We are evaluating hospital automation softwares for a new hospital. In this hospital we plan to use thin clients on VDA OS. Most of the alternatives that we evaluate are web based. One of the alternative software is a good candidate for us thinking the functions of the software, price and company's support. However this application is designed in client-server architecture.
I am not familiar to VDI. I haven't used it yet. We just plan to use it for the hospital for the first time. I am not sure using client-server architecture is proper for thin clients thinking the performance of the system.
The number of users is important in this concept. We think that around 500+ users will exists. In VDI client (which is in reality stored in the server) every user will work as if he is working in its own pc. But in reality will connect to the server. Using an exe based program in this hardware architecture frightens me . The company says that using exe based program in this hardware architecture will not be a problem. But they don't have a reference working in VDA environment.
I need help in evaluating these hospital automation software from an expert :)
Thank you
Related
Here is my question:
Is tere any service or technology to run parallel algorythms on more computer without knowing them?
For example: I write a parallel algorythm. My friends install a simple client app, and if they have internet connection, they can help my calculation with their free processor capacity. I would like to see them like an additional core in my CPU.
If there is no technology like that, is there any unsolvable problems with developing one? (I know there must be a lot problems with code trasfering, operation systems, and compatibility)
I believe that you can use BOINC to set up your own volunteer computing project. But I have no experience of this to report.
Apologies if the question appears ambiguous, I have little experience in this area and was after some informed opinions.
I am deploying a test scenario of a server/client network and need to make some choices for Server.
The client will be a Windows system as it meets the requirements for the client, the server choice has more room for selection.
From my experience with Linux in general and the appealing nature of open source for low cost, security etc and the availability and performance of database and web server programs I have been considering CentOS as a server choice.
How well does this operate with Windows clients?
Am I being too selective and creating unnecessary complication by setting out not to use a Windows Server OS?
Well, yes, very ambiguous!
Essentially, your client / server network will be dependent on one thing - clients are Windows, do you want to authenticate using Active Directory? Yes? Then you'll need Windows servers too.
It really depends on what your test scenario is aimed at testing and without significantly more detailed information as to what your end goal is, we'll be at a loss to help you.
This question would actually be better placed on the Server Fault site, unless your ultimate goal is an environment in which to test application development.
My question is one I have pondered around when working on a demanding network application that would explicitly share a task across the network using a server to assign the job to each computer individually and "share the load".
I wondered: could this be done in a more implicit manner?
Question
Is there a possibility of distributing processor intensive tasks around a voluntary and public network of computers to make the job run more efficiently without requiring the job's program or process to be installed on each computer?
Scenario
Lets say we have a ridiculously intensive mathematics scenario where I am trying to get my computer to calculate every prime factorization break down for all numbers from 1 to 10,000,000 and store them in a database (assuming I have the space and that the algorithms are already implemented in their own class, program, dynamic link library or any runnable process.)
Now it would be more efficient to share this burdening process across a network or on a multi-core super computer, however these are both expensive. To my knowledge you would require a specifically designed program to run the specific algorithm and have the program installed across the said cloud/distributed computing network whilst you have a server keep track of what each computer is doing (ie. what number they are currently calculating the primes for).
Conclusion
Overall:
Would it be possible to create a cloud program / OS / suite
where you could share processor time
for an unspecified type of process?
If so how would you implement it, where would you start?
Would you make an OS dedicated to being able to run unspecified non-explicit tasks or would it be possible to do with a cloud enabled program installed on volunteers computers volunteers who were willing to share a percentage of their processor clock to help the general community).
If this was implementable, would you be a voluntary part of the greater cloud?
I would love to hear everyone's thoughts and possible solutions as this would be a wonderful project to start.
I have been dealing with the same challenge for the last few months.
My conclusions thus far:
The main problem with using a public network (internet) for cloud computing is in addressing the computers through NATs and firewalls. Solving this is non-trivial.
Asking all participants to open ports in their firewalls and configure their router for port-forwarding is generally too much to ask for 95% of users and can pose severe security threats.
A solution is to use a registration server where all peers register themselves and can get in contact with others. Connections are kept open by server and communication is routed through server. There are several variations. However, in all scenario's, this requires vast resources to keep everything scalable and is therefore out of reach for anyone but large corporations.
More practical solutions are offered by commercial cloud platforms like Azure (for .Net) or just the .Net ServiceBus. Since everything runs in the cloud, there will be no problems with reaching computers behind NATs and firewalls, and even if you need to do so to reach "on-premise" computers or those of clients, this can be done through the ServiceBus.
Would you trust someone else's code to run on your computer?
Its more practical to not ask their permission: ;)
I once wrote a programming competition solver written with Haxe in a Flash banner on a friend's fairly popular website...
I would not expect a program which allow "share processor time for an unspecified type of process". An prerequisite of sharing processor time is that the task can divided into multiple sub tasks.
To allow automatic sharing of processor time for any dividable task, the key of solution would be an AI program clever enough to know how to divide a task into sub task, which does not seems realistic.
