Fat v. thin v. multi-seat client showdown

[dhicks]

With regard to your licences, I pay £9.09 for a TS CAL and £3.27 for a Windows Server CAL via my LEA so I am not sure where you are getting the £50 odd licencing figure from.

 

That was simply a guess - checked pricing today, we pay £7.40 for a Windows Server CAL and £21.27 for a TS CAL, so nearer £30.

 

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David Hicks

[tmcd35]

I think Terminal Services would be way too slow for Photoshop and a complete non starter for video editing. That said if you decide to go down the TC route then I can whole heartidly recommend Axel. Got a M75 and a couple of M70's for our admin staff. Easily the best TC's I've ever had the pleasure of setting up. Probably going to get a few more over the next couple of months and accellerate our Admin/Office PC refresh program.

 

Gut instinct would say get fat clients. For that type of work other options are not really worth the hassle.

 

Multipoint Server will easily run video editing on three workstations (I've don't it) and the Education license definately connects to AD, but unless you are desperate for the savings (should be cheaper than fat clients) it's not really ideal for that kind of work.

 

EDIT: What license agreement are you using? I'm pretty sure I'm paying nearer £10 for a TS-CAL and around £3 for a CAL on a Academic Select Agreement. They look like more expensive Open Agreement licenses to me.

Edited July 1, 2010 by tmcd35

[dhicks]

I think Terminal Services would be way too slow for Photoshop and a complete non starter for video editing.

 

Actually, the requirements have changed somewhat - we're now not looking at 30 workstations for the sixth form, we're now looking at moving our current LTSP server over to Windows Terminal Services. The sixth form are getting new harddrives in their 6-year-old Dell Dimension 2400 Windows XP machines and a 4-workstation Multipoint system made out of a spare desktop PC and two graphics cards from eBay. Our LTSP server currently services 18 clients in our prep IT room - it's going to cost us £5,000 to do what we could do for free if Edubuntu 10.04 didn't keep conking out after 14 people have logged in.

 

What license agreement are you using?

 

Open Agreement - we're a private school, we don't have anything to do with the LEA and we prefer to buy our software outright rather than rent it.

 

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David Hicks

[Ric_]

@dhicks: I've watched this thread a little and something else that your users might like is the ability to use their own machines. We use Cirix Secure Gateway to provide access to XenApp for our lot and they reckon it's better than using our thin client devices (not had the heart to tell them that it is the same system barring some of the devices not having the latest HDX tech).

 

You could provide a similar setup using TS Web Gateway (I think that's what it is called) which may mean that you could scale down the number of end devices you have. It will also allow students to access computer resources within lessons.

 

Just something to think about there

[cookie_monster]

@dhicks: I've watched this thread a little and something else that your users might like is the ability to use their own machines. We use Cirix Secure Gateway to provide access to XenApp for our lot and they reckon it's better than using our thin client devices (not had the heart to tell them that it is the same system barring some of the devices not having the latest HDX tech).

 

You could provide a similar setup using TS Web Gateway (I think that's what it is called) which may mean that you could scale down the number of end devices you have. It will also allow students to access computer resources within lessons.

 

Just something to think about there

 

 

Yes we have a similar setup here. We're thinking about allowing students to use their own laptops to access Citrix over our wireless setup, this will allow them to use their equipment saving us money and they can access the network with a much lower virus risk through the secure gateway.

[SYNACK]

You could provide a similar setup using TS Web Gateway (I think that's what it is called) which may mean that you could scale down the number of end devices you have. It will also allow students to access computer resources within lessons.

 

TS Gateway + RemoteApp, this is what we use for staff to do reports as the dodgy app is located on a TS server and then just a link to that app is pushed out to the staff laptops via an automaticly generated MSI. All they need to do is double click this on their laptop from anywhere where they have internet access and they can do reports. You still need XP SP3+ or the latest Mac versions to access this though as it uses the newer RDP protocols which allow for single windows to be sent instead of entire screens.

 

The feature seems to work really well at both schools that I have implemented it at as staff loved the ease of just opening it like any other app and using it seamlessly from wherever. Your external connector should cover this for student laptops to so with TS Gateway, RemoteApp and TS all on the same server it should all be covered under the one package.

