uknet80
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Sould I implement Think Client?
Dear Experts,
We are university environment and have several labs, they are all windows 7, some of the labs has different software. the server is windows 2003.
we are thinking of moving to thin client, I am new to this, I have some questions:
1- do you suggest moving to think client is a good idea or not? basically Advantage and Disadvantage? as you know this is a big step to change infrastructure.
2- when we say thin client do we mean Citrix only, or it can be implemented on otherOS?
3- If Citrix, how difficult is it to learn this system?
4- How about point of failure?
any other comment is appreciated?
Thanks
We are university environment and have several labs, they are all windows 7, some of the labs has different software. the server is windows 2003.
we are thinking of moving to thin client, I am new to this, I have some questions:
1- do you suggest moving to think client is a good idea or not? basically Advantage and Disadvantage? as you know this is a big step to change infrastructure.
2- when we say thin client do we mean Citrix only, or it can be implemented on otherOS?
3- If Citrix, how difficult is it to learn this system?
4- How about point of failure?
any other comment is appreciated?
Thanks
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IF it was just office then that would be fine - audio visual is not a great idea across terminal services/thin client - you need to get decent hardware on each end - server and client to make that work.
If you allow USB pass through for terminal servers then if they had a virus on it and the terminal server was infected then yes it would affect all users and depending on how many users you put on each server would depend on its overall impact.
for laptop - you should look at folder redirection so that the desktop is stored centrally on a file server or something. there are better processes/configuration you could put in place to manage those issues than changing the model for your environment
My Advice would be to look at a trial deployment - one decent server and 5/10/20 thin clients (possibly different ones) and get your users to work with them then you will see the issues you may come across - i.e. peripheral device support, software being Multi User (terminal services) compatible etc etc
you can do a 120 day trial for Basic Micrsosoft RDS http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/remote-desktop-services-trial.aspx
and then if you want to think about spending the extra cash then install citirx over the top
http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=2300371
Key financial things to think about
Server cost for resilient solution for 300 users
Cost of management for thin clients
cost of thin client
cost of licencing for Microsoft RDS cals
Cost of citrix software on top of that
If you allow USB pass through for terminal servers then if they had a virus on it and the terminal server was infected then yes it would affect all users and depending on how many users you put on each server would depend on its overall impact.
for laptop - you should look at folder redirection so that the desktop is stored centrally on a file server or something. there are better processes/configuration you could put in place to manage those issues than changing the model for your environment
My Advice would be to look at a trial deployment - one decent server and 5/10/20 thin clients (possibly different ones) and get your users to work with them then you will see the issues you may come across - i.e. peripheral device support, software being Multi User (terminal services) compatible etc etc
you can do a 120 day trial for Basic Micrsosoft RDS http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/remote-desktop-services-trial.aspx
and then if you want to think about spending the extra cash then install citirx over the top
http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=2300371
Key financial things to think about
Server cost for resilient solution for 300 users
Cost of management for thin clients
cost of thin client
cost of licencing for Microsoft RDS cals
Cost of citrix software on top of that
I think you are asking all the right questions and to add to the last post consider the following savings:
Your and the IT staff time, probably 75% less going to people's desks due to central management of your software on the backend and better client management with tools available to control your thin clients (IE HP Device Manager for HP (FREE) or Wyse Device Manager (small fee i believe) software, do remote control and asset tracking
Power - i do not know how much power costs where you are but the power usage of a typical thin client against a desktop would be at least 50% and if you use currently old desktops and use the most energy efficient thin clients available (less then 8 watts running) you could use less then 10% of the energy you use right now.
For testing purposes there are two current technologies avaiable that can let you get a 10 user POC running in less then a day.
