Talk:Thin client

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[edit] User-interface device vs. Device for running a thin client application program

What's the difference between these two? To me, they both look the same. Also, I suggest using the term "thin terminal" when referring to appliances/devices. --PeterAstrand 20:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thin clients vs. Terminals

The definition given for “thin clients” overlaps with that for terminals. There should be some explanation of the historical significance of terminals, as well as a differentiation between the two terms.—Kbolino 04:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I really can't see the difference between "thin client" and terminals. To me, it is a play around of terminology as all a thin client does is paints the screen, receives and sends data, that was done by terminal years ago.

A Thin Client and a Fat Client are both Terminals. Fat Client is a regular Complete PC with All the Advantages and Disadvanteges. A PC is not always connected to a Network. (Then it is not a Terminal Samc 10:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)) Look up Client Server Computing, and Microsoft Terminal Services. Samc 10:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC) PS. I am tired of going to my Bank or Health Center too find they are not working as the Branch Lan is Down... Why? because they use Yesterdays Technology of PC's and Client Servers... Samc 10:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

On a client/server system, the end user software runs on the client which accesses resources provided by the server. With a terminal model, the end user software runs on the server which uses the keyboard and display of the terminal. At the most basic level, a terminal is an I/O device whereas a client is capable of running programs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Real Deuce (talk • contribs) 03:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Diskless workstations/PCs

This article is describing only thin clients which are GUI terminals. There is also a class of thin clients which do local processing (application logic in this strange terminology of this article) but do not have local permanent storage (eg. no local harddisks). Either this article or another article ought to describe this middle-class of client. Dyl 15:27, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thin / Thick Client

The "middle client" discussed above is called a Diskless Node. It has processing memory and a procesing CPU, but no permanent storage device. It may have I/O ports such as serial, parallel, USB's or card adapters, and connects to a network for storage. A trivial version of this is a standard computer with the disks removed in order to disable the ability to save and carry off proprietary information.

The model of Thin Client connected to a Computing Server is the same paradigm as the old Terminal connected to a Mainframe or other shared computing center. It is fine for textual work. It becomes problematic for complex image work that passes much data across the interface, slowing down performance and causing the central server's I/O to bog down.

It is poor for computer intensive programs such as CAD, Engineering, interactive PhotoShop sessions, the running of databases (as opposed to data entry), or any other computing or I/O intensive program.

The reason that PC's became popular in a business environment is because the Terminal / Mainframe method restricted the ability to write or install applications to a chosen few. We used to call them the High Priests of the Mainframe. If you wanted to talk to the computer, you had to petition the Priest.

PC's allowed anyone to purchase, write, or install the software of their choice, enabling them to talk to the computer themselves. The use of thin-net or secured servers puts the business person back into the bad-old days. Hence, laptops.

This battle for access to the Wise One is ancient: See the differences between the Gallilean and the Judaen stories in the Bible or the Greek concept of the Oracle.

Greg Hebert

Samc Samc 12:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC) Subject needs putting into wikipedia ORDER

Greg writes about PC Advantages, Please Greg, Yeasterday I saw a Brand New Laptop from ASUS With WINDOWS XP PRO. Very Fast Gigabyte Memory Dual Core etc etc... I had an e-mail using Yahoo with a Word DOC that was important for me to read ASAP. On That ASUS I could not read it as MS-OFFICE was Not Installed! Also The Anti-virus Program and Windows needed Updating etc, etc, So Whoever buys that rather expensive Laptop with Legal Software, can not start working from Day One.

This is Very Poor Technology, Service etc... Thin Client Technology Solves ALL those Problems and more. "The Network is the Computer" is even more true Today.

PS. To Wikipedia Editors,

NC's and Thin Clients Should be Sub Catagories of a Main Category.