 

From inside the network the RemoteApp links will try to connect directly first so if the students are inside the network then these would be able to be just bare RDP streams which puts less load on the server. HTTPS can be forced in all instances though if you want this.

[DMcCoy]

@dhicks: I've watched this thread a little and something else that your users might like is the ability to use their own machines. We use Cirix Secure Gateway to provide access to XenApp for our lot and they reckon it's better than using our thin client devices (not had the heart to tell them that it is the same system barring some of the devices not having the latest HDX tech).

 

You could provide a similar setup using TS Web Gateway (I think that's what it is called) which may mean that you could scale down the number of end devices you have. It will also allow students to access computer resources within lessons.

 

Just something to think about there

 

How do you license? I had a look at Citrix but it was eye wateringly expensive, as it's in addition to TS licensing. Or do you just limit the number of connections as it's a concurrent license? (at least the Citrix bit!).

[dhicks]

@dhicks: I've watched this thread a little and something else that your users might like is the ability to use their own machines.

 

I originally started off this thread with the idea that I wanted to best way to provide 30 workstations in our sixthform. No matter what method I looked at (PCs, thin clients, mult-seat machines) I always came out around £10,000 - a bit more for dedicated PCs, maybe a bit less for thin clients, but not much in it. This is mainly due to Microsoft's licensing - if we didn't pay for that we could get the whole lot sorted for around £3,000, no problem.

 

I think we've decided we can't really afford £10,000 for the sixth form right at the moment, and they can be trusted with their own laptops anyway - I'm planning to upgrade the existing PCs in their rooms and sort out a 4-seat machine for general use.

 

The Terminal Services server is now being looked at to provide workstations for the prep school - 18 in the main prep IT room, maybe a dozen or so scattered around the school. This would also give us a 30-client-capable TS server for use by staff or pupils from home, if we pay £2,000 for an external connector license. I have a bunch of existing computers I wish to use as thin clients, which leaves me a dozen or so thin client devices of some sort to find.

 

I can buy a dedicated thin client device for £150-ish - that's for a "no operating system" device, which I assume simply means that it has a small OS on internal solid state storage of some sort that is difficult to update or change. For pretty much the same amount I can buy a whole Acer PC small enough to screw to the back of a monitor and that can run any OS you like (and/or can pay for).

 

The only problem with buying the Acer PCs, or simply using any older PC to hand, is that I can only get them to support RDP 5.2 with free software. Therefore, I need to buy some sort of RDP 7 client software or buy a system that replaces RDP and provides its own bootable-on-any-hardware client OS - 2X or similar.

 

I've bought a copt of Windows Server 2008 R2, I plan to install that on a test server and see how well it works with a test install of 2X's system.

 

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David Hicks

[chriskvz]

The average price for a new, modern, RDP 7-capable thin client device seems to be around £150. We would then need to spend around £50-ish on CALs per device. Thin clients require a server - a Dell T610 capable of handling 30-odd Windows clients is around £2,000, so call that £50 per client. Screens are still £100, so that's £350 per client compared with £400 per client for a Windows 7 machine - £10,500 for 30 compared with £12,000 for 30. That hardly seems worth the bother - you get something a little bit cheaper that has trouble running multimedia.

 

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David Hicks

 

David, there are three issues here: upfront cost, user experience, and ongoing costs.

 

Terminal Services: Pro: low license cost, Cons: graphics experience, app compatibility, not full Windows OS - no fault isolation and performance impact

 

*snip*

No unauthorised advertising for your company on here please!

Edited July 7, 2010 by john
removed unathorised advertising

[dhicks]

Terminal Services: Pro: low license cost, Cons: graphics experience, app compatibility, not full Windows OS - no fault isolation and performance impact

 

I don't know if I'm all that worried about application compatibility or fault isolation - I rather figure if SIMS works then most things should. I should have thought that not being separated into VMs would be an advantage to most applications - no need to reserve a separate chunk of memory for 20 copies of the same application, just have it in memory once and run 20 threads over it (or do modern VM systems share bits of memory anyway?). As I've pointed out above, if we expect to do anything sound-related on our thin clients then we need something better than RDP 5.2, but 2X would seem to offer such a solution for around £25 per client.

