Tiguin v:s TornadoMany times we confuse choice with convenience. Its not always good to have more choices, but to have a single choice which is more convenient. Thin Client is matter of convenience where as Desktop offers more choice (which, sometimes, is not required).Choices at most times is not warranted in work environment.Thin Client comes in small form factor, and low power consumption. But that is not the main advantage, main advantage is its specialised thin client software (the OS).Thin client hardware being sold now is so powerful – like dual core 1.8GHz with 2 GB RAM etc. This lures people in using a standard desktop OS for thin Clients. But that does not serve the purpose, infact it defeats the basic purpose of using Thin Clients.

Enjay offers both Thin Client OS (Enjay Tornado OS) and Desktop OS (Enjay Tiguin OS). Many times customers and partners get confused as to which OS to use. This article explains the scenario when to use Thin Client software (i.e  Enjay Tornado Os).

Many times, just to accommodate this desktop OS, people also use bigger hard drives in Thin Clients instead of Flash Memory, which is conventionally used. Which is also a bad idea.

Lets consider the reasons for using Thin clients, first:

  1. Reliability of Hardware.
  2. Speed and Agility.
  3. Security of data and application.
  4. Convenience v/s Choice.
  5. Professional Support.

Now let us compare point by point disadvantages (unwelcome baggage) of using Desktop OS (or advantages of Enjay Tornado OS – which is a specialised embedded Thin Client OS).

Features of Enjay Tornado OS:

  1. Reliable by Design – Thin Client Os is embedded OS
    1. The flash memory used in Thin Clients for storage is very fast in reads, but it has limited life in terms of “Writes”.
    2. So Enjay Tornado is designed in that way, most of the “write” functions of OS are disabled, only a small portion on disk is writable. Whereas Desktop OS writes lots of lots of things on Disk (even when you are not saving anything !!!).
    3. This feature of Enjay Tornado OS enhances the life of Flash Disk. Considering that the disk is the most vulnerable component, increasing its life increases reliability of whole Thin Client.
  2. Speed and Agility:
    1. Desktop OS is designed to be versatile and not fast, where as Enjay Tornado OS is designed with speed and agility in mind.
    2. Example – Desktop OS might be using Gnome Desktop Manager (which is very resource hungry), whereas Enjay Tornado uses lightweight desktop Manager.
    3. Secondly, the footprint of Thin Client Os is very small (for example basic Enjay Tornado OS is barely 300 MB), whereas Desktop OSes are generally very bulky.
  3. Secured by Nature – Securing data and applications
    1. Enjay Tornado OS offers features like locking of USB drives, (whereas desktop OS does not offer that).
    2. Enjay Tornado OS offers locking of networking shares, printers etc. (even printer settings).
    3. Enjay Tornado OS offers control and lock for applications available to the users, whereas desktop is designed to allow everything. (Publishing Local Applications to the user is a feature of Thin Client OS).
    4. Enjay Tornado OS can even control connections to the serves, like RDP / ICA, 2X etc.
    5. User cannot install anything on Enjay Tornado  OS, whereas in desktop OS, this kind of locking is not possible.
  4. Thin Client gives Convenience v/s Desktop offers Choice.
    1. More Printer support, even printers which don’t have Linux drivers are supported in Enjay Tornado OS. (Example: Enjay Tornado OS supports many printers, which don’t have Linux Drivers, it uses a unique technology for the same)
    2. Otherwise managing printers on any Linux Distribution is a big challenge. However Enjay Tiguin OS is an exception.
    3. Useful Local Apps – Libre Office, Media Player, Browser, SAP Client, Softphone.
    4. Online Controlled Patch Management is available for Thin Client OS, whereas desktop also has that feature but it not controlled, every time a desktop OS will have 100s and 100s MB of updates and upgrades.
  5. Professional (Commercial) Support
    1. Linux is free which is its greatest advantage. However that is also its greatest disadvantage. OS can be given for Free, but support cannot be given for Free.
    2. Enjay Tornado is a Thin Client OS is backed by a professional team of technical experts, who can help.
    3. Also if customisation is required that is possible in case of Thin Client OS, whereas it is not possible in Desktop OS (if possible, it is very very costly).

Conclusion Tornado or Tiguin:

  1. If you have an old hardware, use Tornado. Tiguin requires more resources to run, obviously because its designed for Desktop.
  2. If you want to run Windows software on Linux, use Tiguin OS. Enjay Tornado is an embedded OS, you cannot run  windows software on Linux there.
  3. If you want to run other Linux software, then use Enjay Tiguin OS, you cannot install other Linux software on Tornado OS.
  4. If you need large local storage, its preferable to use Enjay Tiguin. because Tornado is designed for small size flash disk, although it can support any size of disk.

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