Thin Clients Are A Good Buy
Savvy systems administrators at both large and small schools are discovering the cost saving advantages of deploying thin clients in their facilities.
What's a thin client? It's essentially a terminal. It can be an older PC, such as a Pentium II class system. It can even be a MAC! Are you beginning to see where I am going with this? Right! It's an answer to prayer for a school's thin technology budget, because it means that your older machines can be kept deployed and useful, instead of being scrapped. More importantly you can even accept those 'gifts' of ancient computers from donors looking for the tax deduction without wondering what you are going to do with those dinosaurs anyway. Another advantage is that you can completely control the clients totally eliminating hacking and virus infections.. It's an answer to a harried IT director's prayers!
Here's how it works:
Windows 2003 Server has a component called Terminal Services. This terminal emulation software runs on personal computers, Windows CE-based handheld devices or dumb terminals. It allows you to run programs on the thin client just as though you were running it on the server. All the computing is actually done on the server with the client merely displaying the results.
Take this a step further. Imagine that you are seated in front of a 6 year old Pentium II computer which is running Office XP. It doesn't matter to you where the program is actually running, as long as it does what you expect it to do. And that's exactly what happens. Your old PII runs a tiny program which allows it to run Office XP off the server which is running Windows 2003.
Proven technology
Industry has used thin clients for years. Car rental companies and airlines, to name but two examples, use this technology. In fact a software company called Citrix has made a tidy fortune with exactly the terminal emulation software we are discussing. Microsoft was smart enough to license a version of Citrix's program to include in Windows 2000 because they saw how immensely popular thin clients were with their client base. So be assured that you are getting a proven bit of software.
Requires expertise
There is a bit more to the technical side of this client-server solution than meets the eye. As you can see from the diagram above, you will need a robust server or two, depending on the number of clients. The networking does require some expertise and skill. Still it is a solution which I heartily recommend that you consider. Schools will find it an acceptable solution for their client-server needs because it makes such good use of older computers.
Works on MACS too!
You can run Windows programs on your MAC using Remote Desktop Connection for MACS. Follow this link for details.
