Thin Desktop® Use Case Examples
Big 10 University Student Health Care Clinic (Health Care, Local Application)
Situation: The clinic has a requirement to provide their health care application to users securely and in a manner that provides 100% desktop control to the administrator. Any resources not associated with the application must be unavailable to the user. After working with MS Group Policy options for weeks, the administrator found Group Policy to be too cumbersome and required too many policy objects to meet his needs.
Solution: Install Thin Desktop to lock down the desktop PC to only the functionality provided by the administrator. The administrator created a preconfigured desktop image. The image is accessed from the PC through a terminal services connection. Proof of concept was achieved in half a day in the lab. Implementation was achieved in planned stages over 2 days using existing management tools deployed as a silent, unattended install to the target PCs.
City Library and City Services Kiosk in Small Swiss city (Public Sector, Internet Kiosk)
Situation: This small Swiss city has publicly accessible PCs and needs to securely lock them down. The public PCs were being limited by using Kiosk mode available in MS Internet Explorer. Each time a user found a way around the kiosk’s security, the interface would be lost and the PC would blue screen. This would take the kiosk out of service and require a reimaging process.
Solution: Install Thin Desktop to lock down the Internet Explorer Kiosk mode. If a user attempts to manipulate the kiosk, Thin Desktop simply re-launches the kiosk and maintains the user interface. The customer has reported no down time and no reimages of the kiosks.
State Training Lab (Public Sector, Local Application)
Situation: The State provides continuous training to employees on a wide range of topics. The IT support staff has created a series of VMware virtual machines to accommodate the multiple training and courseware requirements. These virtual machines are created and controlled by the IT department for deployment to the training room PC devices. Once deployed to the individual PC, the State uses VMware Player to run the virtual machine. The confusion of having two desktops (local and virtual) and having a local desktop with capabilities not required for all training sessions became problematic. Due to the uniqueness of the implementation, Group Policy was not working properly.
Solution: Install Thin Desktop on the local machine to lock down to VMware player. VMware player then runs only the courseware associated with the specific training requirement and hides the native desktop from the user. The proof of concept was achieved in less than an hour. Implementation was achieved over several days at multiple location using existing tools and the State wide network.
By deploying VMware player and Thin Desktop, the State has significantly reduced operational costs, improved training efficiency and has redeployed existing PC assets, delaying capital costs and aiding in ongoing green initiatives. Thin Desktop allowed the IT staff to concurrently use standard group policy objects required by State policy and lock down the virtual machines.
Industrial Machine Shop/ Custom Machine Builder (Manufacturing, RDP connection)
Situation: The Company had purchased new PCs for the office environment and did not want to dispose of the older PCs if they could be repurposed. They hoped to reuse the old equipment in the shop until it failed. The repurposed devices did not need typical PC capabilities or computing power to be useful in the shop and manufacturing areas. The IT staff wanted to use the device as a way to access a virtual desktop hosted on the server.
Solution: Install Thin Desktop on the old PCs, locking them down to a VMware virtual desktop connection. Because the desktop is hosted on the server, the PC making the connection actually becomes a terminal or a Thin Client. When the PC fails, it will be replaced with another old PC, preloaded with the connection to the virtual desktop. The proof of concept was achieved in one afternoon. Deployment has been done on the shop floor, in the quality department and on data collection stations.
Children’s Museum Exhibit (Public Access, Local Application)
Situation: A new exhibit was set to open at a well known children’s museum in eastern U.S. The exhibit included PCs used to participate in the functionality of the exhibit. Within days of opening, problems arose at the PCs. Attempts to use Group Policy to restrict the capabilities of the PC devices created several unwanted complications and restrictions. The occasional experimenting by curious and resourceful exhibit visitors, led to "blue screened" PCs with no interface available. This made the PC unusable and required reimaging. These Group Policy restrictions made the exhibit a less effective learning experience and compromised the original design created by the museum staff.
