Thin client PCs help Children's Aid Society of Algoma cut IT repair cost

With small organizations increasingly looking for ways to save time and money on IT repairs and tasks, some organizations are moving toward using cloud computing and thin client PCs in their offices.

The Children's Aid Society of Algoma began using this strategy about a year ago and has since seen a lot of success according to the organization's manager of infrastructure and research, Allan Johnson.

The society has five offices

The society has five offices and a staff of 150 spread across northern Ontario. CDW Canada, a innovation partner with the Algoma CAS, brought different brands of thin client hardware, including the Samsung TC240 and HP products, for the society to use as part of a pilot. "Samsung was better because it was one unit," Johnson says, which he says is easier to manage.

Desmarais says interest in the hardware is increasing. "This year, we're seeing a huge interest in the research and lots of tests and pilots," he says. "What the thin client approach does is centralize all of the smarts at the server level," Desmarais explains. That way, IT departments don't have to work on individual PCs when there is a problem. "We're implementing a simpler, better solution for a thin client environment," Desmarais says.