IT Infrastructure Architecture

Infrastructure Building Blocks

and Concepts

End user devices

(Part 2)
 Printers
• Printers are used in almost all organizations to provide
paper output
• Most used printer types are:
– Laser printers
– Inkjet printers
– Multi-Functional Printers
– Specialized printers like:
• Dot matrix printers
• Line printers
• Plotters
• Thermal printers
 Laser printers
• A laser printer rapidly produces high
quality text and graphics on plain
sheets of paper
– Using ink powder, called toner
• In color printers four toners are
used, one for each basic color
– Cyan
– Magenta
– Yellow
– Black
• Each color is put on paper separately
 Laser printers
• The image is produced using a photoreceptive drum
• The drum is electrically charged using high voltages
• The drum is lightened with a laser beam, which
eliminates the electrostatic charge on all places,
except the image
• The electrostatic charge left on the drum attracts
toner that transfers the image on paper
• A fuser then heats the toner to burn it on paper
 Inkjet printers
• Inkjet printers create text and graphics by propelling
droplets of ink onto paper through high print head
resolution
• Benefits with respect to laser printers:
– No warm up time
– Use much less energy
– Relatively cheap
– Produce high quality printouts, usually in color
• Some professional inkjet printers provide wide format
printing, with a print width ranging from 75 cm to 5 m
– They can be used for instance to create advertising billboards
 Multi-Functional Printers (MFPs)
• A Multi-Function Printer
(MFP) is an office device that
acts as a:
– Printer
– Scanner
– Photocopier
– Fax machine
• Provides centralized
document management and
production in an office setting
 Multi-Functional Printers (MFPs)
• Printing on demand
– Printing only starts when a user is authenticated to the printer
– No printed paper with possibly sensitive text is left on the MFP
waiting to be collected
• MFPs contain:
– Memory
– Processors
– Storage, such as a hard disk drive or flash memory
– An operating system
• An MFP should be handled like a computer
– Patches must be installed
– The hard drive should be erased before repair
 Specialized printers - Dot Matrix printers
• In dot matrix printers, characters are
drawn out of a matrix of dots
– Each dot is produced by a tiny metal rod
driven forward by a tiny electromagnet
– The moving portion of the printer is called
the print head
• Prints one line of text at a time,
character-by-character
• Noisy during operation as a result of
the hammer-like mechanism in the
print head
• Uses continuous fanfold paper rather
than cut-sheets
 Specialized printers - Dot Matrix printers
• From the 1970s until the 1990s, dot matrix printers were by far
the most common type of printer used with personal
computers
• Dot matrix printers:
– Can print on multi-part stationery or make carbon-copies, used for
instance for printing invoices
– Have one of the lowest printing costs per page
– Use continuous paper rather than individual sheets
• Dot matrix printers are very reliable work horses and are
therefore still in use in many places
 Specialized printers - Line printers
• Line printers are high speed
printers that print one
complete line of text at once
– 600 to 1200 lines per minute
• Multiple technologies:
– Spinning drums
– Chains
– Bands
that contain the character set
Small hammers are used to push
the paper to the passing characters
at exactly the right moment,
putting the characters on paper
 Specialized printers - Line printers
• Line printers are especially well-suited to shop
floors and industrial environments
• They use continuous fanfold paper rather than
cut-sheets
• Line printers are physically more durable than
laser printers
• Their consumables are both less costly and
less harmful to the environment
 Specialized printers - Plotters
• A plotter is a specialized printer
that draws vector graphics using a
pen
• Mainly used in computer-aided
design, for creating blueprints
• Either the pen moves, or the paper
• Plotters can draw high quality
complex line art, including text
• They are slow because of the
mechanical movement of the pen
and paper
• Most plotters have been replaced
by large-format inkjet printers
 Specialized printers - Thermal printers
• A thermal printer produces a printed image
by selectively heating thermal paper when
the paper passes over the thermal print
head
– Thermal paper is impregnated with a chemical
that changes color when exposed to heat
• Thermal printers are
– Quiet
– Fast
– Small
– Low power
• Ideal for portable and retail applications like
point of sale terminals and voucher printers
• Drawback: the image disappears exposed to
sunlight or heat
 Desktop virtualization
• Virtualization technologies for end user
devices:
– Application virtualization
• Run applications on an underlying virtualized operating
system
– Virtualized PCs based on:
• Server Based Computing (SBC)
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 Application virtualization
• Application virtualization is typically implemented in a
Windows-based environment
• The term application virtualization is a bit misleading:
– The application itself is not virtualized
– The operating system resources the application uses are virtualized
• Application virtualization isolates applications from some
resources of the underlying operating system and from other
applications
– The application virtualization layer provides the application with
virtualized parts of the runtime environment normally provided by
the operating system
– The application assumes it is directly interfacing with the operating
system
Application virtualization
 Application virtualization
• The application virtualization layer:
– Proxies all requests to the operating system
– Intercepts all file and registry operations
– These are transparently redirected to a virtualized location, often a single
real file
• The application is working with one file, not many files and registry
entries spread throughout the system
– It becomes easy to run the application on a different computer
– Previously incompatible applications or application versions can be run side-
by-side
• Examples:
– Microsoft App-V
– VMware ThinApp
 Server Based Computing
• Server Based Computing
(SBC) is a concept where
applications and/or
desktops run on remote
servers
• They relay their virtual
display to the user's device
