Oracle 11i

The main purpose of this article is to discuss whether to use Terminal Server technology to publish Oracle 11i applications or not.

The company that I'm working for is currently using Microsoft Terminal Servers with Citrix MetaFrame on top to publish the Oracle 10.7 SmartClient. Oracle will drop support for the 10.7 SmartClient after Dec. 31st 2001. Therefore we will do an upgrade\implementation of Oracle 11i Applications next year.

With simply launching the 11i applications from a web browser, companies may decide to phase out Terminal Servers. At least this is what all my non-technical managers more or less already have in mind.

Not that my job is depending on having Terminal Servers in house, I just like the technology and especially Citrix's latest products such as NFuse and MetaFrame for Unix. Personally, I think the advantage of running Oracle's Java code from a web browser can not even come close to all the advantages of having a Terminal Server publishing the app.

Some of the advantages of having the app published using Terminal Servers in comparison to launching it from a web browser:

• Terminal Server and ICA technology are proven technologies.
• When launching the app from a web browser, the browser on each client now becomes business critical. The web browser needs to be configured and maintained. Maintaining a web browser is much harder than maintaining an ICA client, especially when using Citrix NFuse.
• Oracle's JAVA on TCP/IP is much fatter than ICA.
• Using a Terminal Server, virtually any app can be published.
• Citrix MetaFrame comes with the shadowing feature. This allows application support people to remote control a user's session.
• Centralized CPU and memory is more efficient than decentralized. Oracle's Java code is very resource intensive.

Having been at the OAUG in Honolulu, I found out that more people are investigating to run the new release of Oracle apps off Terminal Servers. I would like to encourage people who are considering Oracle 11i/Terminal Servers to take part in this discussion. This would make life for all of us much easier. Received on Tue Nov 14 2000 - 06:55:07 CET