Chromeboxes and virtual desktops

[NotSoFast]

We've been introducing Chromebooks to replace general purpose IT suites over the last 12 months, whilst also bringing in Google Apps. It's been extremely successful, and the next step we want to take is using Chromeboxes in the rooms we are keeping. The plan was to provide access to legacy applications (for example python, SmallBASIC and Kodu, but potentially Sibellius and others going forward) via virtual desktops, but we are struggling.

 

We have a "spare" server which is reasonably well specced - an ePortal replacement that was never needed since we moved to Progresso and a copy of Server 2012, which I understand includes Hyper-V. But that's where my knowledge ends. I know there are Chrome OS client apps that work fine for remote desktop use (my wife uses Ericom Accessnow to access an old terminal server from Chromebook at home) but I'm concerned that what we're trying to achieve will be either more expensive than we think or result in very poor performance.

 

Does anyone have any experience of this kind of setup?

[dhicks]

The plan was to provide access to legacy applications (for example python, SmallBASIC and Kodu, but potentially Sibellius and others going forward) via virtual desktops, but we are struggling.

 

We're aiming for much the same kind of setup as you, by the sound of it, although we haven't got quite as far along with the implementation. For remote desktop on the Chromebooks I was planning to use an HTML5-capable RDP client, i.e. one that needs just a web browser to work. I've tried to get Guacamole Server working but with little success so far - seemingly there's a similar system (that I've forgotten the name of...) that costs somewhere under £1,000 for 30-ish licenses, which sounds like it would match our needs quite nicly - I'll see if I can find the details.

[3s-gtech]

^^RemoteSpark is HTML5 based, and quite cheap - we used that after struggling with Guacamole.

 

We use a single remote Virtualbox server for hosting our programming VMs, so that they can be isolated from the network but remotely accessed from any PC (not possible with RDS I believe).

[mjk]

If you can stretch to Citrix Xenapp licenses then I would strongly recommend doing so.

The ICA HDX protocol is vastly superior to RDP and the difference in user experience is noticeable.

We deploy our own built "zero configuration" HTML5 Citrix receiver to anyone who logs into a chromebox/ook and login to cloud based windows apps is a couple of clicks away whether at home or in school.

[machin05]

How does the licensing work for XenApp? Per user? Per device?

[mjk]

It is per concurrent user. The initial cost is high, (circa £200 per license) but ongoing costs are quite reasonable. So you will need to view this for the long term and take into account the fact that management is more simple than for windows desktop clients. You will also need Windows terminal services licenses.

[machin05]

Cheers @mjk - We are considering a whole school roll-out at some point, and there's no real way of knowing how many concurrent users we'll have on at once. Is there a hard limit in place? IE Would services fail if you tried to connect more users than you have licenses for?

[mjk]

Cheers @mjk - We are considering a whole school roll-out at some point, and there's no real way of knowing how many concurrent users we'll have on at once. Is there a hard limit in place? IE Would services fail if you tried to connect more users than you have licenses for?

 

Yes I'm afraid that is the case.