Chicago businesses are always looking for inexpensive ways to provide the computing power needed, but not pay unnecessarily for top notch workstations. That is where a device like nComputing can be recommended by an IT constant.
First of all it might take a bit to describe what nComputing product is. Basically it is thin client looking device, that just has a network and monitor jack, 2 USB ports for keyboard and mouse. Once you have it hooked up and booted up, it will come up with a limited menu – one of the choices being RDP to a workstation it has found on the network. Once you click on that you will get a “desktop” and be able to function more or less like a full blown desktop.
Now the nice thing about this device is you can have many nComputing devices let’s say for example up to 10 of them deployed pulling from the same RDP host workstation. So in essence you are getting 10 workstations out of one. That is really when the benefits of nComputing shines, the cost of these devices are below $200 and because you can peel out so many desktops the licensing for Microsoft OS and Microsoft Office pays for this unit itself.
What else do you need to get this all to work? On the host workstation that you are RDPing these sessions to, you need to install nComputing cloud software. That will pretty much run as a service that will allow distribution of these RDP sessions to the devices.
The benefits are clear when you need a simple workstation that does minimal operations. Lets say for example you are medical clinic that only runs one application where scheduling is handled. Instead of purchasing a bunch of PCs you can buy these and a single PC. In fact if you have a server already you can create a virtual workstation and install this nComputing cloud to it to service the devices.
The drawbacks to this are definitely there; you are not getting a full blown PC with all its bells and whistles. You don’t have a DVD player, when you stream media or any complex computing you may see some limitations. Even general screen refreshments on these setups may experience some delays. However these may be minor hiccups compare to the cost saving and management savings for great functional thin client desktops.