We have a client that would need to access an multi-user Advanced Revelation system, that would run in a LAN, remotely through a 64K data link. We need full access to the application. The application itsefl would be installed on a file server on the LAN.

We would like to know what alternatives do we have to achieve this. Everything about the platform is still undefined, LAN OS, communication software. We would appreciate all suggestions about this point.

In my opinion, the only acceptable approach is to use remote control software such as pcAnywhere. If you try to access the data directly from a remote computer, you will find that the performance is unbearably slow.

Using remote control software, however, the only thing that needs to go over the wire is screen updates. Depending upon the settings you choose, it can be nearly as efficient as using a local machine.

http://www.gotomypc.com

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Thanks for that link. I searched there, but it seems to be some kind of "PC-Anywhere". As I understand, you can control a machine already in the LAN. What we really need is local and remote access to the application, but the remote users won't have workstations on the LAN. Better said, the sistem will reside in one city, and the users in another city will all (try to) connect through one 64K data connection to work everyday. I saw postings about the Terminal Services of Win2000. Does this work with Arev?. What about Citrix?. I've seen postings about this product, too, but seems a more expensive solution.

Eduardo,

If you have W2K server, you should be able to access that server via Terminal Services. And yes, you can then access your AREV app.

HTH,

Ray Chan

Thanks, Ray. One question about it. Is it enough with the Terminal Services alone, or you must also have Citrix Metaframe?. In the Microsoft site they say that Terminal Services as they come does not support MS-DOS applications, unless you add Citrix. Can you access, read/write, and print locally from a Terminal Service connection?.

Thanks, Ray. One question about it. Is it enough with the Terminal Services alone, or you must also have Citrix Metaframe?. In the Microsoft site they say that Terminal Services as they come does not support MS-DOS applications, unless you add Citrix. Can you access, read/write, and print locally from a Terminal Service connection?.

Eduardo,

… Is it enough with the Terminal Services alone, or you must also have Citrix Metaframe?. In the Microsoft site they say that Terminal Services as they come does not support MS-DOS applications, unless you add Citrix.

We have used both – Terminal Services and Citrix Metaframe. We have had users access our system via Terminal Services and run AREV (Dos) with no problems. Therefore, I'm not sure why Microsoft would say that you need Citrix to run DOS app.

Can you access, read/write, and print locally from a Terminal Service connection?

From our personal experience, you should have no problems reading and writing via Terminal Service. Printing, however, is something we didn't play much with under Terminal Services. You can do it (not to discourage you), but we opted to use Citrix because it is more robust and easier to setup local printing. As you know, Windows 2003 is out and Terminal Services has been improved. One of the improvement deals with better printing without Citrix. However, we're still standardized on W2K and haven't had a chance to test Windows 2003.

If you have Terminal Services, you ought to just go ahead and try it. It won't cost you anything and you will be surprise at how responsive it is.

Ray Chan

It is not recommended to run ARev applications on the server it resides on (using the server as a workstation).

Ray:

Thanks again for your answer. We actually don't have a W2K or W2003 Server, not TS either, so we can not test the environment. The main question we have going around is if it's possible or not to get an Arev application work over a 64K point-to-point line, with around 10 users accessing remotely through that connection to an Arev application on the other end through a Terminal Server. We just don't want to promise that it will work without any own experience in that kind of arrangement. And the best knowledge or experience is finding out if someone has ever been succesfull in that fight against connectivity. I read somewhere in this forum that each user connecting though a TS session would use about 20K of the bandwidth, so if that is true, we are lost!, because 64K would just give us a maximum of 3 or 4 users.

Eduardo,

Without terminal services and/or Citrix, you will be handicapped. Terminal services using RDP and Citrix using ICA provide very efficient means of communication. That is, the bandwidth you need is less because all that is transmitted are keystrokes and changes. For example, not so long ago we had an AREV sites using Citrix Winview with about 7-10 users at a remote site on a 64k connection. Response was excellent. However, I need to emphasize we were using Citrix ICA Winview (OS/2) and we were using the OS/2 version of AREV.

I know of another site here using AREV with literally hundreds of users accessing the system remotely, but they have t-3s and using other stuff like CPU-plus, NLMs, etc.

Ideally, you should setup an environment to test for yourself – even on a limited basis. I believe that you will find it beneficial in the long-run.

Ray

Eduardo ..

My take on on this situation is that even under the best of circumstanced (64K), the performance would not be grand. It is true that about each connection requires about 20K of bandwidth. The problem is exacerbated if you're running along side Windows graphical apps. Even running AREV in a Window will slow things down considerably. We routinely do remote support to our client base using PCAnywhere. In this environment, we do everything possible to reduce the line traffic overhead .. set remote desktop colors to 256, disable screen-synch, disable simultaneous running/upload-download, etc.

Don M.

Hi Eduardo,

We have clients that have used both Terminal Server and Citrix to access an AREV application remotely.

The fundamental difference, as the other people who have posted have said, is that Cirtix allows you to run in full screen (text) mode and it only sends down the ksystrokes and screen updates. Performance is fine, but you pay more for it.

Terminal Server on the other hand ONLY works in Graphics mode. That's why, despite it's compression algorithms, it's bandwith hungry.

