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Sun's Global Desktop Released
aphaenogaster writes "Suns Global Desktop version 4.2 has been released and appears to be quite effective. Applications load very quickly, and is not limited to Sparc or Solaris. Applications piped to a desktop across a slow DSL line appear to work very well. Sun has also set up a test server for users to play with."
To put it better, who innovated first? Was is SUN or NoMachine? You can test Linux out via a slow DSL line at http://www.nomachine.com/. A faster one would be better though.
Remember the last time when SUN made a public-available demo of their grid-computing thingy.
I wonder how much time it... Oh wait, their server is already down.
More seriously, part of my compensation package, whether my employer realizes it or not, is access to applications and a modicum of control over my PC, applications, and user experience. Take those away, and I'm less than a happy camper.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
I wonder if it works. Seeing as how it was down faster than somewhere around the second post could be written. So much for Robust. One Monday morning 9am e-mail check would bring your entire company to it's knees.
Can this kind of application of an OS/System work. Heck Yes! It works and it's needed. However it will always fail as long as they keep trying to put all the eggs in one software basket so to speak. Stop with "one box that does it all. Get into the idea of, "this box does this, that box does that, and you can see it all from that box over there."
We need to move from the application having access to the OS, to the OS having access to the application. Once OS/data/application are void of their death grip on each other some really amazing things can begin to happen.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
For those of you who wondered... this isn't new, just a new name. I'll never understand why their marketing chose to change the name to something nobody knew. Perhaps trying to re-launch it?
Sun has actually done a good job of fixing a lot of java bugs since they acquired Tarantella.
For those of you who don't know about how SGD/Tarantella work, it's a session server/screen scraper combo that allow you to have access to Windows and Linux apps or entire desktops that can be served from arrays of application servers.
It uses a protocol called AIP that adapts to the available bandwidth and can scale down well for low bandwidth links.
The good things about SGD are:
- Transportable workspaces
- great for providing VERY LOW bandwidth links to console-based apps
- enterprise authentication
- ability to create and serve applications based on centrally managed user and application groupings
- ability to manage many different OS sessions and mix of sessions from OSes in a single login session
- pass-through printing to local printer
- ability to connect local hard drive to remote systems
- Client is trivial to install for users
- a rich html application page can be created that can serve many of the requirements for previously locally installed apps
- works very well for deployments that many many users to a few application set profiles that can load balance between arrays of application servers
The bad things about SGD are:
- it's a 3-tier architecture and if/when you overload the server or hit an OS bug and need to restart it, UNIX users lose x-sessions
- not ideal for mapping of many users to unique resources where sessions are very long lived
- some java 2d and 3d stuff takes up a lot of bandwidth
It's worth checking out. Some users prefer vnc or NX, but SGD really is an enterprise solution - not just a machine a to machine b tool for a single user.
Well, maybe if you did a little reading...
And if you're being forced to use a browser to access your server, who says that you're not on a machine with keyloggers and screen capturing?
I admit I work for Sun.
Seems to only be available for download for Linux and Solaris, but the features list indicates that it can run Windows applications. Any ideas how they do this?
How is this any different then what Google is doing (aside from being the "benevolent and all holy" Goggle versus the "almost as evil as Microsoft" Sun)? The client should never matter when running the application and if you look here http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=433240 e1 you can get the client application for just about anything including dumb terminals and handheld devices.
d b9
And stating that Sun is trying to put all applications on Sun systems is a bunch of crap. The design of the product is to have a gateway to all vendors applications. So you continue to run your existing applications and connect to them from the gateway, and no it doesn't have to be Solaris http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=43321
Try remoting some chatty X11 apps across a 100 millisecond link.
Then introduce periodic link failures that make remoted X apps go "pop!"
Then constrain an entire office down to a few mbps of shared WAN bandwidth
Then introduce IP phones that suck up all the "extra" bandwidth.
Here are some archived Sun employee blog posts about SGD (aka Tarantella, aka Secure Global Desktop).
-Eric Boutilier
"Sun has also set up a test server for slashdot to melt." Fixed that last sentence for you.
They get my vote for best Slashdot Effect message.
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
Well, over the past several yeas, Sun has gotten REALLY GOOD at the whole thin client thing. A modern Sun Ray setup bears no resemblance to the terminals of old, or even X terminals. They're essentially stateless devices you just "plug in", and everything runs off the server. When I say "everything", I even mean your whole session and screen contents (something X terminals and serial terminals don't do as nicely). You can even detach and re-attach (i.e. hot-desking) your session between thin clients. (I equate it to "VNC in a box, that doesn't suck")
Heck, the UI performance is even good enough that you *can* use it comfortably as a primary desktop, for 2D stuff.
But guess what? There's more!
These things also support audio (with hot-desking, so you're mp3s are still playing in the background and hit the speakers of the next thin client when you re-attach your session). These things also support USB peripherals as well! (a couple of days ago, I plugged my SD card reader into one to get some photos from my digital camera... normally I have one hooked to a USBRS-232 box for some embedded stuff I do)
Yes, I actually have a home installation of the Sun Ray 150 model, and I've been REALLY happy with it. I get a persistant session not tied to a portable device (something not do-able with laptops, unless thinking of the Tadpole COMET15 SunRay laptop), and essentially computer access in every room. It rocks!