I Have A Dream

My dream for thin client computing is finally coming to fruition. Three conditions must be met, in my opinion, for successful thin client deployments. New hardware with lower costs now bring TC's to the forefront as a practical and reliable solution for IT. I'm seeing the "new" paradym take place; it's like looking over a mountainous landscape who's early morning sun lights the valley below.

If you're not familiar with thin client technology, here's a primer.

The three joining technologies for making thin clients cost-effective and practical for general purpose use are:

• Inexpensive Hardware
• Fast/Inexpensive Networking
• Web Based Applications

Traditionally the greatest argument against thin client technologies is always related to the cost of the server and the networking equipment. "Why should I install an expensive server and networking equipment when I can just put a PC on people's desk and be done with it," people will ask, "I have to buy the PC's anyway, so why should I create expense with the rest?"

The answer is increased reliability and reduced administration time. The administrator no longer needs to take care of tens of hundreds of individual PC's, each with their own quirks, each having their own problems. The administrator now need primarily to take care of one server. Still, it's a tough sell. Costs are costs and maintenance expenses are down the road. Inexpensive hardware and a move to more web-centric computing makes the circle, as Darth likes to say, nearly complete. So I just finished a project where I deployed the server and around 30 thin client computers. The clients computers are little $100.00 wonders with no moving parts. These client computers easily mount directly on the back of the LCD screen and make for a very compact--and silent--workstation.

The server side is taken care of by a 4 SATA drive RAID0 array with dual Xeon processors. The server, in the vernacular, "flat screams."

I'll talk more about other benefits like remote desktop sharing, better user management and deployment experiences in future blogs.