Thin Clients: Installation and Configuration

With the concept of thin clients, many of the users come across almost every day, however, completely unaware of what they are dealing with. In fact, nothing in understanding how thin clients work is not. It is enough to look at your computer and the software installed on it. Next, it is suggested to consider several possible situations related to the concept of thin clients in the operating system. And it does not have to be an OS of the Windows family. The principles for installing and configuring a thin client are the same for all systems.

What is a thin client in its essence?

In general, if you look at some formal justification, a thin client is either a computer system with limited capabilities, or software that interacts with remote servers.

To make it a little clear, thin clients on user terminals can be presented even in the form of a regular web browser. The whole computer system is a so-called thick client, and when forming and submitting a request, the server uses an interlayer in the form of a thin client (just an Internet browser) on the Internet.

On the other hand, thin clients can be described as computer terminals with minimal configuration and lack of hard disks on them, but connected to the local network, when the operating system is downloaded from the central server to each computer using special network protocols. The same applies to some types of application software.

The "server-thin client" scheme: how does it work?

Actually, the essence of the matter is that when sending a request to the server, it identifies the request, confirms it and sends a response to the client machine.

It is absolutely unimportant what connection scheme is used (network topology). The main thing is a clear redirect. This can be explained by the example of loading the OS from a central server to client terminals that do not have hard drives.

Operating system downloads

But how can the operating system be loaded onto a computer without a hard drive? Elementary! Modern technologies for network connections 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 both its computing capabilities and the configuration of computers in the environment. Thus, thin clients of this type receive the load on computer resources distributed throughout the network, and the operating speed of the OS does not suffer from this. Plus, and that the administration of client machines in terms of physical intervention in the OS settings on each of them is completely optional. You can do this from an administrator's computer or server through the most common remote access. In this case, it is a matter of using a thin client on Windows (RDP), which in the seventh version and above is built-in.

"Thin client" system: requirements

If it is a question of computer terminals, for operation of a thin client of any type, the most simple processor is usually enough, and only 1 MB of RAM.

In the case when some kind of Internet environment is used (for example, Office 365), it is mandatory to have at least some kind of web browser and a sufficiently high connection speed. By the way, the situation looks rather interesting with the "Office". The fact is that this Internet project uses the features inherent in most programs of this type with the ability to simultaneously access and edit individual documents, even if stored in a cloud storage.

Example of installing and configuring applications 1C

However, let's see what the thin client installation is like with the example of 1C software products.

The requirement here is the simplest: the server part is located on the central terminal, the clients on the other machines in the local network. Only in this case, the use of the connection through the network protocols is usually applied at the level of TCP / IP, HTTP or HTTPS, and on the terminals hard disks of the minimum volume are installed to install the client part of the program.

An approximate setup scheme might look like this:

• Download and installation of clients 8.2 and 8.3;
• Publication of the database on the server;
• Adding a database to the list of available databases;
• Setting the connection type "web server".

By the way, it's worth noting that client machines can only access the central program or perform some minimal set of resolved actions.

In the formation of reporting, they do not take part, and all the burden falls solely on the server PC.

Connection and Licenses

Thin clients are also good because they can install 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 acquisition of licenses for a certain number of users who have access to different computer terminals, that is, when they enter under their account they can work with the program- Client on any computer on the local network.

Benefits and advantages

If you look at the advantages that an organization or an enterprise gets when using thin clients, they basically boil down to several things. Firstly, there is a significant cost saving in purchasing the necessary hardware or software. Secondly, the problem of administering user terminals located on the local network immediately disappears. As already mentioned above, you can do this simply from the central server. Thirdly, it becomes possible to use one operating system and the same software on all networked machines. True, the server itself should be installed exactly the server version of the OS, although some system administrators with a small number of daughter terminals manage to use even the usual stationary modifications.

But there are also problems. For example, if you select a connection topology other than the star schema, computers connected in series or connected to the same central cable can cause the whole network to fail if at least one of them has problems and errors. In other respects, the use of thin clients is justified, as they say, one hundred percent. However, in home conditions to use such technologies there is no sense. But at enterprises and offices sometimes it becomes an absolute necessity.