Sun Ray
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 A Sun Ray 1 workstation |
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| Manufacturer | Sun Microsystems |
|---|---|
| Type | Thin-client |
| Release date | September 1999 |
| Retail availability | 1999– |
| Media | Smartcard |
| Operating system | Appliance Link Protocol |
| Connectivity | Ethernet |
| Predecessor | JavaStation |
The Sun Ray is a stateless thin-client solution aimed at corporate environments, introduced by Sun Microsystems in September 1999. It features a smartcard reader and is often integrated into a flat panel display.
The idea of a stateless desktop was a significant shift from, and the eventual successor to, Sun's earlier line of diskless Java-only desktops, the JavaStation.[1]
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[edit] Design
In contrast to a thick client, the Sun Ray is a display device, with applications running on a server elsewhere, and the state of the user's session being independent of the display. This enables another notable feature of the Sun Ray, portable sessions: a user can go from one Sun Ray to another and continue their work without closing any programs. With a smartcard, all the user has to do is slip in the card, enter their password when prompted, and they will be presented with their session. Without the smartcard, the procedure is almost identical, except the user must specify their username as well as password to get their session. In either case, if a session does not yet exist, a new one will be created the first time they connect.
Sun Ray clients are connected via an Ethernet network to the Sun Ray Server. Sun Ray Server Software (SRSS) is available for the Solaris Operating System and Linux. Rather than using the X Display protocol, Sun developed a separate secure bitmap-based network protocol, Appliance Link Protocol (ALP), for the Sun Ray system (similar in concept to VNC's Remote FrameBuffer protocol).
The Sun Ray Server Software has two basic modes of operation - Generic Session or Kiosk Mode. In a generic session, the user will see the Solaris or Linux log in screen of the operating system that is running SRSS. In kiosk mode, the log in screen on the Unix side is omitted and the user is automatically logged in as a kiosk user. At the end of a session, the home directory and settings of the kiosk user are removed to provide a clean environment for the next session. This allows kiosk mode to be used for guest internet access or informational displays but is also the basis of presenting Windows sessions to the user. Sun has integrated a RDP client into the sun ray software that can be used in kiosk mode to start a full screen windows session. In this mode, no window manager or Unix desktop is started - the only indication that Unix is involved at all is a brief period where the typical X background with black mouse cursor is displayed before it is replaced with the solid grey background and white mouse cursor of the Windows environment. The Windows environment can be any OS that supports RDP (Windows 2000, XP or newer) or any OS running in a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure in Virtualbox.
In 2007, Sun and UK company Thruput integrated the Sun Ray 2FS with 28" (2048 x 2048), 30" (2560 x 1600) and 56" (3840 x 2160) displays; in 2008 they trialled an external graphics accelerator that enables the Sun Ray to be used with any high resolution display.
[edit] Models
As of January 2007[update], three models are in production:
- Sun Ray 2 - small footprint, low power (4 watts). 2 Versions exist, the original based on DDR memory, the newer one based on DDR2. Firmware is not compatible between the DDR and the DDR2 models and SRSS needs patches to work correctly with the newer variant.
- Sun Ray 2FS - support for dual heads, 100BaseFX
- Sun Ray 270 - integrated into a 17" LCD, mountable
Older systems that are no longer shipping:
- NeWT (AKA NetWork Terminal) - Original Sun Labs prototype, no display
- Sun Ray 1 - supports displays up to 1280×1024 at 85Hz
- Sun Ray 100 - integrated into a 17" CRT monitor
- Sun Ray 150 - integrated into a 15" LCD monitor
- Sun Ray 1g - supports displays up to 1920x1200 at 75 Hz
- Sun Ray 170 - integrated into a 17" LCD monitor
Sun's OEM partners have also produced wi-fi notebook versions of Sun Ray:
- Comet 12 - Sun Ray 12" notebook produced by General Dynamics
- Comet 15 - Sun Ray 15" notebook produced by General Dynamics
- Jasper 320 - Sun Ray 2 notebook produced by Naturetech
- Amber 808 - Sun Ray 2 tablet produced by Naturetech
- Opal 608 - Sun Ray 2 tablet produced by Naturetech
- Gobi 7 - Sun Ray 2 notebook produced by Accutech
- Gobi 8 - Sun Ray 2 notebook with 3G support produced by Accutech
- Ultra ThinPad - Sun Ray 2 notebook produced by Arima
- Ultra ThinTouch - Sun Ray 2 tablet produced by Arima
- UltraSlim - Sun Ray 2 variant produced by Arima
- Tadpole M1400 - Sun Ray 2 notebook with 3G support produced by Tadpole
Discontinued software implementation (circa 1999):
- JavaPC (Engine) V1.1[2]
[edit] Hardware
The current Sun Ray 2 machines use the MIPS architecture-based RMI Alchemy Au1550 processor.[3]
A pure software solution will be available in Sun Ray Software 5 (SRS5).
[edit] Sun Rays and Windows
In commercial environments, Sun Rays are most commonly deployed as a thin client to access a Windows desktop using the SRSS built-in RDP client uttsc. The desktop can be a Terminal Server session or a Virtual Machine (VDI). This setup is flexible and works well in many environments because the intermediate Sun Ray Server layer is transparent to the Windows desktop. At the same time however, this transparency can also become an issue for software that is location dependant. This type of software is especially common in healthcare environments where e.g. a nurse moves from patient room to patient room and applications need to be refreshed with the new patient information. Third party software is available from several companies like IBL Software and Thin Identity to solve this issue. This software offers notifications of hot-desk activity on windows and can take care of printer changes. However, since most Windows applications don't expect environment changes during their run time, applications need to be either customized to accept such notifications or the 3rd party software needs to be extended to update the application on the fly by writing updated information into the application's memory space. Customizations can be expensive but are the preferred way for stability reasons.
[edit] References
- ^ Rawn Shah (November 2, 1999). "Here comes the Sun Ray". SunWorld (IDG). http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9911/02/sun.ray.idg/index.html. Retrieved 2008-08-18.
- ^ http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/1998-12/sunflash.981208.1.xml
- ^ http://www.sun.com/sunray/sunray2/specs.xml Sun Ray 2 Specs
[edit] External links
- Sun Microsystems
- Sun Ray User Group
- The interactive performance of SLIM: a stateless, thin-client architecture
- Sun Ray vs Citrix Bandwidth usage
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