The Sun Ray was a stateless

thin client In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in th ...

computer (and associated software) aimed at corporate environments, originally introduced by

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

in September 1999 and discontinued by

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

in 2014. It featured a

smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

reader and several models featured an integrated

flat panel display A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display used to display visual content such as text or images. It is present in consumer, medical, transportation, and industrial equipment. Flat-panel displays are thin, lightweight, provide better li ...

. The idea of a stateless desktop was a significant shift from, and the eventual successor to, Sun's earlier line of diskless Java-only desktops, the

JavaStation The JavaStation was a Network Computer (NC) developed by Sun Microsystems between 1996 and 2000, intended to run only Java applications. The hardware is based on the design of the Sun SPARCstation series, a very successful line of UNIX workstatio ...

Predecessor

The concept began in

Sun Microsystems Laboratories Oracle Labs (formerly Sun Microsystems Laboratories, or Sun Labs) is a research and development branch of Oracle Corporation. The labs were created when Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems. Sun Labs was established in 1990 by Ivan Sutherland and R ...

in 1997 as a project codenamed ''NetWorkTerminal'' (NeWT). The client was designed to be small, low cost, low power, and silent. It was based on the Sun Microelectronics MicroSPARC IIep. Other processors initially considered for it included Intel's

StrongARM The StrongARM is a family of computer microprocessors developed by Digital Equipment Corporation and manufactured in the late 1990s which implemented the ARM v4 instruction set architecture. It was later acquired by Intel in 1997 from DEC's o ...

, Philips Semiconductors' TriMedia, and National Semiconductor's Geode. The MicroSPARC IIep was selected because of its high level of integration, good performance, low cost, and availability. NeWT included 8 MiB of

EDO DRAM Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxide ...

and 4 MiB of NOR flash. The graphics controller used was the ATI Rage 128 because of its low power, 2D rendering performance, and low cost. It also included an ATI video encoder for TV-out (removed in the Sun Ray 1), a Philips Semiconductor SAA7114 video decoder/scaler, Crystal Semiconductor audio CODEC, Sun Microelectronics Ethernet controller, PCI USB host interface with 4 port hub, and I²C smart card interface. The motherboard and daughtercard were housed in an off-the-shelf commercial small form-factor PC case with internal +12/+5VDC auto ranging power supply. NeWT was designed to have feature parity with a modern business PC in every way possible. Instead of a commercial operating system. the client ran a

real-time operating system A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system (OS) for real-time applications that processes data and events that have critically defined time constraints. An RTOS is distinct from a time-sharing operating system, such as Unix, which m ...

called "exec", which was originally developed in Sun Labs as part of an Ethernet-based security camera project codenamed ''NetCam''. Less than 60 NeWTs were ever built and very few survived; one is in the collection of the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the ...

. In July 2013, reports circulated that Oracle was ending the development of the Sun Ray and related products.

Scott McNealy Scott McNealy (born November 13, 1954) is an American businessman. He is most famous for co-founding the computer technology company Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Andy Bechtolsheim. In 2004, while still at Sun, ...

(long-time CEO of Sun) tweeted about this. An official announcement was made August 1, 2013, with a last order in February 2014. Support and hardware maintenance were available until 2017.

Design

In contrast to a

thick client In computer networking, a rich client (also called heavy, fat or thick client) is a computer (a "client" in client–server network architecture) that typically provides rich functionality independent of the central server. This kind of computer ...

, the Sun Ray is only a networked display device, with applications running on a server elsewhere, and the state of the user's session being independent of the display. This enables another feature of the Sun Ray; portable sessions where a user can go from one Sun Ray to another and continue their work without closing any programs. With a smart card, all the user had to do was insert the card and they would be presented with their session. Reauthentication requirements depend on the mode of operation. For example, without the smart card the procedure was almost identical, except the user must specify their username as well as password. In either case, if a session did not yet exist, a new one would be created the first time the user connects. Sun Ray clients are connected via an

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

network to a ''Sun Ray Server''. Sun Ray Software (SRS) is available for the

Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...

and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

operating systems. Sun developed a separate network display protocol, ''Appliance Link Protocol'' (ALP), for the Sun Ray system.

VMware VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture. VMware's desktop software ru ...

announced support for the protocol by

VMware View VMware Horizon (formerly called Horizon View) is a commercial desktop and app virtualization product developed by VMware, Inc for Microsoft Windows, Linux and macOS operating systems. It was first sold under the name VMware VDM, but with the re ...

in 2008. The Sun Ray Software has two basic modes of operation: ''generic session'' or ''kiosk mode''. In a generic session, the user will see the Solaris or Linux login screen of the operating system that is running SRS. In kiosk mode, the login screen varies depending on the session type in use. Kiosk mode can be used for a number of different desktop or applications. Oracle has integrated a RDP client,

client into the Sun Ray software that can be used in Kiosk mode to start a full screen Windows session. In this mode, no window manager or Unix desktop is started. The Windows environment can be any OS that supports RDP. In 2007, Sun and UK company Thruput integrated the Sun Ray 2FS with 28" (2048 × 2048), 30" (2560 × 1600) and 56" (3840 × 2160) displays; in 2008 they trialed an external graphics accelerator that enables the Sun Ray to be used with any high resolution display.

