With this technology we have helped Microsoft scale into the enterprise.

Nabeel Youakim, Managing Director,

Citrix Systems, Asia-Pacific.

In the seventies and eighties, it

was the mainframe and host-based computing which reigned supreme. Then came the nineties,

and with it the era of client server computing. With the end of the decade not far, client

server computing appears likely to transition to a more effective thin client server

computing, a hybrid of best of both computing paradigms. A vision of Citrix Chairman, Ed

Iacobucci, fueled since his early days in IBM, the simplistic but effective technology

pivots around a multi-user Windows NT running applications from a PC server with screen

downloads to a client. In sync with the importance attached to the cost of ownership

across India Inc, products from Citrix and efforts of Nabeel Youakim in India promise

early dividends. Prior to Citrix, Youakim spent six years at Microsoft, heading various

divisions. With a degree in Computer Science, Youakim started his career with

Burroughs-Unisys. Read on as Citrix systems Managing Director eulogizes this new computing

framework.

How is server-based computing

different from client server and network computing?

This is a very important question

and the one that tends to confuse people. Client-server computing says you want

applications in the client device. And you run a back-end server, which has your database

and back-end applications. The application therefore goes from the client to the server,

gets the information to the client and then does all the processing in the client. That

has been the traditional model for the last 20 to 30 years in the PC world. It has been

the model Microsoft, Compaq, IBM and all PC and software vendors have been pushing.

Server-based computing centralizes

the complexity in one location where you can manage, administrate and update it. It

centralizes the application execution on the server, runs it next to the database, leading

to fast access to applications and the database. You just take the screen down, that's all

we do and that's why it is so simple.

Network computing is about the

network computer (NC) and Java. The NC model is network-centric-you have a device called

the network computer and you have a server. You install all your applications on the

server, like server-based computing. Except with the NC model, it says take the

application and download it to the NC when you execute it. So execution in the NC model is

like client server. It executes in the NC, which means you need a powerful network device

with a very fast processor and lots of memory to execute your applications. Secondly, you

need a powerful network to download applications all the time because nothing is stored

locally. So the NC model is really flawed and people are realizing this now.

The argument that bandwidth

requirement would be less in server-based computing in comparison to network computing is

not very convincing. The screen also needs to be constantly updated in server-based

computing... ...

Well, the network computing model

has all processing centrally based. The network computing model says, wait for 5 minutes,

download your application, and then it runs fast. But it only runs as fast as in client

server computing. When the application needs access to data, it sends a query to the

database and gets tables. The relational database sends tables down to the client, a lot

of tables, more than you need, always more than you need. Now this is not the case with

server-based computing systems. It sends down the screen and, for example, in a SAP

application it's only two screen lines which change. There is not much painting and it is

a very minimal amount of data.

Now with all this activity at the

server, they really need to be beefed up in terms of performance...

Not only do you need to beef it up,

you have to buy new servers. You do not want to use the same server on which you have your

database. You definitely have to buy new servers, very powerful servers with lots of

memory and lots of processing power. But to buy more servers is a much cheaper solution

than buying lots of PCs. An Indian customer has certified 75% saving on buying servers and

Citrix software rather than upgrading 75 PCs.

Are you saying that an end-user

needs to only deploy application servers while keeping the same infrastructure for

database servers?

Yes. An installation could have four

or five database servers, including NT, mainframe and Unix servers running Oracle, Sybase

or SQL server, for example. That does not change. Inside that, we put another pool or what

we call firewall servers to run applications. You know, our biggest customer has got 250

application servers put together. Behind them, they have Oracle and Unix database servers

and in front, all these servers connect to their PCs.

When did the model of

server-based computing first emerge?

The model started ten years ago when

our Chairman, Ed Iacobucci, left IBM. He said OS/2, which was being developed by IBM and

Microsoft, was the wrong model to deploy business applications. So his vision was a

server-based model like the mainframe model. He never believed in client server computing.

He went to Microsoft, got the NT source code, and created a multiple user NT environment.

In 1995, we finished the product and started selling it to the market.

