SmartSession and MultiSession

SmartSession is essentially Terminal Server load balancing. If you have a 5-pack of SmartSession you can identify up to 5 Terminal Servers that can be used for load balancing and Queuing (more on that later). You can then set up SmartSession Terminal Server Groups that contain any or all of these servers. A SmartSession group can only have SmartSession servers, but the groups may contain 2, 3, 4 or 5 of the SmartSession servers, and servers may be in more than one group.

For instance, a user might purchase a 5-pack of SmartSession and then configure a two server group where both servers have an HMI application, another two server group where both servers have a CAD program, and maybe a 5 server group that can run Excel. Each Thin Client then is pointed to one of these groups and when it goes to connect, ThinManager will pick the server in its particular group that is the most available based on a number of server load factors such as number of users, CPU load, or available memory.

MultiSession

Likewise Servers identified as MultiSession servers are put into MultiSession Groups. These MultiSession groups allow a single Thin Client to actively manage a number of different sessions, because these groups can be added to a Thin Client which can then run as many sessions at the same time as it has MultiSession Groups. The same server can even be put into multiple groups and each time this server shows up in a different group it will have a different session displayed. The user can then toggle between these sessions with keyboard shortcuts or a dropdown menu.

MultiSession is often used with AppLink (AppLink is a part of MultiSession) to define an initial application that will be started when the Thin Client connects to any of the servers in a group. This way the user is not so much toggling between Windows desktops as single applications. For instance, if the same MultiSession server is put into one group and given the initial application of Calc and into another group and given the initial application of Notepad then as the user toggles between these groups on his Thin Client he will see Notepad in one session and Calc in the other - even though both are on the same physical machine.

Queuing (mentioned above in the SmartSession discussion) is useful for system startup. If a Thin Client system comes up all at the same time, like might be experienced after a power failure, then all of the clients trying to connect to a single server at once might bog things down. With Queuing, ThinManager holds the clients and meters them out to the server one at a time. (NOTE: Queuing deserves its own article - and it got one a few years ago. Click here to read all about it [http://www.thinmanager.com/news/archive_07/7_9_Queuing.shtml])

With either SmartSession or MultiSession you can have as many Thin Clients use these servers as you want. So with a single 5-pack of either one you could run 25 to 100 Thin Clients (or more, depending on application loading) and each one could take advantage of these modules.

For additional reading:

SmartSession

MultiSession

Applink

 

For more information on ACP Industrial Thin Client computers, please visit our web site at http://www.thinmanager.com

To sign up for the E-mail newsletter go here: ACP newsletter signup

For an archive of past newsletter articles go to: ACP Newsletter Archive

Top