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Lenovo to Sell Blade Desktops
Some guy writes "Having acquired IBM's PC division, Lenovo will become the first major reseller of blade desktops. Blade desktops feature only input devices and a 'networking unit,' connecting to a blade server for computational power. Such thin client designs reduce support needs and cluttered desk space, but require complex deployments to work well."
Here's a link containing some more detailed information about ClearCube's technology.
So...thin clients are back in vogue yet again...let's see if they stick this time. With the Blade Desktop's modular architecture and ability to run the KVM over standard, existing LAN infrastructure, this iteration might have a shot.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Is this summary serious? Wouldn't they want output devices, too?
So how is this technology different from SunRay?
Lenovo will resell blade desktop systems from ClearCube Technologies as the Chinese giant kicks off its effort to woo the international set.
Under the deal, the two companies will cooperate to sell ClearCube's blade systems, initially to the customers Lenovo acquired when it IBM's PC unit. The units sold by Lenovo will bear ClearCube's brand. IBM Global Services already resells ClearCube desktop systems.
Similar to blade servers, blade desktops are complete desktop PCs, but instead of coming in a plastic chassis, the computers are circuit boards stuffed into a rack in a computer room. At their desk, users have only a keyboard, mouse, monitor and a networking unit that connects them to their computer.
Putting the PCs in a rack cuts support and real estate costs, according to Raj Shah, chief marketing officer of ClearCube. Several financial firms and branches of the military have installed the company's computers. (The North American Aerospace Defense Command uses them
The company is also in the midst of a trial with health care specialist McKesson. At select hospitals, a swivel screen is placed in patient rooms. Patients can order movies or get information on their problems; doctors can also log in to the system with a magnetic card to retrieve patient records.
Though the market is small, it's growing rapidly, according to ClearCube. Revenue for the small company tripled last year, albeit from a small base, said Shah, and is growing in triple figures this year. Hitachi's services organization and SAIC also resell the company's computers.
So far, Hewlett-Packard is the only major computer maker with its own blade PC system, but its take on the concept has not sold particularly well, according to analysts. One reason is that the first versions relied on chips from Transmeta, the struggling processor designer.
If blades are so promising, why don't other manufacturers jump in? The management and security software layers required in blade deployments take time, energy and money, which few want to risk.
"The PC companies have been asleep at the wheel for the past few years. No one is innovating," Shah said. "How much has the corporate desktop PC changed in the last 20 years?"
Shah also pointed out that ClearCube has about 80 patents; competitors therefore would have to figure out how to get around the company's intellectual property.
The IBM purchase marks the point of no return for Lenovo's long ambitions to become an international tech powerhouse. Except for some token sales in Italy and Southeast Asia, the company has sold PCs only in China. Even there, it has lost market share to Dell and HP in recent quarters.
The company unfurled a tablet PC back in June and said it planned to open a center to design different types of PCs for different markets such as potentially cheap PCs for places such as India.
I still don't get how vampires figure into all this.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
*YAWN*
Software piracy is victimless theft.
Albeit not blades by the strict definition: Mac Minis + Hacked .Mac + Myrad of server side webapplications. We even have a windows server to remote desktop into for the windows only applications we have decided to run (Quickbooks enterprise edition).
if sign.nil? Sig.new
Every few months someone starts ranting and raving about how the thin desktop is going to be the next big thing, save lots of money, lower support costs, etc. And it just sort of fades away time and time again. This is just another company with a variation on the same tired concept that nobody wants or needs. In a few months somebody else will have another thin client solution, and nobody will give a shit then either.
A bit. The thing though is that this really isn't a new concept; its name has changed a bit, but it boils down to the 3270 concept that IBM made popular. This time you have a mouse and a color monitor instead of a 3270 keyboard and a green screen.
I remember hearing back in college that the trend floats from centralized computing to distributed and then back again, but I'd never thought I'd see it.
--pete
How is this different from existing thin client setups, i.e. Sun Ray's? I realize that this uses blade servers as opposed to regular machines, but still.
and before you know it they'll be selling Blade II and Blade: Trinity packages = \
We called them "dickless workstations"
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
2: Once Lenovo's sales pickup, DELL will jump onto the ship - fast...! This time pointing to new research showing shifting customer requirements.
3: Third will be: You guessed it - PROFIT! Whether they will be able to muscle their way against Lenovo is another matter.
