Thin client

Some thin clients include (legacy) serial or parallel ports to support older devices, such as receipt printers, scales or time clocks.

In using cloud-based architecture, the server takes on the processing load of several client sessions, acting as a host for each endpoint device.

One of the combined benefits of using cloud architecture with thin client desktops is that critical IT assets are centralized for better utilization of resources.

The simplicity of thin client hardware and software results in a very low total cost of ownership, but some of these initial savings can be offset by the need for a more robust cloud infrastructure required on the server side.

Cloud access is the primary role of a thin client which eliminates the need for a large suite of local user applications, data storage, and utilities.

This reduces the cost, power consumption (heat, noise and vibrations), making them affordable to own and easy to replace or deploy.

[2] Since thin clients consist of fewer hardware components than a traditional desktop PC, they can operate in more hostile environments.

Other host software stacks makes use of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) in order to accelerate fast changing pixel updates required by modern video content.

Redundancy provides reliable host availability but it can add cost to smaller user populations that lack scale.

Thin clients have their roots in multi-user systems, traditionally mainframes accessed by some sort of computer terminal.

The prototypical multi-user environment along these lines, Unix, began to support fully graphical X terminals, i.e., devices running display server software, from about 1984.

[citation needed] Modern Unix derivatives like BSD and Linux continue the tradition of the multi-user, remote display/input session.

Typically, X software is not made available on non-X-based thin clients, although no technical reason for this exclusion would prevent it.

Microsoft licensed this technology back from Citrix and implemented it into Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, under a project codenamed "Hydra".

Ellison would go on to be a founding board member of thin client maker Network Computer, Inc (NCI), later renamed Liberate.

However, while there was now little size difference, thin clients retained some key advantages over these competitors, such as not needing a local drive.