Today I was on my Softec Dashboard reading through my twitter/softec feed and I noticed a twitter post from Josh Richards. He posted a link about a new device called the PANO. I found this device to be very interesting as it could really change the way you think about IT in your office. Employing a device like this and coupling it with a cloud service could be an awesome combination that could save you time and money. I have no information on how well it works, but I think solutions like this will be the future of computing. There is really no reason for most office workers to have a real machine at their desk. Having all of the programs they use and their data in the cloud could mean less downtime, less data loss, more security, and the ability to truly compute from anywhere. The best thing about it is the business truly control its assets. Another cool thing about the PANO is that it supports dual monitors which is a productivity must in todays offices. You can learn more about the PANO by visiting this site: http://www.panologic.com/pano-device
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Almost verbatim from the description it sounds like a Sun Ray minus a smart card to make hot desking easy. But by all means if I could hot desk without a smart card I'd be game. Smart card is a pretty good security layer though. They both seem to be true zero clients.
Server end software: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/desktop-workstations/043607.html
Sun Ray 2 Virtual Display Client: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/desktop-workstations/036088.pdf
And then the dual monitor version for your more power users such as myself: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/desktop-workstations/036090.pdf
Gosh those Oracle link kills me. lol. Poor Sun.
The only difference really is the location of the servers. We have our servers in house but I was just actually wondering as I was racking our brand spanking new NAS and Sun Ray servers on Thursday if all of it could have been done in the cloud. Only draw back I see is bandwidth. Gotta get that Google Fiber in SLO. :)
I'm on a T1 and supporting 60 Sun Rays out of our SLO office and about the same in our Coachella office. Not to mention our external VOIP is on the same T1s.... 60 desktops needing screen refreshing and downloading files and streaming media is gonna peg a T1. lol.
Definitely the way things look to be going though.
All in all I probably manage 250-300 actual computer users on 120-180 Sun Ray thin clients and let me tell you not having to maintain desktop computers is a blessing. If the thin client breaks you just unplug it, throw it away and replace it. None of that trying to determine if the issue is OS, RAM, Hard Drive, a driver, or whatever. In five years I've had one Sun Ray client fail. So in five years I've spent maybe 10 minutes fixing a single user's "computer". In perspective we're a company of nearly 500 employees and we have two IT guys that work in separate offices and we can remotely fix anything other than a complete Sun Ray thin client hardware failure remotely. That and when a user can't figure out how to fix a printer paper jam.
One thing I don't get with the initial Plano description is how you go from one room to another. With the Sun Ray you have a smart card. So I can pull my card from the Sun Ray at my desk and go anywhere in the office and plug my card back in another Sun Ray and be right where I left off. Now being able to take my smart card home is kind of another story. Short answer with the Sun Ray solution is you need a Cisco VPN server in the office so the VPN client in a Sun Ray terminal can connect remotely. We really have no need for it though, because we also use Sun Global Desktop which is akin to PCanywhere or whatnot. It kind of actually works better cause if we sent Sun Rays home then our users would want to be able to use their home computers with the same monitor, keyboard, mouse and I'd have to go offsite to hook up KVMs and train them on how to use it. I only go offsite if they cook me dinner. lol. kidding.
Did I mention sometimes I don't get a call from users and have to go to them? Sometimes they just pull their card and come to me and plug their card into my Sun Ray and show me their problem. I know, I know that's just crazy talk, but it's true. Ahahaha.
Bottom line zero clients are awesome.
This appears to be a pretty cool solution also and it sounds like you are having a lot of success with it. How well does it do video or audio? Is it pretty choppy? I would imagine it would be if it works like most other terminal servers.
As for your question on the Plano and being able to move from one room to the next, I believe you don't need a card because your authentication is controlled by active directory. When you disconnect from one unit and login to another unit, you are logging into the same desktop session. As a result, all of your work will still be in the same state as before.
One question I have is if the Plano uses the new Windows 2008 Server Terminal Services Gateway. It would be really cool if it does. If you are not familiar with Terminal Services Gateway, it basically gives you the ability to connect to any Server or PC (that are allowed by your policies) from outside the firewall over port 80. All communication is on port 80 and therefore is not blocked by most networks you may be connecting from.
It is nice to see solid solutions like this in both the Linux and Windows world. Thanks for sharing!