The greater part of our work is in and around the supply of low-cost, long-life environmentally friendly desktop computer systems based on alternatives to the standard PC. As a shorthand these are sometimes known as 'thin client' devices but that can be misleading. We tend to prefer to use the term 'alternative' since what really matters is the benefits to the user, not the technology itself. To do the job well we need expertise in the areas listed below, which we combine to build easy-to-manage and highly supportable systems that are intended to 'just work'.

SunRay devices are a popular alternative to traditional desktop PCs. They are purpose-built and offer multimedia support (full sound and video), secure fine-grained access control based on optional smart cards and they couple that with the usual manageability benefits of thin client devices. An expected in-service lifetime of six to eight years and only four watts (typical) power consumption help to reduce costs drastically. To do them full justice would take an entire website - you really have to see them in action to understand them fully. It's unnerving to walk into a room full of SunRays and experience the silence: silence from the devices themselves and also the lack of air-conditioning hum. You don't have to log-out, just pull out your smartcard and walk away - then when you plug it in again (maybe on the other side of the world if you are using Global Desktop too), you get your desktop back with your applications still open. A thoroughly amazing experience if you haven't seen it before.

See below for links to white papers describing how we deliver thin client desktops in school environments.

Sun's Secure Global Desktop (SGD) is an extraordinary piece of work. Many people will use it simply to give secure, controlled access to their desktops from remote locations. It does this extremely well and permits people to work whilst travelling, or at home as well as in their usual place of work. Users' sessions can be preserved so they can suspend what they were doing, travel somewhere different and then carry on without missing a beat; all that's needed is internet access and a java-enabled web browser. SGD is highly configurable and integrates extremely well with SunRay terminals and smartcard access control. Not only does it provide remote access to traditional computer desktops, but it also allows seamless integration with applications running on a wide range of computer systems such as Linux and Unix - windows on the screen can simultaneously access Windows, Solaris, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, AS/400 and Mainframe applications, all at the same time.

You can read more about how we deliver thin client desktops in school environments in these white papers (pdf format): Sun Ray for Schools - an outline of thin client benefits and Cutter Technologies - the technology used to deploy thin clients. The environmental benefits of using thin clients are becoming increasingly valued and we discuss those in our Green Technology white paper (pdf).

Easy-manage, expandable storage systems have traditionally been available only to organisations with very deep pockets. Sun Microsystems' Amber Road range is innovative, high performance and affordable. We sell, support and install it because we believe it delivers what our customers want.

The Cutter desktop system provides an Open Source alternative to typical Microsoft®-based computer systems for use in office and educational environments where control of costs and return on investment are critical.

Cutter's low cost, low risk centralised control and management reduces licence fees and hardware upgrade costs whilst continuing to provide compatibility with almost all software applications such as Microsoft Office®

An overview of our experiences of open source software in UK schools can be found in this short white paper (pdf format).

There a number of high-quality alternatives to desktop PCs. We partner with Igel and Wyse to offer a choice to our customers, able either to support existing deployments or assist in the building, installation and support of new systems. It's not uncommon for a range of different requirements to be solved best by using a mix-and-match approach and our range of skills helps us to identify the best mixture for a particular workload.

The thing to remember all along is that it's about designing the right system based on user needs, organisational priorities and costs. Having a range of alternatives available helps us to reach the best match.

One of the most important elements of any design is whether or not it works in practice. For our first customers the technology was unfamiliar and would have been alarmingly risky if we hadn't provided high levels of support as well. Ever since then we've designed our systems with supportability as a central issue. We go to considerable lengths to ensure that our systems can be fully supported via remote access: full offsite support and management. Our approach guides our choices of hardware and software to ensure that it meets our requirements to be managed this way.

We don't see ourselves as a provider of computer systems, selling hardware and software. We see ourselves fundamentally as a support business that also supplies the systems it supports. That's an unusual view in this industry and may help people to understand what we set out to acheive. Where our clients wish to support their own systems, we are naturally happy to design and build the system for them then hand it over, often with backup support as part of the package, but for those who want to treat the system as a permanently-on 'black box' we are there too.

We also provide a more detailed description of our approach to support.

Continuous monitoring of computer systems can help to ensure that system outages are rapidly reported and rectified. When resources become low, systems managers should be given ample warning so that they can react to the situation before it becomes a problem. Being able to spot trends by regular observation as well as being automatically warned when problems develop helps to ensure that users get the highest quality services.

In the past, expensive monitoring and management packages have been an essential part of high-availability systems. In the Open Source world, the excellent Nagios and Cacti packages provide features normally only found in commercial packages that cost thousands or tens of thousands to licence and configure.

Our alternative desktop solutions work by putting a display device on the desktop and running the applications and operating systems on the remote servers. In some cases, such as Microsoft Windows Terminal Services®, the software is specifically intended for use in this type of environment and it meets the needs of a boad range of users.

Not all users are so accommodating. There may also need to be a number of different operating environments provided such as Unix, Linux, Macintosh, Windows XP etc. each of which assumes that it has full control of the server hardware. This is usually done by virtualising the servers, partitioning them into virtual hardware through software such as VMware, VirtualBox or others. Virtualisation is theoretically simple but can be very demanding in practice, requiring substantial experience and planning to avoid performance bottlenecks. We know this from grim experience; it's not easy to get a thousand images of an operating system loaded into memory and running in the space of a few minutes, something quite common as users arrive at their desks first thing in the morning in a large institution.

High performance storage is usually required for large virtual server installations. In practice the large storage arrays all have specific behavioural quirks depending on the type of load that they are serving and they need careful tuning to be able to deliver the right kind of high performance. We've done the sleepless nights so you don't have to!

As you probably know, you can't just take waste electrical equipment to the local recycling centre free of charge. Dealing with hazardous and non-hazardous electronic waste can be quite an issue for organisations nowadays. If fat-client PCs have been replaced with modern low-power thin client devices there can be a lot of stuff that needs to be scrapped. Cutter can work in conjunction with GreenIT Box to provide you with a simple way of disposing of waste and obtaining documentary evidence of secure disposal: all for a fixed price paid in advance based purely on the size of the box.

The GreenIT Box is delivered on a pallet suitable for either 120Kg or 250Kg of waste. You fill it with laptops, printers, hard drives, fax machines, servers, desktops, pdas, cables and other IT equipment then call to have it taken away. Green IT Box arrange for it to be removed, securely disposed of and will provide a certificate of destruction.