localzuk Posted March 8, 2007 Posted March 8, 2007 As people might have noticed, I am currently investigating a terminal services based system for the school. One of the systems mentioned by our main supplier is 'Sun Ray'. Has anyone on here used this system or their terminals? If so, what do you think?
ind13 Posted March 8, 2007 Posted March 8, 2007 sun are one of the partners for BSF in leicester city, they currently have a test bed set up, they are using solarus for the front end, but they also have a windows server, so they can publish windows apps to the desktop. ive had a quick play and done a bit of testing seems to be working fairly well.
Geoff Posted March 8, 2007 Posted March 8, 2007 Sun Ray is being tested here by Lancs LEA/Cleo as one of the possible Remote Access systems.
localzuk Posted March 8, 2007 Author Posted March 8, 2007 I have been told that any external access usefulness of it is pointless as we won't be implementing it - which is a shame I think. However, the ability to deploy multi-platform apps to a single desktop sounds like it would be a great tool - don't know how, but it could
GrumbleDook Posted March 8, 2007 Posted March 8, 2007 I would speak with Sun directly or with groups like The Cutter Project, who deal with things like this ... they are seriously agressive in the education market at the moment and I will be popping round to a few local schools to try and get them to tell us of their experience. In the meantime someone could poke Spuffmonkey to chat about it as The Cutter Project have just put some in his school.
localzuk Posted March 8, 2007 Author Posted March 8, 2007 I am having our suppliers come in and give us a demo of the system and lending us some equipment for testing/trialing. (as well as a chip-pc and a samsung all in one I hope too). They have said that they are working with Sun on this so it will be nice to see what they can offer, and for how much? (I am guessing it will be quite costly).
Ric_ Posted March 8, 2007 Posted March 8, 2007 The only 'problem' that I can see with the Sun Ray system in UK education is the number of win32 apps that are used. The thin client version of the Sun Java Desktop System sounds fantastic from what I have read but means that you still need a Windows terminal server or two to run your win32 apps on... which means you still need to pay for Windows licenses. In the US education market there seems to be a lot more acceptance of *nix apps so the Sun solution is ideal.
wesleyw Posted March 8, 2007 Posted March 8, 2007 Does anyone know if Citrix give big discounts for large number of licenses of Presentation server if I were to offer the TC for every pupils and staff member we are looking silly figures MS is actualy quite cheap but the added functionality of Citrix means I would prefer that as the solution I know I still have to buy licenses for MS but this is minimal in comparison? I spent the best part of an hour talking with a very helpful chap from MS in regards to TS licensing not as expensive as I thought! I know I was shocked too He suggested the cheapest option first which was a surprise and has renewed my faith in humanity or at least Microsoft good grief I wonder if I'm running a temperature lol Wes
CyberNerd Posted March 8, 2007 Posted March 8, 2007 In the US education market there seems to be a lot more acceptance of *nix apps and in South America, Africa, Asia - whats wrong with this place? I think the trick with Sun's solution is that although you need the windows TS cal - at 11.50 per device, you don't pay £140 for a citrix license but per tarantella server (tarantella is now sun global desktop) + the java desktop if required. IIRC the tarantella license was £600 per server - so the benefit is that you get the citrix style management tools plus you get the option of *nix apps. I've only looked briefly at this but that was my impression.
CyberNerd Posted March 8, 2007 Posted March 8, 2007 Does anyone know if Citrix give big discounts for large number of licenses of Presentation server if I were to offer the TC for every pupils and staff member we are looking silly figures MS is actualy quite cheap but the added functionality of Citrix means I would prefer that as the solution I know I still have to buy licenses for MS but this is minimal in comparison? you only need to pay for concurrent connections with citrix licensing.
Ric_ Posted March 8, 2007 Posted March 8, 2007 Does anyone know if Citrix give big discounts for large number of licenses of Presentation server if I were to offer the TC for every pupils and staff member we are looking silly figures MS is actualy quite cheap but the added functionality of Citrix means I would prefer that as the solution I know I still have to buy licenses for MS but this is minimal in comparison? you only need to pay for concurrent connections with citrix licensing. The licenses also get cheaper the more you buy. When you use up all the concurrent connections (e.g. you have 5 servers and 200 licenses) it will simply say that the application has reached capacity when you reach 200 users - which will be evenly spread across the farm.
wesleyw Posted March 9, 2007 Posted March 9, 2007 Well I was looking at remote learning so you could probably get away with a small number of concurrent connections however being awkward I would like the pupils experience not to differ if they are at home or at school I.E. they always log into their computer standalone use it like they would any home PC if they want dedicated applications that the school provides they click on the Citrix ICA icon and log into terminal services. I want this so that at home they can still do all of their work, however £100 number of pupils for us even though we are a small school is roughly £95k a little out of our league at present, any ideas Ric_ ? Wes
Ric_ Posted March 9, 2007 Posted March 9, 2007 @wesleyw: I don't think that that you would really need 950 concurrent licenses. Even if you got 45 users on each server, you would need 23 servers for that many pupils... instead you need to work out how many pupils would need to be connected at one time... 200 licenses would allow for nearly a quarter of your pupils and would allow you to get away with 5 servers.
wesleyw Posted March 9, 2007 Posted March 9, 2007 If they are using them in class there is a very high probability they'l be all on every period Wes
SpuffMonkey Posted March 9, 2007 Posted March 9, 2007 In the meantime someone could poke Spuffmonkey to chat about it as The Cutter Project have just put some in his school. Hoy - don't poke! No - we haven't got any yet - its Caroline Chisholm that have gone Sun in a big way...
linescanner Posted April 18, 2007 Posted April 18, 2007 Sorry that I have come in on this late. We at Cutter are Sun Partners and do both Sun Ray and Global Desktop. We have some at Caroline Chisholm as well as Global Desktop. We also have about 100 at a school in Herts. They rock. If anyone needs any info or a demo arranged just give me a shout on 07840 988311 or drop a mail to andy.trevor at cutterproject.co.uk
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