OMW & Terminal Server

I have a developer at a remote site using Citrix to access JDE. He goes in OMW selects and object then goes to design and gets a message "Terminal Server - Not Authorized". Is this a limit of TSE?

Yes, It is, You are not supposed to do development acivities using citrix clients.

You can turn it one by adding the following line to the JDE.INI on the Terminal Server:
[DEBUG]
OWDEVELOPER=TRUE

However, this configuration has a number of caveats.

marblehead,
If you consider that many TSE configurations use Citrix and also have a "farm" to do load balancing of multiple servers. So you login to TSE1 and check out or create some objects. You leave for the day and when you return in the morning you login to the farm. Thanks to the loadbalancing feature you are directed to the TSE4 box and although your objects show that they are checked out, you are unable to check them in. It is because they exist on the local drive of TSE1 and you are on TSE4 right now. Therefore the best way to do development is on a single fat client PC with remote control software, it avoids all of the caveats and limitations that TSE introduses.

There, that should make it clear as mud now.

If your going to do development on a Citrix Server, there are a lot of worries. Performance, corruption of specs are a couple good ones. But you can however create versions and such, which a lot of times is good enough. But as far as developing from Citrix, most just say it is too much to try and manage....

Hey Marblehead,

As posted earlier, you can set up the ini file to allow development on your citrix box and make sure your guy always gets the same server, not just one allocated out of a farm.

Also, your developer should work in his own pathcode, not one such as DV7333 that is used by anyone else on that server. The reason is that the spec files are shared. This is fine when multiple users are reading them, but your developer is writing them - bad if someone reads them halfway through his write. Much worse is two developers writing at the same time. As long as your guy has his own pathcode you should find this works ok and the performance is far better than using VNC or PCAnywhere.

Cheers,
JohnO

Actually

There is a method of performing development on a Terminal Server - which is a recommended method created by a JDE whitepaper written by Alan Jacot entitled "Remote Development Using Citrix and a Windows Terminal Server"

Of course, under the new KG3 - I spent about an hour looking for this whitepaper to no avail, so cannot provide a link right now.

However, the text is as follows :

In order to perform remote development through OneWorld® you need to ensure that you have the proper hardware. You will need to have at least the minimum requirements for a terminal server. You can find these on J.D. Edwards’ web site. You will also need additional disk space requirements. Since each remote development user will need their own path code, which is roughly 2.5 Gigabytes each.

Number of Users

Due to the higher impact of development work the number of users that you will be able to have on a single machine will be lower then a “normal” terminal server. Generally a terminal server can support 40 production users. You should be able to support 15 concurrent remote developers per terminal server.

Deploying a Package to the Remote Development Terminal Server

To deploy a package to the server you will need to use the add/remove programs application located in the control panel. This is the standard procedure for deploying a package to a terminal server. The only difference with a remote development server is that you need to manually copy the B7 directory into different directories.
Installing the OneWorld® package to the terminal server. Go to start/settings/control panel.

Double click on the add/remove programs icon. This will take you into the add/remove programs window. The example below is from a machine running Windows 2000, but Windows NT® is very similar.

Press the add new programs button. This will bring up a screen that asks you where you would like to install the software from. In windows 2000 press the floppy/CD-ROM button. Then press the browse button and find the OneWorld® client Install directory on your deployment server. You will need to have a mapped network drive to your deployment server.


Select the setup.exe in the OneWorld® client install directory on your deployment server. This will take you into the standard OneWorld® client installation. This will create a B7 directory, containing the OneWorld® client software, on your terminal server.

Directory Structure

In order to successfully accomplish remote development, on a windows terminal server, you must ensure that each remote developer has their own set of OneWorld® specifications. This means that developers will have their own path code or path codes, and system directory. What you need to do is create a directory with same name as the each of your remote developers’ Windows NT® logon. You then need to copy the contents of the B7 directory into this new directory. You will then have a directory similar to the example given below. You are doing this so that each remote user has their own OneWorld® specifications to work against and thus development work will not corrupt the server.

Example Directory Structure
Jacotall
PY7333

Bin32
Data
Include
Lib32
Make
Obj
Res
Source
Work
Spec

System
JDE.INI

Now that each remote developer has his or her own directory structure you now need to let the OneWorld® software know to use this directory structure. The way that a windows terminal server works with OneWorld® is that the JDE.INI file under the WINNT directory is copied into each users’ windows directory under the profile of each terminal server user. This is the JDE.INI file that you will need to modify for each user and ensure that it is kept up to date. You will need change the INSTALL section of each remote developer’s JDE.INI file to point the OneWorld® software to the correct directory structure on the windows terminal server. An example is shown below.

INSTALL
B7=D:\Jacotall

OWDEVELOPER GROUP

One of the final steps in creating a remote development server is creating a local user group named OWDEVELOPER. This local group is what enables the OneWorld® development tools on the terminal server, such as Forms Design Aid (FDA). The OneWorld® software is coded to look for this group if your remote developer’s NT login is a part of this local group then they will be able to use the OneWorld® design tools. This is why you need to add your remote developers’ NT login into this group.

Common Questions and Answers

Question:
Is Citrix a requirement for setting up a remote development terminal server?
Answer:
No, Citrix is not a requirement for setting up a remote development terminal server. However, the Citrix software does greatly enhance the performance of terminal servers and thus it is recommended that you use Citrix when setting up a remote development windows terminal server.

Question:
Does J.D. Edwards have any clients currently using remote development with through a windows terminal server?
Answer:
Yes, J.D. Edwards does have clients who have successfully implemented and are currently using remote development through a windows terminal server.


Hope that all helps. Sorry I couldn't find the link.

Lastly, the point I was making above is that the users shared drive COULD be on a shared networked drive, rather than "local" to the Terminal Server. As long as a VERY high-speed connection between the Terminal Server and this shared drive exists, it works perfectly well - and you'll never hit the "spec file locked" error again.

I run this currently at a company that has outsourced development to India, and it works perfectly well with 50 developers on performing development all the time !

I can even build packages on Citrix this way !

(make sure you FULLY understand all implications prior to implementing the above).

Altquark,

Once you had this setup, did you create a seperate instance of JDE in your published applications within Citrix for each developer, then publish that app to a single server in your farm?

ScottB
PS EnterpriseOne on W2K SP3, Update 4 SP21, SQL 2000, Citrix 1.8/XP

Hi Scott,
There have been numerous discussions regarding development on a Citrix server. Try the search facility. Also, you don't have to republish the app, you use the jde.ini for that user to point to a seperate instance of the B7 directory. I have found that it is often useful to have a desktop to start off from.
Also, check the knowledge garden for the following white paper:
"Remote development using citrix and a terminal server".
Regards,
Dave
ps: it's really pretty easy.

Yes - it is possible to create a published app, but not recommended to balance the app across multiple servers unless you are certain that you are hitting same specification directory.

Usually Developers are satisfied with a single Citrix server for development .