Sun to sit ultra-thin client suite on Linux servers

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 4 Aug 2004 at 12:15

Low cost and security likely to appeal to government and education buyers

Previewing at the San Francisco Linuxworld Conference and Expo, Sun is showing off its Sun Ray Server Software 3.0 (SRSS 3)running on low-cost x86 Linux-based servers.

Sun Ray technology allows workers to log in to their desktop environment via a remote terminal that has almost no computing power in it at all: Just a keyboard, mouse and a screen.

Peder Ulander, Senior Director, Marketing Desktop Solutions, Sun Microsystems, told us in a recent interview, 'A lot of the success we're seeing there is in education, the public sector, military. And a lot of that has to do with the security - whether it be Java card to biometric type security which we see with the military. What they like about that model is centralised servers and distributed desktops where there's no intelligence that sits beyond the network.'

Among the key markets moving to Linux are education and the public sector primarily because of the cost-savings and security benefits. So Sun is hoping that having SRSS 3 run on cheap Xeon and Opteron boxes with Linux will widen its appeal.

Indeed the Sun has been developing SRSS 3 to open new markets. Says Ulander, 'One of the cool things that we've done over the last year is to remove the need for a private network. The price performance metric has actually gotten dramatically better with the release of some of the volume system products, and we're starting to introduce technologies that enable you to run a session remotely over a broadband connection.

'That broadens its appeal beyond the public sector. And we're starting to see it creep into areas like finance: if you think about a retail, branch bank, well they don't want to have the servers and technology sitting in each of the branches around the globe. They'd rather just have a screen, keyboard and a mouse and be able to authenticate each user based on their identification.'

Again this is in tandem with the broadening appeal of Linux. For example, Sun signed a deal with Allied Irish Bank to use its Linux-based Java Desktop System across the UK.

A key benefit for the security sensitive is that with ultra-thin client computing no information is stored at the client terminal, meaning sensitive company information isn't spread across the hard drives of remote workers.

Ulander said: 'When you think about a desktop, and connecting into a corporate network, you're talking about a VPN, and you can't connect through a VPN unless you have a small section where the applications are available and you're opening up connections to the entire network. So not only is there the worry about 'what are they storing at home?' but also 'who actually has access to these open tunnels that you now have into the network.

'With Sun Ray, there's no opening. There's just this encrypted graphical image and some bits that basically say right click, left click, or this letter on the keyboard. So from an enterprise perspective, nothing goes beyond the firewall and you don't have to open anything up while maintaining the highest level of application availability. That seems really interesting to CIOs.'

Ultra-thin client computing not only allows greater security for remote computing, but the stripped down terminal approach means significant savings to a company's electricity bill. Clients draw much less power, meaning no fans throwing out heat and less work for air-conditioning systems to cool the office down again.

A beta of Sun Ray Server Software 3 will shortly be available at www.sun.com/sunray.