Thin clients keep all their info on the server. This is NOT a thin client. It might be called a remote client, but each blade has its own CPU, disk drives, etc. Each blade is a full PC, serving just one desktop. The only thing unusual is that the PC is located in the server room instead of on the desktop. Thin clients are really just a minor variation on the old timeshare model of big expensive computers. This could only be considered a thin client if you think of every user having their very own dedicated server.
Thin clients vs PCs are like taxis vs private cars. Blade PCs are like private cars kept in a communal garage, like an apartment block vs a private house.
You didn't even read your own link. This is a new low for slashdot, methinks.
Infuriate left and right
Lear-Siegler sells their ADM-3A 'thin client.'
.
Oh wait! That was back in aprox. 1974. .
in other words, they're goign to sell terminals that connect to a multi-node server. Of course, since it's MS Windows, it's revolutionary :/
Terminal Serving - 1 ... rats!
Being Able to Play Diablo 2 at Work - 0
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
I see lots of posts that are reminding us how thin clients are nothing new. Indeed having thin clients and centralized processing is nothing new... and sometimes it seems that the pendulum swings back and forth between "imagine how cool it would be if each user had this much power on their desktop" and "imagine how amazing it would be if all this computing power could be centralized and used efficiently."
I think the point to take out of all this is that we should use the right tool for the job. There are lots of good desktop PCs, and lots of good thin client solutions (or being worked on). For any given task, you have to decide what's right. What is easier to manage, a centralized server or a bunch of desktops? (depends on how many users you have, what software you're running, etc.) What's more powerful, having good desktop PCs or a central server? (depends on your software needs) What's more cost effective? (again... it depends!)
Obviously hard-core coders and video game designers are going to need their own dedicated machines for testing (and crashing!)... whereas alot of managers, secretaries, and data entry personal would do fine with thin clients.
Maybe this is totally obvious to slashdotters... but it's something that perhaps the higher-ups in companies should come to realize. There is no perfect solution... you have to crunch the numbers for any particular corporate environment.
TFA says, "At their desk, users have only a keyboard, mouse, monitor and a networking unit that connects them to their computer", but the summary says, "Blade desktops feature only input devices and a 'networking unit,'". I doubt the summary is correct.
This is just a dumb terminal with a new coat of paint, the emporers new close and works just as well cause if the network goes down, or the server, it idles all the workers just like it did "back in the day". This is why corporate america put fully functional machines (with storage) onto the american desktop.
In this case the Dumb refers to the rehashed idea and the terminal indicates their profit statement.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
...it's a goddamned xterm.
Those have been around for HOW many years now?
The PHBs will hear "managed solution", "TCO", and the like, and stumble over themselves writing checks.
OT: Did you year about the dyslexic agnostic insomniac? He used to lie awake at night wondering if there were really a dog.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
erm, clothes
For those too lazy to RTFA...
These are not thin terms. It's a bunch of full function blade servers, on a managed KVM backplane. You then have remote 'end nodes' that supply DVI/USB/sound over Cat5, Fiber, or IP, your choice.
So far, this is pretty ho-hum, boring. The neat trick is the software that comes with it. Take an 8 blade chassis, setup 7 users on it, each with their own PC. Blade 8 is now your hot spare. Uh oh, Joe just had a failure? Fire up the management app from your desk, swap him to blade 8. Without getting up, Joe now has a new system, and you can deal with the failed blade on your time, either remotely via your end node, or in the server room.
No, it's not a huge advancement, but for places that maintain large fleets of desktops that run near identical OS/software installs, it makes system management and maint a bit easier by reducing time lost to running around shuffling hardware.
So what did they call the users? Dongle-leirs.
Systems Marketing
...THESE ARE NOT THIN CLIENTS. rtfa.
(Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.)
you should never link to a PDF file without warning! :)
These are totally not thin clients!
I have never been a fan of thin client type setups. Sure they can save space and make things simpler for companies where the most people use their computer for is word processing. In practice however, they are fairly unreliable and I find they cause more harm than good.
Voice your opinion!
Sounds exactly like the setup in the University computer lab back in 1984.
