Sun Ray Software 5

The unique Sun Ray Software architecture removes management of complex PC or embedded OS thin clients from the desktop equation by offering a complete virtual desktop. The architecture consists of: Sun Ray Thin Clients or Sun Desktop Access Client enabled PCs and Sun Ray Software. The environmentally friendly Thin Client is a low-cost device that, when plugged into the network, delivers a secure, network desktop. Sun Ray Software has three core components: Sun Ray Server Software, Sun Ray Connector for Windows, and Sun Desktop Access Client.

Sun Ray Server Software acts as a broadcaster, delivering customized content to each Sun Ray client on the network. Channel 1 might be Microsoft Windows, Channel 2 might be Linux, and Channel 3 might be the Solaris OS. It provides user authentication and encryption between server and client, as well as user session management. This not only enhances security, but also helps reduce complexity and administration of the IT environment. Sun Ray Server Software provides automatic load balancing, optimizing performance by distributing sessions across servers in the group. Load balancing takes into account each server's load and capacity, the number and speed of its CPUs, so that larger or less heavily loaded servers bear more of the load.

Sun Ray Connector for Windows enables a direct connection to Windows Terminal Services, so that Microsoft Windows applications can be displayed on the Sun Ray client. In Controlled Access Mode, customers can provide full-screen, Microsoft Windows desktops to Sun Ray clients, with all the security and mobility benefits unique to the architecture. Sun Desktop Manager returns desktop control to system administrators by providing a Web-based tool to centrally control the Solaris OS desktop and applications. Because it removes complexity and increases management efficiency, this helps reduce costs and administration workload relating to desktop infrastructure.

Sun Desktop Access Client enables end-users to use their choice of client devices when connecting to centralized desktops running on Sun's desktop virtualization software products. The Sun Desktop Access Client easily installs on common client operating systems and provides the flexibility to hotdesk to and from a Sun Ray Thin Client and any supported Sun Desktop Access Client enabled PC.

Sun Ray technology eliminates desktop upgrade fatigue, the never-ending cycle of new PCs. Complex PCs and other "thin clients" have a local OS and local applications, which require different amounts of memory (RAM), CPU power (MHz/GHz), operating system patch levels, application patch levels which get you, the customer, caught in a never-ending cycle of application upgrades that then force new memory or CPU hardware upgrades on the desktop client.

Sun Ray technology frees your organization from desktop upgrade fatigue by centralizing your desktop computing on Sun Ray servers. A desktop application upgrade, memory performance upgrade, or OS upgrade is as simple as upgrading a few servers. All Sun Ray clients will have instant access to the upgrades made on the servers.

Sun Ray clients also have environmental benefits. The Sun Ray 2 clients only consume 4 watts of power -- similar to a night light. Unlike PCs that typically have a 3-year lifespan, some Sun Ray customers use their Sun Ray clients for a decade -- thereby reducing the amount of landfill waste and saving money. As a matter of fact, the Sun Ray 2 and Sun Ray 2FS clients have a mean time before failure of 22 years!

Protecting your critical business information is vital to your success. Sun Ray technology virtually eliminates the risk of desktop virus infections and can help protect corporate intellectual property with a more secure desktop solution.

Flexibility and choice are important components of any desktop solution. Sun Ray technology provides a choice of desktop environments. Users can choose a Windows, Linux or Solaris OS, choose to use a Sun Ray Thin Client or a Sun Desktop Access Client enabled PC, as well as choice of x86 or UltraSPARC server hardware.

The Sun Ray Software 5 release focuses on improving the end user experience with a broader choice of end client devices, improved Adobe Flash performance and expanded support for USB peripheral devices. Additionally, Sun Ray Software 5 improves application server support by adding support for Windows Server 2008.

Sun Ray Software is ideal for users who want to deploy Sun Ray Software to Sun Ray Thin Clients or PCs in a traditional server-based computing model. You should also choose this solution if you want to deploy Sun Ray Software and VMware View Manager. Sun Secure Global Desktop Software is ideal when the solution demands access from a diverse and mixed client platform base (Windows/Linux PCs, Solaris OS Workstations, Windows CE/Linux thin clients, PDAs, or Sun Ray clients) or when a broader array of server based applications on various operating systems is needed (Windows, Solaris OS, Unix, Linux, AS/400, 3270, etc.). Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software can deliver virtual desktops to PCs, thin clients, Sun Ray thin clients and even some mobile devices. Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software is ideal when you want to deploy server hosted virtual desktops running inside virtual machines to a variety of client devices. The core functionality of Sun VDI Software is provided by Sun Ray Software and/or a single purpose version of Sun Secure Global Desktop Software. In addition, the Sun Virtual Desktop Connector provides the required "brokering" services in a server-hosted desktop environment.

