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Application delivery on a grand scale

Castanet 4.0 distributes applications easily, securely and reliably over intranets, extranets and the Internet.

By Dennis Williams
Network World, 03/22/99

Falling somewhere between a software distribution application and an Internet systems manager is Marimba's Castanet 4.0, released last week.

Castanet exceeds the scope of most software distribution tools, spanning multiple platforms and network environments, including local networks, intranets and extranets. It uses the Internet to manage application and data distribution across global networks.

With a browser-based client, Castanet works with any operating system. Server-side software is available for Windows 95, 98 and NT, as well as Solaris, HP UX and IBM AIX.

Marimba borrows radio terminology to describe Castanet's components. The client-side software is a Web-based interface called a tuner, which clients use to subscribe to or launch applications, called channels. A transmitter sits on the server side and stores published channels.

Beneath the radio lingo, Castanet consists of multiple suites with specific functions. The Infrastructure Suite is the foundation, responsible for deploying files and applications. Part of the Infrastructure Suite, and new in Version 4.0, is an authentication extension that allows Castanet to tie into existing authentication systems, such as Novell Directory Services and Windows NT domains. Castanet also supports security standards, including Secure Socket Layer; public-key infrastructure certificates; code signing to ensure the authenticity of downloaded applications; and 40- and 128-bit encryption.

Castanet's Management Suite delivers centralized control of all deployed applications. You can set desktop configurations, view and revise network and security parameters, and update distribution management schedules. The Management Suite also lets you remotely manage tuners.

The Production Suite lets you package and publish applications and data for deployment. You can download a number of sample applications from Marimba's transmitter or create your own packages for distribution using the Application Packager and its package-creation wizard. Application Packager supports shrink-wrapped and custom Windows applications, Visual Basic applications and data file packages.

The Application Packager takes a snapshot of the system on which it's running before and after you install the application. The differences in Windows configuration file entries and the registry are noted and duplicated on client desktops.

Unfortunately, the process is painfully slow. When we created a package of a shrink-wrapped Windows application, it took almost two hours for Application Packager to generate a single snapshot of our NT Server. Then it took another 10 minutes just to save the snapshot file to disk on a 266-MHz dual Pentium II server with a high-speed RAID subsystem. However, once the process was complete, the application was easily accessible to network clients, who could download and install it with a single click.

The Castanet tuner interface allows users to browse transmitters by entering their URLs. Users can select the channels to which they want to subscribe, which initiates the downloading and installation of the selected applications. You can distribute preconfigured tuner software to clients to provide them with the levels of flexibility or control you deem appropriate. For many users, you may simply provide them with the URL to your transmitter and allow the clients to update their own systems. You can also control everything by making the tuner software completely transparent and pushing software to client desktops.

Two new product suites included in Castanet 4.0 work in conjunction with each other to ease application management. The first is the Inventory Suite, which allows you to poll client desktops to determine hardware type, operating system version, remaining disk space and existing applications, among other things. You must provide a database, such as Oracle8, to store the results on the server. Castanet's inventory agent scanned our clients quickly.

The Inventory Suite even supports users who are only intermittently connected to the network. For such users, the Castanet inventory agent performs the inventory at prescheduled intervals and returns the information to the transmitter when the network becomes available.

The second new suite is the Subscription Suite, which lets you manage enterprisewide policies regarding which applications or machines each user or group of users may access.

Flexibility pays

Getting started with Castanet is fairly easy. Instead of installing the tuner from a CD-ROM, we downloaded it from the Internet. We installed a tuner on each of our computers and on an NT server. Then we connected to Marimba's transmitter over the Internet and downloaded the transmitter software, administration software and a package creation utility; each component installed automatically after download. As long as you're connected to the Internet, the components are automatically updated if there's a revision on Marimba's site.

If you have a diverse network environment, you'll appreciate Castanet's ability to create customized channels based on user profiles. You can use the results of your inventory queries to specify which computers need the Windows version of an application and which need the Unix version, for example. Or you can distribute software to a user group, such as a sales department. If you choose to make the client-side tuner transparent to end users, only the applications you select will be installed - automatically and without user intervention.

Castanet is well-suited for companies with large heterogeneous networks. It allows you to set up multiple transmitters, which promotes load sharing. Smaller companies with mobile or distributed users can also benefit from the product. However, traditional LANs that don't use the Internet for network connectivity may be better served by conventional software distribution applications with a lower price tag.

Scorecard and NetResults

Scorecard

Server 
support 25%      8 x 0.25 = 2.00
Client 
support 25%     10 x 0.25 = 2.50
Performance 20%  7 x 0.20 = 1.40
Security  15%   10 x 0.15 = 1.50
Ease of use 5%   6 x 0.05 = 0.30
Installation 5%  9 x 0.05 = 0.45
Documentation 5% 7 x 0.05 = 0.35
Total                       8.50

Note: Products are ranked on a 1-10 scale in each category, then multiplied by the weight in each category. These are added to give a total score.

Net Results

Castanet 4.0
Marimba
(650) 930-5282
Web site
Price: $10,000 for basic installation; additional fees depending on numbers of applications and end points
Pros:Distributes software over multiple platforms and networking environments; Accommodates mobile clients
Cons: Complex setup for advanced features; Slow package-creation tool