TC info required for school in Nottinghamshire

[PRicho]

Our school is based in Nottinghamshire and we are also looking to visit a school with Terminal Server Setup,

 

but if anybody can answer these questions i would be greatfull!

 

• Is there a downside to using pure windows 2003 Terminal Services to do the job, rather then the Citrix alternative? how easy it to administor what the end client gets
   
  
• Is using thinstation and 2X software the best solution to convert Fat to Thin in a W2003 TS enviroment?
   
  
• If we choose to purchase thin client machines how easy are these to setup and configure with W2003 TS, or Citrix?
  

 

Cheers

Edited April 3, 2008 by PRicho

[Ric_]

I'm probably a little far away (Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire) for you to visit but I can help with your questions... this info will also be going onto the wiki.

 

1. The biggest drawback of native TS is the lack of load balancing - Citrix allows you to assign what they call metrics to balance the load so you could even out the user distribution based on number of connections, CPU load, free memory, etc. This also gives you failover so that if one server is unavailable, users will automagically connect to another. There are also other features but you are probably best looking at Citrix Systems - Application Delivery Infrastructure for a Dynamic World to find out more.

 

2. I haven't used the 2X software but there are numerous options... including several open source variants - e.g. Thinstation. The easiest way to use an existing workstation as a terminal though is simply to auto-logon the machine and have a single icon that logs into your terminal server.

 

3. The different manufacturers supply different methods of configuring their access devices. I tend to use the Linux-based HP terminals (they have to be the PROPER linux version, not Thinconnect) which come with a license for Altiris Deployment Manager. You simply configure a terminal, capture its settings and deploy them to the rest.

[linescanner]

I have an nimber of schools in the Northants area running a load of TS and thin client.

 

You would be more than welcome to arrange a visit to one of those

 

Drop me a PM and we can talk a bit more

 

Andy

[Matstones]

One consideration regarding setup is type of thin-client. They are not all alike (like it could be said PCs are)

There are four basic types all have various pros and cons.

 

One thing to bear in mind - RPD & ICA clients require about 3Mb of memory. One of these two 'applications' is probably all the terminal will ever need to run. All "other" memory above this is being used for other non-essential uses...

 

Linux based

- Are you happy depending on support from open source community

- Most would agree Linux is a robust O/S - but to attach to a terminal server you will need an RDP client. Microsoft have never released an RDP client for Linux, so should verify who will be responsible for new versions/improvements etc

- Many people (mayby quite wrongly) would expect IE as a browser. You would not get IE on a Linux machine. Maybe Firefox is slowly being perceived as cooler!

 

Windows CE

Generally seen as a little "tired" and under powered these days

 

Windows XP

Strong powerful operating system - but has almost all the inherent support implications of PC's running XP - ie virus concerns, Microsoft updates. Also requires powerful hardware to do it justice - so is relatively expensive

 

No Operating System or Ultra-Thin clients.

These products run RDP/ICA direct from hardware - so avoid many of the "issues' above.

Typically physically much smaller and faster to connect. An interesting side effect of having no operating system is there is almost no local admin, the only setting up is giving the device itself an IP address - and giving it the Server IP address.