[THIN] Re: Recommendations for Thin client devices
- From: Michael Pardee <pardeemp.list@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:55:38 -0400
"You can easily end up re-creating the fat PC with added limitations!"
Exactly what we struggle with. The discussion also comes up when
troubleshooting performance issues. With a PC you can put a true agent for
a management solution on there (Compuware, Mercury, EdgeSight, etc). With
the WinCE clients we have only been able to mirror the network port to get a
sense of what is going on.
> From: Steve Greenberg <steveg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:47:29 -0700
> To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [THIN] Re: Recommendations for Thin client devices
>
>
> Exactly, well stated. There is also the danger if you go down the road to
> create a managed, full featured XPe thin client that you need to patch and
> provide virus protection, etc, etc.
>
> You can easily end up re-creating the fat PC with added limitations!
>
> Steve Greenberg
> Thin Client Computing
> 34522 N. Scottsdale Rd D8453
> Scottsdale, AZ 85262
> (602) 432-8649
> www.thinclient.net
> steveg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
> Of John Vorchak
> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 12:34 PM
> To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [THIN] Re: Recommendations for Thin client devices
>
> Good points for sure, the XPE, just as now CE clients are vulnerable - not
> very, but still a risk. There are ways to mitigate the risk however I'm
> sorry to say that I'm not aware of one of the thin client vendors who is
> making this happen...
>
> The biggest problem continues to be exactly what you are going after
> however, and that is the management - the vendors realize this and build
> custom tools to be able to 'easily' manage the XPE devices however the tools
> fall far short of what they should be. Realistically there's a dirty little
> secret that the vendors could use in their construction of the image - MS
> provides the SMS Advanced Client for XPE... The bad news, you have to
> include it in the build at image development time, so since the vendors are
> wrapping themselves into the custom management piece they're not going to do
> it, plus most of them know their tools well and are unfamiliar with SMS.
> Back when I last developed a thin client platform, we used Altiris for
> management, it was a good solution and one of the current vendors should get
> the hint -- possibly from a large account customer (hint, hint) -- to build
> an image that can be managed by something more reasonable than a custom tool
> that is typically late and falls short of expectations. I realize that I'm
> not making the Wyse guys and others happy with talking about the SMS
> component, but I know of industrial customers who are now using it daily so
> the vendors can get evolve or die as far as I'm concerned :)
>
> It does really come down to an informed decision realistically, I prefer
> XPE, but that's because as an XPE developer, I'm pretty involved with XPE.
> Preference sometimes doesn't dictate over business need however and if a
> device is not able to be managed, it's an ugly paperweight/coffee warmer and
> pc's end up ruling the day.
>
> My $0.02....
> John
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
> Of Michael Pardee
> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 1:47 PM
> To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [THIN] Re: Recommendations for Thin client devices
>
> We have 4500 thin clients and I struggle with staying with them as we
> continue to grow (we use CE based clients, almost entirely due to cost) or
> return to fat clients. For me the keys are performance and management.
> With the Xpe thin clients I believe we still have to deal with patching and
> viruses. If nothing else I would expect they can help spread a worm.
>
> With CE we haven't had the same concerns. We have old NCDs, and a bunch of
> Neowares. We are about to evaluate the Wyse as well. But there is
> something compelling about a fat client managed by SMS and locked down by
> GPO that is appealing to me. We have much more control over PCs that we did
> 7 years ago.
>
> Although, I could just feel this way because we got burned badly by the new
> DST rules and the NCD thin clients. They are so old that there were no
> patches for them so we had to trick their time zone information to make the
> time and their Outlook calendars look correct. This Sunday we'll have to
> move them back to the correct time zones since 4/1 is the date of the
> original DST change. With PCs we could have figured something out. With
> the WinCE based NCDs we have to either get 1700 of them out of here or plan
> on changing their time zone information 4 times a year.
>
> When it comes to the thin clients the best management tool will win with us
> since every vendor has a model that will perform acceptably. NCD had a
> decent solution in their time but they're gone. Neoware has a fair solution
> but it has not scaled well for us. They have a new version that is
> promising the world but we'll see in a couple of weeks when we have it.
> They are very late with the delivery. Maybe the Wyse tool will blow the
> others away and make the decision easy.
>
>
> SBC SITES ONLY GOOGLE SEARCH: http://www.F1U.com
> ************************************************
> For Archives, RSS, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or
> set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link:
> //www.freelists.org/list/thin
> ************************************************
>
> SBC SITES ONLY GOOGLE SEARCH: http://www.F1U.com
> ************************************************
> For Archives, RSS, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or
> set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link:
> //www.freelists.org/list/thin
> ************************************************
SBC SITES ONLY GOOGLE SEARCH: http://www.F1U.com
************************************************
For Archives, RSS, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or
set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link:
//www.freelists.org/list/thin
************************************************
Other related posts:
