VDI Solutions based upon Oracle’s Sun™ Thin Client Technology Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is gain-ing attention because of its tremendous cost-cutting potential. A VDI Solution can reduce your hardware budget, cut your deployment time, decrease maintenance expenses, and slash your utility charges. But these aren’t the only advantages to thin client computing. Virtual thin clients provide numerous mobil-ity, flexibility, security and user data benefits that traditional Personal Computers (PCs) can’t provide.

Organizations with large fleets of PCs running routine Office applications are under pressure to provide these resources at a lower cost per unit. According to eWeek “Desktop virtualization is beginning to draw interest from enterprise IT managers, who don’t have to look far to see the benefits from the technology…VDI is getting set to mow down those who continue to locally sta-tion full-power PCs for routine office workers.”1

ECO-nomical

With the costs of electricity rising and with pow-er grids fast approaching overload, it’s necessary to cut power use wherever possible. Traditional PC’s require 80-150 watts of power to operate while virtual thin client devices have extremely low power consumption, utilizing only 4-7 watts per unit – that’s a savings of at least 90%2.

Thin client devices have fewer components to fail. This reduces your maintenance costs and increases the estimated lifespan to as high as 22 years3. Plus, thin clients are easily replaced at low cost, without the need to reload software, recover files, and configure network settings and user preferences.

Sun Ray 2 shown with optional Wi-Fi Mitel VoIP Phone

Another financial burden of traditional PCs is the high cost of high availability (HA) solutions for users’ local data. Due to cost restraints, many organizations choose not to use HA solutions for desktops. A local disk failure means hours or days of downtime, and the potential for lost data. With VDI, the HA functionality is embed-ded within the back-end servers protecting your data and distributing the cost over many users.. This protects your data and distributes the cost over many users.

“At a time when slowing demand is forcing corporations to slash costs by any means, nearly one in four companies is experiment-ing with virtual desktops in some capacity.”4

Mobility Problems: Solved

With traditional desktops your mobility is limited or non-existent. The need to work from your home PC or Blackberry® device, could require copying data or applications between various devices. With thin clients, each user session executes on a back-end server rather than on the client device. The result? Users can switch from one virtual client to another and the user session follows their movement.

In a PC-based environment, users often copy data onto memory sticks to transfer the data where needed – both inconvenient and a risk to your intellectual property. With VDI, smart card access allows authorized users to connect to their secured desktop, latest data

“They [ConRes] have, like I said,

some of the best engineers I’ve

ever worked with... At heart, they’re

still people. At the end of the day,

they’re able to work with you as a

company, they’re able to work with

the individuals. They’ll do whatever

has to be done. That is, at the end

of the day, of utmost importance. If

this project needs to work, they’ll

find a way to make it work for you.”

IT Director for a NJ based provider

of healthcare information

SOLUTION SHEET

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Systems and Network Integration Division

IT SOLUTIONSn

Systems and Network Integration Division

SOLUTION SHEET

“I think they [ConRes] have

a very skilled staff that truly

understands the optimum way

to utilize these tools. They re-

ally worked with us and made

every effort to understand what

we were looking for and truly

defined our process so that

they weren’t just doing a job.

They truly became part of the

organization, worked closely

with us so that they understood

how everything worked in our

specific environment.” Manager, Networks and Technology,

for a semiconductor manufacturer

or applications -- from any thin client on your network, regardless of where the user logs in. This results in an unprecedented level of security - and freedom -for your company-sensitive data that lets you work anywhere worry-free.

Phone Problems: Solved

Typical problems in a work environment include:

nmultiple voice systems that don’t talk to one another

n calls that can’t be transferred because there is no connectivity between sites

nfinding a phone in close proximity to a computer

ndiffering phone service quality (especially with cell phones in lab)

n lack of unification between your PC and phone

ndivisions or departments with disparate voice systems

n lack of unification between your mobile phone and work phone

These problems result in complex and disjointed communications which lead to poor customer service, as callers must dial several numbers be-fore reaching the desired department or person.

Imagine the revolutionary power of a single Java smart card driving access to all your voice/computing applications. To truly inte-grate voice and data, Continental Resources (ConRes) offers a solution which takes ultra thin client Sun Ray™ technology and inte-grates it with Mitel® IP phones. The Sun Ray Unified IP Client provides one simplified, device-secure authentication source for voice and data hot desking.

This technology will work anywhere - simply insert your Java card into a Sun Ray Unified IP Client from any location. The Java card

controls all your voice and data access - using it allows data to stay centralized and secure in the back office.

The ConRes VDI Solution allows for ease of call transfer and even enables a context sensitive text within a document to automati-cally call any assigned phone-type devices. This solution integrates cell/home/work/PDA/Conference room phone service, allows your voice device to track with your desktop, seamlessly transferring calls between phone devices. This tight integration between PC-visible documents and phone service creates a very flexible work environment.

