Cancer Research UK streamlines IT with cloud thin clients

Cancer Research UK has taken on thin clients as part of a cloud computing-based cost and efficiency drive designed to make more funds available for research.

The UK’s largest charity is seeking IT cost savings through the migration of its IT infrastructure and systems to the cloud.

The ongoing IT transformation project has been designed to simplify IT management and improve overall performance, energy efficiency and security within a private cloud-based environment.

Now it has added Wyse T10 thin clients running the hardware provider’s operating system (OS), ThinOS.

Jane Swindle, Cancer Research UK information services (IS) service manager, said the superior end-user experience and multimedia access and optimisation of the Wyse terminals were a major plus.

“We’ve had two units on loan for the past two months and the reaction from the end users has been really positive because the processing of video content is absolutely phenomenal,” she stated.

Cancer Research UK will run its Wyse T10 thin clients in its head office in London and call centre in Oxford. They will integrate with a private cloud environment based on server and desktop virtualisation technology that was deployed in 2010 using a Citrix XenDesktop environment.

The clients use a system-on-chip (SoC) design and a built-in media processor to deliver multimedia, bi-directional audio and flash back play. According to Wyse, they also run multimedia applications using about seven Watts of power in full operation, which is less than the average consumption of an equivalent workstation.

By deploying a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to support its cloud strategy, the charity is also anticipates it will be able to provide greater security and malware protection for end users, given ThinOS centrally stores all data and application and does not publish application programming interfaces (APIs) vulnerable to hackers.

Swindle added that the organisation was “looking forward to…having a virtual desktop infrastructure that’s easy and cost effective to manage and evolves with the charity’s needs”.

She also commented: “The greater efficiencies of a successful, reliable virtual desktop infrastructure means that Cancer Research UK can put IS operational costs back into its life-saving work.”