Solution: Lock down the exhibit PC devices using Thin Desktop. With Thin Desktop, the specific application is the only capability available to the user. The functionality of the original design remains intact and available to the museum visitors. If an experienced PC user attempts any changes, they quickly find out that they have no access to the underlying PC and that something (Thin Desktop) is monitoring and re-launching the exhibit application. This has saved hours of reimaging and provides assurances to the IT staff and museum staff that the exhibit is always functional.
Liquor Store Kiosk (Retail, Internet Kiosk)
Situation: A Florida based specialty liquor store provides in-store kiosks for inventory browsing and ordering at all their locations. The kiosks are intended to be used by customers to locate and order unique and sometimes rare wines, beers, liquor and specialty items. The kiosk had been locked down using Internet Explorer Kiosk mode. When the kiosk was compromised by a customer it led to a variety or problems in the store. These included service interruptions, “blue screened” kiosks and unauthorized internet usage. These situations usually meant reimaging the PC or trying to replace the broken PC with a different PC. A preventive action was to have an employee stationed at the kiosk to discourage misuse. All of these solutions were expensive, time consuming and inconvenient.
Solution: Install Thin Desktop on the kiosk PC. Thin Desktop completely hides the Microsoft user interface, eliminating the ability to access underlying PC capabilities. By locking down the PC to kiosk mode, only the functionality of the kiosk is available to the user. Users attempting to make any changes or to access other sites, quickly realize that something (Thin Desktop) is monitoring and re-launching the predetermined kiosk application. This has saved hours of reimaging, preserved the original intent of the kiosk and provided assurances to the IT staff and store staff that the kiosk is functional and requires no supervision. The proof of concept was achieved in one evening. Implementation was completed the following evening using existing tools and utilities.
European Food Manufacturer / Distributor (Manufacturing, RDP Connection)
Situation: This food Manufacturer needed to deploy a variety of corporate desktop images to their departments, in multiple locations. The desktop images are determined and designed by the IT administrators based on the business requirements for each job functions. Most of the images require a connection to a central server, and also require certain drivers and services to be available at the local desktop. The complexity and varied requirements define an environment with a multitude of challenges to meet the corporate directives of the business units.
Solution: Install Thin Desktop on each user’s PC and lock down the connection to a specific desktop image on the server. Existing deployment tools and group policy were used to deploy the connection application along with Thin Desktop. In addition to connecting to the desktop image, the solution utilizes the existing network drivers and print drivers on the local PC. The proof of concept for this project took several weeks. The administrators devised techniques and solutions using existing tools, images and Thin Desktop to create a functional environment for their users.
Lodging Consolidator and Consulting Company (Services, Local Application)
Situation: This Lodging Services company needed a way to lock down a PC to an internally written application used both by the internal customer service organization and by customers using a self service PC supplied by the vendor. This application was written internally and required certain services, drivers and local capabilities at the PC.
Solution: Lock the PC down to the specific application using Thin Desktop. The traditional windows shell/user interface is hidden from the user and the application becomes the local user interface. The user has no access to any of the additional functionality residing on the PC. However, the application does have access to the local services and drivers required to support the local user. This project required several days of testing to insure a consistent user experience both internally and externally.
South Eastern US Bank Holding Company (Banking, ICA Connection on Thin Client)
Situation: This banking holding company acquired another bank. In order to re-use Thin Client devices obtained in the transaction, a cost effective plan was needed to integrate multiple branches into an existing, compliant infrastructure. The need was to take Linux thin clients and meld them into a stable and established Microsoft environment.
Solution: Re-Image the thin client hardware with the Microsoft XP Embedded (XPE) operating system, displacing the installed Linux operating system. Install Thin Desktop as part of the new image on the thin clients using existing tools, utilities and procedures. Silent install was used. With Thin Desktop the connection is automatically locked down to the virtual images in the data center. Although the traditional XPE interface is hidden locally, the underlying print and network drivers are intact and available for use in the branch location. This project took weeks to test and implement due to the requirements of regulators and the complexities of merging vastly different environments.