Thanks Samc Samc 12:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hmmm

I'm thinking of something similar, but this isn't quite it. I'm thinking more of a dismembered desktop. Wireless keyboard/mouse/tablet interface and remote wireless display with a fast, stationary CPU doing all the processing elsewhere. But not like a single server running to multiple clients. Just one server talking to one set of input and output devices. Putting the weight and brains and heat on the floor and carrying the lightweight interface around. Does such a device/concept exist? What would it be called? — Omegatron 03:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

"But not like a single server running to multiple clients. Just one server talking to one set of input and output devices."
Can you explain this further?
As far as i understood, you're simply talking about wireless thin clients.
Whadar 11:08, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Omega, They are simply Called Thin Clients, The Idea of this Model is and was that they are Software and Hardware Device Independent, From a Simple Black and White Cellular Phone upto Full Workstations. UNIX Linux Mac Windows Symbio or Whatever. Sam Samc 12:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Noise

The single most compelling advantage of Thin Clients to me is the lack of noise. Today (2006), even though possible, building a silent PC/fat client is still challanging and costly. Terminals/Thin Clients OTOH typically use no moving parts (no hard disks, no fans) and hence emit no audible sounds. Guenthert

This is certainly an advantage but one among many - heat output (saves on power and A/C to keep the room cool), desktop realestate. I'm deliberately sticking to physical advantages here. Robert Brockway 05:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Why only physical advantages? I just added a bit on noise (before having read this discussion).—greenrd 19:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Is it true that the power savings are as much as is claimed? Our thin client set up is on 24 hours a day. PCs and laptops are switched off at night. This sounds like the urban myth that all stand-by settings on equipment are power-hungry.
Why is your thin client set up on 24 hours a day? There's no reason to keep the thin clients switched on overnight if they're not being used. And you need not have a separate file server and thin client server - they can be the same physical machine. I think the lesson here is that thin client set ups can easily use less power, if designed from the outset to do so.—greenrd 18:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] merge from Diskless workstation?

I propose merging in Diskless workstation since this article is more mature. The two devices are almost the same and the differences are subtle, with the ambiguous difference being how much processing is done on the terminal itself. We should give each a section and give rigid definitions that clarify what it needs to qualify as a simple "thin client" and what it needs to qualify as a "diskless workstation." Thoughts? Brownsteve 22:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a little difference between this two systems. It is enough and better to add a link between thin client and diskless workstation. Thin-client is mostly a computer which could operate seperately, that means mostly with harddisk. Acces is remotely by a graphical terminal. Accessing with VNC is very similar to this. Diskless workstation can be connected to an emulation environment (VMWARE) and not to a thin client. Thin client is an IT architecture and diskless workstation is a feature of the workstation. Please, do not mix! Dieter 217.225.76.112 11:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, i agree. There's a difference, so a mix would be a bad thing to do. Whadar 14:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree -- I think that the articles should be merged. Dumb terminal, Thin Client, and Diskless Workstation are all variations on a theme, the only differences being in exactly how much of the presentation layer is processed on the workstation. --Surturz 01:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree -- Diskless workstations can be full-fledged computers, simply depending on a file server for storage. "Thin clients" tend to implement a much more-limited API, for example, just a windowing system with no real computes located locally. -- Atlant 01:08, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree as per Atlant. While Brownsteve is correct that the differences can be subtle they are none-the-less fundamental to the functioning of the unit which is a major reason I am against a merge. Also, given the length of the articles I think it would be unwieldy to do a merge. Robert Brockway 18:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] merge from dumb terminal?

