Cybertrol Engineering has used ThinManager across numerous sites ranging from installations of less than five clients to more than 50. When setting up plants with the best possible solution, ThinManager is the go-to solution for managing thin clients. Here is an example of a large-scale facility that has benefited from the use of centralized technologies and uses ThinManager managed clients every day.
One of our customers has a plant that has been around for over 20 years, and they have seen the evolution of technology on the factory floor—from Windows NT 4 workstations and NT 4 servers to highly available datacenters and 50+ thin clients. From its humble beginnings as a small meal replacement beverage manufacturing operation to what has morphed into one of the largest ice cream manufacturing operations in the nation, the growth pace has been nothing short of astounding. In the midst of this ever-changing operational climate, they’ve also had to manage the never-ending evolution of technology and its impact on their ways of working.
Early on, it was evident that the management of a large-scale facility with many HMI stations was no easy task. The amount of setup time required for each client and the downtime to replace a workstation failure are both labor intensive and costly.
With the advancement of technology, the plant floor went from having legacy computers that were difficult to manage and expensive to replace, to a highly available automation datacenter. Today, the datacenter consist of 6 physical servers that are running multiple virtual server platforms (i.e. domain controllers and related services, Terminal Servers, Web Servers, Database Servers, WMS Servers, Batching Servers, an MES style HMI platform, etc.) and over 50 HMI thin clients leveraging ThinManager. This new centralized architecture has future-proofed the plant and now allows for easy management, reduced maintenance, high availability and scalable deployment.
ThinManager, coupled with the use of thin clients on the shop floor, brings about true central management. With ThinManager and the current redundant Terminal Server solution, HMI availability is nearly 100%. A virtual PC failure usually means nothing more than a simple failover that isn’t even noticed by the end user. Managers have visibility and control of every thin client on the floor. This allows them to be more efficient and increase productivity by being able to troubleshoot problems as soon as they happen without having to travel across the plant.
One of the biggest benefits of ThinManager is also the hardware replacement time. By keeping spare thin clients on hand, the time to replace terminals equates to mere minutes instead of hours. The frequency of failed hardware has been significantly reduced as well due to the robust construction of the thin client devices. Also, making a configuration change is simple, quick, and can be done from a single location as opposed to visiting 50+ units on the shop floor. ThinManager enhances thin client innovation by simplifying the configuration, deployment, and management of every device.
To quote one of the controls engineers, “Without a doubt, ThinManager has made supporting the HMI workcenter portion of our operation much simpler. From direct time savings to reduced energy costs and greater reliability, ThinManager has proven to be an asset worthy of investment.”
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