If you ever have a really significant number of remote users, and the AREV app is already running in the remote office, then you could tun some remote-branch linkup software. We wrote some for ourselves.

Likewise, you could also consider web-enabling your AREV application so that remote users can get to it through the web. That's what we do. Maybe one day we'll release it on here.

Hope that helps,

Warren Kinny

Exodus Systems

www.resmaster.com

Warren Kinny

Exoidus

Warren.

Thanks for your advice. It may be a long term solution, but, unfortunately, by this time, we wouldn't have time to test something like that.

Thanks Don and Ray. We are slowly understanding how all this stuff with the remote sessions work and the problems you find.

We finally could get a trial TS and accesed over an Internet connection, with a bandwidth of 56K, to an ARev application on the other side. The response is fine. What we couldn't already test is more than one user sharing the same link, but maybe we should think of adding Citrix if we are going to allow access to more than 3 o 4 users to the ARev application through the same link.

Eduardo,

We finally could get a trial TS and accesed over an Internet connection, with a bandwidth of 56K, to an ARev application on the other side. The response is fine.

What is a "trial TS"? Terminal Services is provided as part of W2k.

What we couldn't already test is more than one user sharing the same link….

Could you clarify? Do you mean another user could not access the system after the first? Or do you mean you don't have another user who can access the terminal server? A terminal server can be setup in "Remote Mode." This gives you two "free" connections. If you need more, then you can set terminal services for "Application Mode". This will allow more users, but then you will need to get Terminal Services Client Access License (CAL).

…but maybe we should think of adding Citrix if we are going to allow access to more than 3 o 4 users to the ARev application through the same link

Windows 2003 Server is out as you know. Although I haven't personally played with this yet. MS has made some improvements to the Terminal Services which may make Citix less necessary in some situations. Of course, Citrix is continuing to improve its products to continue to make it more desirable than just Terminal Services. It's a race. However, this may be obvious, but whether you use Citrix or not. You will ALWAYS need the Terminal Services as Citrix Metaframe runs on top of that. Therefore, when you implement a Citrix solution, you will need the MS Terminal Server Licenses (CALs) plus you will need Citrix's. I'm not sure what your needs are or your budget, but it's possible that Terminal Services alone may meet your needs.

If you don't Windows 2000, then you might consider getting Windows 2003 for experimentation.

Oh BTW have you thought of converting your AREV app to OI32? OI32 runs much better on a Terminal Server than AREV. I think you might find some comment in this regard in this forum.

Ray

Ray, sorry by delaying the answers to your answers. Here they go.

We finally could get a trial TS and accesed over an Internet connection, with a bandwidth of 56K, to an ARev application on the other side. The response is fine.

What is a "trial TS"? Terminal Services is provided as part of W2k.

Eduardo: I used the wrong term. What I wanted to say is that we could get a Terminal Server to connect to through a phone line.

What we couldn't already test is more than one user sharing the same link….

Could you clarify? Do you mean another user could not access the system after the first? Or do you mean you don't have another user who can access the terminal server? A terminal server can be setup in "Remote Mode." This gives you two "free" connections. If you need more, then you can set terminal services for "Application Mode". This will allow more users, but then you will need to get Terminal Services Client Access License (CAL).

Eduardo: I'm miles away from being an expert in Terminal Services. The application mode seems to be the mode to choose.

…but maybe we should think of adding Citrix if we are going to allow access to more than 3 o 4 users to the ARev application through the same link

Windows 2003 Server is out as you know. Although I haven't personally played with this yet. MS has made some improvements to the Terminal Services which may make Citix less necessary in some situations. Of course, Citrix is continuing to improve its products to continue to make it more desirable than just Terminal Services. It's a race. However, this may be obvious, but whether you use Citrix or not. You will ALWAYS need the Terminal Services as Citrix Metaframe runs on top of that. Therefore, when you implement a Citrix solution, you will need the MS Terminal Server Licenses (CALs) plus you will need Citrix's. I'm not sure what your needs are or your budget, but it's possible that Terminal Services alone may meet your needs.

Eduardo: We will follow your advice, and recommend to first try the TS alone. If the performance falls down to unacceptable levels, then we may think about Citrix.

If you don't Windows 2000, then you might consider getting Windows 2003 for experimentation.

Oh BTW have you thought of converting your AREV app to OI32? OI32 runs much better on a Terminal Server than AREV. I think you might find some comment in this regard in this forum.

Eduardo: Yes, indeed, we are in the process of OI conversion, but it will take some time, because it is a quite big system.

Thanks a lot!.

Eduardo

Eduardo,

Your conversion to OI could not come at a better time with OI32. You may experience some frustration initally, but overall I think that you will find it truly worthwhile. Plus as you know you can find some very helpful people on this forum and expert consultants are available as well.

On the issue of Terminal Service licenses, if your workstations are Windows 2000 or XP, the terminal service license for Windows 2000 Server is included. This will save you some $$$. However as a caveat, this same licensing agreement does not apply to Windows 2003 server. That darn Microsoft first give you something and then take it away ;-(.

Good luck and I hope that you can get the terminal server to work for you. It should. Long term convert to OI and you will see your application "sing" under Terminal Services and/or Citrix.

Ciao,

Ray

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