Thin Computing vs. Desktop PCs vs. Datacenters

Most companies worldwide are using a quite large number of desktop systems and as that number grows by the year, so does the cost of the energy bill, alongside with additional costs like service and maintenance. Desktop virtualization aims at replacing the currently large number of desktop computer systems that are typically used in companies with a few powerful servers that are able to sustain a high number of thin clients. The Australian Computer Society, ACS for short, recommended this course of action after a study showed that desktop computer systems are among the most important factors that contribute to the eight million tonnes of CO2 produced by Australian enterprises each year.

According to the news site zdnet.com, the Australian association claims that the thin clients are less energy intensive and they need less power to operate than their desktop counterparts. While the thin client approach may reduce the overall energy consumption, Kris Kumar, director of data center design specialists 3i Group, said that this is not the best solution as it simply moves the intense energy consumption from desktop systems to server rooms, which are already quite energy hungry already. "If you adopt a thin computing approach and then realize the datacentre cannot cope, you will use band-aid approaches to fixing that problem, which will never be optimum," he said.

The main problem, according to him, is that most companies and enterprises are not using a global strategy to diminish their energy footprint and they are simply patching problems as they go and that approach leads to a "major chaos in global markets in the datacentre space". While the carbon emissions are certainly important, they are only a small part of the whole environmental problem caused by the computer industry and Ward Nash, from the thin computing manufacturing company WYSE, said that the thin clients are offering a better alternative to the desktop computer systems because they have an increase lifespan over their counterparts which are typically rated to last around three years. Apart from this advantage, thin clients are more environmentally friendly because they are simple machines, so they require fewer materials to build.

Ward Nash also said that using the thin client approach, most companies can get rid of the burden of old and useless hardware, while benefiting from lower management costs and better security, as all the data and applications are stored on a secure server system and not on every desktop computer.