New modules in CMS 4.0 include Control Center and Grid Center . The Control Center is designed as a single console for organizing all ClearCube management apps, and its look and feel is carried across all Manager module interfaces.

Control Center does its job admirably, and you can now build custom events thresholds across Manager modules. For example, you could set an event that will cut off a user's network connection if his or her e-mail send rate gets too high.

Grid Center is a useful module that manages the connections between blade workstations and I/Ports, including the capability to define pools of workstation blades that can be shared by a variable number of thin clients. So, a nurse or doctor in a ClearCube-enabled hospital could move from room to room (and from I/Port to I/Port) and always connect back to the same assigned blade.
This flexibility has great admin benefits: You can have more users than blades if you configure it correctly and keep a handle on users' workloads.
For really light applications, ClearCube runs WinConnectXP, an optional piece of software that's similar to Microsoft Terminal Server; it allows for as many as four simultaneous remote desktop clients to time-share a single blade.

In a nutshell, Grid Center provides IT administrators with a comprehensive toolkit for managing an increasingly complex set of client requirements. Most importantly, Grid Center lets administrators dynamically optimize hardware utilization across pools of PC blades. That means administrators can track blade utilization via loading statistics and can automatically route newly signed-on users to the least-utilized blades.

And there's happy news for help desk administrators: Grid Center allows these folks to switch users' I/Ports to different blade pools or specific unused blades via a fast software switch rather than the more complex procedure used in CMS 3.0.
ClearCube has spent significant time and effort beefing up usability and workstation power. It's time well spent, judging from the upgrades in flexibility and management.
If we had a wish list for ClearCube, it would be short: copper gigabit interfaces for the Fatboy blade, USB 2.0 in the I/Port and the C/Port, and a smoother bundle for wireless deployment. One last wish is that when we regenerate a blade, we could increase the number of USB CD-ROM drives supported.

The R2100 might be too much for most users, but given the high-power environments that ClearCube systems often occupy, such as financial and healthcare companies, it's an option the company had to have ready to address future needs. CMS 4.0 boasts a high shine compared to CMS 3.0, and will definitely ease the lives of ClearCube administrators -- especially those managing large installed bases.

SOURCE: infoworld.com
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