Parallel communication a time. If both channels operated at the same clock speed, the parallel channel would be eight times faster. A parallel channel may have additional conductors for other signals, such as a clock signal to pace the flow of data, a signal to control the direction of data flow, and handshaking signals. Parallel communication is and always has been widely used within integrated circuits, in peripheral buses, and in memory devices such as RAM. Computer system buses, on the other hand, have evolved over time: parallel communication was commonly used in earlier system buses, whereas serial communications are prevalent in
Thin client farm. The server-side infrastructure uses cloud computing software such as application virtualization, hosted shared desktop (HSD) or desktop virtualization (VDI). This combination forms what is known as a cloud-based system where desktop resources are centralized at one or more data centers. The benefits of centralization are hardware resource optimization, reduced software maintenance, and improved security. Thin client hardware generally support a keyboard, mouse, monitor, jacks for sound peripherals, and open ports for USB devices (e.g., printer, flash drive, webcam). Some thin clients include legacy serial or parallel ports to support older devices such as receipt printers, scales or time clocks.