Distinction Between Diskless Nodes and Centralized Computing
Diskless nodes process data, thus using their own CPU and RAM to run software, but do not store data persistently—that task is handed off to a server. This is distinct from thin clients, in which all significant processing happens remotely, on the server—the only software that runs on a thin client is the "thin" (i.e. relatively small and simple) client software, which handles simple input/output tasks to communicate with the user, such as drawing a dialog box on the display or waiting for user input.
A collective term encompassing both thin client computing, and its technological predecessor, text terminals (which are text-only), is centralized computing. Thin clients and text terminals can both require powerful central processing facilities in the servers, in order to perform all significant processing tasks for all of the clients.
Diskless nodes can be seen as a compromise between fat clients (such as ordinary personal computers) and centralized computing, using central storage for efficiency, but not requiring centralized processing, and making efficient use of the powerful processing power of even the slowest of contemporary CPUs, which would tend to sit idle for much of the time under the centralized computing model.
| Centralized computing or Thin client |
Diskless node | Fat client | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local hard drives used | No | No | Yes |
| Local general-purpose processing used | No | Yes | Yes |
Read more about this topic: Diskless Node
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