IBM uses thin clients to provide custom computing services
At IBM's Palisades Executive Conference Center in New York's Hudson River valley, executives from IBM and other companies receive training in business IS solutions, primarily for managing large numbers of users in global networks. Each year, approximately 7000 people (700 people to 800 people each week) spend about 2 1/2 days training at the center.
The training center has two goals: to showcase new technology and to teach people about this technology. Business and technical managers wanted to make the students' stay as comfortable as possible and minimize any computer problems. Thus, the center developed a way to give users access to applications (e.g., email, word processing, and the Internet) and minimize maintenance costs.
IBM created the training center with networking in mind. When IBM built the building in 1989, the company wired the center for a 16 megabits per second (Mbps) Token-Ring network and supplied each of the 206 guest rooms with a PS/2 computer so that guests could work at night. However, this configuration was expensive because of the hardware maintenance it required and the time needed to upgrade applications.
A New Networking Paradigm
In 1996, Art Williams, the research director for the centralized delivery of Windows applications at IBM's Thomas Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, ran a pilot program for a network paradigm based on thin-client computing. (For Art Williams' comments on the thin client project at the Palisades Executive Conference Center, see "An Interview with Art Williams," on page 174. For more information about the thin client model, see "Can a Hybrid Network Work for Your Enterprise?" on page 167.) For the pilot program, IBM used an X Windows-based client and a Citrix WinFrame version of Windows NT Server 3.51. The goal of the program was to reduce PC support costs and focus these savings on the server. To do this, IBM needed to change the network paradigm from the traditional PC client LAN and file server to thin-client/server computing, and still provide access to Windows applications.
During fall 1996, IBM executed the 30-seat, thin-client pilot program at the Thomas Watson Research Center, which is known for its high-level projects (e.g., the creation of the Deep Blue computer that beat international chess champion Gary Kasparov). The center also develops and demonstrates practical solutions for everyday computing problems. The thin-client pilot study had three objectives: to establish the feasibility of using the Wintel network with IBM's Network Station Series 300 network computers (NCs), to determine user acceptance of the new network paradigm, and to learn more about the effect thin-client technology has on the total cost of ownership (TCO).
To determine how well applications perform in the new network configuration, IBM used Texas Instruments' Wintach video benchmark application. Specifically, IBM used Wintach to test application performance (i.e., video output) on the new NCs vs. the traditional PC. Text, CAD, and paint programs performed about the same on the NC and the PC, but spreadsheet programs performed better on the NC. Performance differences were based on how the systems transferred data to the output devices. The NCs use X Windows-based technology to download all video, using graphical commands whenever possible. A video adapter then translates the graphical commands into pixel patterns. Paint programs use only a few pixel patterns whereas spreadsheets consist almost exclusively of these patterns. Thus, the spreadsheet programs performed more than twice as well on the NC as they did on the PC.
In general, users responded favorably during the pilot: Users thought the thin-client system responded faster than the PC system and was just as reliable. However, some users complained about the NC's reduced flexibility: User profiles limited access to system configuration tools and the system lacked a 3.5" drive.
The 30-seat, thin-client pilot program was so successful that IBM decided to demonstrate the technology to thousands of users. For this phase, IBM worked with its worldwide service delivery organization, IBM Global Services (IGS), which maintains a client/server development group at the Thomas Watson Research Center. This group first deployed NT Workstation and Windows 95 within IBM, and was selected to spearhead the new thin-client/server deployment project.