The University of Oxford is one of the world's greatest and most ancient academic institutions, and its physics department is regarded with particular respect and reverence. It is the largest department of its type in the country, attracting students and researchers from all continents.

As a discipline, physics requires huge computing power, and those who use computers to assist their research in this area have every right to expect to be able to use best-of-class IT systems. The problem for universities like Oxford, however, is that - world renowned though they are - they simply do not have the resources to provide expensive, state-of-the-art IT solutions.

Oxford's sub department of theoretical physics has managed to address this issue in a novel, elegant and extremely cost effective way. It has bought and installed a Sun Microsystems system, including Sun Ray desktop appliances, in order to provide a powerful, best-of-breed solution at a highly attractive price.

The new system has reduced hardware and software maintenance costs by 50 per cent in the first year - enough to buy more of the computational servers which provide the core of the sub department's IT infrastructure.

The sub department undertakes research in a number of hugely exciting areas. Its astrophysicists are exploring the beginning of the universe, including the composition of galaxies and the theory of the Big Bang. At the other end of the scientific scale, its particle physicists are identifying the fundamental constituents of matter at a microscopic level. Another discipline, econophysics, uses mathematical modelling skills to examine movements on the stock market.

The main problem facing all the researchers, however, was that demand for desktop computers outstripped actual supply. "Everyone expects to have a machine on their desktop these days - especially in a department like this, where the computer is the primary tool", says Lory Rice, the Computer Manager in Theoretical Physics. "The days of pen and paper have more or less gone. Everyone wants a workstation, and they expect the best available."

Faced with the challenge of meeting this demand by providing a sufficient number of UNIX workstations at an affordable cost, Rice opted for the Sun Ray desktop appliances. "Until we went down this road, we had a motley collection of UNIX workstations. We'd always gone for the cheapest, so we'd ended up with a wide variety of types of hardware. Each one required an operating system to be installed and upgraded and looked at whenever a problem arose. It all added up to a vast amount of effort and a lot of money being spent on maintenance contracts."

The appeal of the Sun Ray desktop appliances, he says, was obvious. "There was no prospect of getting anyone to help me out, so I wanted to make the most of my available time. Installing the Sun Ray desktop appliance would mean I only had to really worry about one server. The Sun Ray desktop appliances come with a five year warranty, so I didn't have to concern myself with the cost of supporting them".

Rice also bought Sun Enterprise 250 servers for the Solaris operating environment. "They do all the work and provide the display to the desktop. Because the Sun Ray desktop appliance is an ultra thin client, it either works or it doesn't. It really is as simple as that. If you find you have a problem, then you just unplug it and exchange it."

The Sun Ray desktop appliances are linked via the Enterprise 250 to the department's existing computer servers, which include an Enterprise 3000 and other Sun servers, for the serious computational work. "We now have more than 100 desktops in total and any person can log on to any one of them. The Sun Ray desktop appliance may be a relatively new device, but we're very happy with it. It's totally unique and at the moment, there is nothing that can compete with it."

Rice was able to carry out the implementation of the Sun Ray desktop appliances on his own - "It was no big deal, since we already had an Enterprise 250 and the only new thing I had to deal with was the private sub-network required for the Sun Ray desktop appliances. The only infrastructure that needed changing was the re-organising of the network through one additional 100 MB/s switch per Sun Ray server. It really wasn't any more difficult than installing a new application."

The Physics Ethernet runs at 100MB/s at present though the department is about to begin the move up to 1GB/s. There are 20 to 25 Sun Ray desktop appliances per Enterprise 250 server, with 70 Sun Ray desktop appliances in total.

The hardware was bought through the reseller QAssociates and Rice has taken out a Silver Service contract with Sun Enterprise Services for the servers. As far as the Sun Ray desktop appliances are concerned, however, he feels there is no need for additional support. "They're not high cost items, you can buy them off the shelf, and in any case they're covered under warranty."

Rice says it is only the Sun Ray desktop appliance solution running on the Solaris operating environment which has allowed him to provide all the people working in Theoretical Physics with their own desktops. It has proved to be so successful, he says, that other departments in the university, including the physics teaching department, are now beginning to buy them.

"Without the Sun Ray desktop appliances", Rice adds, "things would be impossible. Our researchers would be sharing workstations and that would be disastrous. We are talking about some of the best theoretical physicists in the world. Giving them access via the Sun Ray desktop alliances has made a huge difference. They had to have top class facilities and we have now been able to meet their expectations."

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