Richard Kuntz
Monmouth University
West Long Branch, NJ 07764
(732) 571-3408
(kuntz@monmouth.edu)

Abstract:

This paper discusses some of the issues involved in setting up and administering the Microsoft Terminal Server to support the mathematics curriculum at Monmouth University.

The Windows2000 Terminal Services provides terminal support to the Windows2000 Server. Terminal Services is a multisession environment that provides remote computers access to resources on the server. The specific feature that will be discussed is the Terminal Services Advance Client. It is a Microsoft ActiveX Control that is added to Internet Explorer to provide Terminal Services over the Web.

The author will describe the setup procedures and basic security settings that will permit students to access the resources in the mathematics laboratory at Monmouth University.

A demonstration will be provided to illustrate how the services will be implemented for the Fall 2001 term.

Instructional Setting:

Monmouth University is a private, comprehensive, teaching university enrolling approximately 4500 students of which 3200 are full-time undergraduate students. The University is located in the central shore area of New Jersey - about 55 miles south of New York City.

The Mathematics Department has eleven full-time faculty members. The Mathematics Majors program at the University enrolls over 60 full-time equivalent students; a significant number of those students are dual-majors - mathematics and education. As with most institutions of today, a substantial part of the teaching responsibility of the Mathematics Department is directed toward instruction for non-majors with many in the non-science disciplines. The largest single group serviced by the Department consists of those students majoring in programs within the School of Business Administration.

Like many (most) higher educations institutions of today, the University boasts of a wired campus. At Monmouth, this includes connections to all campus buildings and to each room in the residence halls. At the present time, the University is completing a plan to wire all classrooms with video and data and to install computer-supported video display units that are connected to the campus network. There are currently 27 computer laboratory/classrooms and 25 classrooms with permanently installed video display units.

The Mathematics Department has a computer laboratory with 30 computers, a laboratory classroom with 15 computers and a video projection system, and access to two other classrooms with video projection systems. All computers in the Mathematics Department are pentium 266 or higher units running either WindowsNT 4.0 or Windows2000 operating system. The main software products used by the department are: MS Office Productivity Suite, Maple 6.02, MiniTab, Geometer's SketchPad, InteractiveDE, Advanced Grapher, and Euphoria.

Project Objective:

In 1996, the Mathematics Department adopted a three-year strategic plan to increase the use of technology in the course offerings: Technology Infusion Objective. The salient features of the objective were:

· Increase the use of computer laboratory exercises.
· Increase the use of computer laboratory assignments.
· Provide access to a repertoire of Video Tapes.
· Provide Web-based Course Study Guides.
· Provide Web-based Class Notes.
· Provide Web-based Are You Ready? - Practice Tests.
· Increase the use of Class wide "question-answer" discussion groups (collaborative technologies).

The department has made substantial progress in achieving the aforementioned goals. Early in the fall 2000 term, the department began to revise and update the goals and objectives. At that time, it was agreed that the next step in the technology infusion component was to provide a means for students to access the resources that have been made available in the mathematics laboratory environment. Those resources include: application software, in particular Maple, sample files and worksheets, and template worksheets for homework assignments. As a result of those discussions, a pilot project was conducted to install the Microsoft Terminal Services software on an existing computer and provide local terminal access. By the start of the spring 2001 term, the experimental server was in place and available for limited local use. It was restricted to intranet use only. Students were able to access the server from any University workstation on campus and from their personal computers in the residence hall, provided they subscribed the the campus network service.

Since the initial installation was a pilot project, the service was not widely advertised. A small section, a laptop section of Math118 - Quantitative Analysis II for Business Students, met in a "lab top" configured classroom. Students in that section were granted access to the server. As a result, the students were able to access the mathematics laboratory resources from their classroom desks. The instructor was able to have students access the materials without having to disrupt the flow of the class by moving to the computer laboratory. In addition, the author advertised the availability of the feature to students in his class. It is not known how many students took advantage of the service. However speculation is that very few did since there were no explicit requirements. It was intended just as an optional resource for them during the spring pilot period.