Models

* NetWork Terminal (NeWT) – Original Sun Labs prototype, no display * Sun Ray 1 – supports displays up to 1280×1024 at 85 Hz * Sun Ray 1G – supports displays up to 1920×1200 at 75 Hz * Sun Ray 100 – integrated into a 17" CRT monitor Sun SunRay 150-IMG 1707

* Sun Ray 150 – integrated into a 15" LCD monitor * Sun Ray 170 – integrated into a 17" LCD monitor * Sun Ray 2 – small footprint, low power (4 watts). 2 Versions exist, the original based on DDR memory, the newer one based on DDR2. Firmware is not compatible between the DDR and the DDR2 models and SRSS needs patches to work correctly with the newer variant. * Sun Ray 2FS – support for

dual head Multi-monitor, also called multi-display and multi-head, is the use of multiple physical display devices, such as monitors, televisions, and projectors, in order to increase the area available for computer programs running on a single computer ...

100BASE-FX In computer networking, Fast Ethernet physical layers carry traffic at the nominal rate of 100 Mbit/s. The prior Ethernet speed was 10 Mbit/s. Of the Fast Ethernet physical layers, 100BASE-TX is by far the most common. Fast Ethern ...

* Sun Ray 270 – integrated into a 17" LCD, mountable * Sun Ray 3 – Supports graphics resolutions of up to 1920 × 1200, five Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0 ports, one serial port (DB9), One single-DVI-I video connector, 10/100/1000 Mbit/s (RJ45) Ethernet * Sun Ray 3i – Full HD 1920 × 1080 maximum resolution 16:9 widescreen 21.5" LCD display, five USB 2.0 ports, built-in smart card reader, VESA 100 × 100 mm mount and removable stand. * Sun Ray 3 plus – support for

Dual-Link DVI Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video display interface developed by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). The digital interface is used to connect a video source, such as a video display controller, to a display device, such as a com ...

maximum resolution up to 2560 x 1600 30" LCD display, four Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0 ports, built-in smart card reader, one serial port (DB9),

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use i ...

(RJ-45 and SFP),

Energy Star Energy Star (trademarked ''ENERGY STAR'') is a program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that promotes energy efficiency. The program provides information on the energy consumption of pro ...

5.0 qualified (14.15 W in use), headphone and mic jacks. The Sun Ray 3 models were the last in production; last order date February 28, 2014; last ship date August 31, 2014. Sun's OEM partners produced

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

notebook A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking. History ...

versions of Sun Ray: * Comet 12 – Sun Ray 12" notebook produced by

General Dynamics General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the Uni ...

* Comet 15 – Sun Ray 15" notebook produced by General Dynamics * Jasper 320 – Sun Ray 2 notebook produced by Naturetech * Amber 808 – Sun Ray 2 tablet produced by Naturetech * Opal 608 – Sun Ray 2 tablet produced by Naturetech * Gobi 7 – Sun Ray 2 notebook produced b
Aimtec
* Gobi 8 – Sun Ray 2 notebook with 3G support produced b
Aimtec
* Ultra ThinPad – Sun Ray 2 notebook produced by Arima * Ultra ThinTouch – Sun Ray 2 tablet produced by Arima * UltraSlim – Sun Ray 2 variant produced by Arima * Tadpole M1400 – Sun Ray 2 notebook with 3G support produced by Tadpole

Hardware

The Sun Ray 1 clients initially used a 100 MHz

MicroSPARC The microSPARC (code-named ''Tsunami'') is a discontinued microprocessor implementing the SPARC V8 instruction set architecture (ISA), developed by Sun Microsystems. It is a low-end microprocessor intended for low-end workstations and embedded ...

IIep processor, followed by a custom SoC version codenamed Copernicus (US 6,993,617 B2), which was based on the MicroSPARC IIep core, but added 4 MiB of on-chip DRAM, USB, and a smart card interface in addition to the memory controller and PCI interface already on the MicroSPARC IIep. The Sun Ray 2 and 3 clients use the

MIPS architecture MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures (ISA)Price, Charles (September 1995). ''MIPS IV Instruction Set'' (Revision 3.2), MIPS Technologies, ...

-based RMI Alchemy Au1550 processor.

Software-only client

A pure software implementation, Sun Desktop Access Client, was introduced as part of Sun Ray Software 5 (SRS5). This was later rebranded by Oracle as Oracle Virtual Desktop Client; it was discontinued along with the Sun Ray product line in 2014.

Microsoft Windows access

In commercial environments, Sun Rays were most commonly deployed as a thin client to access a

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

desktop using the SRSS built-in RDP client ''uttsc''. The desktop can be a Terminal Server session or a Virtual Machine (VDI). This setup is flexible and works well in many environments because the intermediate Sun Ray Server layer is transparent to the Windows desktop. At the same time however, this transparency can also become an issue for software that is location dependent. If location dependent information needs to be added it is possible to extend the functionality of the Sun Ray software with additional custom scripts. The Sun Ray Wiki offers a "Follow Me Printing". setup as an example, e.g. a user always gets the nearest printer as default printer when going from room-to-room or location-to-location, also inside their Windows session. It is relatively easy for an administrator to extend and add to this functionality as required.

References

External links

* .
Sun Ray User Group
* . * , an opensource server for Sun Rays. {{Sun Microsystems Thin clients Sun computers SPARC microprocessor products MIPS architecture Computer-related introductions in 1999