There is No Relief From Data Breaches in Summer

With bright summer days, long weekends and vacations, some may believe that the slower pace of business means relief from computer attacks and data breaches: but think again! The bad actors never relax in efforts to steal valuable private, personal information such as Social Security numbers and credit card information. Recognizable data loss victims in the news these days include Omni Hotels, Wendy's, and the FDIC, and such healthcare providers as 21st Century Oncology, Southeast Eye Institute, Medical Colleagues of Texas, Alliance Health Networks and Stomford Podiatry Group.

NCS Technologies is an important supplier of secure computing solutions to government, healthcare providers and financial services organizations and our virtualization solutions and are a major line of defense against data breaches. As you probably know, virtualization has been first implemented in the data center, where compute, storage and networking infrastructure equipment resides. IT administrators quickly realized the cost benefits of pooled server resources there, plus the pay-off of improved centrally-administered security and improved disaster recovery.

Now the benefits of virtualization are being extending outward to end points through a strategy called Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), where desktop and notebook PCs are thin or zero clients. The terms thin and zero are used interchangeably and refer to PCs that are lightweight and typically purpose-built with no hard drive, memory, etc. and all applications and sensitive data residing back in the data center.

In the real world there is a difference. Many thin clients retain a small capacity hard drive, some local memory and an embedded OS. This requires some administration - increasing IT complexity and security vulnerability.

Financial Managers at HFMA Conference Look for Stronger Security

Virtualization has moved beyond the data center. Financial managers are exploring how virtualization at the end point - with desktop and notebook PCs - can be an important part of evolving security strategies. The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) National Institute is holding the Out of the Box trade show event this week at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas. NCS is demonstrating virtualization solutions at Booth #2131.

Association members include CFOs, controllers, accountants and other financial professionals. Organizations associated with HFMA include hospitals, managed care organizations, physician practices, accounting firms, banks and insurance companies. Many financial professionals in these organizations are stopping by Booth 2131 to explore how zero client desktop or laptop computing can be a cost-effective part of a more secure financial organization.

Some of our visitors have heard something about thin client computing but are unfamilar with zero clients. In addition, analyst groups and vendors often mix together thin and zero client solutions under the one category of "thin client solutions". But there are differences, and zero client computing is clearly superior - easier to manage, delivering a lower cost of ownership and definitely more secure.

Virtualizing a Desktop and How Zero Clients Fit In

The annual HIMSS healthcare IT conference is finished. Tens of thousands of attendees in Las Vegas joined celebrity speakers and medical leaders to evaluate better ways to use IT to improve healthcare delivery. Mike Turicchi, the NCS Chief Product Strategy Officer, will soon follow this blog with his thoughts on the IT trends in healthcare that he identified from the four-day event.

One issue that we continue to see - and this was a frequent topic of discussion at the show - is that IT experts can be familiar with some parts of virtualization and VDI, but not others. For instance, an IT administrator can speak knowledgeably about the benefits of server and storage virtualization, but be relatively inexperienced with desktop or endpoint virutalization strategies.

So we heard at HIMSS16, what is a zero client? How is it different from a thin client?

IT folks know something about the concept of virtualizing an existing PC or installing a new thin client, but can be fuzzy about how a zero client fits in.