Saw an article about thin clients on Network World recently. Essentially, it talks about how Verizon Wireless is currently heavily involved in a project project to replace thousands of call center PCs with Sun Microsystems’ thin client terminals.

By switching over to thin clients, Verizon was able to obtain both direct savings in terms of dramatically lowered power consumption and manpower required to support the help desk as well as indirect ones such as lower downtime. Plans are afoot to convert other existing call centers as well as all new ones using this architecture.

It was only a few days ago that I was trying out Suns’ thin client “Sun Ray” offering. What is interesting and unique about the Sun Ray thin clients is that it is totally devoid of an Operating System (OS). Its firmware contains only the code necessary to facilitate its USB ports, VGA/DVI connector(s), serial and networking ports, smart-card reader and the on-board encryption engine.

When fired-up, the Sun Ray essentially does its internal hardware check, then loads up its DHCP client to obtain an IP address from the server. It then sits there idle, consuming very minimal power. When a recognized personal smart card is inserted, the device immediately powers up and the display lights up with the user’s desktop.

All traffic entering the wire is encrypted, and one can have the Sun Ray run on a dedicated network or VLAN for additional security. Management can then be done via a separate NIC isolated from the private one serving the thin client. For the truly security (paranoid) minded, there is even a fiber optics based Sun Ray model. Yes, the next version will feature quantum cryptography - in like a 100 years time.

Barring the mention of quantum cryptography, the above can only be described as evolutionary at best. With the advent of server-based virtualization however, it is now possible to run multiple desktops images on a limited number of physical servers. These “desktop” instances can then piped through RDP over to the thin clients. The best part is, these can be intermingled with, say, browser sessions that are actually launched from Solaris/Linux - either virtualized, or most likely, simply as different user sessions.

Add in a bit of spices by the name of Sun Global Secure Desktop, which allows access from anything from mobile devices or remote desktops, and you have something revolutionary in the making.

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