Thin Client Network

[Andyhall]

We have been looking into the use of thin client network after seeing a demo of the system at a local school. We have a quote from DataSpire to setup a citrix based system to allow us to use this system in school and allow home access through a Terminal server.
This is quite expensive to setup but would work out cheaper in the long run as we have over 350 PCs on our Win 2003 domain and it is a constant battle to keep havig to replace PCs that are more than 4 years old.
Has anyone experience of thin client and experience of setting one up either with a company or themselves

[Geoff]

DIY'd a deployment of thin clients here for our library + a couple of non-IT rooms. I used Citrix PS 4.5 + W2k3 Server SP1. The clients are recycled PCs using ThinStation.

What would you like to know?

[Andyhall]

How easy is it to set this up a basic one for yourself. We do not know much about thin client, but do have pleanty of experience of networks, having set up our own domain, win 2003 servers etc.
What basic stuff do you need. As I understand it you need the following:

Application server - one per 50 clients
Terminal server
Server/Client softeare e.g. Citrix RDP etc
Licences

That is about all I know
Is it woth trying to set up a small thin client setup for ourselves and experient with it

[Andyhall]

i sse you are only located on the Fylde - not far away. Any chance of a visit for a chat about this.

[Ric_]

@AndyHall: You're welcome to pop to Baines if you want. I currently have 6 (soon to be 11) terminal servers running Citrix PS 4.5. I reckon closer to a 30:1 ratio for clients:server.

I currently have 200-250 thin clients (predominantly HP thin client devices but I used thinstation during the transition). I also have nearly 200 'fat' clients that happily coexist - you will never be able to use purely thin clients and still offer facilities for multimedia production and other specialist tasks.

If you do pop over, bring a member of SLT and I'll show you the room of Flipscreen desks too... dual use rooms - SLT love this!

[Geoff]

Yes, if you come and have a look, that's probably the best way to get a feel for it.

[Joedetic]

Is there anything on the Wiki about what you need to start a thin client network?

I know that it is something that is interesting to me and something that I'd possibly like to look at. So the kind of thing that would be useful to know is what part the Citrix presentation server plays, what you get to provide desktop environments and stuff to do with licensing.

I've always found it hard to find a good authoritative source of information about TC networks on the internet The most I've ever managed is LTSP and that's not really appropriate for what I'd want to do with application presentation.

[CyberNerd]

I know that it is something that is interesting to me and something that I'd possibly like to look at. So the kind of thing that would be useful to know is what part the Citrix presentation server plays, what you get to provide desktop environments and stuff to do with licensing.

I don't think there is a definitive answer, it depends upon your need. Personally I think Citrix is oversold in schools, one head sees another school uses citrix, therefore the buy into it too. We use Citrix and it suits us (300 odd clients and 8 servers) but I've seen other schools who have had a look around here and paid a lot of cash to do the same, but only for 30 remote desktop machines! totally pointless.

Citrix presentation server provides a bunch of management tools that takes care of application deployment, load balancing, monitoring users etc. Citrix is extremely useful for published applications and for managing a lot of servers, and if you want to run cross platform applications on older equipment. Citrix it isn't so useful if you just want to provide desktops for a few machines. I think MS are starting to muscle Citrix out of this market now (thus increasing cost as we upgrade our clients to be able to run xpsp3!)

Meanwhile, Citrix have purchased powerful linux technology in the form of XEN virtualisation, rather than rely on just Terminal Services, so essentially Citrix now means remote virtual servers. ( where a user could reboot a virtual server) and the possibility of zero downtime as the servers can be rebooted regardless of userbase.

[Joedetic]

So is the TS part of Microsoft Server 2k3 the more viable alternative for thin client networks for say a suit of 30 thin clients?

Presumably remote access to applications from home isn't as easy if this route was the one I went down? Or would a user just use MSTSC to connect to a session?

Also licensing. How would that work with TS?

[FN-GM]

Also licensing. How would that work with TS?

For Microsoft You will need the server licence then a CAL & a TS licence for each client.

[Joedetic]

I'm REALLY not hot on the licensing...something I need to pick up on I think...especially seeing as my industrial placement which starts in June is going to mean me taking on the Software Deployment responsibilities (oooh fun). But yay for returning to the education sector eh!

TS Licenses...are those per seat or per user? My understanding is that you tell the server you've got so many licenses and when it reaches that number it stops letting people on?

[Joedetic]

@ Andyhall Sorry for thread hi-jacking

[CyberNerd]

So is the TS part of Microsoft Server 2k3 the more viable alternative for thin client networks for say a suit of 30 thin clients?

If you want a 'desktop' session, personally I'd not bother with Citrix because you won't really benefit from the load balancing, application deployment and server management as you'll only need one server.

TS Licenses...are those per seat or per user? My understanding is that you tell the server you've got so many licenses and when it reaches that number it stops letting people on?

MS terminal services is per device OR per user. Probably in a school you want to license per device and buy one for each potential client (unless win2k which has an automatic device cal for free). For Citrix licensing you need a license on top of the TS licence, Citrix licensing is more expensive (£130 enterprise each) but the license is concurrent. You still need all the usual MS server cals, office licensing is also a PITA with terminal servers.

Presumably remote access to applications from home isn't as easy if this route was the one I went down?

The best way to get remote apps from home is to buy VLE resources for your moodle and publish them on the internet. For some things published Citrix apps is fine for this, but you can't give remote MSoffice without each device (students home machine) having its own CAL, Openoffice will solve this problem for now.

[andyrite]

I've just seen a demo on vmware vdi. Has anybody seen this working. I was very impressed.

[Chris_Jones]

We have a DIY Thin client setup here, using 2X thinclient software running 12 machines in the Library which are old workstations I have converted. works very well and its quicker than a quick thing.