Citrix
Citrix VDI in a box (formerly Kaviza) is quite easy and automated and it can be run on any hyperviser (VMWare ESX, MS HyperV, or Citrix XenServer) it has a free trial and an excellent manual and step by step GUI for setup.
http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/product.asp?contentID=2316437&ntref=prod_cat
Microsoft
Microsoft VDI or RDS services there is a software you can get called Konect Elite just install it on top of a Microsoft Server preferrably a 2008 R2 Hyper V setup server (base standard or enterprise) Then install the software and it will automatically configure everything in your windows server for MS VDI or RDS for you. It is quite amazing, get it at the link below:
http://desktopsites.com/
These two technologies will give you a good idea of how virtualization works and the speed of the new technologies. Please note the particular Citrix solution listed is only VDI not application sharing.
Also note Microsoft does a great job of educational discounts so in my experience your cost will be lower with Microsoft.
Hope that helps.
Your and the IT staff time, probably 75% less going to people's desks due to central management of your software on the backend and better client management with tools available to control your thin clients (IE HP Device Manager for HP (FREE) or Wyse Device Manager (small fee i believe) software, do remote control and asset tracking
Power - i do not know how much power costs where you are but the power usage of a typical thin client against a desktop would be at least 50% and if you use currently old desktops and use the most energy efficient thin clients available (less then 8 watts running) you could use less then 10% of the energy you use right now.
For testing purposes there are two current technologies avaiable that can let you get a 10 user POC running in less then a day.
Citrix
Citrix VDI in a box (formerly Kaviza) is quite easy and automated and it can be run on any hyperviser (VMWare ESX, MS HyperV, or Citrix XenServer) it has a free trial and an excellent manual and step by step GUI for setup.
http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/product.asp?contentID=2316437&ntref=prod_cat
Microsoft
Microsoft VDI or RDS services there is a software you can get called Konect Elite just install it on top of a Microsoft Server preferrably a 2008 R2 Hyper V setup server (base standard or enterprise) Then install the software and it will automatically configure everything in your windows server for MS VDI or RDS for you. It is quite amazing, get it at the link below:
http://desktopsites.com/
These two technologies will give you a good idea of how virtualization works and the speed of the new technologies. Please note the particular Citrix solution listed is only VDI not application sharing.
Also note Microsoft does a great job of educational discounts so in my experience your cost will be lower with Microsoft.
Hope that helps.
ASKER
Thank you guys for your explanation.
irweazelwallis said that you can just use Microsoft Terminal Service (Basic Micrsosoft RDS) and "and then if you want to think about spending the extra cash then install citirx over the top". what is the reason of using Citrix. How does it make thing better? Microsoft Terminal Service doesn't do the job by it self?
irweazelwallis said that you can just use Microsoft Terminal Service (Basic Micrsosoft RDS) and "and then if you want to think about spending the extra cash then install citirx over the top". what is the reason of using Citrix. How does it make thing better? Microsoft Terminal Service doesn't do the job by it self?
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ASKER
I gone through the paper it was useful.
So I want to install basic Citrix for my windows server 2008, Where shall I start in term of Step-by-step process documentation, what ISO have to download?
So I want to install basic Citrix for my windows server 2008, Where shall I start in term of Step-by-step process documentation, what ISO have to download?
http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=2300371
that should get you through to download XenApp 6.5
and here is a very good blog for installing it
http://itgerrish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/xenapp-65-step-by-step-step-1.html
that should get you through to download XenApp 6.5
and here is a very good blog for installing it
http://itgerrish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/xenapp-65-step-by-step-step-1.html
ASKER
thank you so much for your information, it was very useful, I am sure I will be back to ask more.
ASKER
- Currently we have 300 PC. and they all based under same campus with fast connection.
- As I am new to this technology I may ask some simple question. what concern me is, if one user has virus on his USB flash and connected to his computer, does this affect everyone else? because all user use same application on the server.
- it is not easy to decide to change our system without testing it under our environment, to see the load and performance? WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE?
- basically our laptops has daily issues intern of software upgrade, hardware upgrade and having user save their document under their desktop that goes beyond 200MB, again this cause users sometime to wait for 5 minutes for their profile to come up.
thanks