Terminal Services Main Features:

The Terminal Services application within the Windows2000 Server environment provides remote access to a Windows2000 desktop through a "thin-client" model. The Terminal Services application running on the server transmits only the user interface to the client computer. The client computer transmits only keyboard and mouse clicks back to be process on the server. The application programs execute on the server. Each client session is managed transparently by the server operating system.

Terminal Services communicates with client computers in either of two ways: full local client installation or through an ActiveX control within Internet Explorer.

The full client software can be installed on a variety of computer hardware platforms. The communication between Terminal Services server and the client computer takes place over a local area network using any of the Windows2000 supported networking protocols. In addition, communications can be effected through web-based technologies using Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher. In the latter case, it is called the Terminal Services Advanced Client (TSAC).

Terminal Services Advanced Client is implemented through a Microsoft ActiveX control that is invoked from within a web document. The ActiveX control is designed to deliver essentially the same functionality as the full client software that is installed on the client computer.

The Terminal Services application running on the server has the significant advantage of providing to the user a consistent user interface to a controlled environment. One that is ideally suited for academic applications, where the goal is to have students run a specific application, and where the application may be required to access a specific dataset. Students need not have the application installed on their own computers. The advantage of TSAC is that the requisite ActiveX control can be downloaded and installed on a client computer without any direct interaction with the user. There is no setup program with parameters to be set and decisions to be made. The ActiveX control is downloaded to a client computer only once. From that time forward, a web page initiating the TSAC executes transparently.

In addition to functioning as an application server, the Terminal Services application can function as an administrative tool to administer other Windows2000 computers in a local domain. However, it cannot function both as an application server and as a administration server.

Computer Hardware Support Terminal Services:

In February 2001, the Mathematics Department acquired a new server to support the project. It was a Dell-Power Edge 2450, Pentium III 1GHz Server. The main configuration components are: 640 MB of ECC memory and 2 18 GB SCII Drives

The recommended configuration guidelines for a Terminal Services application are:
Approximately 20-40 MB of RAM for a typical client session. A "power user" might require 40MB or more of RAM.
A Pentium II running at 400 MHz can support 15 to 20 typical users. With "power users," the number could easily be one-half of that.

Network bandwidth requires 2 to 6 Kps for a typical user during a communication cycle. Applications involving a high level of graphics will require more network bandwidth during the communication cycle.
Since Terminal Services is part of Windows2000 Server core software, no substantial disk space is required. Disk space on the server depends entirely upon a local policy on user disk allocation.

Terminal Services Setup Procedures:

It is recommended that Terminal Services be installed on a member server in a Domain and not on a Domain Controller. Setting up Terminal Services is straightforward. It can be done at the time of the installation of the server software or at a later date. Best practices indicate the latter procedure. The server configuration wizard contained in the Administration Tools folder in the Setting - Control Panel folder is easy. There is basically one question: the question on whether the application should be configured as an application server or as an administrative server.

As described above, when using the TSAC option, client software setup is transparent to both the user and the system administrator. Installation of the software on the server and the client machine is not the difficult part.

The major parts that require a level of Windows2000 Server expertise are:

Setting up user logons and security.
Installing the TSAC application software on the server.
Designing the html documents that support the TSAC application.
Installing the application software that will be accessed through the Terminal Services environment.

User Logons and Security:

There is a collection of four tabs in the Active Directory Users Properties menu that relate to Terminal Server Users. Most of the default settings appear to be satisfactory. The key selection is under the Terminal Services Profile tab. There is a check box to grant permission to logon to a Terminal Server. It appears if that check box is set, then the user can attempt to logon to any terminal server for which the user has been granted permission.

Two other tabs that contain some options worth considering. The Environment Tab has a selection for specifying what program the user executes at logon. The Sessions Tab has selections specifying actions to be taken relative to connect times. When to disconnect; maximum length of a connected session.