...we called these VT100's. :)
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
Thin clients keep all their info on the server. This is NOT a thin client. It might be called a remote client, but each blade has its own CPU, disk drives, etc
Like any remotely recent thin client from Wyse or whoever else, that run Linux, Mozilla, and various Linux apps, or Windows CE, or XP embedded, or whatever else, have disk drives, CPUs, etc?
My company has deployed various thin clients across several states that are all running off of an NT cluster at the corporate office. I couldn't count the number of thin clients that we've had to replace for being so cheaply manufactured/defects/whatever. Has anyone had any experience with a thin client manufacturer whose products last more than 6 months in an industrial environment?
Maybe I missed something, but why would I want to do this? If I'm going to centralize why not simply use Citrix and run a nice fat cluster where each user gets exactly the resources they need for what they're doing? What's the point of dedicating a blade to each individual user when I could cluster them and waste less resources?
http://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n= 32&t=3
"The product was originally sold in assembled form for $1,195. A kit version would appear few months later, at $995. It could be ordered with a white, green, or amber tube background colour."
For those of you too young to remember, twas this baby which gave rise to the infamous cursors package in UNIX, as well as vi. It's why vi uses the "k", "j", "l", "h" keys to move around, as those keys had arrows on them in the appropriate direction.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Having previously worked for ClearCube, I can tell you that these are not thin clients. Their patented technology allows the video signal from the video card (yes, they have video daughtercards, nVidia chipset) to be sent down CAT5 cable to an interface box. That is where the monitor is connected as well as keyboard/mouse/sound. They use USB to get all the peripheral signals back and forth. The blades themselves are anywhere from 2.8-3.2 GHz P4, (maybe faster since I left) and they're even selling dual-processor workstation units.
They also have a version of the blade that can drive a quad monitor display at 1600x1200 per display 24 bit color. The only limitation on the quad is that all the displays have to be the same resolution and bit-depth, since the video signals are interleaved down the cable. (This may have changed since I left)
ClearCube may also be in the business of selling thin clients as I saw some that were being looked at, but I don't know if they're selling them now. I don't believe the article is referring to the thin clients.
The blade systems they sell are solid PCs and they're actually on their 3rd generation of technology. The company has been around for more than 5 years, so this isn't something that just came on the market. They just aren't mainstream because the technology has a much higher up-front cost so most companies don't look at them unless they have a specific environment where these would work well.
Assuming that you run Cat5 from your server room to the station (not an uncommon place for your network patch panels), you just replace the cable from a Computer -> Switch connection, it is a Station -> Computer connection.
Alex
It's one company trying it. Other have soltuions that are similar. Sun Microsystems has Sunblades, for example. They aren't precisely the same thing, but basically a Sunblade is an X-term. All it does is handle keyboard, mouse, video and sound, and then do X communications to the server. Everything is then run there. Kinda neat, in the real world often not as usable or cheap as you'd think, though it works well for some specialty environments.
This isn't going to signal a major shift most likely. Distributed computing is cheap, and pushed by many vendors. It also has the big advantage of not being tied to a single point of failure. On thursday all our servers at work are going out for matenence While this means what people can do is limited, they will still be able to do work since their desktops aren't affected.
I'm sure we'll continue to see centralized solutions from time to time, like I said there are environments in which it's useful (and others where people think it is even if it's not) but a major move back to centralized computing this is not.
The reasons why I can think of deploying something like a thin client today are:
1) Because of the need for strict, tight controls on data and access. Having a single server means far less for the admins to keep an eye on. They only have to keep one compter secure.
2) Because of highly asymetric processing power needs. If I had a situation where one user was likely to need a ton of power, while others didn't, and which user it was alternated, this could be useful. Get a more powerful server and then everyone could have access to a large amount of resources, so long as they all didn't need it at once.
In this case it sounds like I just have desktops with really long cables. Ok. Great. What's that buy me again? I suppose it might be slightly more convenient to have all the hardware in one room and not have to go to the users' desks, but then I find that users LIKE face-to-face tech support. I also find it useful to be able to see what they are doing, ask them questions, and have access to the hardware all at the same time.
Seems like this takes the worst of thin clients and desktops and mixes them together.
This seems to be the best solution for the office of the future, at least for as long as people don't know anything about computers. It's a good thing people don't drive as bad as they use computers... Oh, nevermind.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Every few months someone starts ranting and raving about how the thin desktop is going to be the next big thing, save lots of money, lower support costs, etc. And it just sort of fades away time and time again. This is just another company with a variation on the same tired concept that nobody wants or needs. In a few months somebody else will have another thin client solution, and nobody will give a shit then either.
