Joe, Simple answer is money. This company uses an outdated frame relay system to communicate between the different buildings. The main building does have a T1 coming into it for company internet access, but he does not have the servers (hardware) and the bandwidth to run a true 24/7 web site, nor does he have the personnel to support a web site. Since he is hurting for money (as everyone else is), he wants to avoid either purchasing the hardware necessary to host his own internet site, or the costs of leasing the server space with a large company such as Verizon. He also wants to avoid any further IT costs (I am a contract programmer, and once I leave, he plans to letting the site continue to run without maintenance until he is forced to modify the site). Therefore, his on-site manufacturering engineer, who does know some things about servers, suggested that he use his existing license for Citrix to "host" this web site for his outside customers. Thus totally defeating the purpose of creating a web site, and paying me for the resulting product.
As you stated, this company is NOT a technically savvy company, it is a small manufacturer (about 4 million/yr). The owner is about 60, and uses the computer on his desk as a paperweight (he prints all his emails out, and then returns his answer to the emails by telephone, or by writing his response on the printed out email). Despite his lack of technical understanding, he is a nice guy. It's just that I think they are making a bad decision, and one that they will expect me to fix for them when the idea doesn't work. Plus I have to "politically" step around his manufacturing engineer, who thinks he knows a lot more about networks and programming than he really does. So I want to talk them out of it, but I know very little about Citrix, how it works, and what potential problems he may face by going this route. That's why I posted this question. If anyone can see potential problems with this idea, I would appreciate the feedback. Celeste -----Original Message----- From: Joe Cheng [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 10:53 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Anyone ever tried running a web app (JSP) using Citrix 6.0? >> My boss, who doesn't really know or understand anything about web applications, has decided to save some money on a JSP/Java web application that we have developed as an intranet site, by setting up the site to run as an internet site, but using Citrix to make it available to people outside the company. << hahahahaha... First of all, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. :) Your users all have Internet Explorer installed on their desktops. So he's going to have them use Internet Explorer to access the Citrix client, which will allow them to remotely control another copy of Internet Explorer--this second copy being the one that resides on your network--which will then make requests to your web application. This, instead of simply having the first copy of Internet Explorer make requests to your web application!!! IE => Citrix => IE => webapp IE => webapp Which do you think will have the lower TCO? Which you do you think will have lower latencies? Which will provide the better user experience? Which will not damage your credibility as a (presumably) technology-savvy corporation? (Answer: the second one) If you're really in a pinch, why not move your web server outside the firewall and just secure your private webapps using other means (which you'd have to do anyway, even in the ridiculous Citrix scenario). -jmc =========================================================================== To unsubscribe: mailto [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body: "signoff JSP-INTEREST". For digest: mailto [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body: "set JSP-INTEREST DIGEST". Some relevant FAQs on JSP/Servlets can be found at: http://archives.java.sun.com/jsp-interest.html http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/faq.html http://www.esperanto.org.nz/jsp/jspfaq.jsp http://www.jguru.com/faq/index.jsp http://www.jspinsider.com =========================================================================== To unsubscribe: mailto [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body: "signoff JSP-INTEREST". For digest: mailto [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body: "set JSP-INTEREST DIGEST". Some relevant FAQs on JSP/Servlets can be found at: http://archives.java.sun.com/jsp-interest.html http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/faq.html http://www.esperanto.org.nz/jsp/jspfaq.jsp http://www.jguru.com/faq/index.jsp http://www.jspinsider.com