Installing TSAC:

The ActiveX control for the TSAC is installed through the program "Tswebsetup.exe" which is found on the Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 CD or through a download from the Microsoft site. Just do a search on TSAC. Running the executable on the target Terminal Server will install the necessary files in the default directory C:\Inetpub\Wwwroot\Tsweb. The author experienced a little difficulty when moving some, but not all, of the files to a different directory. A word to the wise is to keep all the files installed through the setup program together in the same directory. From the author's experience, the mstscax.cab (My guess it means "microsoft terminal server client active x") file must be in the same directory as the web pages that invokes the ActiveX control object.

The Microsoft terminal server download web package contains two other setup programs: Tsmmcsetup.exe and Tsmsisetup.exe. These setup programs install some management tool snap-ins for the Microsoft Management Console. Even though not necessary, it is probably best to run all three setup programs.

Designing html Pages:

The Tswebsetup.exe program installs three sample web pages. One is the default document for the directory. The other two are sample "asp" documents that actually perform the connection via the ActiveX control within IE. These sample pages form a basis for the connection and can be edited to match a University's motif. At the present time, we are working on an enhanced introduction with instructions and help files to assist students in the process of logging on to the service and to provide a mechanism for selecting among the applications that will become available.

Installing Applications:

All applications to be supported by Terminal Services should be installed after the Services have been setup. Terminal Services must be made aware that an application will be running in a multi-user mode. Also, there is another trick in setting up an application. Terminal Services runs in "user mode" and "install mode." All applications must be installed when Terminal Services is operating in install mode. The best way is ensure this is to install all programs through the Microsoft Add/Remove programs option in Control Panel. This procedure automatically places Terminal Services in install mode. If an application attempts to start its own install outside of the Add/Remove Programs menu, it is recommended that the install be aborted and restarted through the menu.

It goes without saying, there is no guarantee that a specific application can function in a multi-user environment under Terminal Services. Even Microsoft had to develop some patches to have their office programs operate under Terminal Services. Instructions on the patch are available at the Microsoft site.

Initial Implementation:

Since our goal is to extend the resources beyond the mathematics laboratory, we will be using only the Web-based TSAC application and not the network based full client.

The initial implementation of TSAC will be to support the algebra system, Maple. From our experience, most, if not all, mathematics majors will obtain a copy of Maple within the first couple of semesters at Monmouth. The goal is to enhance student experience in the technical courses for non-mathematics majors. It is unrealistic to expect students in those courses to acquire a copy of Maple. Having it available to them, provided they have access to a computer, will enhance their experiences in the courses.

The first course that will immediately benefit from the implementation will be Math 117-118, a two course sequence in quantitative analysis in business processes. A substantial amount of computer laboratory work has already been incorporated into the sequence. The presence of the server will extend the resources to an anywhere anytime availability.

Problems and Unanswered Questions:

One of the major inconveniences of the TSAC application over the full client implementation is the concept of client computer drive mappings. The full client creates drive mappings to the client computer drives. This permits easy transferring of files to and from the Terminal Services application. In particular, students would be able to save partially completed work on their own private hard drive, then at a later time restart a Terminal Session and pick up where they left off. TSAC does not permit local drive mapping. The author has not found any indication that the feature will be incorporated in TSAC in the near future.

TSAC does support local printing. The default printer on the client machine is accessible to a TSAC user. Consequently, even though students won't be able to save their work to their own local hard drive, they will be able to print out the result.

Some of the literature claim that TSAC supports clipboard redirection. This feature would permit copying and pasting between an application running on the Terminal Server and an application running locally on the client computer. However, the author has been unable to get that feature working properly. More study needs to be done on that advertised feature.

All in all, TSAC appears to be able to meet the objectives stated at the beginning of this paper.

Future:

Depending on the outcome of the fall 2001 experience, Terminal Services applications will be expanded to include other software. In particular, there are some simple graphing packages that would be of great utility in the basic level mathematics course if they were readily available and presented a consistent and easy to use interface. The Mathematics Department provides substantial service in basic statistics courses. In our Mathematics Laboratory, some of the sections have laboratory experiences using MiniTab. This would be another candidate for a Terminal Services application.