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Sun Ray Thin Clients Recruited by the U.S. Navy Selected for its Small Size, Stateless Nature and Inherent Security Sun RayTM thin clients have been recruited to serve with the United States Navy due to their small size, stateless nature and inherent security. The U.S. Navy will deploy the company's Sun Ray thin clients connected to servers running the Trusted SolarisTM operating system. Bob Stephenson, CTO for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence operations with Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (Spawar), told Bob Brewin with FCW.com the reason the Navy decided to add Sun Ray thin clients to its IT environment at this time is because of the increasing number of operations the United States conducts with allies. In a coalition environment, command and control is supported by the Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System (Centrixs), originally developed by the U.S. Central Command and championed by the Navy. As the United States forms more coalition partnerships, each new partner requires a different version of Centrixs with a different level of classification. Stephenson told Brewin that this situation was leading to the complex probability that separate computers were going to have to be used to support different versions of Centrixs at different clearance levels, which would translate into a weighty requirement for shipboard use. Acting proactively, the U.S. Navy decided to employ the server-based computing Sun Ray thin clients where there is no local state on the desktop, so all computing is performed on the server. The shipboard systems can operate on the Secret IP Router Network and easily switch to various kinds and classifications of Centrixs. Shipboard use of thin clients gives the Navy significant savings in terms of weight and redundant cabling, and marks the coming of age for Trusted Solaris as an efficient way to control access to multiple secure networks from one device, said Brian Madden, a thin-client consultant in Washington, D.C., as reported by Brewin. Additionally, the Trusted Solaris operating system can collapse multiple networks onto a single network while providing separate levels of classification, clarified Sun Microsystems' Navy Sales Manager Mario Diaz, who confirmed the U.S. Navy's deployment of Sun Ray thin clients on Trusted Solaris.
According to Stephenson, the Navy plans to use the thin-client systems from Sun on all major surface ships in the fleet. The Navy will install thin clients on 160 vessels and in key command centers. Ships will have a mix of thin and PC-based clients. Stephenson estimated that small ships, such as destroyers, would have 10 thin clients while carriers and amphibious ships would have 100, leading to a total of a few thousand throughout the U.S. Navy.
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Shipboard use of thin clients gives the Navy significant savings in terms of weight and redundant cabling... 
Sun Ray Thin Clients Recruited by the U.S. Navy
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