I propose that dumb terminal be merged with this article. Dumb terminal, Thin Client, and Diskless Workstation are all variations on a theme, the only differences being in exactly how much of the presentation layer is processed on the workstation. Whilst Thin-Client advocates would be offended at the comparison, the cycle of centralisation and decentralisation occurs in all aspects of computing (and life in general, in fact) and it is an improvement to Wikipedia to have the historical context for the development of Thin Clients. Discuss the differences between the dumb terminals of the 70s with the Thin Clients of the 00's by all means, but they should all appear in the same article. --Surturz 01:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Disagree -- Dumb terminals are far, far dumber than thin clients; they're completely different generations of beasts. -- Atlant 01:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
But are they the same beast?? --Surturz 23:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
No, not the same beasts at all. Dumb terminals could be built entirely out of random, small-scale logic and a couple of kilobytes of RAM or shift registers or, for convenience, an 8085-class processor with a little RAM and ROM. "Thin Clients" are built with far more capable hardware including bit-mapped graphics, x86- or SPARC-class processors, lots of RAM, windowing software of some kind, etc.
Atlant 01:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I Agree With Atlant, Thin Clients are not Dumb at all They by Defintion always have a CPU and Memory to run the Application and usually a Web Browser, IBM used to talk about Network Computer Architecture and Oracle and SUN used to say "The Network is the Computer". From SUN they were usually JAVA Stations, As JAVA Works on most Hardware. Samuel Cohen Thin Client Expert Samc 13:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Disagree While Dumb terminals are conceptually analogous to thin clients they are distinct items. They are used in different ways. A merge would be a mistake. Robert Brockway 18:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Please don't merge the "data terminal" article into "thin client". It is useful to be able to link to it from other articles that refer specifically to historical data terminals and do not mean to refer at all to the more current notion of "thin client". I have no problem with the current "dumb terminal" article merging into "data terminal", since they are referring to essentially the same thing. — DAGwyn 22:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It seems there's a strong concensus against every merge except dumb terminal into data terminal. I'm going to go ahead with that merge, but I'll keep the other merge requests up for now. If more people vote against merges, perhaps someone should remove the request. -- Nanobri 16:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thick client -> hybrid client?

Thick client is an ambiguous term - some people consider it same as fat client and some as hybrid. I suggest we refer to hybrid clients instead of thick client and also link to the hybrid client article. Look at client (computing) for the definitions and differences

Whadar 14:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree, Samc 12:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC) Yes These Related Catagories should be put in Order on Wikipedia, Thanks Sam Samc Look at this interesting article from Linux Devices Website That includes definition of Thin Clent with examples and Photographs etc...


http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT723038

Sam Samc 09:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing information

This article doesn't address the use of the term 'thin client' to refer to software that executes on a normal workstation but which only performs presentation related operations, deferring all actual data processing to a server. E.g., an interactive web site that doesn't use javascript. JulesH 19:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Intro rewrite

The introduction needs to be rewritten to take account of the fact there are two related definitions - see the Definitions section in the article.—greenrd 18:22, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article too broad?

When I think of thin clients I think of one additional criteria -- that of hardware or software clients that allow me to disconnect a session and then reconnect to it from the same system but more importantly from a different system (or unit). I don't think terminals quite fit this nor does X-Windows without help (like from NOMACHINE). Actually, I would probably throw in a GUI element as well since all of the modern thin clients are GUI based. If we do want to claim that things like text based terminals belong in the same category then perhaps a distinction should be made between thin clients of old, modern thin clients, and how usage of the term has evolved. For what it is or isn't worth I have been a Sun Ray and MetaFrame for UNIX administrator for 7+ years. Argel1200 23:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

If you could cite a reliable source for your definition, that'd be great. Otherwise, we can't base the article around it, I'm afraid. And even if you can, we might not be able to, if (as seems likely) there are multiple "correct" definitions. (Incidentally, I've been having difficulty finding definitions that I can nail down for related topics recently - I am looking for a copy of the original Network Computer Reference Profile, for example).—greenrd 23:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
This InfoWorld article comes to mind: Think Thin. Finding an exact definition is going to be difficult as the industry has just ended up moving in this direction -- e.g. all the major products support these features so I think they are taken for granted. Regardless, the InfoWorld article is certainly a better reference than the webopedia one when it comes to modern thin client technology. Argel1200 22:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
The article doesn't seem to provide a definition, which is what the Webopedia link is for - and in my experience, even trade journalists are not reliable sources for definitions about technology ("trade publication" journalists, as opposed to "enthusiast publication" journalists, aren't always that technically knowledgeable, and rely too much on what PR people feed them).—greenrd 00:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Trade publications may not be the most reliable source but how can you in effect claim webopedia is more reliable? This article needs a good rewrite -- e.g. the software thin client section mentions Knoppix but fails to mention the actual industry leading products like Citrix, Windows Terminal Services, and Secure Global Desktop -- but you have sapped pretty much all of my motivation. Enjoy your article! Argel1200 04:02, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Are technology distinctions really the key point?

