From thick to thin clients
The affordability of computers by many organizations was as a result of the invention of desktop computers, unlike the days of mainframes. This made many schools have technology-enabled environment. Thick clients are full-featured computers with local hard drives and capacity to run multimedia applications. They can be connected to a network and operated as standalone computers. However, maintenance and sustainability were some of the challenges encountered by the use of thick clients. Many organizations had to incur extra cost in resolving the issue of viruses on the systems. However, the emergence of thin client architecture was able to mitigate some of the challenges encountered using thick clients.
Many organizations now
opt for thin client environment because of high cost of a desktop replacement,
network security, data access to mobile or remote workers (Hewlett-Packard Inc,
2012). Thin clients are gaining ground at a faster speed with various
manufacturers’ design process to suit the needs of users. Though, the
technology has challenges of scalability and high performance servers. There
might be a need to upgrade the server as the users’ workload increases or
purchase a new server. The capability is limited in handling multimedia-rich
applications, and the transmission of data requires a higher network bandwidth.
However, the benefits outweigh the challenges. Thin clients have lower
acquisition, administrative, and maintenance costs. Thin clients have better
security, and do not retain data during processes, as processing is centrally
managed on the server. Thin clients are highly sustainable and do not require
disks, regular updating or becoming obsolete within a short period. Reduction of
network congestion and support of heterogeneous PC environment are part of the
benefits of thin clients (Educause, 2012).
Other technologies
might help the adoption rate of thin client architecture. The use of wireless
technology in a thin client environment will mitigate the issue of network
bandwidth, and transmission of data will be faster. The wireless technology is
becoming more popular such that students with thin client netbook can have
access to school web applications anywhere, anytime. The cloud computing
technology will also aid the effective use of thin client architecture, as this
will reduce the workload on the server. Users can access applications stored
outside the primary server.
References
Hewlett- Packard.
(2012). When to consider thin client solution? Retrieved September 10, 2012 from
http://www.hp.com/sbso/solutions/pc_expertise/article/thinclients_consider.html.
Educause. (2012). What
are thin clients? Retrieved September 10, 2012 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/DEC0005.pdf
