NYTimes writes about HP’s solution which it says can cut computing costs by 45%:
The Hewlett-Packard solution uses clusters of “blade” personal computers each a narrow circuit board that handles all the processing chores of a desktop PC. The blades are housed and managed at a central location in a corporation. Likewise, each user’s files are stored centrally in a network of disks.
Users sit at workstations each with a screen, a keyboard and some local memory sign in with passwords and gain access to both processing power and individual work files. Each worker gets a PC blade, but not always the same one. The processing resources are allocated by Hewlett-Packard’s OpenView software, developed over years and used for managing workloads in corporate data centers.
The company saves money because not all PC’s are used at once. So if a company has 10,000 workers and the maximum use at any time is 70 percent, the company might be able to buy a system with only 7,000 blades instead of 10,000 desktop PC’s.
There should also be large savings, according to Hewlett-Packard, from cost reductions in maintenance, management and training that result from its centrally controlled approach.
This seems a variation on the thin client approach, with the actual client processor being remoted.
