Some Frequently Asked Questions

Question - If I have a PC in my Engineering office with one of ACP's ThinAdapter cards and also a high-speed Internet connection, can it connect as a thin client to 2-5 other PC's? I am trying to avoid rerunning Ethernet cable, which would have to pass through numerous (literal) firewalls.

ACP's ThinAdapter is actually designed to turn a PC into a Thin Client workstation, not to turn a PC into a Thin Client Server. So a ThinAdapter would be in each PC that you want to run as a Thin Client, and then it could not be used for anything else - during the installation of the card, all of the local disk drives are removed so that the PC can then boot over the network and run applications on the server exactly like a true Thin Client.

A Thin Client system would be a perfect solution for any office installation - the only problem is that it is probably not going to eliminate the need for running the network cables.

A Thin Client system will require one machine to act as the server, and for a small system (5 clients or less) this only needs to be a mid-size PC. Nothing special, but it does need one of the Windows 2000 Server operating systems installed on it, and companies (like Gateway, Dell, etc.) usually don't like to put that high-end server OS onto mid-sized machines. Which means that you may need to purchase it separately and load it yourself. This is not a huge obstacle, but it does require some computer knowledge. Once the OS is loaded, it can be set up to support what Microsoft calls their Terminal Server system, and then you can connect other PCs (or true Thin Clients) to it and run all of the applications on the Server.

You would then have your server with the high-speed Internet connection and every Thin Clint that is connected can access the Internet at roughly the same speed as the server does. I say roughly because some pages that use Java or the like to produce large bit-mapped images that move will give any Thin Client problems - Thin Clients work so well because they ship only the parts of a screen that change, and a moving bitmap causes a large area of the screen to change. The scripts or macro are running on the server, not on the client as they would be when a PC displays the same page.

The problem with using Thin Clients to try and get around running cable is that they are designed to work over a standard Ethernet network. So while setting up a Thin Client system solves the problem of getting the high-speed Internet to all your Engineers, it does not solve the cabling issue.

There are, however, several very good alternatives. At National Manufacturing Show next week we will be running many Thin Clients using wireless modems from Cirronet (formally Digital Wireless Corporation) that makes an inexpensive product with plenty of bandwidth to run a Thin Client. You can see these modems in action at the ACP booth (#5557) and find their complete product listing on their webpage at:

www.cirronet.com

Question - Doesn't moving to a Thin Client architecture mean that we are going back to "dumb terminals"?

Yes, we are essentially going back to dumb terminals - but I would contend that this is actually a much better model. It is a model of centralized support and centralized application installation, and for a plant it solves the problem of having 47 PCs located around a factory that have to be maintained, updated, backed up, etc. Applications are now loaded and updated once (on the server) just like with a mainframe, and every connected Thin Client can benefit from the program. The operator doesn't know any difference - to him it still looks exactly like the full PC that he has now, running the same software. Except with a Thin Client, if the unit is damaged (run over by a forklift, or something) he can simply take a new one off the shelf, plug it in, turn it on, and in a few moments it is right back running the exact same application that it was when his previous unit was destroyed. The application never quit running on the server. Think of the difficulty of setting up a new PC, especially at 3:00 AM when the IT department is not around. First similar hardware must be located (if it is still possible to get a PC that matches the units currently installed) then the drivers and applications have to be loaded, everything has to be configured, etc.

There is also the issue of security. Thin Clients have no disk drives, so there is no chance that a mischievous operator might load games or viruses, or take valuable data. The units also do not make targets for theft, as they only work in the presence of a server.

Adding a new interface station at any location is also greatly simplified. Run a network cable, plug in a Thin Client, and that is it. All applications will run just like they run on all of the other clients, because they are actually running on the same server.

Just like with dumb terminals, the computer people in the computer department support the computers in the secure computer department - the operators can now support their own terminals.

Question - Can a standard PC operate as both a thin client and still run other applications as a standard NT workstation?

Short answer, Yes. All that is required is almost any Windows based PC. One of the applications that you can run on the PC is a window that will host a session on a Terminal Server (Thin Client Server). In fact, Microsoft is pushing this with the use of what they call the TSAC (Terminal Server Advanced Client). This 'application' is nothing more than a configuration for an Internet Explorer window that allows you to specify the IP address of the server. Then a full Windows screen is displayed in the browser shell, and keystrokes made while the browser is the active window get transferred to the application running in the user session back on the server. Switch to any other open window (or open a new one) and you are back running local applications while the hosted session on the server continues.

ACP's problem with that approach is that it still requires a full PC to host the client session. While this is very convenient sometimes, most of the customers that we see would rather have a 'dumb terminal' and so they put in a true Thin Client, which has no disk drives or locally stored or configured software. A native Thin Client has no applications (browsers, etc.) stored locally, so there is no chance of the device ending up with an old version of a display program. And with ACP enabled Thin Clients, even the drivers that are used by the Thin Client are loaded each time that the unit is powered on, assuring that the device is always running the latest copy of these as well.

And in terms of reliability inside a factory, true Thin Client hardware is designed to minimize complexity, eliminating components prone to failure (such as disk drives) and scaling back parts (like memory) that are required for a traditional PC.

For more information on ACP Industrial Thin Client computers, please visit our web site at http://www.thinmanager.com

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