Virtualization in an Industrial Environment (Part 2)

This is the second in a three part article focusing on the entire process of Virtualizing in an industrial environment.  While there is a lot of talk about Virtualizing and VDI, we wanted to focus on the viability and deployment of Virtualization in an industrial and manufacturing environment which would speak to the concerns and difficulties specific to this industry.

Part 2: How Much Virtualization is Needed?

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the need to centralize computer resources before considering whether or not to virtualize them.  The vast majority of ThinManager customers use Remote Desktop Services (formerly Terminal Services) as their Centralization solution.  One reason for this is that RDS is included with every Windows Server installation, so there are fewer initial costs incurred when centralizing. [...]

MailBag Friday (#11)

Every Friday, we dedicate this space to sharing solutions for some of the most frequently asked questions posed to our ThinManager Technical Support team.  This weekly feature will help educate ThinManager users and provide them with answers to questions they may have about licenses, installation, integration, deployment, upgrades, maintenance, and daily operation.  Great technical support is an essential part of the ThinManager platform, and we are constantly striving to make your environment as productive and efficient as possible. [...]

Virtualization in an Industrial Environment (Part 1)

This is the first in a three part article focusing on the entire process of Virtualizing in an industrial environment.  While there is a lot of talk about Virtualizing and VDI, we wanted to focus on the viability and deployment of Virtualization in an industrial and manufacturing environment which would speak to the concerns and difficulties specific to this industry.


Part 1: Centralization Before Virtualization


Virtualization.

It is everywhere and there is no escaping it.  It is written about, discussed, recommended, and deployed in offices and facilities around the world every day.  It is the iPhone of IT…you might not know why you are buying it, you just know that everyone else is using it so it must be the next great thing.  But as implementation of virtualized environments continues to become the norm rather than the exception, industry publications are reporting that up to 40% of Virtualization deployments are never completed and eventually scrapped. [...]

MailBag Friday (#10)

Every Friday, we dedicate this space to sharing solutions for some of the most frequently asked questions posed to our ThinManager Technical Support team.  This weekly feature will help educate ThinManager users and provide them with answers to questions they may have about licenses, installation, integration, deployment, upgrades, maintenance, and daily operation.  Great technical support is an essential part of the ThinManager platform, and we are constantly striving to make your environment as productive and efficient as possible. [...]

How WinTMC can work for you

Imagine having the power to turn a PC work station into an easy to manage secure terminal in any industrial situation. Now imagine that work station being a simple and reliable system with increased functionality paired with decreased ownership cost. Your imagination is here.

With WinTMC, ThinManager provides a complete solution for organizations that need to use PCs as part of their terminal server network. For many network administrators, WinTMC may be the missing piece to help their network be more cost effective, productive and easier to manage. [...]

Pinellas County: Managing A Municipality with ThinManager

ACP sat down with Ken Osborne, the SCADA Systems Coordinator for Pinellas County Utilities and discussed what it takes to keep the water flowing for over one million people in the Tampa Bay area.

Q – “How long have you been with the Pinellas County Utilities?”

A –  “Thirty three years”

Q –  “What did the system look like 33 years ago?”

A –  “There wasn’t a system. In about 1995, we installed a VMS based Opto 22 system for all of Pinellas County, which at the time, was four main facilities plus 300 pumps and offsite stations. After Y2K happened, when we saw that our software was not working properly, we started converting over to Wonderware and we completed our first site deployment with  ThinManager on an upgrade to a Terminal Server environment with Wonderware.” [...]

MailBag Friday (#9)

Every Friday, we dedicate this space to sharing solutions for some of the most frequently asked questions posed to our ThinManager Technical Support team.  This weekly feature will help educate ThinManager users and provide them with answers to questions they may have about licenses, installation, integration, deployment, upgrades, maintenance, and daily operation.  Great technical support is an essential part of the ThinManager platform, and we are constantly striving to make your environment as productive and efficient as possible. [...]

Mobile Thin Client Computing Made Easy

ThinManager Mobile for iOS is an iPhone or iPad app that can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store. It allows you to connect to your ThinManager and manage it from your iPhone or iPad. You can shadow clients, change their configuration, restart, or disable them from the palm of your hand.

To use the ThinManager Mobile iOS app, simply visit the ThinManager Mobile page to download the Proxy Server.  After downloading, click the .exe file and the Proxy Server will install itself on your ThinManager Server and function as a service that will allow your mobile devices to talk to the SQL database. [...]

MailBag Friday (#8)

Every Friday, we dedicate this space to sharing solutions for some of the most frequently asked questions posed to our ThinManager Technical Support team.  This weekly feature will help educate ThinManager users and provide them with answers to questions they may have about licenses, installation, integration, deployment, upgrades, maintenance, and daily operation.  Great technical support is an essential part of the ThinManager platform, and we are constantly striving to make your environment as productive and efficient as possible. [...]

USB to VGA

ThinManager now allows you to convert a single monitor thin client to a multi monitor thin client   By purchasing a 3rd party adaptor (DL 195 Chipset), you can now convert a single monitor thin client to a dual monitor thin client.  Not only is it an inexpensive upgrade, butit also eliminates the need to purchase new thin clients to take advantage of MultiMonitor and MultiSession technology offered by ThinManager.

An added advantage of this feature is that our ThinManager software will prevent a user from expanding their multiple windows to an unusable size.  ThinManager will review your hardware and determine a maximum size and resolution based on how many sessions you are attempting to monitor at the same time with your current hardware configuration. [...]