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[previous article] [next article]PACE is a project to evolve a new system-wide academic computing environment for Purdue. Its key goal is pervasive delivery of networked computing resources to Purdue students, staff, and faculty in a platform independent manner. The project's technical group was assembled in the summer of 1997, and is comprised of 2 ECN and 2 PUCC staff members.
A network based computing resource which will be of value to the Schools of Engineering is Windows NT based Application Servers. The PACE group has been working with two different multi-user Windows NT-based systems, which can serve Windows applications over a network to almost any end-user platform. In this paradigm, the end user's computer acts as a "thin client", merely displaying windows from the server and sending keyboard/mouse events to the server. Best of all, these clients can operate over low bandwidth network connections including dialup and WAN/Internet connections with little degradation of performance.
There are many uses for this technology at Purdue. First, it allows us to provide Windows applications to almost any end user platform including UNIX workstations, Macintosh computers, Web browsers, Java terminals, and thin client "dumb" terminals located anywhere on a network. This means a user sitting in front of a UNIX workstation can run productivity applications such as Microsoft Office. Second, it allows faculty, staff, and students to access and run University licensed software from their home computer. Many pieces of scientific and engineering software cannot be licensed for installation on non-University owned equipment so they cannot be given out for home use. These application servers allow access to software running on University owned equipment from computers not located at or owned by the University. Third, this technology allows users to run resource intensive applications on central servers when their home or office computer cannot. This enables users with old and slow computers to run large applications such as Matlab, Ansys, and Pro Engineer at current technology CPU speeds.
To ensure this technology will serve the needs of Engineering's faculty, staff, and students, the PACE group is alpha testing application servers. The objective of this testing is to identify functional problems, security, training, compatibility, performance, robustness, and scalability issues of this paradigm. Several faculty, staff, researchers, and undergraduate courses have been using our application server testbed since November 1997, and have provided valuable information. In short, most of our test users state this technology can provide useful services to students, researchers, and administrative staff.
Look for this new technology to bring Windows applications to any desktop near you.
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