THIN CLIENTS Understanding the Costs

WHITE PAPER December, 2006 THIN CLIENTS Understanding the costs We will also examine some changes in PCs that Contents have the potential to further alter the PC/thin client Executive summary ...............................................2 cost equation. Thin-client terminology ..........................................2 Costs to consider...................................................3 We begin, however, by reviewing some PC changes…………………………………………..7 terminology that is helpful when discussing thin Summary……………………………………………...8 clients and the infrastructure necessary to support them. Executive summary Intel Corporation commissioned Principled Key thin-client terminology Technologies, Inc. (PT) to examine the changes and Thin clients come in several different styles, each costs organizations should consider when deploying of which uses a somewhat different architecture to thin clients. delivering computing power to users. Different vendors and analysts often use different terms for As we have discussed in a previous white paper the same concepts and approaches. To avoid (http://principledtechnologies.com/clients/reports/Intel/ confusion, we will use the following consistent set ThinClientWP.pdf), thin clients serve certain market of terms to help make clear which thin-client niches well. On the surface, cost comparisons of thin approaches and technologies we’re discussing. and rich clients may seem as simple as checking which device is less expensive to purchase. Thin client z Server-side computing – A form of advocates also frequently tout lower Total Cost of computing in which almost all of the Ownership (TCO) as a major inherent advantage of processing (with the usual exception of the thin clients due to their relatively simple architectures. display of information) happens on a shared server rather than on a client The real picture, however, is predictably much more system. A single server almost always complicated. The complication stems from the fact that serves the computational needs of many of the costs of adopting thin clients are not multiple clients. (If each server supported initially visible. Instead, those costs emerge only as only one client, the servers would organizations put in place the infrastructure necessary effectively be acting as PCs that to support thin clients. happened to sit far away from the users.) The server may in turn use other devices, These costs come from both the potentially major such as file servers, to meet some of its infrastructure costs necessary to support thin clients requirements, such as disk storage. initially and the additional support costs organizations Server-side computing is basically what will face over the lifetime of the systems. To compare mainframes and minicomputers provided those costs to the costs of using rich clients, to all users before the era of the PC. organizations must also consider management z Shared server – A server that allows initiatives in the rich-client space as well as a variety of multiple thin clients to run applications on intangibles and the "future-proofing" that newer it simultaneously. A shared server is generations of rich clients can provide. typically providing server-side computing to the thin clients. In the rest of this white paper we will look at the z Blade PC – A PC on a card that operates following key thin client cost areas: in a chassis in a rack-mounted configuration. To use a blade PC, a user z Thin client hardware typically runs a thin client device on his or z Application servers her desktop, and that device in turn uses z Network infrastructure the blade PC for its computing. Blade PCs z Application migration were traditionally dedicated, meaning one z Training blade PC served one user. Sharing the z Software licenses computational power of a single blade PC z Productivity among multiple thin clients is certainly z Intangibles possible with more powerful blade PCs, z The future and some vendors are doing so. z Thin client – A thin client is a computer that relies on a server or other back-end system, such as a blade PC, to supply Principled Technologies, Inc.: Thin clients: Understanding the costs 2 most or all of its computation needs. While benefits of thin clients will eventually go away or such a device often possesses a lot more get so small as to be inconsequential.” intelligence than most terminals did in years past, its primary task is displaying information. As an example of how complex this picture can Newer thin clients have begun to include the be, consider a set of test beds that we assembled ability to run browsers and some other during April and May of 2006. Our goal was to set applications locally. The more thin clients up five-unit test beds that employed different types provide such abilities, of course, the closer of clients: they come to being PC-like rich clients. z Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) – z typical business PCs (Dell OptiPlex RDP is a protocol that allows a user to 210Ls) connect to a computer running Microsoft z Sun Ray thin clients (Sun Ray 2s) Terminal Services. Typically, a thin client front- z Wyse thin clients (Winterm 5150SEs) end device will use RDP to connect to a server. The front-end device, however, could The table below summarizes what we had to also be a PC running software that uses this spend to set up each test bed. Each test bed used protocol. the exact same model and configuration of server, z Citrix Independent Computing Architecture so we do not include that server's cost. We also do (ICA) – ICA is a protocol that is closely related not include the cost of monitors, because we used to RDP and that also allows a user to connect the exact same model monitor on all systems. We to a computer running the appropriate also omitted shipping and tax. underlying software. In this case, that software is the Citrix Presentation Server. As with RDP, Five-client test bed Price the front-end device has traditionally been a Sun thin clients thin client, and the other system a server. The Sun Fire v240 server $ 6,924 front-device, however, could also be a PC 5 Sun Ray 2 thin clients $ 1,814 running the necessary Citrix software. Total $ 8,738 z Terminal Services – Terminal Services is a set Wyse thin clients of software capabilities that is part of newer 5 Wyse Winterm 5150SE $ 2,055 versions of Microsoft Windows. It lets a user Citrix 5-user license $ 1,017 access applications on a server over a Total $ 3,072 network connection using RDP. PCs 5 Dell OptiPlex 210L $ 4,215 Costs to consider Total $ 4,215 Accurate cost assessments of thin clients can be difficult because thin clients require a supporting As you can see, both types of thin client devices hardware and software infrastructure that is not always were significantly cheaper than the PCs. The Sun immediately evident. In the following sub-sections, we Ray 2 devices, however, required a Sun Fire v240 examine the key types of costs that organizations may server to be able to talk to our test Windows face when adopting thin clients. server, so the total cost of the hardware necessary to run the Sun Ray 2 thin clients was actually Thin client hardware higher than that of the PCs. (Sun has since Not many years ago, the purchase price difference announced the ability to run the Sun Ray clients between PCs and thin clients was huge. Today's lower directly against the Windows server using RDP, so PC costs have cut into that difference significantly. It is this cost would go away.) The Wyse clients still the case, however, that many thin client hardware required a Citrix license, which brought their devices are significantly cheaper than PCs--as long as purchase price up significantly. you consider only the cost of the device itself. Note also that we did not choose anywhere near The story becomes more complex when you factor in the cheapest PCs available. Instead, we went for the software and, in some cases, hardware necessary standard OptiPlex systems with Intel processors to support the thin clients. Bob O’Donnell’s guidance with HT Technology. from the 2005 IDC thin-client market analysis included this observation: “One critical point that thin client All that said, the per-seat cost of the hardware vendors need to plan for is the rapidly approaching devices themselves is clearly lower with thin price points of low-cost PCs….the purchase price-only Principled Technologies, Inc.: Thin clients: Understanding the costs 3 clients, though by far smaller a margin than in the past. increasing the available bandwidth out of the data center; we discuss this topic further in the next The total hardware cost, however, is actually greater section. than this picture shows, because the thin clients by their very mode of operation demand more computing This approach can also be a problem for highly power from servers than PCs and thus lead to higher distributed organizations, because in such groups server hardware costs. many user communities may not be near a corporate data center. For those groups, the local As our tests found equipment room, often known as the "wiring (http://www.principledtechnologies.com/clients/reports/ closet," may be the only viable solution. Intel/ThinvsPCperf.pdf), in many common business scenarios PC clients place relatively small demands Many organizations call these rooms wiring on servers, while thin-client demands can be closets because that's what the rooms used to be. significant. The following subsection examines the Often, phone and network cables terminate there, types of application server costs that adopting thin so the room has some power and contains one or clients can bring. more network devices, such as a switch or router. Such devices do not, however, typically have the Application servers power or cooling requirements of servers.

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