Why Go Thin On Cloud?

It is more than a coincidence that the frog won in race with the rabbit whose only focus was running faster than the frog. Frog being the smart one didn’t only plan out the number of hops required to get to the pond but had also lined up other frogs that would come out one by one making sure that the frog is always one step ahead of the rabbit. A far off analogy, this is exactly how the decision of moving on cloud should be evaluated by businesses. The ultimate decision should rest on gaining efficiency and effectiveness in reaching business objectives without tiring out resources.

And that can only be the case when businesses choose to exist in a consolidated and a thinner computing environment with several dumb terminals or thin clients connected to a mainframe server playing the think tank. Like duplicate frogs, these thin clients would play proxies to the server, assisting enormously with power conservation, simplifying management of information assets and translating into widely enhanced client servicing eventually.

Benefits To The Workspace

Making the business thinner and slimmer in a distributed computing environment inundated with information doubling every two years as is the case today, moving on cloud can be a challenging but a contemplative decision. Which is why, it should be opted for.

Thin clients are essentially lighter than notebooks weighing than 3 pounds, are more robust with fewer moving parts and a battery life of 8 hours on an average making it cost-effective and ideal for both remote and mobile workforce. The multitude of benefits reminiscent of a slim computing environment with thin clients include an access to centralized computing resources from anywhere, workstation reliability and performance with extended lifecycle, and improved manageability. On the contrary, a flawless recovery system has to be in place as thin client architecture is a network-centric IT infrastructure where the network is the single point of failure.

Furthermore, a thin client computing model doesn’t only reduce network congestion but enables a faster access to all GUI Apps whilst limiting access to specific machines decreasing risk of information stealth. Running security controls on the mainframe server reduces chances of data tampering by an intruder decreasing maintenance costs simultaneously.

Options To Consider

Depending on the business’s computing needs, a thin client environment can be hosted over Windows, Linux or VMware. As far as the hardware end is concerned,   the options are only limitless including Data General, IBM, Oracle, Sun, Televideo, Unisys, Citrix Systems, and Network Computing Devices (NCD) amongst others, all of which support mainframe servers connected to the thin clients.

Moving the servers on cloud, computing platforms supporting the afore-mentioned on cloud include Amazon Web Services, Apple iWorks, Microsoft Azure and Google Apps Engine. As per a white paper on cloud computing put together by IGE, a reduction by 54% of all IT-related fixed costs is expected of German companies due to a migration on cloud. Major players facilitating the shift have been identified as IBM, Microsoft and Google.

A Phenomenon Applicable Across Industries

Although a thin-client computing environment has been quite successful internationally with several case studies of business transformations on-record, the phenomenon is still infantile in the local industry.

Applicable across a range of verticals in the local industry including healthcare, financial services, public services etc, thin client computing on cloud can be particularly useful to the education sector. It can serve a helping to initiatives like E-Village putting to use old computers in remote schools with budget concerns and limited maintenance staff.

Linking remote computers to servers on cloud, computer labs at educational centers can be turned into learning centers that can be used for both distance learning and web-based learning. Due to an influx of traffic, learning via thin client computing on cloud can be slightly handicapped with regards to high-motion scenarios using multimedia streaming, motion graphics and/or latency-sensitive applications. For remote villages within the country with no school in square miles, any mode of academic learning is a blessing.

Thin-client computing over cloud can contribute immensely to uplifting the underdeveloped status of third-world countries. And this is just the beginning.