cookie_monster Posted March 5, 2008 Posted March 5, 2008 Just a small diversion here but how many of you run TS on a 64 Bit box to avoid the kernel memory issues? Just wondering about the expence of sizing the server.
Ric_ Posted March 5, 2008 Posted March 5, 2008 Just a small diversion here but how many of you run TS on a 64 Bit box to avoid the kernel memory issues? Just wondering about the expence of sizing the server. I want to run x64 Windows on my Opteron machines. Citrix is supposed to run immensly fast in 64-bit mode... just a shame that we still have ancient 'educational apps' which are definately going to need thorough testing before I can make the change
cookie_monster Posted March 6, 2008 Author Posted March 6, 2008 Ah "ancient 'educational apps' ", that's exactly what i was thinking about. I assume that sticking to Office, I.E. and more mainstream apps and you should be ok? How many clients can you run from a decent spec 32-bit box (generalising)?
localzuk Posted March 6, 2008 Posted March 6, 2008 I'm currently investigating a terminal server to use our soon to be 'replaceable' machines and am pondering the same question myself. What I've decided on is that anything 16bit is going to be unavailable on the terminal system, but available elsewhere on fat clients. And then it is just a case of how well things work on a 64 bit server os. I think I may well end up going 64bit - simply to allow for growth on the box.
iatkinson Posted March 6, 2008 Posted March 6, 2008 We've got 6 terminal servers serving approx 140 thin clients. 5 are running 64bit, 1 on 32bit.
cookie_monster Posted March 18, 2008 Author Posted March 18, 2008 (edited) Anyone know of a company that offers TS solutions i've found a couple that offer Citrix and funnily enough they say TS isn't upto the job. I'm looking for a company that has experience of TS that can give us an informed opinion. Option 2 is to just set one up and try it myself. I know that you get a trial period but after that what are the licencing requirements? @ iatkinson , what apps are you running on the 64 bit boxes and what sort of issues have you come accross. Edited March 18, 2008 by cookie_monster
Netman Posted March 18, 2008 Posted March 18, 2008 Anyone know of a company that offers TS solutions i've found a couple that offer Citrix and funnily enough they say TS isn't upto the job. I'm looking for a company that has experience of TS that can give us an informed opinion. Option 2 is to just set one up and try it myself. I know that you get a trial period but after that what are the licencing requirements? I'm looking at this at the moment - the choice looks to be between Sun and native TS on 2008 (Citrix licence costs suck:P) I am speaking to a local company who we have used in the past who are offering consultancy and support in setting up TS2008. They are called Deverill and interestingly are a Citrix reseller as well, but have advised me that TS2008 may be more suitable for my needs - let me know if you want their contact details...
Ric_ Posted March 18, 2008 Posted March 18, 2008 @cookie_monster: Citrix experts are generally TS experts too due to the way Citrix sits on top of it. Depending upon your requirements, they will advise you suitably... at the end of the day there isn't a lot of money in it for them selling you Citrix licenses. Novus Networks are a reputable company that I use - Julia Jones on 01260 292500 should be able to help.
cookie_monster Posted March 18, 2008 Author Posted March 18, 2008 Are these links to the correct companies? http://www.deverill.co.uk/home.aspx http://www.novus.co.uk/ Thanks.
Netman Posted March 18, 2008 Posted March 18, 2008 Are these links to the correct companies? http://www.deverill.co.uk/home.aspx http://www.novus.co.uk/ Thanks. Yep - so is the deverill one...
cookie_monster Posted March 18, 2008 Author Posted March 18, 2008 and Novus are just over the hill as well, very handy.
cookie_monster Posted March 18, 2008 Author Posted March 18, 2008 Anyone know anything about these? http://www.2x.com/
Geoff Posted March 18, 2008 Posted March 18, 2008 I've heard of them. The are occasionally mentioned in Linux Journal.
cookie_monster Posted April 4, 2008 Author Posted April 4, 2008 @ Netman: "Citrix licence costs suck" I've been told that the first year is expensive (i think you buy the licence) then after that you pay an upgrade protection subscription which is about a a third of the price. Is this the case? Cheers.
