Users share the machine's Internet connection, and peripherals such as printers. Each user of the X550 system gets their own session, as though they were a simple logged-in user of the operating system.
The supported operating systems, controlled by NComputing's VSpace virtualization software, are Windows XP, Windows 20 Server editions. The host machine can run Windows XP, 2003 Server or 2008 Server editions.Įach Ethernet port connects in turn an XD2 box, where keyboard, mouse, monitor (in high resolutions) and even a speaker can be connected. Two PCIe cards yields 10 machines, and the 11th is the host computer itself. A small, smartphone-sized box called the XD2 has speaker, Ethernet, PS/2-style mouse and keyboard jacks and a VGA jack. One or two PCIe ports are needed in a server box to host NComputing's Ethernet boards.
The X550 is a genuine old-fashioned terminal server with a twist. The X550 is an old-school idea with a virtualization-controlled twist that may please some organization’s budget needs. It's a small office/retail/branch scheme that we found worked simply and was difficult to load down with work in a multi-core desktop server box (we used a dual-core HP media server).
