The Thin & Zero Client Term – What’s in a Name?
There have been many questions in recent years about the relevance of Thin Clients, as well as Zero Clients, in today’s modern digital workspace. Particularly, since the vast change that the COVID era triggered through both remote and hybrid working, and the key changes that it brought. As we work through this topic, we will discuss whether it’s now fair and relevant to continue using the term ‘Thin Client’ or ‘Zero Client’ for such devices and endpoints both now and into the future. And we’ll discover, they have indeed changed or ‘modernized’ significantly to support the demands of today’s modern workforce.
So, let’s bring the elephant into the room, which is that the terms ‘Thin Client’ and ‘Zero Client’ alone can honestly sometimes be met with a potentially negative viewpoint in recent years, including some industry experts raising questions on these names and even their relevance today. We’ll begin by recapping the history of Thin & Zero Clients and how they have continually evolved to meet the
demands and flexibility required from a current workforce.
The Birth of Thin & Zero Clients – How did it all Start?
If we go way back to day one with Thin Clients, the make-up of these endpoints was very much from a hardware perspective – a device which featured low-powered components, including CPU, RAM, and storage. They featured no moving parts, were fan-less, and were essentially powerful enough, like a dumb terminal before it. They received graphics and audio, as well as supportive of HID (Human Interface Device) devices such as a keyboard and mouse. Later generations supported a wider array of legacy (serial/parallel), printers, and all forms of USB peripherals including scanners, smart card readers, composite devices, and more. From a software/OS perspective, the Thin Client device ran an extremely small footprint and often read-only proprietary, Linux or Windows CE/embedded OS with support for early remote Clients connecting to such environments to consume desktops and applications via Microsoft Terminal Services or Citrix MetaFrame, MetaFrame XP, and Presentation Server.
Then came the notion of the Zero Client – the benefit here over a Thin Client being that the Zero Client contains no operating system or next-to-none, essentially. It offered an extremely fast boot speed and zero attack surface and was fundamentally zero touch. One of the other now longstanding benefits of both a Thin Client and a Zero Client is remote management or centralized management. This was seen in these earlier days as a checkbox item or nice to have but not essential, since at that time there was little-to-no need to continually update or manage such endpoints following initial deployments.
Largely during this era – day one of Thin & Zero Clients to > early to mid 2010s – a mixture of Thin & Zero Clients would be deployed dependant upon requirements. Thin Clients tended to be preferred where more flexibility was required, such as connecting to multiple remote environments or perhaps the need to install a small local app or device driver. Zero Clients were preferred when there was strictly a singular VDI environment, such as Citrix XenDesktop, XenApp, or VMware Horizon, with a fixed purpose. In both scenarios mentioned and the majority of their deployments, both types of Clients remained largely untouched from that point serving their users extremely well from cradle to grave. There was rarely, if ever, the need for security updates or feature updates. This in fact, was one of the main strengths of such devices due to the fact they could be deployed and forgotten about, and furthermore since, they contained zero moving parts and were stateless – they would run often into double digit year count with extremely low failure rate.
The Hybrid Thin or Zero Client – The First Shift of Change?
Around the early-mid 2010s era, end user computing demands started to shift up a gear and the dawn of the hybrid Client was born. Up until this point, the majority if not all, Thin & Zero Client users worked in a very limited and task-based scenario. These task users would connect to very basic and locked-down desktop and applications without access to any rich and/or multimedia-based content.
This is the era that started the evolution of the knowledge or power worker. This newer worker type demanded more from their remote computing or ‘remote compute,’ or, as it started to become phrased, ‘hybrid compute.’ This was in part thanks to the smartphone and tablet era, which coincided with the YouTube and social media platforms boom. This caused users to suddenly demand the same from their end user computing in the workplace. The need to watch videos developed, both for business and recreation, either via media players such as Windows Media Player or web browsers such as Internet Explorer, for consuming YouTube or embedded videos on websites via technology such as Adobe Flash redirection. There was also the need to do more with USB peripherals and even occasional real-time collaboration with VoIP and soft phones thrown into the mix.
The hybrid compute meant that while the Thin or Zero Client would still be remoting graphics and audio, there was also the redirection features such as video or audio playback directly to the endpoint concept. This spun out the next generations of Thin & Zero Clients featuring dual and quad core Clients, which were then able to redirect such audio and video locally using local compute via features such as Windows Media Redirection and Flash Redirection. This offered superior quality and experience, while at the same time reducing overhead in data centers by moving compute from the data center to the endpoint.