Right. And this has been going on for what? 20 years?
Now, thin clients have their uses. In an Athena-style network, you get a lot of flexibility out of thin clients that you cannot get out of standard desktops (no reason why you can't add application servers to your network and give people access to them but they don't have to *know* that the applications are running on other servers).
The problem is that everyone is stuck in the old mainframe thinclient paradigm rather than working on something better (which arguably the old Athena paradigm is).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Every time I hear about one of these things, I can't help thinking it's a new way to lock customers in to a particular vendor. The chance that a customer can mix and match blades and clients from multiple vendors is nil. And changing vendors is an expensive exercise. One big advantage of desktop PCs, and even rack-mount PCs to some extent, is that they're commodities.
Time for another round of Celebrity Jeopardy...I'm your host, Alex Trebek.
Sean Connery: I'd like "The Rapists" for $1000 Alex!
Alex Trebek: That's, "Therapists".
Time for Final Jeopardy...Please write your name.
Sean Connery: Poop
Alex Trebek: And the show has sunk to a new low...
Here is where any benefits are harvested back to ClearCube: $2000 per seat for management license?!
Don't forget the additional $1200 for hardware per seat?!?
No thanks.
I'll spend the $400 per seat on a new computer and send my staff on a vacation with the $3000 per seat savings.
So if if Lenova was the first, then I guess HP just stole the idea pre-emptively? http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/thinclients/ind ex_t5000.html
or else!
What I am thinking is, use Skole Linux, buy cheap network cards, and run three thin clients off the fast recent machine. Is this not a case where without spending hardly any more money the institution gets a lot more functionality out of what it already has? And may there not be lots of public sector/charity cases where this sort of thing applies? Or is there something about thin clients or Skole Linux that I don't know?
The clearcube stuff sends *analog* video over either CAT5 cable (200m) or fiber (further). The desk-end of the link has knobs you have to tweak to "tune" the video: over those distances, the attenuation is much greater at high frequencies, so you have to compensate. And the propogation time down each pair in the cable is slightly different. There is a digital channel for keyboard and mouse, and I believe that they have USB though I bet it has limited speed.
t m ) boxes (they run Linux).
Compared to digital thin clients (VNC, Sun Ray, Microsoft remote desktop) there are advantages and disadvantages:
- Limited distance.
- Need to physically change wiring to associate a desk-end with a different machine.
- Low latency. Mouse movement is instantaneous. Games looks great.
- Limited maximum resolution. 1600x1200 would be really hard. 1280x1024 isn't great at 200m. Small text gets hard to read.
- Software doesn't notice the difference from a real display.
Personally, I think that the best use for this sort of technology is when you want remote access to a legacy system (OS/2 anyone?) or you want to debug the bios settings remotely. Companies like Adder (http://www.adder.com/) and BlackBox sell stuff that's ideal for this. For all other uses, I'd go for a digial thin client like one of the Wyse (http://www.wyse.com/products/winterm/S50/index.h
Yes "Linux ready" :-)
http://www.clearcube.com/controller/pc_blade.php
It is no secret that Dell does not sell cutting/bleeding edge technologies. They like to wait for other companies to spend money on the R&D, and marketing for stuff. Once the technology matures and there is a demand then they jump into the market.
Does this sound a bit familiar? (cough, microsoft, cough)
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Windows thin clients are a bad economic case. You need to be running a REALLY beefy server and any client capable of running the thin client software is itself going to have to be more than fast enough to be entirely usable running a free UNIX.
Here is the case I am looking at: a museum with no money, and 3 old windows machines, plus one reasonably fast recent one.
Install a free UNIX on them. If the machine's fast enough to run any kind of thin client software at all it should be plenty fast enough to run the library applications themselves. Until it died (condensation from a vent dripped nasty moldy water on it) I was running FreeBSD on a Pentium 133 laptop with 64M RAM (maxed out!) Windowmaker as the window manager (no CPU-sucking Gnome or KDE) and Opera as a browser. I'm sure that any computer that hasn't been thrown out years ago is faster than that!
If the "fast recent machine" is going to run as a server, you'll need to install NT Server on it for multiuser support (Windows Terminal Server), which is expensive enough by itself that you'd be able to buy at least 3 fast new PCs for the same money.
