Thin Clients: A Desktop Alternative

A little background, in case you have no idea what a thin client is. Wikipedia defines a thin client as a computer or client software in client-server architecture networks which depends primarily on the central server for processing activities, and mainly focuses on conveying input and output between the user and the remote server. What?!? In laymen’s terms this translates to a very small, very quiet piece of hardware about the size of a traditional text book that gives you a desktop view of a server sitting locked in a closet far, far away. All main processing takes place on the central server, the thin client simply gives you a view of it. Thin clients or dumb terminals as they have also been known, were more popular in the late 80′s and early 90′s when desktops were not practical. For a while they fell out of favor as PC’s became cheaper; however they are now making a bit of a comeback. Two influencing factors of the resurgence in popularity are reduced upfront purchase costs and reduced on-going maintenance costs. A typical PC appropriate for use in the Domain environment of an office will run about $500. The cost for a thin client in this situation: around $300. If you have several PC’s to replace or purchase this can amount to substantial cost savings. In addition, with the PC you will probably end up replacing a component or two over the life-time due to heat, wear and tear or power surge. This is not at all uncommon, and not only is there the cost to make the repair, but also any potential down-time for employees while they wait for the repair. Thin clients have no (or few) moving parts and extremely low heat output. The result: not only are there few parts that have any chance of failure, but there is less likelihood of failure due to heat issues and power surges. Finally, they are very “green” due to low heat output and the fact they consume 10-15% less power than the traditional PC. Over the life of a PC I estimate the cost savings (including a little extra for the reduced power consumption) to average about $75/per year of ownership with a thin client. Today, securing your company data and protecting your workstations from intentional (and unintentional) rogue software installs is very important. This job can be made more difficult with individual PC’s. Also, custom software, off the shelf software, any software upgrades or replacements can be time consuming with the traditional desktop. Individual PC’s leave some data unprotected not only from possible theft or misuse, but also left out of the nightly backups. In a thin client environment all programs run in the secure and protected environment of the server and all of the data is held there as well. Individual user data is easily made part of your backup scheme and backed up nightly. Software upgrades are simple-run the upgrade on the server and viola’ it is instantly rolled out to all your users at next log on. No more walking from workstation to workstation to install the latest Office upgrade. Want another example? How about that custom interface sitting on top of your Access database-would you like to make a change to it without having to walk up and down all those steps? Make your change, copy it to a folder or your management software and again, like magic, the next time your users log on they get the latest and greatest interface. It is true that thin client computing is not appropriate for every user in every environment, but for some situations it could be an excellent alternative. If you have a server based network, an interest in lower costs (both immediately and on-going), central software and data management, and a “green” alternative to the traditional PC, check into thin client computing.