• Keyboard and mouse
information is processed
by the application on the
server
• The resulting display
changes are sent back to
the user device
 Server Based Computing
• The user’s device runs a lightweight application (a thin
client) that:
– Displays the video output from the server
– Fetches the keyboard strokes from the client
– Fetches mouse movements from the client
– Sends client input back to the application on the remote
server
• SBC requires a limited amount of network bandwidth:
– Only changed display information is sent to the end user
device
– Only keyboard strokes and mouse movements are sent to the
server
 Server Based Computing
• SBC is typically implemented in a Windows
based environment
• SBC products:
– Windows Remote Desktop Service (RDS, formerly
known as Windows Terminal Services)
– Citrix XenApp (formerly known as MetaFrame
Presentation Server)
• RDS is part of the Windows operating system
• XenApp provides more functionality than RDS,
but is a separate product
 Server Based Computing
• Advantages of SBC:
– Maintenance (like applying patches and upgrades) can
be done at the server level
– The changes are available instantly to all users
– Application configurations are the same for all users
• Disadvantages:
– Graphical properties of the SBC server are used instead
of that of the client end user device
– Limitations on the desktop experience (slow response or
keyboard lag) are mostly due to network latency or the
configuration of the remote desktop
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
• Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure (VDI) is a
similar concept as SBC
• In VDI, user
applications run in their
own virtual machine
• The hypervisor's
primary task is to
distribute available
hardware resources
between VDI machines
on a physical machine
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
• With VDI, each user has exclusive use of the operating
system, CPU, and RAM
– SBC users share these resources
– VDI enables applications and operating systems to run next to
each other in complete isolation without interference
• VDI tends not to scale well in terms of CPU resources and
storage IOPS
– Each client uses an entire virtual machine
– A 'Logon storm' occurs when many virtualized systems boot up
at the same time
– Logon storms can partly be prevented by pre-starting a
predefined number of virtual machines at configured time slots
 Thin clients
• VDI and SBC both enable the hosting of desktops on central
server farms and use the same protocols to deliver the
output of application screens to users
• Thin clients communicate with the SBC or VDI server
– Hardware:
• Lightweight computers, inexpensive, have no moving parts or local disk
drives
• Have no configuration; can be used directly after plugging them into the
network
• Easy to replace when one fails
• No regular upgrades or systems management needed
– Software:
• Applications running in a normal client operating system
• Runs on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones
End user devices availability
 Reliability
• End user devices’ hardware is much less reliable than hardware
installed in the datacentre
– To keep the cost low
– Designed to last only 3 to 5 years
• Mobile devices like laptops or tablets can get physically
damaged quite easily
– Leading to hardware failures
– Typical failures are hard disk crashes in laptops or screen cracks in
tablets
• A failing end user device immediately leads to downtime for a
user
– Loss of availability of business functions to the end user
 Backup of end user devices
• Backup of local disks is very important
– Most of the work worldwide is first saved to a local disk
on an end user device
– Automated synchronization of local data to a server can
be implemented
– For end users, it should be impossible to disable this
synchronization function
• End user devices should be protected from
random installs of potential bad software by end
users
End user devices performance
 End user device performance
• Performance of end user devices is in most cases not a
big issue
• PCs and laptops:
– Adding more RAM increases the performance more than
choosing a faster CPU
– A faster disk – preferably an SSD disk – can positively affect the
performance
• Most data processed on a PC of laptop is transferred
using the network
– Make sure enough bandwidth is available for each end user
device
 End user device performance
• Ensure software running on mobile devices is
capable of handling low bandwidth and
unreliable connectivity
– End user devices are often used with public
wireless networks (like public Wi-Fi, or 3G)
– Technologies like Server Based Computing can
help to make mitigate the effect of low bandwidth
End user devices security
 End user device security
• Securing end user devices is quite a challenge
– They are not located in a locked down datacentre
– They are spread around offices, homes and client locations
• Some tips:
– Provide users with laptop cable locks to physically lock the
laptop to an unmovable object to prevent theft.
– If end user devices are at the end-of-life, or when they need
repair, fully erase the hard disk first
– Malware protection software like a virus scanner needs to
be installed on each device
– Laptops and PCs can contain a large amount of (business
critical) data – encrypt the full hard disk!
 Mobile device management
• Mobile device management (MDM) can be
used to monitor, maintain and secure devices
that are not regularly connected to the
organization’s network
• When a mobile device is stolen, MDM enables
systems management to remotely erase the
device’s content
• Software to locate the stolen device can be
installed to help law enforcement locating the
device and arresting the thief
 End user authorizations and awareness
• End users should not be able to remove important software or alter
system files or log files
– They should not have the administrator password of their device
– When users need to install software, they could be given the right to do so,
without giving them the administrator password of their device
• BIOS passwords can be used on laptops and desktops to further
increase security
– BIOS setting should be applied to prevent booting from USB sticks or DVD
drives
• Users need to be aware of common security guidelines including:
– The possibility of social engineering
– Using strong passwords
– Knowing how to handle sensitive data