Wanted: A really tough test for thin client

[laserblazer]

I was looking at thin client to replace our curriculum machines but was put off by the adverse comments regarding multimedia. Since then, the money allocated has been reduced dramatically and we cannot afford to go that route.

 

I have a potential supplier coming in next week to talk thin client. I tired to put them off using the above arguments. The guy's response was that they can overcome any multimedia problems we might have.

 

Can anyone recommend a test that thin client will really struggle with?

[Geoff]

Graphics/Audio/Video Editing. Games.

[Gatt]

As geoff said - Photoshop!! IIRC CS3 refused to install on W2K3 point blank!!

[joe90bass]

Keep us posted on the outcome, I'm sure we'll all be interested in the results!

[linescanner]

As geoff said - Photoshop!! IIRC CS3 refused to install on W2K3 point blank!!

 

With a bit of messing about it can be made to work

[torledo]

I was looking at thin client to replace our curriculum machines but was put off by the adverse comments regarding multimedia. Since then, the money allocated has been reduced dramatically and we cannot afford to go that route.

 

I have a potential supplier coming in next week to talk thin client. I tired to put them off using the above arguments. The guy's response was that they can overcome any multimedia problems we might have.

 

Can anyone recommend a test that thin client will really struggle with?

 

i would have thought anything which involves full motion video, even something as basic as windows movie maker would be near unusable for most thin client solutions.

[dhicks]

Can anyone recommend a test that thin client will really struggle with?

 

Chess.

 

--

David Hicks

[Geoff]

i would have thought anything which involves full motion video, even something as basic as windows movie maker would be near unusable for most thin client solutions.

 

Movie Maker will actually refuse to run from a W2k3 server via terminal services, so it's a good one to ask for.

[nut-ed]

There are two considerations to consider..!

 

Some applications simply won't run on TC as they require local (PC) resources that most TC don't have. (Maybe a powerful XP based TC would work here - but they tend to cost more than PCs so may eliminate themselves...)

 

Regarding performance - running any movie in full screen mode, at high resolution is about as bad as it gets for thin-clients. (so MSmediaplayer, VLC etc).

 

NOT YouTube or other browser based apps as they tend to cache data

 

Thin clients are all about moving pixels from server to client, (and mounse kb strokes in opposite direction) so full screen, max resolution in real (32bit) colour will throw the max possible data at the TC to process...

 

TCs depend a lot on caching to deliver performance - and real time video, by definition can't use caching - as each frame is different...

 

Other applications may put more load on the server and network, which may be the next bottleneck if the TC bottleneck is removed, but that is a different matter

 

Also check for video/sound syncronisation - this will probably be the first thing to break before the video/sould go juddery

 

Good luck and let us know what the outcome is....

[Butuz]

I've got a few different clients now (HP Windows, HP Unix, Axel) and this is something I wish to try! I am also planning to stress test the different server configurations (Dual Xeons, Dual Quad Core Xeons) to see what difference that makes.

 

Should be interesting!

 

Butuz

[ASJ]

Funnily enough we have just finished a trial on this very subject. We had a citrix 2K3 and 2K8 all running Terminal Services. Every thin client was rubbish with any multimedia file. The only exception to this was a Wyse client. It had a service on it called TCX (for extra £££ for the licence). Once I got it working then it uses another RDP stream to run the multimedia along side. It's pretty good. We are moving towards a VDI solution now as it does give a better end user experience.

 

HOWEVER, we have been in deep discussions with Thin Clients Solutions - Chip PC Technologies and they have a thin client coming out very soon that does all of this for a fraction of the cost and it's about as big as an IPOD. We had a demo the other day and the multimedia clips were perfect.

 

So, it can be done, you have to pick and choose your client, but check out chip pc

[localzuk]

Funnily enough we have just finished a trial on this very subject. We had a citrix 2K3 and 2K8 all running Terminal Services. Every thin client was rubbish with any multimedia file. The only exception to this was a Wyse client. It had a service on it called TCX (for extra £££ for the licence). Once I got it working then it uses another RDP stream to run the multimedia along side. It's pretty good. We are moving towards a VDI solution now as it does give a better end user experience.

