Jump to content

Sun Ray

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JosephBarillari (talk | contribs) at 18:01, 12 May 2008 (if I recall correctly, you only get session portability with the smartcard). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For other uses, see Sun Ray (disambiguation).
A Sun Ray 1 workstation

The Sun Ray was introduced by Sun Microsystems in September 1999 as a stateless thin-client solution aimed at corporate environments. It features a smartcard reader and is often integrated into a flat panel display. This product is a replacement for the JavaStation.

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, users can create a new session, but can't access an existing one. 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).

In September 2007, Sun and UK partner Thruput integrated the Sun Ray 2FS with 28" (2048 x 2048), 30" (2560 x 1600) and 56" (3840 x 2160) displays, enabling the Sun Ray to be used for high resolution graphics applications.

Models

As of January 2007, five models are in production:

  • Sun Ray 1g - supports displays up to 1920x1200 at 75 Hz
  • Sun Ray 170 - integrated into a 17" LCD monitor
  • Sun Ray 2 - small footprint, low power (4 watts)
  • 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
  • JavaStation
  • 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'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
  • 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

Discontinued software implementation (circa 1999) :

  • JavaPC (Engine) V1.1 [1]

Technology

The current Sun Ray 2 machines use the MIPS architecture-based RMI Alchemy Au1550 processor.[1]

References

  1. ^ http://www.sun.com/sunray/sunray2/specs.xml Sun Ray 2 Specs
Stub icon

This computer hardware article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun_Ray&oldid=211917025"