Honey, I shrunk the workstation … into a Chromebook VMware, Google and Nvidia have teamed up with a plan to bring the most demanding desktop apps to relatively piddly Chromebooks. VMware already has relationships with the other two companies mentioned above. The pact with Google sees it offer the BLAST client to pipe apps from Horizon View into Chromebooks. The Nvidia …
And cheaper. Economically it makes more sense to wear out a screen, keyboard and cheap processor while doing the heavy lifting in a headless box which doesn't need to be made expensively thin and light, rather than have to throw out an expensive CPU and graphics subsystem when the laptop hinges or screen give up.
Weren't these called Terminals back in the day? (When the Cloud was called a Mainframe)
Then Think Clients? (When the Cloud was called a Server)
While the technology stack is compelling (192 core GPUs in an under $300 package) I think the industry shut the door on this type of setup a while ago.
While the technology stack is compelling (192 core GPUs in an under $300 package) I think the industry shut the door on this type of setup a while ago.
It's probably a lot more common than you might imagine. Look in call centres, large offices etc and you'll see that kind of set up fairly frequently, often a nice silent machine on the Vesa mount. I've even seen it for programmers where it has additional attractions - programmers generally don't use a lot of processor power except when compiling when they need as much as they can get. A single beefy machine serving a dozen or so users gives them that without costly, overpowered machines sat on every desk running at 1% utilisation.
>I think the industry shut the door on this type of setup a while ago.
No they screen scrapped the 3270 apps and wrapped them with a VB client.
Then they screen scrapped the 3270 apps and wrapped them with a web page
Nothing changed in the setup doing the work
It's not just X. From the OpenGL specification (every single version that I checked, including 1.x and 4.x):
The model for interpretation of GL commands is client-server. That is, a program (the client) issues commands, and these commands are interpreted and processed by the GL (the server). The server may or may not operate on the same computer as the client. In this sense, the GL is “network-transparent.”
The fundamental (IMHO) weakness in all this is the need to be connected to the VM instance to actually get something done. Not a lot of change from dumb terminals/mainframe and even Citrix/Server setup really.
So what happens when the unbilical (viz network) is not available?
sure you get a much lighter (in kg terms) device to carry with you but you become even more dependent upon an increasingly crowded and slow internet whenever you are away from home base. sure the call centre example works but beyond that?
For the mere mortals amongst us we still have to pay for the Internet by the byte transmitted/recieved. Sure it is a low charge but there is one so we shouldn't forget it.
A Chromebook/VM solution won't be on my shopping list any time soon.
IMHO= really thought we were through with dumb terminal applications... even at the most pitiful work locations we swapped those IBM toasters for a worn out HP desktop unit running a terminal program, storing the keystrokes if something went wrong...old HP's on the error channels allowed a look backwards into failures for analysis...these small plastic things might work, but i'm pretty sure they are not cost effective...RS.
Not quite the death of Windows though, as in order to run those apps you still need to be running a compatible OS layer. This may be Wine, but is more likely to be a Windows licence.
In other words (and just as with Android) manufacturers profit from the hardware, Microsoft from from the licence fees and Google from the advertising. Quite the symbiosis.
I bought a chromebook just to see what it was like, after all virtually everything I do on a computer at home is in a browser and chrome is my browser of choice.
The chromebook was 17% of the price of my i7 powered & similarly sized ultrabook PC (perhaps this would be 30% if the chromebook case was made from the same materials). The laptop is noisy, gets hot, lasts about 20% as long on the battery, on top of that the browser and 'surfing' are actually noticeably slower. In fact the only downside is that the chromebook needs an internet connection - but web surfing on my PC does too.
So to recap the chromebook is lighter, much cheaper, silent, faster, last longer, has no real maintenance overhead & whatever chromebook I use all my files are available.
Now I'm starting to test google docs and office online to see whether that's a workable solution, since I don't do much more than edit/modify existing documents I imagine it'll be ok. As these applications develop I expect to see chromebooks displace PC's from basic office tasks particularly in small businesses, the total cost of ownership of Windows PC's in business is just a million miles from what could be achieved using chromebooks.
I hope to see larger 15" chromebooks with higher resolution and better materials (oh yeah - in normal colours please) at about double the price of the current 'toy' chromebooks. I know that's the price of a cheap Windows laptop - but the real benefits come from losing windows and all the baggage that comes with it. You should try it.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