 

HOWEVER, we have been in deep discussions with Thin Clients Solutions - Chip PC Technologies and they have a thin client coming out very soon that does all of this for a fraction of the cost and it's about as big as an IPOD. We had a demo the other day and the multimedia clips were perfect.

 

So, it can be done, you have to pick and choose your client, but check out chip pc

 

What clients did you try?

[ASJ]

We tried:

 

HP

 

Wyse V10L This is the one with the TCX.

 

Mid-Range Jack PC Ideal for the boarding houses

 

Xtreme PC

 

There was another from Chip, but it isn't on release until July 1st and that beauty is the dogs wobbly bits

[localzuk]

What were they like with flash websites? And what was the server side running?

[ASJ]

What were they like with flash websites? And what was the server side running?

 

Well to be frank - rubbish. That was using TS. Using VDI it was a lot better. Suppose that was because it was it's own VM rather than sharing the servers resources.

[Lee_K_81]

Once I got it working then it uses another RDP stream to run the multimedia along side. It's pretty good.

 

Just out of interest does this have any licensing implications? I'm assuming that most people will use per device licensing, but if a device opens two connections would that still be the same?

 

Also surely opening up 2 RDP streams puts the server under further strain, so if you usually get 30-40 sessions on one server, would that mean only 15-20 thin clients averaged per server?

[ASJ]

That'swhat the guys at Wyse told me. Here's a link to their web site with the details of their TCX:

 

Wyse Technology - Wyse TCX

 

Not sure about the licensing issue either. I do know that you have to buy a separate licence to use TCX otherwise it is just another TS session.

[localzuk]

Well to be frank - rubbish. That was using TS. Using VDI it was a lot better. Suppose that was because it was it's own VM rather than sharing the servers resources.

 

What spec was the server? It is worrying that flash still has problems with TS...

[ASJ]

It was a HP blade server 4GB RAM. Not sure of the exact spec as it was on trial. We trialled it on 2003 server TS and 2008 server TS.

 

The BBC web site tended to be out of lip sync and the picture very blocky.

[localzuk]

Hmm... this is why my boss is still scared of going down the thin client route - I am getting a lot of mixed messages regarding Flash. Roughly 50% of our computer usage is via flash sites such as educationcity, gridclub, etc... If these won't work well then it just sounds like thin client isn't suitable for us.

[ASJ]

I think a lot of the problems are wit the vendors of the Thin Clients and Adobe over Flash licensing.

 

This all works through VDI though. We had an afternoon over at IBM where the set up a VDI session using the Jack PC and whilst the flash off the BBC site wasn't perfect, but it was acceptable.

[dhicks]

I am getting a lot of mixed messages regarding Flash.

 

Our 18 Linux-based thin clients handle Flash just fine (one 2X4-core, 4GB RAM server between them). You could go for a mixed approach - run Linux terminals, but connect accross to a Terminal Services session whenever you wanted to run MS Office or whatever.

 

--

David Hicks

[localzuk]

Our 18 Linux-based thin clients handle Flash just fine (one 2X4-core, 4GB RAM server between them). You could go for a mixed approach - run Linux terminals, but connect accross to a Terminal Services session whenever you wanted to run MS Office or whatever.

 

Our kids are year 5 - 8. We want a nice simple solution.

[linescanner]

The schools we have running Sun Ray on Windows 2003 TS have a more than acceptable flash performance.

 

We also have Sun Ray running over VPN at kids homes, again the flash performance is more than acceptable.

 

I aloo have a Middle School where we run 150 LTSP based thin clients and a bulk of their work is done on flash based web sites etc....All works fine.

 

A lot of this comes down to quality of network and the correct scaling of the server farm to run them.

[dhicks]

Our kids are year 5 - 8. We want a nice simple solution.

 

The children using our thin-client based ICT suite are years 1-7, usability seems to be fine.

 

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David Hicks