Sustainable Computing

In years gone by it might have been acceptable for IT budgets to creep ever upwards to buy more and more powerful equipment which needs regular replacement or upgrades. In truth, however, there is no justification for that - if anything, budgets should be shrinking and equipment longevity taken for granted. It's a scandal that PCs are replaced every three years or so when they are perfectly serviceable if used intelligently.

For those in the know, smart technology and savvy systems designers can now build IT systems that deliver all the benefits and more at a fraction of the overall cost of the ‘traditional’ approach. Amongst other things, the lifetime of your computer hardware can be extended to twice or three times that of the typical desktop computer.

How do we do it? It's simple. Hardly any desktop users nowadays make use of the true capacity of modern desktop PCs. Insiders have known this for years and often replace the expensive-to-manage PC with 'thin clients', low-cost low-maintenance equipment that not only lasts ten years or so but consumes much less electrity into the bargain. Early thin client devices had some drawbacks that earned them a mediocre reputation, but in recent years their performance has expanded enormously, well beyond the needs of most desktop users ^*

Specialised thin-client computers are small, inexpensive and efficient.They are fit-and-forget devices and interchangeable with each other (so if one develops a fault, you replace with another one, just as you would a light-bulb). In an ideal world specialised thin clients would be the devices of choice, but as an alternative we at Cutter are able to convert almost any existing desktop computer into a 'recycled' thin-client, prolonging its life and deferring the time when you have to pay to dispose of it legally.

Thin client computers don't store any user data or do the computing work themselves: that's done on high-powered servers which can be centrally located and managed. Those servers store the users' data and do all the hard work. At a ratio of one server to every twenty to fifty users, the cost benefits rapidly stack up. With this kind of environment, there's much less work for the network administrators to do and that reduces your costs even more. Every way you look at it, you come out ahead.

As a final win: since users' information and applications are centralised, it's much easier to provide them with remote access to their desktop just as if they were in their office at work. Modern techniques make it possible for you to provide your users with secure access to computing services from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection and a web browser.

In businesses, charities and schools, this type of IT provision is becoming more and more common. We think it's the wave of the future and are happy to provide demonstrations to you if you are keen to save money and adopt a more flexible approach to your systems. Our background and experience of thin client and other long-lived computing techniques goes back over many years. It's what we use ourselves and we practise what we preach!

A closing note on environmental benefits: our standard approach to remote diagnostics and configuration allows us to do what many of our competitors find unthinkable; building and deploying major infrastructure elements without ever having to visit our customer's site. In suitable cases we can configure all of the equipment, ship it to your site and have your own technical staff plug it in to your network. We can complete the configuration and commission the equipment remotely and save hours of travelling time and hundreds of road-miles simply by working smarter. In one or two cases we have conducted the whole process of specification, configuration, commissioning and handover without ever making a site visit or even meeting our customer face to face. By saving costs, we can pass that benefit on to you.