Thin Client Browser Deployment

The Thin Client Browser deployment involves no installation on the clients. Only a standard browser is necessary on each client. The Display Server must be installed on a server and an application server with a JSP Servlet Container is required to provide visualization to the clients. This solution can be used either from a standard browser or from a portal environment (see Figure 9).

 

Figure 9: Thin Client Browser Deployment Overview

The Thin Client Browser deployment option requires the installation of the Display Server which is typically installed on a dedicated platform. The Display Server then communicates via a socket to an application server where the Display Servlet is installed. No configuration of the client is necessary other than access to a standard browser.

This section includes:

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Served Data Versus Direct Data Connection

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Thin Client Browser with Served Data

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Thin Client Browser with Direct Data Connection

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Display Server

 

Served Data Versus Direct Data Connection

In some cases, the Display Server can act as your Data Server to support connections to necessary data sources, handle all defined data calculations, provide cache storage, and maintain the alert rules engine. However, there are situations where this is not possible or desirable.

Data Access/Centralization

Depending on where the Data Server will reside in the network, it may not be desirable to have direct TCP connections to each necessary data source. For example, data sources may reside in a sub-network where it is not possible to open multiple connections to the Display Server. In this case, the Data Server could act as a proxy so that one TCP or HTTP connection to the Data Server could be used to deliver data across the network.

Data Reduction/Aggregation

Sometimes the data exists in a network configuration where bandwidth is very sensitive. Data Servers could be used to maintain data aggregations, data caches and alert information that would only be accessed on demand by the Display Server. This will allow for significant optimization of network bandwidth.

Scalability

If large amounts of data are cached, many data calculations are performed, or large alert rule bases are activated, it may be beneficial to distribute this processing load across one or multiple Data Servers.

The pros and cons of the two scenarios, Served Data and Direct Data Connection, are described below.

Pros and Cons

 

Issue	Served Data	Direct Data Connection
Setup	Requires Data Server setup	Does not require Data Server setup
Performance	High performance with additional possibilities for scaling	High performance unless the application needs to scale
Security	A bit more flexible as far as security options since direct data access can be separated from the platform hosting the Display Server	Flexible unless there is an issue with directly connecting to data sources from the platform hosting the Display Server
Scalability	More scalable since Data Servers can be used to divide the processing load	Less scalable since the Display Server must perform all processing
Cost	Hardware and Software costs per additional instance of Data Servers	Less expensive if the Display Server can satisfy all scalability issues and can efficiently connect to all data sources