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ACP Thin Client Newsletter Article |
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54% of IT departments say they are understaffed. Want to get a handle on the things that suck their resources?
Network Computing and Information Week recently teamed up with a survey to find out which tasks take up most of the IT Staff's time.
Number one on the list was "Answering questions and resolving problems for end users", with 76 percent of IT professionals identifying this as one of their two biggest headaches.
Well, not much Thin Clients can do to eliminate those pesky users. But without a doubt Thin Clients will certainly reduce the time the users spend asking questions. And if there is a legitimate problem, a Thin Client administrator using ThinManager can simply bring up a window of the user's desktop, whether they are across the room or across the country.
In fact, by moving to a Thin Client system you will find that the other items on the list show a marked improvement as well. Here are the remaining items with the percent of respondents that identified it as one of their company's time killers:
With a Thin Client system deployment of new applications becomes trivial. Once the program has been properly configured and proven to meet the needs of everyone involved the job is done. Users can be running the new application in a matter of minutes without any concern for interference from programs they may have installed on their own. The new program always runs exactly like it did on the server because, well, it is running on the server.
Security is a Thin Client's middle name. Sort of like Thin Security Client. This is because every ThinManager Ready Thin Client, like all true Thin Clients, does not store any user data locally.
In fact, Thin Clients working under ACP's ThinManager do not even store local configuration data. And at any time, even in the middle of the session, the client can be whisked out the door and no user data will go with it. No patches needed!
This is because the client simply displays screens that are generated back on the secure servers - no data is even transferred to the client! Add ACP's TermSecure, a proprietary security layer, and even access to the corporate network can be tightly controlled and monitored.
A Thin Client is designed to get by on very little bandwidth. ACP even has customers who are running Thin Clients over dialup phone lines! This means that once the network is set up and the Thin Client is communicating with the Server(s), very little else needs to be done.
An interesting feature of Thin Clients is that their display speed is not so much a function of the network as it is of the Terminal Server. When the server is replaced in three years or so all connected Thin Clients will get a boost in speed and users will see more responsive applications.
A huge drawback of a distributed system is that data, applications and configurations are kept all over the company. Using network file sharing can help somewhat, but there is still this nagging problem of how to restore a user's desktop PC if it has a catastrophic failure.
Like a mainframe computer, Thin Clients are based on a centralized computing model. No matter how many clients are connected and running through the plant, all data and applications are contained on just a few servers. These machines can be carefully monitored, and access can be strictly controlled, such that at any time the system can be recreated with a minimum of downtime. In fact, with ACP's ThinManager, backup servers can be standing by. Any attached Thin Client that detects a problem with its server can automatically go in search of one of these backup servers - in many cases without the user even being able to detect the switch.
Or, go a step further and use one of the Assured Availability Servers as your Terminal Server and every connected Thin Client inherits the unparalleled reliability of these machines.
Want to know more about how a Thin Client strategy can save you time and money? Just send me an e-mail and I will be happy to answer any questions you have.
For more information on ACP Industrial Thin Client computers, please visit our web site at http://www.thinmanager.com
For an archive of past newsletter articles, or to sign up for this monthly newsletter online, please visit our newsletter index at Past Articles
(c) Copyright 2006 Automation Control Products. All rights reserved. All product names contained herein are the trademarks of their respective holders.
