In our interview with the “Wyse guys,” they talked about the Xenith “zero client” terminal. To clarify, “zero client” doesn’t mean that there’s no local operating system in the device. It means that you - or better yet, your end user - can literally take one out of the box, plug it in, turn it on, and have it up and running with absolutely no need to do anything to configure it. Wyse says you can have it out of the box and running in five minutes. It took us about three…and we weren’t particularly hurrying.
The one thing you do have to do is to configure a DHCP option that will provide a pointer to your config.xml file. When you turn the Xenith on, it will query your DHCP server, and along with the basic stuff like the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS settings, the DHCP server will, through the option you configure, provide the Xenith with the URL of your Citrix Web Interface server and the path to the config.xml file. The Xenith boots so fast that by the time your monitor wakes up and syncs to the video signal, you’re looking at a login prompt.
In this video, Steve Parlee of Moose Logic and Dave Jolley of Wyse walk you through the process of configuring the necessary DHCP option, and then demonstrate how easy it is to take a new Xenith out of the box and be up and running with a virtual desktop.
