Sun Ray terminals

Many graduate students in the department have been issued Sun Ray terminals. These are diskless thin clients that display a session that is running on a remote server.

Sun Ray terminals will accept a smart card, which is a credit-card sized card with an ID chip on it. When you insert this card into a Sun Ray, the server recognizes it and displays the session associated with that card. When you remove it, the terminal displays the session associated with that physical terminal.

What this boils down to is that if you use a smart card with your Sun Ray terminal, you can walk from one terminal to another and take your session with you, without logging out or back in. You can also insert your card into a terminal to get your own session without disturbing any other session already running there. You are highly encouraged to use smart cards with your sun ray terminals.

There are a number of other advantages to these terminals:

• They're silent
• They give you direct access to a very powerful machine
• They can be turned off and on without losing your data
• There are redundant servers, so you can continue to work through a hardware failure

.

Please be sure to read the separate chapter on Sun Ray terminals for additional information.