What do a warehouse, a factory, a power plant, the ocean coast, and Afghanistan have in common? They can be brutally hard on equipment. Corrosive vapor can make quick work of a bare motherboard. An accidental forklift collision can destroy a vital server. Freezing temperatures can cause brittle components to pop right off their seatings.
For my latest contribution to Electric Design News, I’ve highlighted the trend of using thinclient and virtualization in factories and process control facilities. Virtualization in a factory? You bet, and it’s happening faster than you might realize. It turns out that all of the IT engineering work on hardware consolidation has benefits beyond your office . . . unless you work in a factory, that is.
Check it out at EDN: Address Hardware Longevity with Tier-1 Workstations and Servers
The article provides practical advice for any architect trying to protect their systems from the elements.