Hello to smart terminals

Students using X300 multi-user PC technology, provided by NComputing and AMD, at a Brac-run school library (top), NComputing devices and solutions (bottom).

Let's say you are surfing the net on your PC or writing something using MS Word. The only software that your PC is running is the browser and the office application along with some operating system processes. The rest of the computing power of your PC is just sitting idle. Now think of a solution: your family members or office colleagues could make use of that vast unused computing power of your machine without interrupting your work an iota.
NComputing, a North America based IT company, came up with such a multi- user PC technology that enables users to work with mid-level PC applications in both local and distributed environments without any need to install dedicated central processing units (CPUs).
Shared Computing is indeed a low-cost and hassle-free new technological breakthrough that will push PC penetration to a high level and at the same time narrow the digital divide in developing countries such as Bangladesh.
"The biggest market for our products today is the United States, followed by countries like Brazil, Germany, Russia and many parts of Asia such as Indonesia and Philippines. We have just started bringing our solutions to Bangladesh," Martin Booth, director of business development at NComputing, who was on a short visit to Bangladesh to launch the product, told The Daily Star in an exclusive interview.
"We signed up with a local partner here in Dhaka, Axis Technologies, who is our distribution partner here and we have just started bringing the first systems into the country and in conjunction with AMD and Bracnet we have deployed them in a few schools already," he added.
"If you imagine going back to the sixties and you have all these mainframe computers with multiple terminals that have scaled down to the modern desktop PCs. These so called dumb terminals have now become smart terminals," said Rafiq Hussain, member of the Technical Staff, Test & Burn-In, MSD Engineering, AMD.
"Back then the mainframes used to cost millions of dollars and the terminal experiences were really poor. You could have only a few characters on the screen and that's it. Now the PCs, such as the AMD's dual core PCs, are hundreds or even millions of times powerful than those mainframes and these terminals have become smarter," Rafiq added.
No doubt today PC users in stand-alone environment enjoy a high-speed processing power, immense disk capacity, vast memory access and other physical resources to perform their tasks. But in reality, most users are not able to ensure optimal utilisation of these resources. According to NComputing, most PC users nowadays utilise up to 5 percent of their PC power.
NComputing took on making use of the unused resources by bringing users on a single platform and allowing them to share available resources in a parallel way.
The firm came up with two distinct products -- NComputing X-Series and NComputing L-Series kits -- for both local and distributed environment. Both categories comprise access terminal and NComputing software.
The X-series permits, at best, seven simultaneous users via a single host PC. The configuration includes one or two PCI cards, each having three connectors. Three X-series access terminals can be connected to each PCI card via standard network cables. The X-series terminal includes connection ports such as speaker, PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse, monitor, RJ-45 etc.
"Suppose you have one computer and you attach six of these terminal boxes and attach the keyboard, monitor and mouse to it and that's what is required to have access to seven individual complete computing experiences. So instead of having computers in every desk, you can have just one computer in the room and then use that to have multiple computing environments," Martin explained.
The L-series configuration is apparently different from X-series. The L-series does not use PCI cards. Instead, its access terminals are connected to the host PC via standard Ethernet networks. Each workstation's performance is quite satisfactory although video quality is somewhat poor compared to the X-series. The X-series delivers PC-quality video while the L-series web quality.
"On the X300, maximum number of users is seven. For the L-series, which attaches to the network and is more commonly used in office environments, such as hospitals, for example, where you want to put the system anywhere in the building and add up to 30 users in each system. In the X300, there is a distance limitation, you can go up to 10 metres away from the PC, but for the L-series, you can go anywhere within the network," Martin said.
Generally, users can run lightweight programs such as office applications, email programs and others. This solution, however, is not perfectly suitable for resource-incentive applications such as 3D games and video editing.
NComputing virtualises the user's desktop for which only a single copy of the OS is running and less hardware resources are required as users are added.
When asked about recommended systems for the solutions, Martin said, "It works with any PC, but we've had a lot of success with the AMD-based PCs; the processor performance is very good with the multi-user system. We recommend the dual core CPU, such as the Athlon 64 X2, which provides the best performance. You can even use an older machine if you want to, it will work even on an older machine."
"The nice thing for the IT administrator is that it is easy to manage the system, he doesn't have to go to every users' desks to upgrade software or to maintain the system; these things are maintenance free and there are no moving parts or anything in there, the only thing that he has to do is to manage the server or the PC," he added.
NComputing systems are compatible with Windows XP, Server 2003, Linux and most of the standard PC applications. Most applications in recent times are multithreaded but some different cases also exist.
Appropriate security strategies are efficiently maintained in NComputing system. Since there is no data in the terminal, it is very secure. Fault isolation and redundancy is relatively simple as it is implemented on single host PC. Moreover, a proprietary protocol (TCP/IP) is used between the host and terminal that makes it hard to snoop the wire with sniffer tools.
In case of power saving, NComputing is also economical. According to the US Energy Star website, a typical PC consumes about 115 watts whereas X-series terminals consume about 1 watt per user and L-series terminals consume about 5 watt per user. There are other added benefits: these systems do not generate that much heat, so you don't need additional air conditioning system for them.
"We are just starting here in Bangladesh, but we have done a number of big deployments such as in the Republic of Macedonia this summer, where they have decided to put computers in every school in the country and they chose the NComputing solution running the Ubuntu Linux distribution. They are putting 180,000 systems in 20,000 desktop machines," Martin said.
NComputing technologies are currently deployed in more than seventy countries worldwide. Pollmeier, a German based beech lumber company, switched to NComputing to meet the computing challenges in sawmills. Pollmeier also deployed the NControl management software to centrally administer their terminals via remote control.
Avcilar Hospital in Turkey has adopted NComputing technology to provide new and secure computer access to all its employees.
In Bangladesh, NComputing technology has a promising prospect. Rural areas here still remain outside the broadband craze. The advent of WiMAX technology and chronological deployment of NComputing system across the country will connect the rural people to information superhighway.
AMD and NComputing are putting their collective effort to the sustainable socio-economic development of society. AMD has its own 50x15 plan and NComputing will facilitate low-cost PC solution to access the internet.