Thin Clients and The Enterprise

November 10, 2007 By BobGourley

CTOs, like everyone else in the enterprise, need to contribute to workforce agility, mobility and productivity, and they need to do that in a way that provides security. And all that needs to be done in a way constrained by fiscal realities.

Which leads to the point of this post. All CTOs need to be aware of the wave of thin client computing and cloud computing that is sweeping through the industry. Here are some thoughts and observations:

- Some non-technical types assume the term “thin client” means “web browser” or “web services”. These are different concepts. We should all embrace web services, and applications that can run in a browser are good, but real thin clients run a full spectrum of applications, not just web apps. To put it another way— today, real thin clients can run almost all applications.

- Thin clients come in many forms. The one you want is one that meets your mission needs. So discussions on which solution to chose should begin with the functionality you need.

- There is a great deal of information available on which thin client solutions really work, but there is also a great deal of spin provided by some vendors who want to take your money. So, in this area more than many others, you would be well advised to scrutinize the claims in vendor press releases, speeches and marketing material (I’ve never tried this, but I wonder, what if every contract you issue says you don’t pay a dime if any vendor statement is proven to be false).

My personal favorite architecture for thin client computing is one based on the Sun Ray. There are also several other providers of true thin devices (and it is possible to run thin client architectures on old fashioned PCs), so my recommendation is to look around before making a decision, but I know first hand the benefits of the Sun Ray. Here are some:

- Security. Sun Rays provide significantly enhanced protection, including virus protection. The Sun Ray architecture has security designed in from the very beginning. Additionally, only a very small instruction set runs on the Sun Ray. A virus or other malicious code will not run on a Sun Ray (Thin Clients that use other operating systems (like Linux) can be configured in a way that is more secure than regular PCs, but the potential for vulnerabilities are far greater than a Sun Ray thin client).

- Cost. The incremental cost of adding a new user desktop is so low most IT departments are surprised at the savings they generate. The server side equipment does have a cost but by the time you field over 100 users that already becomes more economical than fielding fat clients. And for enterprises with more than 100 users the cost drops off significantly (if you ever hear of a vendor claiming their thin client has a lower cost per seat start asking the hard questions… like how did they calculate cost?)

- Energy savings. This is critically important for many reasons. It is good to be green, of course, but there is also direct fiscal savings tied to energy cost. My last organization is saving about $3M per year in energy costs (the Sun Ray draws around 4 watts of power- old fashioned PCs can draw 140 or more watts—that adds up).

- Reliability. There is a law of computing that flows directly from the laws of physics: Anything with moving parts will break. And the more moving parts the more it will break. Sun Rays don’t have spinning hard drives or whirling fans or turning CD drives. They just keep running and running and running.

For more on Thin Clients see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client

http://www.afcea.org/signal/articles/anmviewer.asp?a=427&print=yes

http://www.sun.com/sunray1/index.html

http://www.gdc4s.com/content/detail.cfm?item=35ce4913-a9b8-4919-bb95-3855bbfcdb57

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1958667,00.asp