Biblio Tech
Review
Information Technology for Libraries

Sunray

 

 

Search BTR site

Receive update alerts

Main Sections

[Biblio Tech Review]
[Directory]

This month’s stories

[Sunray]
[EOSi new releases]
[Pigasus latest]
[OCLC + ILLiad]
[TLC News]
[DS Best]
[Innovative]
[VTLS latest]
[Sirsi News]
[Endeavor News]
[ALA_2000]

SunRay shines at ALA 2000
Sun’s latest piece of slimmed down terminal hardware is the SunRay a sort of grown up Java station with some more practical features for the public terminal arena in academic and public libraries.

A key new feature is the smart card slot in the terminal which allows the user to move from terminal to terminal and retain the session details.  In other words if the user changes to another

More information on:
Pricing and general positioning
Hot Desk concept
SunRay terminals
terminal on, say, another floor of the building, then the last session details are immediately restored exactly as left on the previous terminal via insertion of the smart card. The user has complete mobility around campus whilst retaining any complex session information via the smart card information.

The other features of the system make the system ideal for the public arena namely, that there is no operating system on the terminal and so no management problems or software to distribute.  Java based applications like Innovative’s Millennium, will perform very fast in the Solaris OS on the application server.  Windows applications run via MS Terminal Server Environment or Citrix MetaFrame.

The AV performance looks impressive with good graphics at a resolution of 1280x1024 @ 76 MHz. on monitors up to 21” with full audio. Network connection has to be via a dedicated link usually via an Ethernet Switch back to the server so there are some important points to be taken into consideration before moving to this model of application.

The pricing is much more aggressive than was possible with the old network computers (NCs) starting with the Sun Ray 1 system at $299 when purchased in a workgroup bundle.  As with all these technical assessments the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) has to be considered - this new network appliance family from Sun certainly is attractive.