The Sun model of beefy server, ultra-thin client worked incredibly well and presaged the widespread adoption of virtualisation that eventually led to cloud computing and containerised software. Unfortunately that model made it very easy to undercut their prices using commodity hardware; I managed a Solaris/Sun Ray network c.2004 and it was cheaper to switch to Linux/Intel and buy spare hardware to keep in a cupboard “just in case” than to keep the Sun network going through its support contract.
I worked at Sun labs and used a Sun Ray daily for a whole summer. It worked...OK. Definitely not "Incredibly well". We had a network of a few hundred Sun Rays and two E10Ks backing it. More than a million for the servers and $1000k a piece for the Sun Rays was not cheap. Basically any $1000 laptop was more powerful, without the need for a crazy powerful Sun server. The experience of taking out my ID card, walking down the hall to another cubicle and popping it in and getting my session was magical. But I did that less than once a week, so I don't think it was overall worth it. The Sun Rays also had a pretty crappy LCD, about 1-2 years behind the SoTA.
It was a cool idea. It will keep coming back again and again. But at Sun's price points around the early 2000s, it was a loser, and I actually agree with the market in this instance. Sun Ray was a flop.
Citrix is still everywhere you need a client that can do things a web browser can’t—like run ancient VB4 software or talk to device hardware—deployed at scale.
Citrix was bought out by PE for $16.5B a few years ago, under the (sadly correct) assumption they hadn’t been charging their customers enough money for this essential tech.
GeForce is pretty successful. But only because Nvidia can sell itself GPUs at cost and reuse old data center hardware to get lower prices than anyone else.
If you're not cheaper than buying a PC or console you can't win. No one wants to pay more for the privilege of input lag and compressed video, or getting in trouble with their ISP if they have a strict data cap.
The "two E10Ks" part is the important part there, as you need a very powerful server to support SunRay users running Solaris. At my university there was something like 200 SunRays supported by cluster of T2000s (7 nodes IIRC), it was fine for CDE, Firefox and few dtterms, completely unusable with Gnome (it took Gnome like 10 minutes to even start).
On the other hand I have heard of some success stories about using SunRays as RDP clients, which is actually supported configuration (you still need a Solaris box that manages the sunrays and translates RDP to ALP).
I think it was not a technology that should have been designed for people actually doing series work. But for things like kiosk, self service terminals, and stuff like that.
And yes of course, a rack of commodity servers should how powered the server side, as this was a task that could be scaled vertically quite well.
The also didn't use the cheapest possible Sun Ray terminals, they used their internal developed embedded Sparc chip, not mass produced ARM chips.
grahamlee · · focus · HN ↗
titzer · · focus · HN ↗
It was a cool idea. It will keep coming back again and again. But at Sun's price points around the early 2000s, it was a loser, and I actually agree with the market in this instance. Sun Ray was a flop.
arethuza · · focus · HN ↗
It lived on in the world of Windows Terminal Services and things like Citrix - maybe still does in some places.
steve1977 · · focus · HN ↗
twoodfin · · focus · HN ↗
Citrix was bought out by PE for $16.5B a few years ago, under the (sadly correct) assumption they hadn’t been charging their customers enough money for this essential tech.
abhiyerra · · focus · HN ↗
dbojan · · focus · HN ↗
foobarian · · focus · HN ↗
tancop · · focus · HN ↗
If you're not cheaper than buying a PC or console you can't win. No one wants to pay more for the privilege of input lag and compressed video, or getting in trouble with their ISP if they have a strict data cap.
dfox · · focus · HN ↗
On the other hand I have heard of some success stories about using SunRays as RDP clients, which is actually supported configuration (you still need a Solaris box that manages the sunrays and translates RDP to ALP).
panick21_ · · focus · HN ↗
And yes of course, a rack of commodity servers should how powered the server side, as this was a task that could be scaled vertically quite well.
The also didn't use the cheapest possible Sun Ray terminals, they used their internal developed embedded Sparc chip, not mass produced ARM chips.