[THIN] Re: Here's a biggie. Why is thin computing the future.

  • From: "Shannon Wyatt" <swyatt@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 09:07:33 -0400

If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
 
I agree with most of your points. I personally think that thin is in
where the pipes are small. But somewhere along the lines people started
to think that every desktop should be running Citrix.
 
I'm sure that Citrix has gotten a pretty penny from you since 98, unless
you are still on Winframe 1.7!

-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Braebaum, Neil
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 8:48 AM
To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [THIN] Re: Here's a biggie. Why is thin computing the future.


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Shannon Wyatt [mailto:swyatt@xxxxxxx] 
Sent: 18 July 2002 13:11
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Here's a biggie. Why is thin computing the future.


This would be true if you didn't factor in the real cost of Thin
Clients. I often hear numbers batted around on the "real" costs of owing
a PC versus the cost of a thin client. But if a thin client envioronment
is managed the same way as a fat client environment then the actual cost
of running a thin client envronment would be pretty high as well. But
after one of your servers gets trashed from the end users the
administrators start clamping down. 
 

I have never *once* in over four years of doing this, had an end-user,
cause me a server problem.
 
Help-desk have always been able to shadow, for usability issues. Desktop
environments are very restrictive, and mandatory profiles, so users
can't do anything to the servers, and nothing to damage their
environment.
 
I've done two changes in server OS, since implementing the thin clients.
Numerous changes to apps, not had to upgrade the WBTs - can't see a need
to for the foreseeable future, either - but there are other constraints
(I'll mention later).
 

  But lets compare the actual costs of a thin client per user to run
Microsoft Office.
 
Thin Client $400
Portion of hardware on server for each user $200 (Assumes a $10k server
supporting 50 users)
Metaframe and TS License $350
 
So the actual cost of a thin client is much higher then the purchase
price. If a thin client doesn't have a host to connect to it is not much
more then a boat anchor. 
 

There would still be server costs for fat clients - both if you're
implementing thin client apps, or merely for back-end usage.
 
The point being, that notational purchase price for the WBT, compared
with the cost of a PC, has not needed to be revisited in four years. Nor
can I foresee any obvious needs to change it. Despite possibility of
future new versions of OS and / or apps. This would hardly be the case,
were it a PC.
 
But as I said, initial, capital costs were never where it was at.
Logical administration of the environment that the *users* use, is
radically different, and less costly, than it would be with countless
PCs, and the products needed to administer the PCs. I say this, because
as a company we do use PCs, and software to manage them, so I have
direct, like-for-like comparisons.
 

 
Sure, I have to upgrade PCs every few years, but I've also had a few
clients that had to replace their thin clients as well. 
 

I haven't - beyond hardware failures covered by maintenance contracts -
nor can I see an upcoming need to either.

  If you purchased your thin clients in 98 then odds are pretty high
that they only support ICA, so no RDP. And odds are that a client made a
year later performed much better. 
 

Largely irrelevant for the constraints that my main implementation
covers. ICA is pretty much a must - bandwidth to each location is
largely 64k.
 
This is more likely to be the constraining factor.
 
The devices perform adequately for the users needs. I can't foresee an
obvious reason why they shouldn't continue to do so, for years to come,
despite future upgrades to OS and apps.
 

Using available tools I can manage a users desktop pretty darn
effectively. 
 

You can - but there's generally more to do.
 

My argument was basically that thin fits a niche, and fits it quite
nicely. 
 

Indeed it does.

 But it isn't a good fit everywhere.  
 

I don't believe anybody advocated it was.
 
Merely that if the apps are *all* thinly-delivered, there's the
potential to trivialise that box at the end of the line. Not having to
physically change it for four years, with the ongoing likelihood that
nothing on the horizon is going to alter that, is quite a boon.
 
I, nor anybody else that I can see, advocated this being the choice
where all thin-apps are used - merely that there are scenarios where
they have a very valid place, and for very good reasons.

 When you look at small environments with Terminal Services your costs
are actually higher, since to be safe you are going to have to purchase
extra hardware and software to ensure that in the case of a bad stick of
RAM you don't take down your entire network. At least if everyone has a
real pc and the server is down you can still do something. Now if I need
to run a crappy app a low bandwidth pipe then I'm all over Terminal
Services and Metaframe.  

 
Ah, but there your talking about best fit for an environment - that's
higher up the food chain of good design.
 
Where thin-client computing came in for me, and this was late 97, early
98, was low-bandwidth scenarios, users who had need for applications, as
opposed to full-blown desktops, and a likely method of managing it all.
Simple use of apps, and large numbers of users, are great candidates for
thin-client computing. As are bandwidth challenged scenarios.
 
Things more leading to hybrid, mix-and-match scenarios are more due to
more complex desktop requirements, power-user type needs, developers
etc... issues where server resources are going to be hard to manage and
secure, and *guarantee* reasonable performance - and scenarios where
apps aren't truly suited to serving the graphics over the network (be it
LAN or WAN).
 
Neil 


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