Metropolitan Area Sun Ray™ Services By Lars Persson–Sun Professional Services Sun BluePrints™ OnLine - May 2002 http://www.sun.com/blueprints Sun Microsystems, Inc. 4150 Network Circle Santa Clara, CA 95045 USA 650 960-1300 Part No. 816-4818-10 Revision 01 May 2002 Copyright 2002 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara, California, U.S.A. All rights reserved. This product or document is protected by copyright and distributed under licenses restricting its use, copying, distribution, and decompilation. No part of this product or document may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior written authorization of Sun and its licensors, if any. Third-party software, including font technology, is copyrighted and licensed from Sun suppliers. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Sun Enterprise, Sun BluePrints, Sun Ray, StarOffice, and Ultra Enterprise are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. The OPEN LOOK and Sun™ Graphical User Interface was developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. for its users and licensees. Sun acknowledges the pioneering efforts of Xerox in researching and developing the concept of visual or graphical user interfaces for the computer industry. Sun holds a non-exclusive license from Xerox to the Xerox Graphical User Interface, which license also covers Sun’s licensees who implement OPEN LOOK GUIs and otherwise comply with Sun’s written license agreements. RESTRICTED RIGHTS: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions of FAR 52.227-14(g)(2)(6/87) and FAR 52.227-19(6/87), or DFAR 252.227-7015(b)(6/95) and DFAR 227.7202-3(a). DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE DISCLAIMED, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS ARE HELD TO BE LEGALLY INVALID. Copyright 2002 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara, California, Etats-Unis. Tous droits réservés. Ce produit ou document est protégé par un copyright et distribué avec des licences qui en restreignent l’utilisation, la copie, la distribution, et la décompilation. Aucune partie de ce produit ou document ne peut être reproduite sous aucune forme, par quelque moyen que ce soit, sans l’autorisation préalable et écrite de Sun et de ses bailleurs de licence, s’il y en a. Le logiciel détenu par des tiers, et qui comprend la technologie relative aux polices de caractères, est protégé par un copyright et licencié par des fournisseurs de Sun. Des parties de ce produit pourront être dérivées des systèmes Berkeley BSD licenciés par l’Université de Californie. UNIX est une marque déposée aux Etats-Unis et dans d’autres pays et licenciée exclusivement par X/Open Company, Ltd. Sun, Sun Microsystems, le logo Sun, Sun Enterprise, Sun BluePrints, Sun Ray, StarOffice et Ultra Enterprise sont des met arques de fabrique ou des marques déposées, ou marques de service, de Sun Microsystems, Inc. aux Etats-Unis et dans d’autres pays. L’interface d’utilisation graphique OPEN LOOK et Sun™ a été développée par Sun Microsystems, Inc. pour ses utilisateurs et licenciés. Sun reconnaît les efforts de pionniers de Xerox pour la recherche et le développement du concept des interfaces d’utilisation visuelle ou graphique pour l’industrie de l’informatique. Sun détient une licence non exclusive de Xerox sur l’interface d’utilisation graphique Xerox, cette licence couvrant également les licenciés de Sun qui mettent en place l’interface d’utilisation graphique OPEN LOOK et qui en outre se conforment aux licences écrites de Sun. CETTE PUBLICATION EST FOURNIE "EN L’ETAT" ET AUCUNE GARANTIE, EXPRESSE OU IMPLICITE, N’EST ACCORDEE, Y COMPRIS DES GARANTIES CONCERNANT LA VALEUR MARCHANDE, L’APTITUDE DE LA PUBLICATION A REPONDRE A UNE UTILISATION PARTICULIERE, OU LE FAIT QU’ELLE NE SOIT PAS CONTREFAISANTE DE PRODUIT DE TIERS. CE DENI DE GARANTIE NE S’APPLIQUERAIT PAS, DANS LA MESURE OU IL SERAIT TENU JURIDIQUEMENT NUL ET NON AVENU. Please Recycle Metropolitan Area Sun Ray Services (MASS) The IT costs for companies, organizations, and government bodies is a modern plague. Costs frequently grow out of control and are hard to calculate. IT operations cost money, but not all costs are visible. Computer problems, primarily at the user level, generate productivity problems on a massive scale, and with productivity loss, your income decreases as expenses increase. Deploying Sun Ray™ appliances in your network environment is a powerful weapon against such hidden costs, and because of the modest pricing, the cost of deployment is reasonable. The desktop computational device can be obsoleted by deploying Sun Ray appliances without loss of computational power to the end user. Metropolitan Area Sun Ray Services (MASS) is a method to get the good things that Sun Rays bring forth, out from the small LAN and into the wide open spaces of metropolitan area networks (MANs, see “What is a Metropolitan Area Network?” on page 11). This technology also opens a market for entire new types of operations, as described in this article. Sun Ray appliances have a great potential to be a viable alternative to the common workstation. By using true broadband technologies, deploying Sun Ray appliances on a massive scale in MAN environments is possible. The advantage is that centralized data centers can be run by a few specialists. This method eliminates production losses and incompatibility problems at the user level, reduces overall costs of operation, increases data integrity, and practically eliminates the risk of virus attacks. The MAN could be a CityNet, and the end users could be anybody from the common citizen (surfing the Internet, retrieving mail, or home office use), to small firms, franchising companies, corporations, government bodies, health care, or other organizations. Today, all IT operations consist of various servers, but on the user side, we are still bound to the desktop computer. The purpose of this paper is to describe a viable thin client alternative, the functions of the components that form it, and how to massively deploy such clients over broadband technology in MAN-type networks. 1 This article is intended for people working with IT architecture or IT strategies with the intent to rationalize IT operations, especially if these operations are spread over a large geographic area. The Vision of Sun Ray Appliances in a MAN-type Network The immediate possibilities of MASS can be appreciated at once. MASS can be viewed as an innovative method of deploying Sun Ray appliances in various quantities, at different locations, and still connect them to a centralized data center in a robust way. This concept can be sufficient for the individual company or organization. MASS is scalable too. Instead of using a Sun Ray backnet (a private Sun Ray network) and its Sun Ray server, you could consider a Sun Ray data center hosting a large number of Sun Ray domains, each with its own backnet. MASS could grow to become a valuable asset for large MANs like a CityNet. With MASS, the owners of a CityNet can offer its users maintenance-free access to the Internet while providing an appliance, complete with surfing capabilities, mail, and an excellent office package—the StarOffice™ software. Because the Sun Ray servers and application servers are situated in a data center, user data can be backed up centrally, thus offering data protection to the individual user. Sun Ray appliances deployed to ordinary users can run processes in user mode on the servers. This feature makes them practically immune to the virus plague that constantly rages the Internet these days. Taking one step further, it is possible to facilitate easy and inexpensive outsourcing for everything from small firms to franchising companies, and large corporations for mail, web access, office, and portal carrying applications. Although Sun Ray appliances use a special private network, it is possible to configure the broadband/Ethernet switch (the proxy switch for which the Sun Ray appliance is connected) so that the appliance has access to other networks. This configuration enables standard workstations to coexist with Sun Ray appliances on the same switch (using port VLANs), should the need arise. Proxy switches could also be deployed in residential areas using one or more fibers and common narrowband techniques. Users could have access to 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps connections even at home. The Sun Ray appliance could function as an internet “surf board”, office carrier, and mail tool. The field is open for net-bound applications on portals to be instantly accessible by Sun Ray users without locking out workstations or other types of appliances or computers. The maintenance-free surf board could be an option in an Internet subscription. 2 Metropolitan Area Sun Ray Services (MASS) • May 2002 Other uses for MASS could be in educational services. Instead of maintaining hundreds of workstations, plug-and-play Sun Ray appliances could be set up. If a Sun Ray appliance malfunctions, the only thing that has to be done is to replace it with another unit. No reinstallation or upgrading is needed, and possible licensing costs could be incorporated in the fee for access to the MASS network. Servers could either be outsourced or be placed at a location within the educational service’s premises. Sun Ray appliances could be spread to schools over the MAN, regardless of distance within the MAN. Hospitals, government bodies, and so on are also potential MASS customers. The main advantage for MASS users in a MAN area is that no unexpected costs will occur. Hardware upgrades every six months are no longer necessary, and companies and firms do not have to keep an expensive IT department anymore.