subject: http://www.printingsupport.com/.
About Provision Networks
Provision Networks is a global provider of server-based access infrastructure provisioning, management, optimization and security. Provision Networks solutions embrace and extend the Citrix MetaFrame and Microsoft Terminal Services platforms, delivering resilient and scalable on-demand access for enterprises worldwide.
The Enterprise Edition of the Provision Management Framework® is designed to extend the native (RDP) functionality of Windows Terminal Services with important features such as Seamless Windows, Session-Sharing, Intelligent Load Balancing, Application Publishing, a Web-based interface, and an integrated SSL Gateway (RDP over SSL).
The Provision Management Framework, Standard Edition is a comprehensive access management solution designed to improve and enhance the provisioning, performance, manageability, and security of your Citrix access infrastructure.
In a single package, you get:
With a world-class client list, comprised of some of the world’s largest commercial enterprises, and government organizations, Provision Networks is the most trusted name in access infrastructure management, security, and optimization.
Many years ago when Server Based Computing was still in its infancy I had the opportunity to get to know a guy named Kevin Goodman. At that time he had been working for a company called SoftBlox and had helped write a cool set of utilities called Appscape that he wanted me to look at. One of the utilities was a way to disable the X close from an application. SoftBlox went by the wayside but I maintained (and still do) the utilities that they had me distribute free for them when they were sponsoring my site at http://thethin.net/appscape.zip. Incidentally if you now want to prevent users from clicking on the X and closing the RDP client take a look at this FAQ item I created at: http://thethin.net/faqs2.cfm?id=468&category=1 of an interesting way to do it.
Upon leaving SoftBlox, Kevin along with Bernd Harzog, approached me with a project he had been working on. He explained to me about the memory problems inherent with the loading of an applications dynamic link libraries (dll’s) multiple times within the Terminal Services Environment. He had an idea of a utility to fix the problem and asked if I would help test it out and give him some feedback. We did a case study with the library I work for about our success of the product (http://www.rtosoft.com/documents/casestudies/CCPLCaseStudy.pdf ) and I became one of Kevin’s first customers. A few months later, Kevin started Kevsoft and named the product TScale, which was renamed RTOSoft Tscale a few years later, then Citrix purchased the technology to add to Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 and now the rest is history. Kevin is now the CEO, Founder, and VP of development of RTO Software.
What made me reminisce about this was Kevin’s recent Pod cast interview with Brian Madden. (http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?id=483) While listening to the interview Kevin mentioned the term rebasing of dlls, which is the magic that Tscale does and also mentioned several utilities, one of them being the Microsoft utility called Rebase.exe which piqued my curiosity. In the interview Kevin gives a very concise description of the rebasing technology behind Tscale and it really is worth giving it a listen.
In simple terms, the problem Tscale solves is one that is not exclusive to the Terminal Services environment but is exacerbated by it. When any windows application loads, it starts along with it, several dll’s. These dll’s are loaded into a fixed location in upper memory. The problem comes from when a user goes to load another application and that application wants to load its dll’s into the same memory space as an application that you have already loaded. This results from either poor programming or multiple instances of the application running.
So what happens when you are running the SAME application multiple times as you do in the Terminal Server environment? The answer is that the dll’s try to load over the top of each other and cause what is known as a race condition. It basically causes the CPU of the server to go nuts. The solution that Kevin found? Effectively rebase, or in effect move the dll’s in real time to an open portion of memory. Thus Tscale was born.
If you are an application developer or tinkerer you can attempt to rebase your DLL’s using the Microsoft Rebase.exe tool found in the Server 2003 SDK available for download at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A55B6B43-E24F-4EA3-A93E-40C0EC4F68E5&displaylang=en More information about the rebase.exe tool can be found here on the Microsoft MSDN site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/tools/tools/rebase.asp
However this material is not for the faint of heart and if you want to manage you’re applications in the most efficient way via a graphical interface, buying TSCale is the best way that I know how to do it and requires a whole lot less work!
Jim Kenzig
Copyright 2005
