With the concept of thin clients, many of the users come across almost every day, however, without realizing what they are dealing with. In fact, there is nothing to understand how thin clients work. Just look at your computer and the software installed on it. Next, it is proposed to consider several possible situations related to the concept of thin clients in the operating system. And not necessarily it must be a family of Windows. The principles by which the thin client is installed and configured are the same for all systems.
What is a thin client inherently?
In general, if you look at some kind of official justification, a thin client means either a computer system with limited capabilities or software that interacts with remote servers.
To make it a little understandable, thin clients on user terminals can even be represented as a regular web browser. The entire computer system is the so-called thick client, and when forming and submitting a request to the server on the Internet, a layer is used in the form of a thin client (just an Internet browser).
On the other hand, thin clients can also be described as computer terminals with a minimal configuration and no hard drives on them, but connected to a local network when the operating system is loaded from a central server to each computer using special network protocols. The same goes for some types of application software.
Server-Thin Client Schema: How Does It Work?
Actually, the essence of the question boils down to the fact that when sending a request to the server, it identifies the request, confirms it and sends a response to the client machine.
It doesn’t matter what connection scheme is used (network topology). The main thing is a clear call forwarding. This can be explained by the example of loading the OS from a central server to client terminals that do not have hard drives.
Booting operating systems
But how can the operating system boot onto a computer without a hard drive? Elementary! Modern network connection technologies can use protocols like RIS, DHCP, PXE, RDP and others.
It turns out that there is actually no operating system on the remote client machine, but the terminal can work with the OS installed on the server, while partially using its computing capabilities and the configuration of computers in the environment. Thus, thin clients of this type themselves receive a load on computer resources distributed throughout the network, and the speed of the OS does not suffer from this. Plus, the fact that administering client machines in terms of physical intervention in the OS settings on each of them is completely optional. This can be done from the administrator's computer or server using the most common remote access. In this case, we are talking about the fact that the thin client on Windows (RDP) is used, which in the seventh version and higher is built-in.
Thin Client System: Requirements
If we are talking specifically about computer terminals, the simplest processor and just 1 Mb of RAM are usually enough for a thin client of any type to work.
In the case when some kind of Internet environment is used (for example, Office 365), it is imperative that you have at least some kind of web browser and a fairly high connection speed. With the "Office", by the way, the situation looks quite interesting. The fact is that this Internet project uses the capabilities inherent in most programs of this type with the ability to simultaneously access and edit individual documents, even if stored in a cloud storage.
An example of installing and configuring 1C applications
However, let’s see what the installation of a thin client is based on the example of 1C software products.
The requirement here is the simplest: the server part is located on the central terminal, the clients are on the rest of the machines on the local network. Only in this case, the use of a connection via network protocols is usually applied at the TCP / IP, HTTP or HTTPS level, and the hard drives of minimum size are installed on the terminals for installing the client part of the program.
An approximate setup diagram might look like this:
- downloading and installing clients 8.2 and 8.3;
- Publishing the database on the server
- adding a database to the list of available;
- Establishing a connection like “web server”.
By the way, it is worth noting that client machines can only access the central program or perform some minimal set of resolved actions.
They do not participate in the formation of reporting, and the entire load lies solely with the server PC.
Connection and licenses
Thin clients are also good because they can install the certificates and licenses used for commercial software in several ways, which significantly reduces the cost of their official purchase. As the basic rules, you can use either the installation of one license for a single machine on which several users are registered, or the purchase of licenses for a certain number of users who have access to different computer terminals, that is, when they log in using their registration account, they can work with the program- client on any computer on the local network.
Benefits and Benefits
If you look at the benefits that an organization or enterprise gains when using thin clients, they basically come down to a few things. Firstly, there is a significant cost savings on the purchase of the necessary "hardware" hardware or software. Secondly, the administration of user terminals located on the local network immediately disappears. As mentioned above, this can be done simply from a central server. Thirdly, it becomes possible to use the same operating system and the same software on all network machines. True, the server version of the OS should be installed on the server itself, although some system administrators even use the usual stationary modifications with a small number of child terminals.
But there are also problems. For example, when choosing a connection topology not according to the “star” scheme, computers connected in series or connected to the same central cable can cause the failure of the entire network if problems and errors appear on at least one of them. Otherwise, the use of thin clients is justified, as they say, one hundred percent. True, it makes no sense to use such technologies at home. But in enterprises and in offices, sometimes this becomes an absolute necessity.