How do your products, Metaframe

and Winframe, create a server-based computing environment?

I guess there are three levels. One

level is the Windows NT level. We have changed NT to make it multi-user. Secondly, we

provide the system software you need to manage NT in a multi-user mode. I mean there are a

lot of management tools for NT, but then you manage NT as a server running back office

application-not to manage it as a front-end application server. We provide that extra

software-Metaframe does that.

Why are your products based on

both versions 3.5 and 4.0 of Windows NT?

Today the version is NT 4.0, and

therefore Metaframe is our flagship product. We probably sell six to one, Metaframe to

Winframe. We still sell Winframe because there are existing customers that have been

buying our technology for a long time and want to stay on the current product. They are

the customers who have decided not to go for NT 4.0-they are going to wait for Windows2000

to come.

What is your rule of thumb for

users per server and the scale of deployment in server farms?

On an average in a typical

environment, you can support about 30 users on a single processor server. So if you have a

two-way server you can get about 60 users per server. If you have a four-way server, you

can get roughly about 120 users, and with eight-way servers, you can get up to 200 users

on one server. Whether you buy one eight-way server or eight single-way servers it's upto

you, that how you configure the farm.

Is this in any way related to

NT's ability to scale?

It is. Today, Windows NT does not

run more than eight processors. I mean that is where it hits the limit. So effectively

with this technology, we have helped Microsoft scale into the enterprise. Without this

technology, Microsoft tools would not be able to address these enterprise levels. And they

themselves acknowledge that at the very high-end, it is still a Unix market.

But with a huge number of NT

servers in a farm, do you get the reliability of Unix?

The reason you get reliability is

that when you have 250 severs and 10 go down, you still have got 240 running. It does not

make an effect on the business that you got 10 servers down because we have centralized

everything. Whereas in client server computing you also have servers everywhere and if one

goes down it knocks down 10 or 20 users.

Considering your strategic

interest in Windows NT, what is the nature of the relationship with Microsoft?

It involves partnering and it

involves marketing. But more importantly, it involves Citrix providing Microsoft the

licensing to use the multi-user extensions that we have developed called Multiwin. It is a

layer, which sits on top of Windows NT to make it a multi-user operating system. That is

the core technology which Microsoft bought from us as part of a five-year agreement.

But not only have they bought a bit

of software, they bought the programmers as well. They are now working at Microsoft as

Citrix employees under license to Microsoft for five years. They are developing Multiwin

for NT5 and Windows2000 and future versions of NT. So their contract is very strategic.

Now Windows2000 has got what is called the Terminal Server System and this has been

developed by Citrix.

What are the types of vendor

services that can be provided with this technology?

We would call the service vendors,

application solution providers or ASPs. It is like getting SAP and America Online, putting

them together, and all of a sudden you have a service where you can host and run Windows

applications on a time or subscription basis. It is a whole new model.

What will be the revenue model

for ASPs?

Well, the ASP will just buy our

software as the platform. The mega work is on how to charge. The ASP vendors will charge

on a time basis. No one does that today. When you buy a software product today, you buy

the license to use, forever. Well, that model is going to change, where you will buy a

subscription for a license, like we do today for cable or mobile phone. You pay a base fee

and everytime you use it you pay a fee. That is the model. People have not quite worked

out if the model is good or bad.

Do you think server-based

computing is going to be around for long?

If you go back to the mainframe

world in the seventies and eighties and think about all the system applications that were

available, they are all the applications we are bringing to the NT world in server-based

computing. When you centralize everything that is what the mainframe was all about. That

is why the mainframe is still alive today because it is a centralized model that is

workable, that can deploy mission-critical applications. Big banks, big airline companies

still want mainframes because they are reliable. We bring that reliability to the NT

platform.

What has been the stand from the

package software vendors?

Everyone of them, SAP, Baan and

Peoplesoft are working very closely with us. Today, they have to wait for you to buy a new

PC before you can buy software from them. We have changed that model. You do not have to

invest in hardware, you can just invest in their software. So they like that model because

they can get their money sooner and deploy faster.