An Analytical Study of Power Consumption in Portable Thin Clients

The thin client model relies on offloading computations to a remote server. This results in reduced hardware complexity on the thin client which will cut costs and possibly increase lifespan of the thin client. Increased lifespan in turn has benefits in terms of reducing electronic waste. Realizing the benefits of a thin-client paradigm for emerging portable devices however requires consideration of battery life, a critical resource. The optimum design for an energy-efficient thin client-server model for portable devices is yet to be found and is still under investigation. In this work an end-to-end analytical model for power consumption in wireless based portable thin clients is proposed. This model is then evaluated by comparing to a scenario where applications are executed locally on the device to gain insight on the energy-efficiency of the thin-client paradigm for portable devices.