I’ve been trying out thin client software at the office, specifically PCoIP running over VMware View.
It’s going very well. The station I sat at had just a keyboard, mouse and screen with a small connector box hooking me up with the network. I was running a virtual instance of Windows with the actual application running on a virtual machine in our data centre.
You wouldn’t know that there was no PC in a box underneath the desk. The beauty of this technology is the fact that I can install a virtual client on my PC at home (or anywhere else) that will allow me to log in and replicate my work environment. It consumes much less power and also makes management of the whole estate much easier. New users can be provisioned in seconds – the process of building a PC can take a day.
The experience is great – in fact I didn’t know I wasn’t sat at a PC when I started using it. The header photo shows the workstation set up (a bit untidy – click to see more) and the inset photo (right) is of the EVEA connector box. You can have up to 4 monitors using a DVI splitter plug – something our geeks really like.
The box is an EVGA PD02. They retail at around £216 plus VAT. When you add the costs of the licenses the individual per unit cost is roughly the same as a fully loaded new PC so the cost saving is in the management – IT staff headcount I guess if you were looking at a large estate.
Note England are doing well in the cricket against India which is why I sat at the workstation in the first place – I wanted an update of the score 🙂 . Invitations to the Oval test gratefully accepted.