This was the start of the technology curve towards the ‘modernized’ Thin & Zero Clients that we see today, where remote compute and hybrid compute technology was evolving with remote redirection techniques continually appearing. This brought with it the need to also evolve and update the Thin or Zero Client during its lifecycle. This was the running trend mostly leading right up to the COVID/remote-working era where vendors such as Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware, amongst others, were gaining significant market share and leading the pack by continually evolving their remoting/redirection capability. Where barely a few years before such devices would rarely, if ever, be updated during their lifecycle, we were now seeing a need to update them perhaps annually, quarterly, or even monthly to keep the endpoints at parity with their remote connection brokers and agents with which they connect to for feature consistency and performance.
We haven’t yet mentioned security. As we touched upon earlier, the very make-up of Thin & Zero Clients means they are organically less prone and susceptible to attack or security vulnerabilities, as the guts of their operating system are largely read-only and restricted from storing data which largely reduced their attack surface – and Zero Clients to an even greater extent. However, with this dawn of evolution and constant change, and technology starting to leverage general purpose libraries and dependencies, there was also the need to address security vulnerabilities more frequently. This technology curve changed the way in which Thin & Zero Clients needed to be updated, maintained, and secured frequently through their lifecycle, which meant the centralized or remote management server became a far more critical component of any deployment versus the previously mentioned nice to have checkbox item it was barely a few years prior.
The COVID Era – Explosion of Collaboration & UF Tools with Remote & Hybrid Working
As mentioned, COVID then hit and without a shadow of doubt brought the greatest uptick and evolution of the remote compute, hybrid compute, and now ‘local compute.’ Entire workforces were literally sent home overnight, now having to work completely remotely, and depending on collaboration/unified communication tools, which up until this point were used more so for IM (instant messaging), chat, file sharing, and collaboration, etc. While video calling was supported, it was mostly confined to meeting rooms, linking branch and satellite offices, and interconnecting companies, suppliers, and partners together. Luckily, Skype for Business, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco Jabber, Cisco Webex amongst others, existed at that time, but “oh boy!” were they about to evolve at a fast pace and in quick succession.
During this time, very few collaboration and unified communication tools with the exception of Skype for Business were VDI-optimized. VDI-optimized meaning audio & video streams would be redirected to the physical endpoint. And as mentioned above, offering superior audio/video quality by encoding/decoding locally vs the data center or now cloud, as well as shifting compute from the data center or consumption model of cloud/DaaS to the user endpoint. This created a huge problem for many businesses who had deployed VDI or DaaS up to that point, due to the fact their VDI platform and chosen collaboration and unified communication tool did not support this VDI-optimized mode. Instantly, employees were required to use such tools continually for making video calls with their colleagues and co-workers, as well as customers and suppliers, as their only means of contact. This was essentially the lifeline to the outside world at that time!
While the overall Thin & Zero Client for VDI technology did not support such features at that time, it was then the broad sweeping statement of ‘Thin & Zero Clients’ that took the major rap for this, and it is worth calling out as to why. If we recap on the hardware make-up of a Thin or Zero Client, remember, they were dependant on their genetic make-up of either proprietary or general-purpose hardware. Either way, they were designed for a specific purpose from the ground-up, or they were adapted to run a specific purpose through the use of software in the form of their operating system and connectivity Clients installed. At this time, a mixture of proprietary hardware was used, and in a lot of cases hardware used was already several years old. It was acclaimed, likely born out of the Dumb Terminal era, that such devices could be deployed and run forever. While this is somewhat true from a long MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) perspective, the technology from both a hardware and software perspective was moving at a faster pace than ever. Many companies who had invested in proprietary hardware such as Zero Clients or Raspberry Pi, fell behind as well as companies who had held onto age-old Thin Clients that lacked the capability to perform the offload or local install that was now required from such collaboration and unified communication tools.
Essentially, the very label of a Thin Client or Zero Client was tarnished with the same brushstroke, which is absolutely 100% not true! Believe it or not, there are Thin Clients out there, specifically x86 based, which are from a pre-COVID era of 2016 that support such offload and collaboration & unified communication tools successfully. Intel or AMD based x86 processors were proven to give the greatest flexibility and futureproofing for this evolution. As VDI optimization would catch up, the x86 hardware was ready to evolve and embrace this through successive OS/firmware updates. The same was not true in the same quick succession for the proprietary Clients previously mentioned.
Also, back to security, the risk of cyber security attacks and data breaches accelerated even further post-COVID, where companies were now placing assets and data outside the traditional company perimeter, making them more prone to attack and the related growing trend and demand around ‘zero trust.’ This topic is best left separate, but here again the age-old benefits of Thin or Zero Clients plays very nicely into the Zero Trust discussion.
