Thin Clients and Terminal Services

Back in the old days, the only computers were room-sized mainframes. Users would use terminals, which are essentially a monitor and keyboard, to share the computational power of the mainframe computer. This is an example of a client-server setup; the mainframe is the server and the terminals are the clients.

With the advent of the personal computer, people stopped using client-server systems. They no longer need powerful servers, because their desktop computers are capable of running even the most resource-intensive applications.

Unfortunately, this leads to wasted resources. Have you ever taken a look at your CPU utilization rate when you're using a word processor? The typical office worker using a typical office computer might be using 10% of the CPU's capacity and 25% of the RAM's capacity on any given workday.

If the easiest way to stop wasting computer resources is to switch back to a client-server system. Thin-clients are inexpensive terminals that send input from a mouse and keyboard to a server and then show the results on a monitor. The least expensive thin-client cost around $200. These thin-client machines connect to a server on your network, which is where all the applications are run and all the computations occur.

So let me illustrate the benefit of using a thin-client system. If your company had 1,000 writers who all needed a computer with word processing software, you could by 1,000 computers for around $500 each for a total cost of $500,000. Or you could buy 1,000 thin-clients at $200, plus a single server for around $10,000. Total Cost: $210,000

The real benefit of using thin clients is that they are much easier to maintain than a regular computer. Instead of installing software updates on 1,000 computers, you install the update only on the server. Since no software is stored on the thin-client, there's nothing to update, ever!

The other thing I love about thin-clients is that the are quiet; since they don't contain powerful processors or lots of RAM, thin-clients don't need tons of loud, noisy fans.

I've been playing around with the Terminal Services role in Windows Server 2008. Basically, it provides an easy way to allow thin-clients to run programs on the server.

For those of us who are actuaries, there is one other great benefit to using a thin-client system... a $10,000 server will almost certainly run a financial model faster than a $500 desktop computer. This is especially true if you run the model overnight, when other users aren't taxing the system.

Regards,

The Greek Actuary Guy