Technical Reference Manual - InduSoft

About thin clients and mobile access
About thin clients and mobile access
This section describes how to make your project accessible to web thin clients and mobile devices.
InduSoft Web Studio is built on a server/client architecture that can support both thick clients and thin
clients. The choice of the type of client depends upon your system requirements:
• A thick client is a computer that performs most, if not all, of the processing activity during project run
time. It has sufficient processing power, memory, and graphics to run the complete project files, and it
only exchanges data (i.e., function syncronization and tag value changes) with the project runtime server
as needed. (A project runtime server can also be a thick client to another server.)
In IWS, thick clients are handled through Remote Management.
• A thin client is a computer that depends primarily on the project runtime server for processing. It only
needs to have a network connection to get screens and data from the server and a web browser to display
the screens to the user.
Thin Clients in IWS
InduSoft Web Studio allows you to create screens that can be viewed on a remote station in a regular web
browser. The station where the user can view the screens is called the thin client.
Typical thin client architecture
The actual InduSoft Web Studio software is installed only on the server station. All project files — the
tags database, screen files, and task worksheets — are stored on the server, and all background and
communication tasks are executed on the server.
The thin client simply loads your project's graphical interface (i.e., the screens containing objects and
animations) as needed and then uses that interface to represent data (i.e., tag values) on the server. You do
not need to install the IWS development application or any of the project files on the thin client.
This solution provides a high level of flexibility because any computer that has a network connection to the
server station (via TCP/IP) can access the project during run time.
Note: Since screens and screen objects may contain scripting, using VBScript and/or the IWS
Scripting Language, these scripts are executed on the thin client.
Competitive Advantages of Thin Clients
InduSoft Web Studio is built on a server/client architecture that supports true thin clients. This capability is
built into IWS and is not an add-on. This means that:
• The project runtime server can support a large number of simultaneous thin client connections. Each thin
client can view the same or different screens as another thin client.
• The server knows which screen each thin client is viewing and automatically "pushes" any tag value
changes to the thin client, thereby eliminating the need for browser refreshes.
• The server can support run-time language switching for each thin client, which means that one thin client
can display a screen in English while another thin client can display the same screen in Spanish.
InduSoft Web Studio Page 431