The ‘Modernized’ post-COVID Workforce – The ‘Modernized’ Thin Client
COVID is long gone, but without doubt we do live in a related post-COVID era and its effects continue to revolutionize the Thin Client and the Zero Client, and summon the very question surrounding their names and titles. Modern workforces remain remote, albeit mainly in hybrid capacity with employees switching between home and office, and even in some cases work-cation! Modern workforces expect to consume their apps or desktops wherever and whenever, and this very demand plays nicely back into the hands of a ‘modernized’ Thin Client that benefits both businesses and employees.
Modernized Thin Client Hardware Perspective
From a hardware perspective, a modernized Thin Client is x86 based, offering the greatest flexibility to the rapidly changing world we live in. It is capable enough to receive remoted graphics and audio streams, as well as encode/decode video & audio streams locally. Essentially, it is capable of the remote compute, hybrid compute, and local compute discussed above – but it is lean and mean, and ideally stateless, fanless, energy efficient, and sustainable. Furthermore, the hardware is available not just in desktop or AIO (All-in-One) monitor form, but in Thin Client laptop form, offering the mobility which is needed for a modern workforce and a modernized Thin Client. Compare that to general purpose PCs and laptops which while also x86 based, are built exclusively with local compute in mind. They offer expansive and often overkill CPUs, RAM and storage, whereas VDI & DaaS, remote apps, and browser-based apps are concerned, the bulk of the compute is performed in a data center instead or as a consumption-based model in cloud. Not only that but, PCs and laptops still mostly remain as stateful, being equipped with fans, moving parts, and lack the energy-efficiency which are featured on Thin & Zero Clients. In a world where energy prices are at an all-time high, many companies and sectors gain rewards for playing into energy-efficiency programs which are because of the Thin & Zero Clients, their names and titles, too.
Modernized Thin Client Software Perspective
From an OS/software perspective, the Thin/Zero Client story runs a vendor-optimized version of a general-purpose Linux or Windows IoT based operating system. One which is finely tuned, managed, and secure, featuring a smaller attack surface and compatibility with remote connectivity solutions, including AVD/Windows 365, Citrix, VMware/Omnissa Horizon, and more. It offers support for browsers, both general purpose and kiosk-based, allowing either the freedom to browse freely, restricted kiosk access and/or a hybrid for consuming specific web-based apps for any specific purpose. Browsers can also be used for consuming collaboration & unified communication solutions. In addition, the OS supports productivity tools to aid printing, scanning, and more. It also offers support for DEX (digital employee experience), supporting such tools for improving productivity, performance, and troubleshooting at the endpoint level. It also supports security tools, including 2FA (Two Factor Authentication), MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication), Smart Card, and Security Agents.
Modernized Thin Client Operating System Perspective
The ‘Modernized Thin Client’ OS is significantly as important as the hardware it operates on. The OS must be flexible and adaptable to change. It must be secure and it must be minimal, or zero, touch to deploy and manage. The need for such OS is also true and beneficial to operate on other types of endpoints, including PCs, laptops, and x86 Thin Clients, where sustainability is priority. Existing vendors have left them behind or added complex and costly support subscriptions to upkeep. Having such a modernized Thin Client OS provides for a standardized UX, one which is easy to manage by being coupled together with an inclusive remote management tool.
The Modernized Thin Client – Modernized Next-Gen Future
As we move into the next-gen future, we need to continue embracing next-gen technology. VDI and DaaS have seen a huge increase and uptick of adoption following the COVID era and the expansive modern workforce who work from simply anywhere. We continue to see an increased uptick in a wider array of VDI and DaaS vendors in a disruptive market and the importance of supporting such to offer flexibility and choice, and there are other emerging trends we are seeing. As some companies are looking to move away from traditional Windows based apps into web-based apps, there are now many emerging use cases to equip the modern workforce with a mixture of general purpose and/or secure browsers for providing controlled access to web-based apps. There’s also some emergence of deploying apps as containers, minus the installation and also minus the layering as apps or within a VDI/DaaS based desktop. And, there’s also AI! While this is still an emerging technology since we’ve seenin the trend of remote computing over the past ten years, there could in more recent years ahead, become the ability of offloading/redirecting AI onto dedicated GPUs and silicon on local endpoints.
If we study the English dictionary for the term ‘modernize’ or ‘modernized’ the result yields
“Adapt to modern needs or habits, typically by installing modern equipment or adopting modern ideas or methods. Alternatively adjust or improve something, especially in a way that uses new technology.”
The overall idea is that modernized Thin & Zero Clients have continued to evolve, adapt, and embrace the modern workforce for the digital workspace era. A modernized Thin or Zero Client offers power, speed, performance, flexibility, security, standardized UX, manageability, sustainability, and energy efficiency. Coupling together all of that via both hardware and software from a trusted, singular vendor brings you a modernized future!
