Survey Reveals Factory & Plant Environments are Embracing Virtualisation and Thin Client Computing

+SolutionsPT  recently undertook a major survey which revealed that a major shift is taking place in plant environments towards thin client technology and virtualisation.

The statistics were gathered during a recent SolutionsPT road show, ‘Thindustrial13’, held in conjunction with thin client management giant ACP and software supplier, Wonderware.

The roadshow, explored the growing trends of thin client technology and mobile computing and took place at locations across the UK. As part of the events the views of more than 100 systems integrators and end users were gathered. 

SolutionsPT’s research demonstrated that Thin Client technology is now widely used in plant environments, with 60% of end user respondents saying they now make use of Thin Clients.  However, although the bulk of Thin Client use remains limited solely to IT departments (35%), 5% of those companies questioned said they use it in their engineering departments, whilst an encouraging 20% now use Thin Client across both areas.

The drivers for the increased use in Thin Client technology in automation systems emerged as ease of management and increased flexibility, the consolidation of hardware and the demand for increased availability or uptime.

Asked about their plans to implement ‘mainstream IT’ into their plan infrastructures, more than 70% of people said they planned to introduce virtualisation and Thin Client Technology, whilst only 13% identified Cloud Computing as a focus and just 11% pinpointed BYOD as a priority.

Rob Dinsmore, Product Manager for the hardware division of SolutionsPT, commented: 

“The statistics back up exactly what we are seeing from the market which is an increased adoption of more mainstream IT technologies within industrial IT. We are seeing significant market growth due to the best-in-class management features, resilience and enhanced usability that ACPs Thin Client Management Software delivers to server-based applications. Industrial IT users have come to trust ThinManager for their crucial IT applications and we expect this trend to continue.”

Over 100 delegates gathered for Thindustrial 13

The road show was held at locations across England and Ireland and welcomed delegates from some of the country’s biggest names in industry.

For more information on ACP ThinManager and Thin ClientTechnology, click here.