back to article AWS pulls desktop-as-a-service from the PC

Amazon Web Services has made a significant enhancement to its Workspaces desktop-as-a-service service, by allowing support for Teradici's PC-over-IP protocol and “zero clients” that run it. Workspaces is a US$35 a month service that offers Windows Server 2008 re-skinned with the Windows 7 UI. Until today, consuming the service …

  1. sorry, what?
    Meh

    X Windows dumb client for the modern age

    Title says it all really. Nothing terribly new here. Move along.

    1. HPCJohn

      Re: X Windows dumb client for the modern age

      Not really.

      I have used and managed Teradici PCOIP zero clients for several years.

      They are really very good devices - easy to manage, and perform well.

      You can do remote 3D graphics easily on them, and they have some clever adaptive compression.

      Also very secure - traffic is of course encrypted. You can also lock out any USB devices other than those you permit - so no danger of viruses being spread on USB sticks etc.if that is a concern.

      1. James 100

        Re: X Windows dumb client for the modern age

        That is pretty much "dumb terminal/X terminal" updated for the intervening decades of progress, isn't it? I understand it, and I do like the idea - so yes, the encryption is new, the graphics are much fancier and you get USB support, but which of those isn't an obvious feature of "modern version of X terminal"?

        The centralisation has big advantages, and disadvantages too. That big powerful central box is cheaper to administer and secure than lots of little machines, but expensive to buy. For bursty loads like typical office (or indeed developer) work I imagine it could be a great advantage: you get the full attention of a handful of Xeon cores to compile or load your code, with all the applications already cached in RAM.

        (I still remember when the more clued-in geeks at work would fire up Netscape Navigator on the big shared Sun box over X, because it was faster than cranking it to life on the diskless 486 Win3.1 machines we used at the time ... ah, nostalgia!)

        1. Nigel 11

          Re: X Windows dumb client for the modern age

          More like X2go client for Windows, than dumb Xterm for Windows? (X2go, the free software equivalent of Nomachine NX version 3)

  2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Zero client?

    looks like a plethora of stuff from the 1980's resurfacing at the latest fad.

    I spent many an hour working at a diskless 'X' terminal.

    Meh!

  3. Lee Taylor

    Am I missing something here?

    "Zero Clients" == "Dumb Terminal"

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, in conclusion, Amazon Workspaces supports zero clients?

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