Netman Posted April 4, 2008 Posted April 4, 2008 @ Netman: "Citrix licence costs suck" I've been told that the first year is expensive (i think you buy the licence) then after that you pay an upgrade protection subscription which is about a a third of the price. Is this the case? Cheers. Yep, that's what I've been told... All with an 'ish' attached, but here's what I understand.... Citrix basic £110 per client up to £180 for the platinum stuff, then around a third of that ongoing yearly maintnenence cost. Sun is around the £35-£50 per client mark, not sure of ongoing costs yet... TS2008 would obviously just be the TS CAL which you have to still buy with the rest anyway... cheap under my school agreement! Bearing in mind I'd like to sort out my servers on the back of this project - if I pay less for licensing, then I will have more for hardware, virtualisation and a nice SAN. I am sure that Citrix is a great product, but it's looking as if it would be overkill in my case. I'm having a thorough look at the options at the moment and will post more when I've finished the trial.
CyberNerd Posted April 4, 2008 Posted April 4, 2008 .... TS2008 would obviously just be the TS CAL which you have to still buy with the rest anyway... cheap under my school agreement! The costs of citrix can often be offset against the hardware requirements and the fact that the hardware lasts longer. With 2008 TS, MS now require an XPSP3 client to use published applications - this means you need an XP license, a TS license and 'modern' hardware. Over time, I still believe that citrix would be cost effective with linux clients.
cookie_monster Posted April 4, 2008 Author Posted April 4, 2008 (edited) I've also been informed that Citrix will scale much better than TS (even 2008) so TS can start out a good option but once you start talking multiple servers and >150 clients you need Citrix (or alternative???) Also apparently for native TS you really need a Windows clients on the TC box rather than Linux (so i've been told) this means approx £100 extra for each thin client which starts to make Citrix with Linux thin boxes look more reasonable. I'm only going on what i've been told as we are only looking at options at the moment. Edited April 4, 2008 by cookie_monster
CyberNerd Posted April 4, 2008 Posted April 4, 2008 Also apparently for native TS you really need a Windows clients on the TC box rather than Linux (so i've been told) this means approx £100 extra for each thin client which starts to make Citrix with Linux thin boxes look more reasonable. yes, with 2008 server you need windows thin clients, - MS were loosing market share to linux with 2003/TS so they stopped it from working in 2008 (and put the price up for everyone). Full linux thin clients would only work when educational apps are VLE/web based and are written to be independent of platform, of course it can't happen because if educational resource creators get backhanders for being MS partners.
Geoff Posted April 4, 2008 Posted April 4, 2008 yes, with 2008 server you need windows thin clients, - MS were loosing market share to linux with 2003/TS so they stopped it from working in 2008 (and put the price up for everyone). Full linux thin clients would only work when educational apps are VLE/web based and are written to be independent of platform, of course it can't happen because if educational resource creators get backhanders for being MS partners. This only works up and until the open source devs reverse engineer the new RDP v6 protocol. Additionally MS may have to publish the specs anyway under the EU settlement deal.
cookie_monster Posted April 4, 2008 Author Posted April 4, 2008 This only works up and until the open source devs reverse engineer the new RDP v6 protocol. That's exactly what i suspected. Thanks.
Ric_ Posted April 4, 2008 Posted April 4, 2008 Without going too much further OT... is it not better to have manufacturer support for the client - Citrix support Windows, Linux, BSD, Mac and more as clients.
cookie_monster Posted April 4, 2008 Author Posted April 4, 2008 but using a Linux based thin client to access a Windows 2008 terminal server is still an issue right?
localzuk Posted April 4, 2008 Posted April 4, 2008 No. You can turn off the usage of the problematic TS stuff in 2008. It is all to do with authenticating before you are presented with a TS session. Old RDP did it via the TS session itself, v6 can do it before. So, it still works quite happily with Linux and OS X clients. (I RDP into our 2008 server from my mac every day).
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