[OPLINTECH] NComputing

[Robert Ball]

We had several problems with these devices in our environment and I would not recommend them.

We started out testing a L230 Product in our Windows XP environment.  We first ran into the issue that Envisionware doesn't support Ncomputing (something about each device not having a unique identifier on the network).  So, we thought we could use it for out Web Catalog access stations.  

There are several problems we ran into. First, Ncomputing has issues with the Windows Scripting Engine.  If you use login scripts or any sort of scripting (we use a script to keep IE open and maximized on these computers) forget it.  The scripts are not allowed to run simultaneously.  Second, the Ncomputing technology is broken every few months by Windows Update.  This has something to do with the fact that Ncomputing isn't really sanctioned by Microsoft as far as licensing is concerned.  This means, if Ncomputing breaks with WU, you need to wait for a patch, and then run the update on all of your Ncomputing Management Consoles. Third, Our setup tended to freeze up quite often (and we were just running our catalog).  As it turns out, to get around the scripting engine issue, we ran our Ncomputing devices on separate virtual machines (Officially unsupported by Ncomputing but there are plenty of guides online how to do it).  Whenever the VM's rebooted, the Ncomputing devices dropped the connection, attempted to reconnect, and failed (because the virtual machine hadn't finished rebooting).  So that would leave us with machines with black screens in the morning.  Also, the Ncomputing device had horrible refresh rates, lagged quite often.  The screen responsiveness was really slow (even though it was going over a local 100Mb Full Duplex switch).

After having so much trouble on the Windows end, we decided to try it with Linux (as advertised with Ncomputing).  The Linux part of Ncomputing is a Closed Beta (You have to request an invitation) and currently requires a kludge to get it working.  (Also, as of writing Ncomputing linux only officially supports SUSE 7).  It appears as if the Ncomputing company has abandoned the development efforts in Linux and have devoted all of their developers to fixing the problems Windows Update throws at them.  

I got the NComputing devices working on SUSE 11, but they were incredibly inefficient.  (I couldn't figure out that the NComputing aspect of the software was doing with all of my CPU cycles!).  You wouldn't think that running VNC and redirecting audio with take upwards of 50% of your CPU when the device is just idling on a blank screen.

The professionalism and the responsiveness to user feedback is at a minimum with NComputing.  Also, the Management Console and Client have grammatical mistakes.  

Of course, none of this review has anything to do with the "X" series of Ncomputing devices, but those are expensive.

Pros:

Uses a lot less electricity.

Let me know if I can answer any more questions about the L Series of NComputing devices.

Rob Ball
Network Support Specialist

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-----Original Message-----
From: oplintech-bounces at oplin.org [mailto:oplintech-bounces at oplin.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 11:14 AM
To: OPLIN TECH
Subject: [OPLINTECH] NComputing

Is anyone using NComputing?  If so, how are you utilizing it and how do 
you like it?  Any major drawbacks/problems you have found?

Thanks

Mindy Holmes
Mason Public Library
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