[lowcostcomputing] [Cross Posted] LTSP Success Story - possible case study
- From: "Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay" <sankarshan@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "FLOSSToday" <flosstoday@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 07:19:24 +0530
Promoting open source and free software in Asia
Asian Open Source Centre
Promoting open source and free software in Asia
Thin Client System helps local SMI - Our OSS success story.
Posted by: duan on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 02:44 PM
Centre News Malaysia's SMIs (Small and Medium Industries) have
been
slowed in adopting information technology (IT) due to the high
cost of
implementing and limited budget. We deployed a Linux thin client
system in one SMI to demonstrate the low cost and power of this
technology.
According to the SMI Association of Malaysia, there are only 30%
of
local SMIs currently have a web presence, versus 80% in Europe and
North America. In Malaysia, SMIs do not have enough capability to
invest in IT infrastructure. We believe that thin client may be
one
solution.
Background
Raya Plastik Industri Sdn Bhd ('RPI'), established on 25th of May
1982, is a Malaysian owned company involved in plastic injection
molding. It produces wide range of products such as bottles,
telephone
casing, automobiles spare parts, etc. Like any other medium-sized
manufacturing company, RPI has various departments which
continually
need to communicate with each other daily. They usually exchange
information, etc. through memos and human interactions such as
meetings, discussions, etc. These mediums of communication usually
have their drawbacks such as lost information, corrupted data and
human factors such as ignorance, errors, etc. These problems
usually
affect their planning and production schedules.
With limited IT infrastructure and budget, RPI manages to set-up
their
own PC system processes to handle data and information sharing
between
these departments. The PC were equipped with the Microsoft Office
productivity suite, and CAD tools software. However, these PCs are
not
networked to each other. Therefore, human interactions are still
needed such as copying files and transferring files using floppies
from PC to PC, etc. Moreover, RPI is facing with other drawbacks
as
well such as virus infection, data loses due to system crashes,
etc.
Other than that, RPI also have to deal with licensing fees for
Windows
Operating System and Microsoft Office Suite. Because of those
issues
and budget constraint, RPI could not expand their IT
infrastructure.
Solution - Thin Client and Linux Operating System
Looking at RPI situation, centralized management would save RPI
the
headache of managing PCs. The thin client solution would be a
great
solution for RPI. In a thin client network, centralized management
would include software deployment, system and user administration,
software upgrading, data backing up and so forth. All these would
be
done at the server side and would certainly contribute to the ease
of
management and cost saving. Furthermore, the client will has a
longer
life span compared to traditional PC since the client hardware
would
not need to be upgraded at all.
Furthermore, RPI will realize significantly lower total cost of
ownership (TCO) over a period of time. This is achieved by means
of
lower operating cost mainly due to the centralized management
nature
of the system. Even more cost saving is achieved by the fact that
Linux, a technologically advanced operating system that is based
on
Open Source, and comes free-of-charge together high quality
applications without having to worry about licensing issues.
Moreover,
Linux has a stable and reliable support community.
Back in 1999, a total of 30 thin clients and a server was setup at
RPI
premise and the whole office building was networked. Since Linux
is a
new technology to RPI, a training was done. The training was
basically
on Linux system administration such as managing users' accounts,
installing and upgrading software, etc. and on how to navigate
through
Linux desktop.
Apart from providing a thin client system, an alternative to
Microsoft
Office suite StarOffice 5.2 was introduced to RPI. StarOffice 5.2
is a
complete and feature-rich office productivity product developed by
Sun
Microsystems. This office application software is available for
free
of charge. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet and
presentation
software. StarOffice 5.2 is easy to use and interoperable with
Microsoft Office file formats.
Conclusion
With Linux based thin client, RPI enjoys cost savings, rapid
technology development, software piracy avoidance and knowledge
sharing. No other proprietary product would offer similar benefits
ever. Since 2000, RPI has been undergoing rapid upgrading cycle to
the
latest office suite (OpenOffice.org 1.0 and Redhat 8.0) at
virtually
free of charge. The company simply get the best deal with OSS.
OSS,
indeed, proven to be working and RPI is our very own showcase.
However, the credit belongs to many people who's names are not
mentioned in this article. The developers of Linux, X-Windows,
Etherboot and the thousands of lines of code that glue this
technology
together are the people who we are gratefully indebted.
Thank you Linux community.
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