Sun Media wanted to have a remote group of users using a highly database dependent application and large InDesign files from an application server in Toronto. Running the database client as a fat application across their WAN wasn’t an option. All of their users were Mac users and they didn’t want to have to retrain them for Windows if they installed a Citrix or Windows Terminal Server solution. They realized that they needed to find a terminal server solution for the Mac.

They installed Aqua Connect on two Xserves running Mac OS X 10.5 server software. Client computers include a mixture of Mac and Windows machines, with the majority of them being Macs. Each Xserve is hosting 25-30 users, located in three other cities writing news stories and paginating for three newspapers. The main applications installed on the server were Adobe InCopy, Adobe InDesign and MediaSpan Newsjaz. Sun Media connect to their hardware running ACTS via Microsoft’s RDP-compatible software.

Sun Media found many areas where having easy access to a Mac environment from a remote site was beneficial. Aqua Connect allowed them to get more out of their investment in hardware by enabling them to still use it, as they still had many PowerPC machines that were still running. It also helped that Aqua Connect was a cheaper solution than Citrix or Terminal Services. They also didn’t have to retrain any users as would have been required with a change to a Windows application server so there was time and frustration saved for both the administrators and users. Since all of the files were consolidated into two easily accessible locations, it also made it easier to collaborate on news stories.