I work for a small dotcom which will soon be launching a reasonably-complicated Windows program. We have uncovered a number of "WTF?" type scenarios that have turned up as the program has been passed around to the various not-technical-types that we've been unable to replicate.
One of the biggest problems we're facing is that of testing: there are a total of three programmers -- only one working on this particular project, me -- no testers, and a handful of assorted other staff (sales, etc). We are also geographically isolated. The "testing lab" consists of a handful of VMWare and VPC images running sort-of fresh installs of Windows XP and Vista, which runs on my personal computer. The non-technical types try to be helpful when problems arise, we have trained them on how to most effectively report problems, and the software itself sports a wide array of diagnostic features, but since they aren't computer nerds like us their reporting is only so useful, and arranging remote control sessions to dig into the guts of their computers is time-consuming.
I am looking for resources that allow us to amplify our testing abilities without having to put together an actual lab and hire beta testers. My boss mentioned rental VPS services and asked me to look in to them, however they are still largely very much self-service and I was wondering if there were any better ways. How have you, or any other companies in a similar situation handled this sort of thing?
EDIT: According to the lingo, our goal here is to expand our systems testing capacity via an elastic computing platform such as Amazon EC2. At this point I am not sure suggestions of beefing up our unit/integration testing are going to help very much as we are consistently hitting walls at the systems testing phase. Has anyone attempted to do this kind of software testing on a cloud-type service like EC2?
Tom
The first question I would be asking is if you have any automated testing being done?
By this I mean mainly mean unit and integration testing. If not then I think you need to immediately look into unit testing, firstly as part of your build processes, and second via automated runs on servers. Even with a UI based application, it should be possible to find software that can automate the actions of a user and tell you when a test has failed.
Apart from the tests you as developers can think of, every time a user finds a bug, you should be able to create a test for that bug, reproduce it with the test, fix it, and then add the test to the automated tests. This way if that bug is ever re-introduced your automated tests will find it before the users do. Plus you have the confidence that your application has been tested for every known issue before the user sees it and without someone having to sit there for days or weeks manually trying to do it.
I believe logging application activity and error/exception details is the most useful strategy to communicate technical details about problems on the customer side. You can add a feature to automatically mail you logs or let the customer do it manually.
The question is, what exactly do you mean to test? Are you only interested in error-free operation or are you also concerned how the software is accepted at the customer side (usability)?
For technical errors, write a log and manually test in different scenarios in different OS installations. If you could add unit tests, it could also help. But I suppose the issue is that it works on your machine but doesn't work somewhere else.
You could also debug remotely by using IDE features like "Attach to remote process" etc. I'm not sure how to do it if you're not in the same office, likely you need to build a VPN.
If it's about usability, organize workshops. New people will be working with your application, and you will be video and audio recording them. Then analyze the problems they encountered in a team "after-flight" sessions. Talk to users, ask what they didn't like and act on it.
Theoretically, you could also built this activity logging into the application. You'll need to have a clear idea though what to log and how to interpret the data.
On the software development projects that you have worked on, what has been the approximate cost (expressed as a percentage of total system cost) of system integration? System integration includes integrating with other software, databases, etc.
33.3% because system integration is usually associated with a fair amount of risk that is not as prevalent in other phases of the projects (coding, documentation, etc).
This is a very difficult value to estimate, especially when you are facing integrating with a system that you are not familiar with. The best you can do is track you or your team's past performance on similar projects and use those values to try to estimate how you will perform on new projects.
Generally, system integration will take longer if:
It uses a protocol, database engine, operating system, etc. that you or your team have not yet worked with.
Vendor or community support is lacking or unresponsive.
Official system documentation is not detailed enough or is out of date.
The system does not have large global market share. Such a system will not have a wide user base and a big footprint in online programming Q&A sites such as this one. This may include new, less popular, or highly domain-bound systems.
Between 0 and 99%. I have built systems with no integration at all and systems that were basically just integration of other systems. The nice thing about integration can be that it is easy to estimate. But only when the interface is fully understood. Then it is just a duplication of functionality.
There are some complicating factors, though. They can make it very expensive to impossible:
is the system you have to integrate with well understood (do the programmers who developed it still work there?)
is the system you have to integrate with well-refactored (and has automated unit and acceptance tests)?
single or multiple platform?
are domain experts available?
It depends on the integrated system's importance and other factors.
I've worked in systems with integration in a bunch of web services that were the application's core. If the web services were down, our system was simply useless.
I would list the following variables when trying to evaluate the cost:
How many systems do you integrate and how frequently are they changed?
Do you have documentation to these systems?
Is it a third party component/service that you have no control of?
If you have control over the integrated system, does it use too much "legacy" code, like COBOL; (just an example, at least where I work COBOL programmers are expensive);
Are your employees experienced with the integrated system and with the application itself?
In case of failure of the integrated service, what is the impact on your application?
How much is an employee's hour rate in these scenarios? How many hours they would need to work on these integrated systems? How much money do you have for your project? I can't say it's going to cost X% on your case without knowing these details, specially the last one.