White Papers

Moving from a Twinax Environment to Thin Clients?

Here is a short list of things to consider filtered from a list of 49*!

If you have Twinax cabling and devices and are thinking of moving to a LAN environment, you have a lot to worry about. Will your trusty IPDS printers continue to perform? Will your data entry personnel continue to be productive? Will your network be as reliable? In most cases, the answer will be no. That is why you should consider the e-Twin@x Controller alternative.

The e-Twin@x Controller allows you to leverage your Twinax investment while providing you with a pure TCP/IP alternative to the traditional remote controller methods. It even supports e-Mail on dumb terminals! You can retain your Twinax equipment, improve throughput at your remote locations, and employ state-of-the-art Web-based management for all of your remote devices. Here are a few issues for you to consider:

Going With What You Know

A rumor has been circulating the past few years that Twinax is obsolete. However, to think nobody is putting in new Twinax equipment is simply not true. While people are not putting in Twinax cable, the use of twisted pair and baluns is very commonplace in places that are already wired with Twinax or twisted pair network. You know Twinax – the investment in equipment and cabling has already been made, it’s reliable, the company employees know how to operate the devices, and you know how to maintain them! Don’t ignore the importance of this investment and accrued knowledge…

Price IS an Issue

The table below demonstrates the effect of various customer operational requirements on the price calculation. Prices quoted are “street price”, i.e. Dumb Ethernet terminals are priced at $550 each and Thin Clients are $650 each. If you are running a single session over each and every terminal, the difference in cost is downright outrageous, when compared to the e-Twin@x Controller model supporting the same number of devices. However, even in environments when 3 or more sessions are running on a single terminal, the e-Twin@x Controller still affords you a much better price:

 Sessions per Terminal

# Terminals Required

e-Twin@x Controller

Dumb Ethernet

Thin Client

1

112

$9,761

$61,600

$72,800

2

56

$9,761

$30,800

$36,400

3

37

$9,761

$20,350

$24,050

4

28

$9,761

$15,400

$18,200
Thin Clients, of course, often have additional costs, such as the Fat Servers required to run them.

Implementation

Did you know that the e-Twin@x Controller can be installed in five minutes, while changing terminals takes about 30 minutes each (at least)? Thin Clients take much more time (due to the implementation of the Citrix Server). This is another reason why the bigger the deal, the more cost-effective the Controller solution.

Cost of Ownership

Twinax is a notoriously stable and reliable infrastructure, especially compared to Ethernet. All Terminal replacements will require an IP address each, and a connection to a network switch. Large switched networks often have banks of switches, which need to be managed. There are a whole slew of tasks that need to be performed: VLAN’s, VLAN trunking (connecting two switches together), configuring VTP (VLAN Trunking Protocol), spanning tree protocol for preventing loops, VLAN routing, etc.

In addition, managing a larger network will require new skills, maybe even additional personnel. The larger networks are less common on remote sites of AS/400 companies at present, however it remains true that the more IP addresses you use, the more planning and management the system requires. Most remote locations do not have a dedicated network administrator, which probably means a real logistics nightmare, not to mention a costly endeavor, when installing and maintaining the new network equipment. Did you know that the e-Twin@x Controller has only one IP address, and it supports simple, remote HTTP management, which any AS/400 person can easily understand?

* Download this page in PDF format (34KB) for a complete listing of the 49 reasons.