The end user client component of infrastructures is starting to get a good deal of attention these days, and not without reason. A singleton PC is one thing, but an infrastructure with several thousand of them becomes a significant issue for the user, involving both high energy consumption and serious management issues. The next upgrade cycle is also rearing its head. So cutting back on these is now an obvious target for users. And if the solution can roll in adding mobile phones and other devices as easily managed options, that could expand the concept of `useful client device’ quite a bit.
There are now several thin client options available to users that solve some of these issues, but the latest development from Pano Logic takes things a good bit further. According to its CEO, John Kish, the unofficial mission statement of the business is as the `software company that sells hardware’. What this means is that the core of the company’s client technology is software-based – in essence it extends the traditionally internal PCI technology beyond the confines of the PC or server itself and out into the network or the Internet.
At the other end there is hardware that can be fitted into a dumb monitor to create what the company calls a Zero Client. Such clients are totally secure because nothing is processed or stored on them. They are just an interactive interface with the server.
Kish acknowledges that this makes the package a more difficult `sell’ because it involves users in installing the hardware. So he has therefore grasped the nettle and made the hardware design open, with the intention that it becomes an open standard. Vendors can now take this open hardware design and embed it into their own client systems, coupled with OEM’ing the software component to run on their servers.
The first vendor to take this up is Fujitsu, and the pair are making a joint announcement of the relationship today at the CeBIT exhibition in Hannover. Given Fujitsu’s target market of large corporates and public institutions, embedding Pano’s Zero Client technology into its existing thin client systems, which already boast a zero energy consumption in standby mode, should create an interesting combination of low power and low management overhead.
The Pano system typically provides users with a virtual client running on a server within the datacentre, so it has the best possible security the user can provide at that level. Virtual clients can then be provisioned with an instance of a single copy of an application, which removes or significantly reduces most of the client management issues that beset large infrastructures.
Pano Logic is targeting all the other major systems implementers and, while Kish would not be drawn on names or timescales, it seems likely that at least some amongst them will be following Fujitsu’s lead before the end of the year. One of the key factors driving this probability is the combination of an easing of the financial climate generally, coupled with the fact that Microsoft’s Windows 7 does seem to mark the arrival of the next PC upgrade cycle for many major users.
Most have managed to avoid the introduction of Vista and stuck with XP and existing PC client systems. Now for many the bullet has to be bitten. So the choice facing many users is between an upgrade of several thousand PCs to machines capable of running Windows 7 and its applications - with all that means in capital expenditure, the continued high energy consumption, and the management overhead involved in roll out over such an installed base - or a move to a thin client alternative.
The latter holds out potential for cost reduction whichever thin client route is taken. Most vendors offer cheaper, simpler hardware that consumes less energy. They also feature greater intrinsic strength in terms of security. For individual users that are predominantly desk-based and with tasks that utilise a limited subset of both system resources and applications, most thin clients solutions will now make a strong rival for the PC in any large corporate or institution.
They can display weaknesses, however, when it comes to running more complex environments, such as those used by `road warrior’ business executives, and their natural requirement for Internet access and operation within a Cloud infrastructure while out on the road only makes things more difficult. This can be achieved, but normally only at the expense of significant management overhead for systems administration teams in setting up and managing such systems.
Here Pano Logic’s Zero Client approach does seem to have a specific advantage, particularly when coupled with the opening up of the hardware technology to systems and client device vendors. As the connection between server and client is, in simple terms, a PCI-delivered image of what is happening on the server, complex applications environments require no more set up time than would be required on a single PC – and in many cases can then be replicated across a number of different users. But they require no additional set up to accommodate the differences in client devices.
The delivery process is not concerned by the medium used, so it can not only be a network, but also the Cloud, which includes, of course, wireless in the form of WiFi and Mobile Phone transmissions and their associated dongles.
According to Kish, the company is already in at least the early stages of discussion with vendors in the mobile phone industry that are interested in the idea of embedding the open standard hardware technology into their own devices. This does open up some significant possibilities. It is certainly possible to extrapolate from this that we will soon see high-end versions of the leading big-screen mobiles offering the Pano solution.
It is also possible that the technology could be incorporated in mobile dongles for use with PCs. This might well make a better alternative to incorporating the technology on laptop motherboards. It could also be incorporated in a vast array of other systems where a low-cost, secure but functionally rich interface between user and business systems is needed.
From the sysadmin point of view the advantages are clear, and mainly based around the fact that setting up such an infrastructure would not really add any management overhead at all. A user environment could be set up once and would then work with whatever Pano Logic-equipped end user client being employed at any point in time.
This could add all-important operational flexibility to the existing thin client advantages of lower energy consumption, lower capital expenditure, and reduced management overhead and costs.
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