The only economic case for blades is "windows doesn't scale". The economic case for Windows thin servers is "windows is a CPU hog". Get Windows out of the picture and the picture changes amazingly.
Ironic, that, because ten years ago we were using Windows boxes as thin clients for our Alpha servers. Of course we were able to suport 30 users on a 233 MHz Alpha using X11... if we'd had to give each user a server as capable as the typical Windows desktop today there'd have been no way it'd be affordable.
So the next time it BSODs, I can't pull the power myself, I have to raise it with Server Ops?
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
Yes, thin clients 'have their uses.' I'll give you a pretty common one.
The hospital I work for has around 2000 of them, plugged into batteries and wireless client bridges. Along with an LCD display, they are rolled around on carts.
The last place I worked had another use. Again, pretty common. Very distributed company, hard to support PC's. Data wasn't being backed up at all the remote locations, people just wouldn't change tapes. Needed to move the data to central data center, and to do that, we needed to move the apps there as well.
Citrix rocks.
Slashdot users still think PC's are 'way cool man' - naturally server based computing makes no sense to most slashdotters.
I bless Dell for this. They more than pay for themselves with saving IT time and downtime.
...the more they stay the same.
3270 -> PC -> 3270 with a PC look and feel.
These are actually a great idea in highly managed environments. You can keep storage centralized, you don't have to worry about putting PCs on every new hire's desk, etc. Plus, the virus-of-the-week can be dealt with more effectively if all the PCs are stored in a central location.
The problem I see with blade anything these days is a lack of industry standards. If your vendor decides to stop making a particular blade design, well, you're out of luck if you want to use your old chassis. If manufacturers can agree on blade specs that everyone will follow (kind of like the motherboard standards,) then these will really catch on in "paranoid" environments.
It's amazing how much things come back around in IT-land. Thin client desktops are kind of like dumb terminals. "On-demand" computing brings back the idea of time-shared computer equipment, process accounting, etc.
By shifting all but the human interface devices to space efficient remote racks, I would estimate that twice as many cubicles could be packed into the same floor space. Next step: Use advancements in genetic engineering to create smaller workers with greater intelligence per unit volume.
If I had mod points, you'd get them now. That comment made my day, thank you.
0 0331.html
Have anyone read drunkenbatman's Ham Story?
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/0
With today's operating systems' accounts, security, and services, I already think of every user having their very own dedicated server. Sure, desktops aren't as reliable, but what malware writer cares about the uptime of a desktop?
I have zero room on my home-office desktop. Fans annoy me and I've got 4 PCs.
SOooo.....
I bought a Belkin 4-port switch (www.belkin.com) and ran the wires from my monitor/keyboard/mouse to my wiring closet next to my desk.
Open the closet door to plug in USB to unload digital camera or cut or load CDs and DVDs.
Close closet door to eliminate clutter and fan noise. (Heat buildup is easier to manage here. I'm installing a very quiet [1-sone] exhaust fan (www.homedepot.com) inside the closet to keep my stuff cool.)
A rack-mounted solution in the closet might be nice for the next four-to-six PCs, but current solutions are incredibly pricey.
I think the next challenge will be to create a tiny box that serves as a wireless multi-device USB port. That way, thumb drives, cameras, cell-phones, PDAs, external CD/DVD devices, and the occasional non-shared printer could still be used right from the desktop.
For my regular office (about 20 people using about 40 PCs), the rack-approach would only work if the remote USB idea was also addressed.
Does such a device (the USB thing, not the rack thing) already exist?
---
Too lazy to type a sig.
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
except even with clients that are "diskless", they are packed with some juicy ram, and a juicy CPU, which then gives you some nice load balancing options.. and no harddrives required..
this idea is quite fascinating.. they must use a KVM type of technology.. i'd like to see what the little "network box" looks like.. things like this would be IDEAL for very large companies.. if its set up properly, i can only imagine what kind of cluster projects you could accomplish.. have a nice big server case full of employee nodes.. it would administration about 3,000 easier too for those help desk people out there.. just think about it.. the remote administration aspect is another good one too..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Not the first hp has been selling these for years. http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/en/s m/desktops/blade/bc1000_overview.html
hp has been selling these for years. I guess IBM is still trying to catch up. http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/en/s m/desktops/blade/bc1000_overview.html
They would be good for a call center or somewhere where you did not need the power and/or expandibility of a full PC.
hp use to sell these as servers - they sell them as desktops now... http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/en/s m/desktops/blade/bc1000_overview.html
PS: I googled around a bit but I couldn't find an English-language site for Skole Linux, just news articles and what I guess was Norwegian. You got a link I could look at?
