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'Dumb Terminals' Can Be a Smart Move for Companies
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "More companies are forgoing desktop and laptop computers for dumb terminals — reversing a trend toward powerful individual machines that has been in motion for two decades, the Wall Street Journal reports. 'Because the terminals have no moving parts such as fans or hard drives that can break, the machines typically require less maintenance and last longer than PCs. Mark Margevicius, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc., estimates companies can save 10% to 40% in computer-management costs when switching to terminals from desktops. In addition, the basic terminals appear to offer improved security. Because the systems are designed to keep data on a server, sensitive information isn't lost if a terminal gets lost, stolen or damaged. And if security programs or other applications need to be updated, the new software is installed on only the central servers, rather than on all the individual PCs scattered throughout a network.'"
Autozone? Yep many retail outlets use dumb terminals especially for computers located at the counter many that double as a POS (Point of Sale.. IE Cash Register). The question is are there companies out there that use dummy terminals for office machines. Oh sure, some do, but its not widespread.
Software writen for server or thin-client environments is designed from the ground up to not interfier with other software, so proper software selection goes a long ways towards making sure that this type of project will work at all. Also note that this isn't about completely eliminating workstations/PCs it's about replacing them where it's not needed. Got a secretary pool of 40 and a call center with 200 stations? That's 240 fewer HD's to re-image after a virus gets past your defences. The Secretary for the VP of Marketing still keeps her PC since she is going to have to open/work with image files that no other secretary will.
My last scan of thin-client tech showed that a client server ration of 150:1 is possible for moderate level usage, with it dropping as low as 25:1 for specialized software that's resource intensive. For a 250-300 seat call center, 2 servers can cover the whole floor. Add in the added security of dumb terminals - no vector for USB thumbdrives, floppys, or CD burners to be used to steal data or inject a virus, and the ease of configuring them - usually you either turn them on & DHCP takes care of them or you point them at a server, and it's a winning combination for IT workload and Data Security.
FTA:
Because the terminals have no moving parts such as fans or hard drives that can break, the machines typically require less maintenance and last longer than PCs. Mark Margevicius, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc., estimates companies can save 10% to 40% in computer-management costs when switching to terminals from desktops
The TCO is not in hardware, but in software and support. What makes a PC network so horrendously expensive (Gartner estimated 4K to 10K USD per seat per year at one time) is the army of technicians required to keep them running. Dumb boxes allow centralization of support which is much less expensive. So you spend less on hardware and labor, and use some of those savings for a really, highspeed network and a really reliable server cluster.
BTW, now-a-days this is often pronounced 'Citrix' or 'Remote Desktop'. Same basic principle.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I've been working a lot in the VDI realm as of late. The concept is using virtualization (usually VMware ESX 2.5 or VI3 w/ VirtualCenter) to create a pool of standalone virtual desktops, a "connection broker" which can dynamically assign users to a particular VM and give them an RDP or VNC connection to it, and a thin client terminal (Wyse's S10 Blazer works well for this).
The Wyse terminal integrates with the connection broker, which handles authentication. Once the user is authenticated, the connection broker assigns the user to one of your virtual workstations and creates a remote desktop session to it on the terminal. The connection broker is responsible for tracking which users are assigned to which VMs. If one crashes, the broker knows about it, removes it from the pool of available workstations, and when the user logs back on they are re-assigned to another VM.
VDI has most all of the benefits of Citrix, like centralization of data and tighter control over user access. There are also some benefits of this over the traditional Terminal Server/Citrix model. One, the user experience is much closer to what they're used to with a regular PC, because they are essentially accessing a fully-featured workstation. Second, you don't have Citrix and Terminal Server weirdnesses, like apps that just won't run in a multi-user environment. Each user's VM, while centralized, is a completely siloed OS instance sharing the resources of the host server. What one user does on their VM typically has much less impact on other users than what can happen in a Citrix environment. With VMware VI3 and their dynamic resource concept, it opens a whole new avenue of dynamic load-balancing between your entire pool of hardware.
There are some downsides, too. A major one is cost. If you're using Windows, you're paying for XP licenses for each user, you're typically paying for VMware licensing for each server, you're paying for thin clients (the S10 is around $300), and you're paying for connection broker licenses. Citrix licensing isn't cheap either, but in my experience, VDI with VMware comes out more expensive. You can typically fit WAY more users per server in the Citrix world than you can with VDI, which adds to your per-user cost for VMware licensing and server hardware. You're also still having to manage individual desktops (although some cool disk streaming products like Ardence can help with this) for patches and new software installs, as opposed to the one-per-sever work you have to do under Citrix.
VDI is still pretty new, but the advancements I've seen just in the past year are making it a pretty exciting world to work in.