Sun Ray 1G thin client |
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| Manufacturer | Oracle Corporation |
|---|---|
| Release date | September 1999 |
| Retail availability | 1999– |
| Units sold | 500K+ |
| Media | Smartcard |
| CPU | MicroSparc IIep |
| Memory | 8MB EDO DRAM |
| Input | USB |
| Connectivity | Ethernet |
| Predecessor | NeWT |
| Successor | Sun Ray 2 |
| Related articles | Appliance Link Protocol |
The Sun Ray from Oracle is a stateless thin client solution aimed at corporate environments, originally 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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The concept began in Sun Microsystems Laboratories in 1997 as a project codenamed NeWT or NetWorkTerminal. The client was designed to be small, low cost, low power, and silent. It was based on the Sun Microelectronics MicroSparc IIep. Other processors initially considered for it included Intel's StrongARM, Philips Semiconductors TriMedia, National Semiconductors Geode. The MicroSparc IIep was selected because of its high level of integration, good performance, low cost, and general availability.
NeWT included 8MB of EDO DRAM and 4MB of NOR Flash. The graphics controller used was the ATI Rage 128 because of its low power, 2D rendering performance, and low cost. It also included an ATI video encoder for TV out (later removed in Sun Ray 1), a Philips Semiconductor SAA7114 video decoder/scaler, Crystal Semiconductor audio CODEC, Sun Microelectronics Ethernet controller, PCI USB host interface with 4 port hub, and I2C Smartcard interface. The motherboard and daughtercard were housed in an off-the-shelf commercial mini-ITX PC case with internal +12/+5VDC auto ranging power supply.
NeWT was designed to have as much feature parity with a modern business PC in every way possible. The client didn't use a commercial operating system. Instead it used a real-time exec which was originally developed in Sun Labs as part of a Ethernet-based security camera project codenamed NetCam. Less than 60 NeWT's were ever built and very few survive today. However one currently resides in the collection of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
In contrast to a thick client, the Sun Ray is a networked 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. Sun developed a separate network display protocol, Appliance Link Protocol (ALP), for the Sun Ray system.
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 GNU/Linux login 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 Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure setup.
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.
As of March 2011[update], Five models are in production:
Older systems that are no longer shipping:
Sun's OEM partners have also produced wi-fi notebook versions of Sun Ray:
Discontinued software implementation (circa 1999):
The Sun Ray 1 clients used a 100Mhz MicroSparc IIep processor initially followed by a custom SOC version codenamed Copernicus (US 6993,617 B2) which was based on the MicroSparc IIep core, but added 4MB of on-chip DRAM, USB, and smartcard interface in addition to the memory controller and PCI interface already on the Microsparc IIep.
The Sun Ray 2 & 3 clients use the MIPS architecture-based RMI Alchemy Au1550 processor.[3]
A pure software solution is available in Sun Ray Software 5 (SRS5).
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 dependent. If location dependent information needs to be added it is possible to extend the functionality of the Sun Ray software with additional custom scripts. The Sun Ray Wiki offers a "Follow Me Printing" setup as an example, e.g. a user always gets the nearest printer as default printer when going from room to room or location to location, also inside their Windows session. It is relatively easy for an administrator to extend and add to this functionality as required.
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