Flexibility Problems: Solved

With a traditional PC your flexibility is limited. Working on multiple devices, with different operating systems (OS), requires either reloading the OS or having to use another hardware platform compatible with the OS desired. On traditional desktops, these actions must be accomplished one-by-one and consume a tremendous amount of time and manpower. With the virtual thin client you have the convenience of selecting from multiple OS environments using the same device. You can select a specific OS at login as the operating systems are housed the back-end servers. OS options include Solaris, Windows, Linux and others.

With virtual thin clients, client-associated OS upgrades and software reload in seconds and allows ease of administration and quick user assignment. The thin client has no hardware compatibility issues which results in anytime, anywhere access from any device.

2

The Smart Card—

Driving access to all your computing and voice

applications.

IT SOLUTIONSn

Systems and Network Integration Division

SOLUTION SHEET

“They’re [ConRes] very at-

tentive to detail. They’re very

customer focused. They’re out

for the best interests of us. The

way they approach doing busi-

ness with us is one of acting as

an advisor, acting as a partner,

not necessarily acting as the

sales channel to us.” CIO for a NJ based premier pro-

vider of home, office, and home

office products

Hardware Problems: Solved

Personal Computers usually contain a single hard drive which creates a single point of failure (SPOF). When the hard drive has a catastrophic failure, a total disk rebuild is usually required. This results in lost time and productivity – for both the end user and the IT engineer. With thin clients there are no desktop hardware failures or desktop RAM upgrades to consider. Thin client hardware lifetime is 2 to 3 times longer than lap-tops and the mean time before failure (MTBF) for a Sun-Ray thin client is about 22 years.

Bonus: Application Control

In a large desktop environment, it’s difficult to track the number, kind and version of applica-tions in use since most applications are housed on a local desktop. With thin client technology, application and data are centralized on back-end servers in your datacenter, which streamlines your application management.

Security Problems: Solved

It’s relatively easy for corporate data to be copied from a PC or laptop to a thumb drive or CD-ROM. When a laptop is lost or stolen, all company data residing on it is lost along with it. There goes your confidential intellectual prop-erty. Since thin clients don’t cache data can’t be compromised when a device is lost or stolen.

The smart card offers a second layer of

authentication for users. If you choose users will be required to insert their smart card into the Sun Ray as well as login with a password to access thier desktop. The smart card may use a Symmetric Key Interface (SKI) which is stored on the server and another method of authentication. This method asks the server and the smart card to authenticate one an-other providing another layer of security.

Security advantages using thin client technology:

n Secure access to the desktop

n Secure desktop over LAN or WAN (VPN or SSL—up to 256 bit AES)

n Ability to disable USB connectors

n Displays visuals only - no data is stored lo-cally, only on the back-end server

nEliminates risk of viruses or spyware (no embedded OS)

User Backup Problems: Solved

User data on a desktop and/or laptop rarely (or never) gets backed up -- when either one crashes, all your data is gone. With the ConRes VDI solution, your data is archived on central storage. The virtual, high avail-ability, back-end server provides redundancy in case of server back-end failure. This makes the user data mostly available and promotes higher productivity. This design also eases cli-ent data backup and recovery from a central location.

“VDI is getting set to mow down those who continue to locally sta-tion full-power PCs for routine office workers.”1

IT SOLUTIONSn

Systems and Network Integration Division

SOLUTION SHEET

“As the firm has continued to

grow in number and my staff

continues to stay the same, my

guys are getting more work

done in less time, freeing them

up to do other work and other

projects because of the solution

from Continental Resources.” Solutions Director, for one of

Boston’s largest accounting firms

Topic/Issue Standard Local PC

Virtual Thin Client

OS Upgrade in seconds NO YES

Hardware refresh 3-4 years 7 –10 + years

Reduces hardware Main-tenance costs NO YES

USER provisioned in seconds NO YES

User data Highly Avail-able NO YES

Requires RAM Upgrades YES NO

Cache YES NO

Allows for OS selection on-the-fly NO YES

Ultra Small to zero footprint NO YES

Voice Over IP phone integration Possibly YES

Houses OS YES NO

Has moving parts that could fail YES NO

Must Conform to OS hardware capability YES NO

Present personalized desktop regardless of location

NO YES

Ultra Low Power Con-sumption

NO, 80-150 Watts

YES, 4-7 watts with VoIP

4

Topic/Issue Standard Local PC

Virtual Thin Client

Aids in employee life-cycle management NO YES

Easy employee setup and modification NO YES

Reduces hardware Maintenance costs NO YES

Augments existing ac-cess control NO YES

Integrates with security badge system NO YES

Centralized licensed control NO YES

Reduces or eliminates desktop hardware failures

NO YES

Ultra secure NO YES

Reverts to original state, automatically NO YES

Packages applications per user environment NO YES

Provisioning in seconds NO YES

High Availability (HA) NO YES

Good for graphics or engineering intensive applications

YES NO

Intellectual Property Control

NO, houses data

YES, only displays data

“VDI should be near the top of the strategic projects list…”5

Table 1: At a Glance - Thin Client versus PC

The following table features topics/issues and compares Thin Client to standard local PC

IT SOLUTIONSn

Systems and Network Integration Division

SOLUTION SHEET

“Whether I was working with

their [ConRes] sales or their

account management, their en-

gineers, during the deployment

or with someone after their

deployment, they’re extremely

responsive to my needs. I was

able to call them up whenever I

needed it. It might have at been

at 7:00 on a Sunday evening; if

we were going to be doing a de-

ployment out to the clubs and

there was an issue, I was able to

go ahead and give them a call.”

