ThinManager Q & A

Managing a Municipality

We recently 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.” [...]

Where is the Real Return on Thin Client Investment?


Everything you read about thin clients, zero clients, or anything other than a PC will tell you there is a device that is better and saves you more money compared to their competition.  More often than not, these claims are validated by a report paid for by a hardware manufacturer that only talks about their specific client matched up against another client chosen as comparative fodder because they know they can beat it.  These reports are not false, nor are they inaccurate.  They are, however, slanted to omit where the savings really are to paint a far prettier picture.  After all, their first, last, and only reason for commissioning such a report is to sell you their newest hardware release. [...]

ThinManager 6.0 Service Pack 1 Release Notes

ThinManager 6.0 SP1 Release Notes:

ThinManager build 6002:

-Delete workstation nodes before restoring configuration.

ThinServer build 6003:

-Fix module installation on synced ThinServers.

-PXE server was not correctly stopped/started after restoring configuration.

-Fixed sync of packages that did not exist on both ThinServers.

-Restart tftp thread after restoring configuration when necessary.

-Fix disable of Terminal Server when using DNS.

-Changed queuing to better accommodate Delta V users licensing requirements.

-Fixed installation of firmware from synchronized slave. [...]

MailBag Friday (#13)

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 3)

This is the third and final part of our three part series 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 3: Managing Your Environments?

 

In Part 2 of this series, we discussed whether or not Virtualization is necessary once you’ve centralized, and, if it is, how far do you go. For most System Administrators,  RDS is the easiest and most cost effective place to begin.  The need to only install OS’s and applications once, and having them deploy to multiple clients, can provide enough time savings and reduced administrative headaches that Virtualization could very well just be an added cost to a system that already does everything the end user requires. [...]

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. [...]