...ATAC and cPCI blade servers come down in price and thin clients are commensurate in price with their stripped down nature compared to PCs. A full desktop can now be had for under $400 with everything you need. If I'm removing most of the tchotchkes and truly making it thin, then they should be no more than $150 a piece.
However, cPCI and especially ATAC systems are insanely overpriced. If someone came up with a vertical sliding rack system and sold ATX motherboards stripped of unneeded crap, I'd go with that. I don't need to stick boxes all over my house.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
So what do you consider /. then?
And slashdot isn't?
I'd have to say /. is still more than a shade or two above talking about reality TV with the office dullard...
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
I don't want a desktop hidden in the server room - I want a full powered laptop I can take with me, that TURNS INTO a bigger, badder desktop number-cruncher when I'm in the office.
;)
Think of it - all the KVM stuff exists in the laptop already, as well as any extra needed ports... And you can still have blades/failover/yummy goodness back in the server racks... In fact, you could add a "live backup" feature that syncs the laptop hard drive to the desktop's (or SAN/NAS/whatever you're using on the back end).
Seriously, if you want to really innovate, break down the performance barrier between laptop and desktop, free us workers to work from anywhere, and simultaneously have our bosses grinning that they have total control over our boxen, and can make us take work home with us.
But, seriously, laptop users shouldn't be beholden to citrix or dual-system approaches to squeeze out extra power. What's up with that?!?
1. increased security, it allows the disabling of all types of device attachment except for the keyboard and mouse. nobody can plug in a usb flash, cd-rom, etc. files are not easily exported from the corporate network.
2. from 1, it reduces risks for viruses as there are no more inputs.
3. from 1 as well, they can steal the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and breakout box, but the computer and data is not stolen.
4. increased availability, it allows for easy swapping of computers with just a click of the mouse. failure in a pc blade can be easily redirected to another. this is in contrast to a technician going to the site to fix the problem.
5. economical, multiple users can share in a single blade. reduces hardware costs.
6. space saving, end sites no longer have the bulky casing, just the keyboard, mouse, monitor, and a small box. (and of course, no noisy parts!)
7. from 6, since all the blades are crammed in a rack, it technically requires less space for hundreds of computers.
8. from 4 and 5, it is more economical as you don't have to buy individual high capacity ups and reduced cooling requirements. they are centralized in the datacenter. this comes with generators for backup.
9. from 4, no moving parts at the end user site.
10. from 8, in case of end site failures, data does not get lost as blades are still powered.
11. we can pass everything through our ip network much like voip with the same management. one plug to rule em all!
12. and a whole lot of other reasons.
anyway, they are not thin clients, they are merely remote kvm.
it's a good thing they had a deal with lenovo. though not sure if we can benefit from this since we get ibm for our computers. hmmm...
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
Unfortunately, all his data was on the disk in the blade that failed
Any place that would implement blade workstations is going to have shared storage.
Generally this is done by buying each person a laptop, or a few people at a small table share one. Way too expensive. I then heard schools (in the U.S.?) were using something with success called a pad system which is apparently either a single keypad, or perhaps just a multiple choice response voting unit.
What I want is something that is the cheapest good performance solution so that every person in a large auditorium can type in a question or opinion.. say up to 1 kilobyte, and have it transmitted to a central unit. The clients should have a simple display, though even a little one line lcd would do it, and it should work in asian or whatever other languages too. The network connection can be ethernet or better yet wireless, and it would be nice if it could be chargeable since even running power cables to every seat is a pain. Of course, mobile phone email is one solution, if everyone already has one. But the closer it looks to an ordinary keyboard the better, since older guys who don't send phone email will also be using it.
Oh and it should cost $100 or less if possible. I wonder if it is possible to have a slow linux box with 802.11 and a tiny lcd display for under that price?
I really begin to relise how many slashdot readers are really just 14 year olds with no clue to the pulse of IT.
...but does it run linux?
STFU!