Director of IT, of a high-end nation-

al fitness chain

Desktop Virtualization with Sun & VMware

Sun Ray Ultra Thin Clients

Sun Ray SoftwareSun Secure Global Desktop Software

Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Windows Mac, Linux, Solaris Mobile

AIPAIP

https://https://

ALPALP

Introduction to the Continental Resources VDI Solution

This solution allows for your desktop (Hot-Desking) and phone service to migrate with your location thus enabling higher productiv-ity. Why be tied to a particular physical desk-top when you can easily and securely login to any configured thin client and access your desktop? No need to copy and transport data when your recent desktop environment is a secure login away. In addition, your phone (& cell phone) can be integrated with your desktop allowing for phone access to dynami-cally track your desktop (other permutations available).

Solution Composition:

nThin Client For Users

nVoice Over IP phone

nBack-end Computing

nBack-end Virtualization

Solution Brief Description: (Refer to Figure 1.)

5

Back-End: Oracle’s Sun server(s) and storage configured in a highly available/redundant design. The server and storage provide the processing power and the physical storage for Operating Systems, applications and User data.

VMware: VMware software allows for virtu-alization at the system level which allows for system failover/migration in case of system and/or sub-system failures. VMware also enables the virtual desktop OS system selected to be presented to the particular client.

VDI Software: Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software controls access and ensures security based on the design. This access control layer is instrumental in enabling con-nectivity to the thin clients as well as tracking user sessions. The WAN & AIP represent the unprotected public channels.

Front End: Sun Ray thin clients allow for advanced user flexibility. A user chooses which thin client will present the desktop and has the flexibility to choose the neces-sary operating system (without concern for client hardware).With tie in of the phone service and desktop environment, logging in can enable both services at the same physical location.

The Continental Resources integrated VDI Solution based on Oracle’s Sun components, and

VMware

IT SOLUTIONSn

Systems and Network Integration Division

SOLUTION SHEET

BOSTON

CHICAGO

CONNECTICUT

LOS ANGELES

NEW JERSEY

NEW YORK CITY

PHILADELPHIA

SAN DIEGO

TEXAS

WASHINGTON DC

“They [ConRes] are a large,

well respected shop with good

vendor relations,... they are

agnostic; they’ll come up with

whatever the best solution is

for you, not necessarily forc-

ing you towards one vendor or

another.”

Chief Technology Officer of a

social networking website based

in NYC

Key Solution Benefits

n Decrease operating costs

n Increase security

nEnable mobility (desktop and phone)

n Provide high availability for user data

nHigher Productivity

SUMMARY: Improve security, mobility and high availability. Reduce energy and support costs. Increase productivity.

Leverage our relationships with Oracle®, VMware®, Mitel, and Microsoft® to trans-form your working environment to a virtual-ized one.

About ConRes

Build a better IT infrastructure and data center, maximize your choice of IT products and services, and strengthen your ROI – with the friendly professionals at Continental Resources (ConRes), your hybrid VAR™. As a hybrid, ConRes brings you the choice of products you’d expect from a distribu-tor combined with the services and support you’d expect from your IT Solution Provider. You receive unbiased, IT data center and infrastructure solutions from ConRes…all supported by 48 years of experience and financial stability. If you’re an IT Professional in business, academia or government, you can rely on ConRes for enterprise-class solutions ranging from virtualization, disaster recovery, unified communications, cloud computing, security, and networking to UNIX®, Linux®, and Windows®.

Sun Ray 2

1 Sturdevant, Cameron. “The viability of VDI”. eWeek. January 5, 2009. Page 17.2 “Solution Powered By Mitel: The Mitel Unified IP Client for Sun Ray™”, Mitel.com/Sun Microsystems, January 8, 2009. 3 “Sun Desktop Virtualization Portfolio” Sun.com/solutions. January 8, 2009. 4King, Rachael. “The Coming Desktop Revolution?”. Businessweek.com 5 Jan. 2008. 9 Jan. 2009<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2008/tc20081231_028505.htm>.5,6 Sturdevant, Cameron. “The viability of VDI”. eWeek. January 5, 2009. Page 22.

Oracle,Sun, and Sun Ray are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle Cor-poration or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Blackberry, Microsoft, Mitel, and VMware are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

© 2010 Continental Resources, Inc. Specifications subject to change without notice. Continental Resources not responsible for typographical errors. Printed in U.S.AConRes 9025-1003.

6

“Every CIO is looking at every technology to im-prove their infrastructure and their operating costs. We are under such tre-mendous pressure to drive better productivity, to drive better costs, especially in the economic climate we’re in. In the face of challeng-es like that, even modest IT savings will do.”6

IT SOLUTIONSn