IT is critical to business delivery. Wide Area Networking enables businesses to deliver centralised IT systems to the far corners of their enterprise. It enables instant communication and data interchange between branches.

With the current state of networks in India, remote application delivery is fraught with problems. Most wide area networks (WAN) are created using virtual private networking (VPN) over the Internet. Internet connectivity itself may be delivered over leased lines or DSL. The reliability of this connectivity is not such that IT managers can take their WAN for granted.

Keeping the Network Alive

Given the total dependence of the enterprise on the WAN, failures cause immediate disruption of work, and branch users start calling the central office for support. It is therefore important for all stakeholders to be immediately informed of network failures, and to begin fixing the problem as soon as it occurs.

The right information is key to solving network problems. It helps people work together and resolve issues. Network Management Systems help the IT team stay on top of their network.

How can Thinvent help you maintain your network?

Thinvent has been founded with engineers who have more than fifteen years of experience in managing networks. We understand that reachability tests are insufficient to determine the health of a modern network. Today’s users want application performance, which also needs to be measured, monitored, graphed and reported.

Key NMS Features:

• Monitors all critical network elements constantly.
• Immediately reports failures over email, SMS and web to all stakeholders – IT support, ISP and branch.
• Ascertains the exact nature of the fault.
• Overlay of network status on geographical maps.
• Automatic host detection and creation of configuration files.
• Built in tracking and collaboration system for acknowledgement and escalation of issues.
• High Availability and Distributed configurations.
• Reports and graphs that demonstrate availability and help negotiate SLAs with service providers.

Key Application Monitoring Features:

• Detects problems that inhibit application delivery at a remote site – port blocks, latency, congestion and packet drop.
• Monitors server performance – load, disk space, JVM threads, number of SQL queries or HTTP requests served per minute.
• Monitors application performance at remote site – such as the time it takes to load a web page.

Today, IT is critical to business delivery. Wide Area Networking enables businesses to deliver centralised IT systems to the far corners of their enterprise. It enables instant communication and data interchange between branches.

With the current state of networks in India, remote application delivery is fraught with problems. Most wide area networks (WAN) are created using virtual private networking (VPN) over the Internet. Internet connectivity itself may be delivered over leased lines or DSL. The reliability of this connectivity is not such that IT managers can take their WAN for granted.

Keeping the Network Alive

Given the total dependence of the enterprise on the WAN, failures cause immediate disruption of work, and branch users start calling the central office for support. It is therefore important for all stakeholders to be immediately informed of network failures, and to begin fixing the problem as soon as it occurs.

The right information is key to solving network problems. It helps people work together and resolve issues. Network Management Systems help the IT department stay on top of their networks.

How can Thinvent help you maintain your WAN?

• Thinvent has been founded by engineers who have more than fifteen years of experience in managing networks.
• We understand that reachability tests are insufficient to determine the health of a modern network. Today’s users want application performance, which also needs to be measured, monitored, graphed and reported.
• IT staff are no longer tethered to the NOC. We enable monitoring and management through mobile devices and the web, giving you the freedom to move around while still being in complete control.
• We provide a holistic solution that monitors your network, servers, as well as the data centre environment.

Key Features:

• Immediately reports failures over email, SMS and web to all stakeholders – IT support, service provider and branch manager.
• Comprehensive graphs and reports that demonstrate availability. We convert raw data into useful information that can be presented to senior management as well as service providers.
• Built in tracking and collaboration system for acknowledgement and escalation of issues.
• Distributed configuration enables local monitoring of regional offices even during a WAN outage.
• Failover configuration provides high availability.

Network Monitoring Features:

• Monitors all critical network elements constantly.
• Ascertains the exact nature of the fault.
• Provides overlay of network status on geographical maps.
• Automatic host detection and creation of configuration files.

Key Application Monitoring Features:

• Detects problems that inhibit application delivery at a remote site – port blocks, latency, congestion and packet drop.
• Monitors server performance – load, disk space, JVM threads, number of SQL queries and HTTP requests served per minute, etc.
• Monitors application performance at remote site – the time it takes to load a web page or synchronise a database.

Key Application Monitoring Features:

• Comes bundled in a self contained monitoring appliance.
• This solid state, flash based device is plug-and-play configurable in your network.
• It comes with its own robust Linux operating system, web based management, and comprehensive logging.

Thinvent’s Thinux is an Embedded Linux Operating Environment for thin client devices. This document lists the following important features of Thinux :

• Hardware
• Networking
• Software
• Applications
• Thin Client Protocols

Solutions for the Networked Client

Developers have always sought for new and innovative ways to take their applications to their users. For far too long, Windows based PCs and thin clients were the only client side systems available. Cloud computing has changed all that. With the ubiquity of the Internet and mobile devices, user expectations have completely transformed. Thinvent helps you reach your applications to this new generation of users.

