Summary
A diskless node (or diskless workstation) is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server. (A computer may also be said to act as a diskless node, if its disks are unused and network booting is used.) Diskless nodes (or computers acting as such) are sometimes known as network computers or hybrid clients. Hybrid client may either just mean diskless node, or it may be used in a more particular sense to mean a diskless node which runs some, but not all, applications remotely, as in the thin client computing architecture. Advantages of diskless nodes can include lower production cost, lower running costs, quieter operation, and manageability advantages (for example, centrally managed software installation). In many universities and in some large organizations, PCs are used in a similar configuration, with some or all applications stored remotely but executed locally—again, for manageability reasons. However, these are not diskless nodes if they still boot from a local hard drive. 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.
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Rich 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 was originally known as just a "client" or "thick client," in contrast with "thin client", which describes a computer heavily dependent on a server's applications. A rich client may be described as having a rich user interaction.
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 their simplest form as zero clients. The server does most of the work, which can include launching software programs, performing calculations, and storing data.
Client (computing)
In computing, a client is a piece of computer hardware or software that accesses a service made available by a server as part of the client–server model of computer networks. The server is often (but not always) on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network. A client is a computer or a program that, as part of its operation, relies on sending a request to another program or a computer hardware or software that accesses a service made available by a server (which may or may not be located on another computer).
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