 

if you repurpose your PCs as end-points, 0 for the endpoints. You can transition these to thin-clients over time.

 

Would those be thin client devices that have to support your own protocol? Can we only get those from you?

 

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David Hicks

[tmcd35]

I originally started off this thread with the idea that I wanted to best way to provide 30 workstations in our sixthform. No matter what method I looked at (PCs, thin clients, mult-seat machines) I always came out around £10,000 - a bit more for dedicated PCs, maybe a bit less for thin clients, but not much in it. This is mainly due to Microsoft's licensing - if we didn't pay for that we could get the whole lot sorted for around £3,000, no problem.

 

whaooooa! I'm I reading that right? £7k for MS licensing? What are they doing, supplying you with gold plated master discs? Although, £10k does sound about right for 30 stations. I pay closer to £12.5k for fat clients.

 

One question I would have would be around the licensing model. I think we worked out, above, that you are using the Open License agreement. What sort of volume of MS license purchases do you make over a three year period? Surely you could get a better deal on a Select Agreement (not the Academic Subscription)? Could you not set up a buying consortium with other schools to get cheaper select pricing? I really think, even for a private school, you're paying way over the odds on edu licensing fees.

 

The only problem with buying the Acer PCs, or simply using any older PC to hand, is that I can only get them to support RDP 5.2 with free software. Therefore, I need to buy some sort of RDP 7 client software or buy a system that replaces RDP and provides its own bootable-on-any-hardware client OS - 2X or similar.

 

Forgive my ignorance, but what are the differences between RDP 5.2 and RDP 7? Is there anything their that you really need? I've recently set up a new TS here for our admin team and rdesktop on Thinstation works fine for everything I can think of doing on these machines.

[chriskvz]

Would those be thin client devices that have to support your own protocol? Can we only get those from you?

 

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David Hicks

 

David, Kaviza is protocol agnostic, meaning that it is an open platform that supports multiple protocols including RDP. Kaviza has licensed one of the best protocols in the industry - the HDX/ICA protocol made by Citrix, which is a proven technology for delivering high-definition multi-media experiences in virtual environments.

 

A wide variety of thin-clients support HDX, just look for a HDX-ready thin-client (Wyse, IGel, 10Zig, DevonIT, etc) all offer these. You can also download the free Citrix plug-in on any client to access the virtual desktops - e.g. use this to repurpose a PC as an end-point.

 

To answer your question on memory usage - yes, Kaviza optimizes on memory usage via linked clones and other technologies. The key is that you can run any application that currently runs on your PC in the virtual desktop environment without any porting or compatibility issues. Plus, management costs are typically sizably lower because you only have to patch/upgrade the one or few golden images the desktops are generated from, as opposed to managing 30 individual desktops.

[dhicks]

I'm I reading that right? £7k for MS licensing?

 

No - "about £10,000" also covers 30 client devices (very roughly: £100 for a screen, £150 for a thin client device, £30 for CALs) - £8,400.

 

what are the differences between RDP 5.2 and RDP 7? Is there anything their that you really need?

 

Multimedia support, sound in particular. I'm not actually sure if the 2-second delay between video and sound arriving at the client is due to our Windows Server 2003 TS machine (which runs SIMS just fine, obviously) or the clients only supporting RDP 5.2. The Dell T105 server I currently have spare doesn't want to install Windows Server 2008 R2, but it's the last day of term today so I can try a different server tomorrow.

 

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David Hicks

[Axel]

Microsoft have done a lot of work on the "server side" for W2008 regarding sound, so W2008 works fine (and vastly better than W2003) for all versions of RDP client.

 

When you get your W2008 server up you will find audio works fine, and much better with the same clients compared to when they were connected to W2003.

(I would guess your existing Thin-Stations will be fine regards audio when connected to W2008 - audio does not put too much pressure on the client).

 

Using the later versions of RDP client will benefit video (localised codecs etc) - but not sound specifically. Don't forget Microsoft only localises certain codec's, most noticeably NOT flash, due to squabbles with Abode - so this does not benefit multi-media for most websites, but that's a posting for another day....