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Introducing the three-tier architecture

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  • Understand the three-tier architecture model of Secure Global Desktop.

Secure Global Desktop is built around a three-tier architecture model:

Diagram of the three-tier architecture: application servers on the right, Secure Global Desktop servers in the center and client devices on the left

Different tiers can reside on the same host (for example, a single UNIX host can act as both a Secure Global Desktop server and an application server), but the tiers remain logically independent.

The first tier: client devices

A client device is a piece of hardware that can communicate with Secure Global Desktop using a web browser and the Sun Secure Global Desktop Client.

The web browser communicates with the Secure Global Desktop Web Server on the second tier and displays the webtop to users.

The Sun Secure Global Desktop Client communicates with Secure Global Desktop servers on the second tier and displays the applications that users run.

The Adaptive Internet Protocol (AIP) ensures optimal network usage between the first and second tiers.

The second tier: Secure Global Desktop servers

The second tier may contain a single Secure Global Desktop server, or many Secure Global Desktop servers configured to form an array.

A Secure Global Desktop server is responsible for:

The third tier: application servers

An application server runs users' applications.

When a user clicks a link on their webtop, Secure Global Desktop starts the application on an appropriate application server. Output from the application is redirected by the Secure Global Desktop server from the application server to the client device.

When you tell Secure Global Desktop about an application, you include information about all the application servers that may run the application. Secure Global Desktop load balances between the application servers.

Summary

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