Our software products have been devised with your needs in mind:

1. How can we rapidly deploy applications nationwide?
2. How does one interact with a plethora of client side peripherals, when using server side computing?
3. How do we monitor and manage this vast network of disparate devices?
4. How can different teams like network, hardware, data centre and application development, work together to rapidly resolve customer issues.
5. I can maintain server uptime at my data centre, but how to I deliver uptime in the field? Can server side applications be delivered on the clients, even when the network is unavailable? How do we synchronise data in such scenarios?

By resolving the above problems, we have enabled numerous government projects to scale to the farthest corners of the country.

Products

• Thinux – a complete desktop OS, that is easy to use, remotely manageable, and highly customisable.
• Managed Clients that lets you capitalise on the ruggedness of thin client hardware, while providing you all the features of a complete PC.
• Network Management System – End to end monitoring of your infrastructure – applications, databases, servers, clients, network, and client side peripherals such as printers.
• Remote Management and Monitoring – An integral part of Thinux, RMM lets you manage your devices through the browser, and also graphically monitor key performance indicators.

Network Management System

The entire suite is bundled in a hardware appliance which can be easily deployed at your data center. A distributed monitoring mode is also provided, where larger branches or zones can have their own monitoring appliance, reducing the complexity and bandwidth consumption of the system. The entire product is web based, facilitating usage from anywhere in the WAN or over the Internet.

Downloads

• Brochure of the NMS product

The Problem

Numerous excellent applications are being developed for business automation. However, these projects are unable to scale due to one major problem – client side issues. Hardware failures, software crashes, virus attacks, patch management, user training and tele-support – these are issues that confound CIOs even before the 1000 client mark is reached!

PC hardware and software fails to deliver the reliability that business demands. Neither have thin clients been very successful in India – the network reliability they require is simply not achievable in the current scenario.

Modern applications require access to a vast array of peripherals such as biometric and bar code scanners, thermal printer, etc. Developers require access to these in a uniform and device independent manner. So far, this has only been a pipe dream, both on the Windows and Linux platform.

The Solution -  Business Application Delivery

At Thinvent, we have successfully provided the solution to exactly these problems, to an illustrious list of demanding customers. We provide a robust client side software and hardware solution, that enables customers to deliver applications to the far reaches of their enterprise.

Server side web and terminal applications are well supported. In addition, we support client side binaries developed on platforms such as C, C++, .NET and VB. We also support the client side execution of web based applications, by bundling the J2EE stack and SQL databases with our client devices. This enables our customers to continue running applications on their clients when network connectivity is lost. When connectivity is restored, our system synchronises the client database with the central database. We thus provide the ability to deliver centralised business applications over an unreliable network

Our devices provide Indian language support to applications. We also provide APIs and SDKs for server or client side access of client side peripherals, in a device independent manner. We provide complete OS customisation and application development support, reducing time to market for our customers.

A Complete Managed Client

The client side OS image has a graphical and user friendly interface. It comes bundled with the secure and fast Mozilla Firefox browser, office applications, and commonly used utilities. Remote management and monitoring is a standard feature of all our products. The user interface can be customised and localised to suit the needs of different projects.

This is a fast, stable, secure and field proven product, designed for use in geographically dispersed yet demanding applications.

Downloads

• Datasheet of Thinvent’s Micro 5 Hardware for urban applications.
• Datasheet of Thinvent’s Managed Client Hardware for rural applications.

Projects

• Crew Management System – we provide managed client firmware with automatic network and printer failure detection, remote monitoring, centralised management, etc.
• Unified Ticketing Client – we provide firmware for unreserved and reserved passenger ticketing terminals.
• DSCBL – we provide firmware for Delhi State Cooperative Bank’s thin clients.

From cloud computing to Win32 binaries, we’ve made all kinds of business applications work on Thinux. Whether you are making a kiosk, a ticketing terminal, or interactive digital signage, Thinux can be adapted to meet your exact needs.

Features

• Factory reset functionality that removes any misconfiguration and allows the device to boot again.
• Read only, compressed image. Footprint as low as 64MB.
• Copy on write functionality permits on the fly changes to the file system.
• All forms of connectivity – Ethernet, DSL, 3G, GPRS, Wi-Fi, VSAT and VPN.
• Strong support for Indic localisation of applications and content.
• Remote management and monitoring through the web browser. Just point your browser to the IP address of the device, to disable devices, upgrade firmware and applications, monitor CPU temperature, etc.
• Preconfigured drivers for all manners of peripherals – biometric authentication, UPS control, smart card access, etc.
• Highly customisable UI that prevents misuse and ensures easy maintenance. Colour swatches on the task bar enable easy over-the-phone debugging of common problems such as loss of connectivity or printer malfunction.
• Support for disconnected working of server side applications. From J2EE apps to legacy terminal programs, we have ported all kinds of applications to run locally on the thin client in the case of a network failure. When connectivity is restored, the client and server data stores are synchronised in the background.

Links

• A Feature List of Thinux Embedded Linux
• Read more about our Solution for IT in India.
• Read about the Features of Thinux for Rural Tele-centre Operators.