Citrix technology forms foundation for corporate portal

Engineering and construction company Grinaker-LTA MEIP - with the help of Citrix`s application portal and server software solutions - is well on its way to creating a true Net workplace where it delivers all its business applications via standard web browsers to the desktop. It has created a place where these applications can be accessed via the web, cellphone, LAN, WAN or wireless - whether staff are at their desk, a remote location anywhere around the world, or even from a local Internet Caf'e.

The company has credited Citrix`s MetaFrame and NFuse as the cornerstone of its move to an application server environment, which allowed Grinaker-LTA MEIP to change the way it delivers business critical applications to its workforce. Once its application server computing solution was in place, it was a short step for the construction company to implement Citrix Nfuse, the application portal software which allows the company to publish unmodified business applications to a standard Web browser.

Nfuse provides a corporate portal or gateway to Grinaker-LTA MEIP`s applications and data, which is analogous to familiar Internet portals that provide a gateway to Web content.

Grinaker-LTA MEIP, or LTA Autecon MEIP as it was known before LTA Construction merged with Grinaker, realised in 1999 that they needed a thin client or application server computing solution: "We had many distributed sites and needed to roll-out our ERP solution, as well as future applications, quickly with little hassle," says the company`s IS manager, Pieter Le Roux.

"With our small IT department, we needed a way to easily administer our business applications - these range from budgeting and inventory control, estimating, tasks and word processing to on-site control, ERP and site management software - as well as attend to all IT and support requests," says the company`s IT Manager, John Lamb

Le Roux adds that its 400+ PCs - of which 150 constantly connect to head office - some in remote locations, were in factory environments where their conditions deteriorated rapidly, and theft at remote sites was a concern. "We realised that we had to go the thin route. In fact, the thinner the better," he says.

To do this, Grinaker-LTA MEIP, implemented an application server software solution of Citrix MetaFrame 1.8 and Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition software.

At its remote sites, where most of the construction and engineering activity of the company takes place, they had to push the power machines, running stand-alone systems to these sites. They wanted to take the old computers and reuse them at Head Office. "In terms of a Total Cost of Ownership, management loved it," emphasises Le Roux.

"Our whole strategy is focused on providing Internet Information Services. We want to make our applications available to everyone in the company, and very soon after successfully implementing Citrix we decided to add Citrix Nfuse to make these applications available via the Internet." says Lamb.

In addition, due to the impending merger between LTA and Grinaker and the anticipated growth associated with this, the IT department knew the pressures that would be extended on its administration even more. The company installed Citrix Nfuse early this year and was assisted by Troye Computer Systems, a Citrix partner.

Helen Kr"uger, from Troye comments: "Companies are spending millions of Rands rewriting their applications to web enable them. This is costly, and to be able to deliver them across the Internet, these companies have to reduce certain features. With NFuse you can keep all the features of your applications. Just add Nfuse and you get instant web enablement."

At the moment Grinaker-LTA MEIP has provided access to 40 out of its 150 users who regularly connect to the office, and it hopes to purchase another forty by the end of 2002. Le Roux comments that by the end of 2003 the entire head office of Grinaker-LTA MEIP will be Citrix, with no standalone PCs.

Commenting on the access to applications via remote locations, Le Roux says: "Our applications are made available to every person who needs access, even via a dial up or a cell phone. We do not have a big WAN topology as getting data lines installed while we are on-site is mostly not feasible.

"The Citrix solution allows anyone - be they at slow speeds using dial-up or in a remote location such as Mozambique, where using a cell phone is a necessity - to launch NFuse from the Intranet, access an application, do the necessary task or calculation, and log off. It is that simple."

Le Roux comments that the longest part of the entire installation process was setting up the security policies and procedures to ensure that access permissions were assigned to the correct people. "It took one week to install Citrix MetaFrame, and the actual physical Nfuse installation took about a half hour, after all the planning was done" he says.

"It was awesome that we could change our delivery of applications in such a short space of time, and it was so simple to put in place." One would think that with the benefits that Grinaker-LTA MEIP has achieved, a solution like this would cost an arm and a leg.

"Not so," says Le Roux, "the total project cost under R200 000. A large portion of the cost savings were due to the fact we could reuse our old PCs. We just made a sound software investment."