Service: custom software development
Solution type: desktop solution
Client: a software development affiliate of a USA-based financial group produces software for automating title insurance and real estate businesses. The company is a leader in creating innovative technological solutions for these two rapidly changing industries.
Period: 2002
Key problems
Print jobs caused serious administrative and bandwidth problems in the company's wide area network (WAN) which included several Citrix Servers.
Solution
Arcadia used two different approaches, each based on a particular technology for client-server communications and downloading the Adobe PDF files.
Each approach used a unique feature of the Adobe PDF files sent to print from a Citrix Server. When an Adobe PDF file is sent to print from a Citrix Server, it is about ten times smaller than a usual print file. Moreover, there is no need to administer any print drivers to print from a remote machine.
One approach enabled the remote client to communicate with the server via SOAP calls and to download the resulting PDF files using HTTP get method. The other approach used Citrix ISA Virtual Channel or the Terminal Services Virtual Channel for both command exchange and file transfer.
Arcadia's team developed two main server components and a client application:
- RapidPRINT port — a special printer port that allowed a user to create a PDF document from a file created by any application. RapidPRINT port was installed on the server as a printer driver. The user of Citrix ISA (or Terminal Services) just needed to select the RapidPRINT printer on the server instead of printing to a standard printer. A PDF file was generated and then transmitted back to the client machine.
- RapidPRINT Service — an NT service application that managed the PDF files generated by the RapidPRINT port. It communicated with the RapidPRINT client application on the PDF file requests and controlled the file transfer process.
- The RapidPRINT Client application was developed to allow the user to manage PDF files: to download PDF files manually or automatically, to store the received PDF files in the local database, to view PDF files, to print them out on a local printer or to send the files via email.
Technologies used
- MS Visual C++ 6.0
- MS SOAP SDK
- Citrix Virtual Channel SDK
Duration and scope
5 months / ~ 12 person-months