Is the Raspberry Pi ready to take over the low-end thin client market? This week, NComputing unveiled the RX-HDX, its second Raspberry Pi based thin client. In addition, ViewSonic announced a software upgrade for the Pi-based SC-T25 thin client that it announced last year.
The future of thin clients — low-cost, remotely managed virtual client computers — has always been a question mark. On one hand, dropping PC prices and increasing use of multimedia in the enterprise has slowed the demand for bare-bones thin clients. Yet, improvements in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) technology and the ongoing need to cut maintenance, support, and operating costs have kept the market alive.
Cheap PCs have may have put the brakes on thin clients in recent years, but a rebound seems likely. The arrival of more affordable and power efficient embedded computers — and the Raspberry Pi in particular — is helping to drive down prices and restore thin clients’ edge over standalone PCs.
Early last year, Citrix, one of the major virtualization software providers for thin clients, along with VMware and Microsoft, jumpstarted the Pi thin client market by partnering with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Broadcom, ThinLinx, and others to bring its Citrix HDX remote display protocol to the Raspberry Pi.
The H264-ready Citrix HDX technology, which is available with Citrix’s XenDesktop virtual desktop and XenApp virtual application software, is an extension of Citrix’s earlier ICA protocol. It adds intelligent redirection, adaptive compression, and data de-duplication to boost performance, especially in multimedia. Citrix HDX is implemented partially via a custom version of a SoC — in this case the Broadcom BCM43437 — that enables compute-intensive HDX algorithms to execute on the CPU. Yet, HDX avoids device obsolescence by not “burning the remoting protocol into silicon,” says Citrix.
Last year, Citrix announced a Raspberry Pi 3 based Citrix HDX Ready Pi mini-PC reference design with preconfigured HDX support for XenDesktop and XenApp. The device’s Linux-based HDX SoC Receiver SDK enables hardware acceleration on the quad-core Broadcom SoC, as well as off-loading to the VideoCore IV GPU. The device offers device management for firmware updates, remote configuration, and DHCP tagging for plug and play deployment. It can automatically connect to Citrix’s StoreFront enterprise app store like higher-end Citrix clients.
The Citrix HDX Ready Pi ships with a version of ThinLinx’s TLXOS. This Raspbian spin-off, which supports VMware Horizon Blast Extreme and Microsoft RDP/RemoteFX protocols as well as Citrix HDX, also provides a virtual client and management stack that can manage both x86 and ARM devices at once. The TLXOS client runs on Intel’s NUCs and Compute Sticks in addition to the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3.
ViewSonic SC-T25 and NComputing RX-HDX
Last July, ViewSonic released a version of the Citrix HDX Ready Pi as the $89 SC-T25. This week, ViewSonic announced that the SC-T25 now offers the Linux-based NoTouch OS from Stratodesk, another Citrix HDX collaborator. NoTouch OS provides the SC-T25 with new features like Skype for Business support, as well as single sign-on and dual monitor support.
Also this week, NComputing unveiled its own $119, Citrix HDX compliant RX-HDX thin client. The product is also based on the Citrix HDX Ready Pi technology, but features a different design borrowed from NComputing’s $99, Raspberry Pi 3-based RX300 thin client, announced in March. The RX300 hosts images provided by its own Windows-based vSpace Pro 10 platform, and is aimed more at the educational and small business markets where NComputing is among the leaders. The new RX-HDX, meanwhile, should boost its prospects in the enterprise market.
Due to ship in July, NComputing’s RX-HDX features dual monitor support and a sleep mode button. There’s also a Pi Management Console (PMC) and web-based device management for up to 10,000 RX devices. The RX-HDX runs on less than 5W, and offers Raspberry Pi 3 features such as 1GB RAM, WiFi and Bluetooth, and 4x USB ports with full USB redirection. There’s also a Kensington lock, an optional VESA mount, and a sealed, internal 8GB microSD card.