I read the article and much of the discussion here and feel as though I'm eavesdropping on a private discussion amongst technologists. Fascinating though all these distinctions (terminal, dumb terminal, hybrid x, thick y) may be they all seem to have the discussion upside down for those readers visiting the site for a more practical understanding of the issues in the thin-client concept. Here's a start?

The impetus towards thin-client is away from the "thick client": the current personal computing standard, with its desktop operating system, applications and data. Following is a simplified presentation of the issues.

A major problem for large organizations having perhaps thousands of desktop computers is the problem (cost) of purchase and maintenance of such individual systems. Each purchase of a desktop computer requires perhaps a day of set-up/configuration; within a month however that desktop will likely be different from every other desktop because of the user's preference, personal installs, and perhaps computer viruses. So that each subsequent (inevitable) user problem has to be solved by a technician who has to unravel all these local mysteries. Standard upgrades and new software multiplied by thousands (of desktop computers) add further burdens to an already large maintenance budget.

Imagine then the appeal (to management, anyway) of replacing all of these "fat" clients with a simpler device that gets all its programs and data from a single central server. The "thin client" requires negligible setup/install costs; the user is permitted only standard, limited customization; there is only one copy of the operating system and all software on the server; a quick upgrade to the server software is all that is needed to instantly upgrade all user software.

Such a picture is highly appealing--idyllic even--to those who maintain systems, so what possibly could be wrong with it? Well at least three things (say its critics): speed; personalization; and autonomy.

speed: with thin client you have one (or at least a limited number) of central servers doing all the work previously done by a thousand or more local hard drives, and sending that information over thin wires rather than fat wires. This actually works quite well...but not perfectly. Users must get used to a different, often jittery, feel to their experience and not everyone likes it.

personalization: some customization is possible on a thin client but there is much more of a feeling of being a clone in a factory than having one's own desktop domain.

autonomy: what if the server goes down (or the line, if the server is in a remote location)? Where before, a thousand users would continue working with only minor degradation of service (no email?), with thin client, a thousand users would be without any useful computing power at all for the duration of the server/line downtime--a potential disaster for many types of business operation.

The discerning reader will detect tensions between two groups here: between perhaps those management and technical personnel who favour (for obvious reasons) the thin-client approach, and end-users, who resist it because of the speed and personalization issues. In the end it is often management, in spite of its desire to reduce costs, that cannot overcome its discomfort with the possibility of bringing a thousand employees to a dead stop in the middle of a business day.

This is a very simplistic description of the issues but it helps to illustrates both the perceived obstacles to the thin-client solution and the efforts by those seeking to promote it to overcome those objections. The following technologies have been considered (etc etc).

Obviously this needs work but it might be all that many readers will want to know and could be followed by the subsequent plunge into the history/technology issues. --207.216.139.134 18:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thin clients vs. Terminals redux

Most of this article has slightly missed the difference between a graphical terminal and a thin client. A terminal is an I/O device which provides resources to the server whereas a client is a device which uses resources provided by the server. RDP/X11/VNC are terminal protocols, not thin client protocols. A "thin client" runs minimal application logic, and a terminal runs NO application logic. In general, a thin client runs the UI logic while the server does the processing.

If one were to find the first historical implementation of a thin client, the IBM 3270 would be a good place to look rather than X terminals.

[edit] Please add a section describing the use of thin clients for bridging digital divide

As projects as Ndiyo and Nstar are doing just that (using it to bridge the Digital divide, this should be added in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.64.160.129 (talk) 10:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disadvantages

Are there any disadvantages to the Thin Client or the Thick Client? I have to look up both the advantages and the disadvantages for a school project but I couldn't find any disadvantages. --DestructoTalk to me 01:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)