The Sun Ray Appliance Link Protocol (ALP) is a fast and highly efficient solution used to deliver virtual desktops over local and wide area networks. Sun Ray users experience consistently improved performance with the Sun Ray ALP versus competitive remote display protocols, especially over the WAN. The display portion of the Sun Ray protocol is UDP based. Other technologies such as DNS, IPTV, VoIP and video teleconferencing for example also use UDP instead of TCP because they have real-time delivery requirements that TCP cannot reliably satisfy. TCP based protocols guarantee delivery of every single packet, which is crucial if you're transferring a file. But it's not crucial at all if you're looking at a moving image that's updating frequently...if you miss a packet, a new one will be along very soon to update that section of the screen. UDP is a faster and more efficient transport, at least for applications that do not need guaranteed delivery. Since most users are updating their screens somewhat regularly UDP makes for an excellent choice when drawing the screen. It is important to note that the Sun Ray ALP is not entirely UDP based. The Sun Ray authentication protocol is TCP based and it handles session identification and server location. The remote device protocol is TCP based which handles services and devices such as printers, smart cards, USB Mass Storage, serial devices, parallel devices, and libUSB devices. Because TCP is a reliable protocol, it ensures that data arrives at its destination intact. As a result, it exchanges a relatively high number of packets over the network. UDP does not have this overhead and is considerably faster than TCP.

When you purchase your Sun Ray Software 5 license, you should choose a basic, standard or premium support offering as well. Alternatively, you can choose to purchase a Sun Ray Software standard or premium subscription and pay annually for the bundled software and support offering. A support contract is highly recommended as it gives you access to software patches, updates and upgrades.

Your customer can use Nortel's client gateway today. Sun Ray users who require remote access over the WAN are required to deploy Nortel VPN hardware routers such as the Nortel VPN router 200. Visit the Nortel site for more information. In addition to the Cisco Easy VPN infrastructure, users can now select a Juniper VPN solution. Specifically, customers can use the IPsec based ScreenOS family of Juniper gateways.

Sun Ray Software includes an integrated VPN/IPsec client directly in the Sun Ray device firmware. As long as the corporate VPN is using a Cisco gateway that supports the Cisco Easy VPN protocol, customers can simply plug their Sun Ray clients into nearly any network and connect back to their corporate network with a secure VPN connection. This VPN client is designed to support Cisco's Easy VPN protocols, which includes VPN infrastructure based on the Cisco 3000 and ASA 5500 series of VPN devices. The VPN client will support IKE (Internet Key Exchange) with 3DES or AES ciphers, the same security model supported by the Cisco VPN Client Software. In addition to static username/password authentication, the VPN client will also support standard hardware token card authentication.

Sun Ray clients deployed at remote offices over a WAN and at other sites over the public Internet (e.g., Sun Ray At Home) can now utilize industrial strength security without the use of a separate hardware VPN device.

Yes. The Sun Desktop Access Client requires a standard Sun Ray user license when connecting to any Sun Ray Software 5 desktop session.

No. The Sun Desktop Access Client requires Sun Ray Software 5 or later for use.

Yes. The Sun Desktop Access Client will function in the same manner as the hardware client and can access Solaris or Linux desktops as well as access to any supported back-end application servers that Sun Ray Software supports, such as Windows sessions or Citrix.

Like the Sun Ray hardware client, the Sun Desktop Access Client will communicate using Sun's Appliance Link Protocol.

No. Bandwidth consumption and load requirements for sizing and capacity is identical to a Sun Ray hardware client.

You can find a list of the supported devices here.

Yes, it works with full screen Windows XP kiosk sessions in Sun VDI Software and Sun Ray Software 5.

Yes. The officially supported SRS 5 product documentation is available here.

More specifically, there are three main wiki spaces:

• Sun Ray Server Software 4.2 Documentation
• Sun Ray Connector for Windows OS 2.2 Documentation
• Sun Desktop Access Client 1.0 Documentation

Anyone can view the wiki information, but you'll need a Sun Online Account to provide comments on the wiki pages. And, we encourage everyone to provide feedback and comments.

Yes. Both documentation sites provide a Printable PDF link on the left-hand navigation bar to enable you to produce dynamic PDF books (reflecting the latest information on the wiki). In addition, you can create PDFs of single pages or sections.