RE: What's the good word? (clients and servers)

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

Geoff,

Well ok.   :-)

One split of the productline will be addressed to single-user 
encryption, signing/verifying situations and to 
Registration Authority -- which might be regarded 
as a server function.  People will probably want to 
be careful with their apps and hardware, but it's 
unlikely they'll ever install themselves behind closed 
vault doors, with guards, sensors, alarms and split-secret 
access control.

The other line embraces functions that are almost 
exclusive to server or source applications. The people 
who buy those items from us DO hide them away in 
fortified, high-alertness, redundant-security installations, 
going so far as to require the presence of multiple trusted 
officers every time the material is unlocked (sorta like -- 
the Cap'n can't launch the nukes all by himself... the first 
officer must insert his key simultaneously... well I did 
say "sorta like", not exactly like... most of our installations 
involve money and secrets, not nukes  :-)  

So, the "server" portion of the product-line description 
dicotomy was the easy part. 
The hard part is that the product mangler who is 
splitting the lines (and hiring someone to take on 
one of them) feels that "client" tends to peg 
the client/RA/? line in too small a hole. Already, it 
embraces more than purely client tasks, and in future it will 
include more products that wouldn't likely be connected 
to a single-user desktop.

By the way, did I mention that we don't sell an 
application?  We sell hardware, drivers, toolkits 
and some end-user enabling software, all of which is 
meant to get our hardware working with third-party 
applications... and that's true of both of the product 
lines in question.

The differentiation is between intended markets, as 
much as it is between likely installation locations 
(i.e., the office or the server room).

I'm sure they'll eventually come up with precisely 
the "mot juste", but since I'm on rather a different 
schedule (we have several other product lines that I 
document as well), I want to hurry these guys along 
just a bit.

Grateful for the interest and assistance that's been 
forthcoming already, I remain:

Kevin McLauchlan
Tech-writing Doofus and Frame Addict
Chrysalis-ITS, Inc.

(Jeez! I can't believe the random sig generator 
 came up with THAT one today...)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hart, Geoff [mailto:Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]
> Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 8:31 AM
> To: Techwr-L (E-mail); 'KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com'
> Subject: What's the good word? (clients and servers)
> 
> 
> K (who might be Kevin McLauchlan, though his sig line isn't 
> clear on the
> issue <g>), wonders: <<Suppose you had some products that addressed
> medium-high security client/user and low-volume server 
> applications and you
> had some products that addressed enterprise, extreme-security
> high-performance applications... but much of the terminology 
> was common
> across the product lines. What would be some words you might use to
> differentiate between them.?>>
> 
> You'd suggested "Client/Server" was too limiting, but if 
> that's a correct
> description of the architecture, then limiting or not, it's 
> the correct
> description. You haven't given us enough details about audience or
> application, but based on the limited information you 
> provided, I'd probably
> emphasize the security and speed aspects, just as you've done 
> in framing the
> question.

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