First there was the mainframes with terminals to obtain information. Then came the PC revolution where every PC could work alone; to be attached to an early network running Novel NetWare. Next, was the client-server application, such as accounting applications where the work was done on the server and the answers sent to the PCs. Finally, we’ve come full circle... the PC has become the smart terminal displaying Windows, but the actual Windows XP actually kept on the server.
Why? Because its far less expensive to do it this way that the old technology of powerful, underutilized PCs and a server in the background. Servers are now cheap, and extremely powerful. That power is allowing hundreds of users to run Windows XP and now, Windows 7 from the server, and not at the desktop.
Look at it from another perspective. Just imagine that you have a hundred PC desktops in your office and that you want to move the CPUs, or the actual computers into your server room, but leave your monitors, mice and printers, etc. on the desktops so your employees can work as usual. Now imagine having some big racks in your server room, with those PCs stacked side by side on each shelf, each and very long cables snaking back to each corresponding PC. It’s totally impractical, and will make that server room very, very hot with a hundred machines generating heat and using the same amount of electricity as at the users desks.
Clearly, you couldn’t do this using your actual PCs, but you can using thin or zero client technology. The PCs are installed inside of your server, each working completely independently other others. So it make maintenance really easy, and will save companies over 70% of the support costs, notably because support technicians won’t have to walk around a business all day to fix problems, but can access the errant PCs from any computer they have access to! That means we can support your entire network, without entering your premises. All done using secure encrypted Internet connections.
Thin Clients Featured on NBC Press:Here Scott McGrew of NBC, John Fortt of Fortune, and Jon Swartz of USA Today discuss zero client computing technology and how it is changing the landscape of desktop computing with our own CEO, John Kish.
Virtual desktops enable users to access a standard Windows operating system installation, along with whatever applications and data they need, running on centralized servers running in a data center. These servers use specialized software to create a “virtual machine” that simulates roughly the same capabilities as a physical desktop computer. Desktop virtual machines connect over local area networks to a piece of hardware at the users location that are connected to peripherals like monitors, keyboards, mice and other peripherals to make a complete system. In other words, the CPU or PC is replaced with an inexpensive, SILENT box. Your office computer noise problem just goes away.
This box lasts much longer than a PC and uses a tiny fraction of the electricity that a PC does. For example in a 50 user network, the PC (excluding the monitors, printers, etc. use about $500-$600 a month, or over $6,000 a year! The same Windows network will use $15 a month using thin client technology, an enormous savings! Why? It because the server does all of the work, and the “PC” does very, very little. So rather than the server loafing along with 50 hard working PCs, the situation is reversed and provides huge cost savings. And because data does not reside on the desktop PC, but in your server room even if one is stolen, it is useless to the thief and doesn’t contain any programs or data.
And we’re not considering how much heat that your expensive air conditioning has to deal with. More money...
While this technical description may make virtual desktops initially sound more complicated than traditional desktop PCs, we think you'll see that centralizing all of the software, storage, processing and management within the data center makes the lives of both IT staff and the users they support much more simpler.
Until recently, limitations on both the computation power of server hardware and the sophistication of tools had limited use of these desktops, forcing companies to look at virtualizing specific critical applications instead.
Virtualization has recently been applied to this problem after being widely and successfully used for servers using VMware and other products. In part this approach was desirable because it held the potential for supporting a full native Windows OS and unmodified applications, reducing the burden on IT staff and providing users with a full-featured computing environment.
Consolidation of desktops onto centralized servers also promises to produce a harder working server providing Windows desktops to lots of users, in addition to operating as a server. And just imagine, your users can easily switch between Windows XP and Windows 7 if they have programs that won’t run on Windows 7, something impossible to do with a standard PC.
Early versions of the silent designs did not provide much benefit as they didn’t offer the savings promised so companies tried thin computers and returned to the standard PC. The new generation products we offer actually work as advertised, providing a fast return of investment, very low power use, easy management and good performance.
The key to using the new generation technology we offer is an end-to-end solution and not just pieces that require your staff to figure out all of the missing pieces, giving up and returning to standard PCs.
We use a clean-slate approach to virtual desktop infrastructure ....something with components that were purpose-built and optimized solely for desktop virtualization.
Contact us today for an analysis of your network and so we can work together to save your company time and money. We will be happy to lend qualified company’s a complete working demo system for use in your conference room to evaluate for two weeks at no cost to you.
CNNMoney.com Tech Talk 3/22/10 - Jonathan Blum describes how zero client computing with Pano Devices has saved money for New York's Saint Vincent's Medical Center:
