mirojr Posted March 14, 2012 Posted March 14, 2012 Hiya, looking at a new rack server to run a small thinclient network. Would consider a tower if the cost and performance far out weighed a rack server. But due to space a rack would be preferrable. Anyone any recommendations of models they use? Thanks
localzuk Posted March 14, 2012 Posted March 14, 2012 Also, what will the clients be running in their sessions? ie. Multimedia stuff or just office and internet?
jamesfed Posted March 14, 2012 Posted March 14, 2012 We use a HP DL385 G7 for our VDI server hosting 20 VDI images - including thin clients, lics and all hardware cost was ~ £9,000. At the moment our server uses 4x15k hard drives however will be swapping that out for a SSD soon enough. 1
glennda Posted March 14, 2012 Posted March 14, 2012 I just bought 2 DL360's with 100GB ram dual 6 core xeon for about 4.5k each
mirojr Posted March 15, 2012 Author Posted March 15, 2012 We use a HP DL385 G7 for our VDI server hosting 20 VDI images - including thin clients, lics and all hardware cost was ~ £9,000. At the moment our server uses 4x15k hard drives however will be swapping that out for a SSD soon enough. What would the software/licences costing be for your setup? How much for the server? Thanks
localzuk Posted March 15, 2012 Posted March 15, 2012 For 20 x thin clients, I'd suggest getting Citrix XenApp - a full XenDesktop type install would be overkill IMO. A server to handle 20 XenApp clients could be anything basically. An HP DL360 G7 such as this one: HP ProLiant DL360 G7 Performance 579239-421 | Insight UK would be far more than enough to handle it, and give you a massive amount of space for expansion should you want to. One with half the RAM and only 1 CPU would do the trick even. For XenApp, I believe you're looking at around £150 a license for it. So, if you speak to a HP reseller directly, you'd probably be able to get that server for about £3k, plus a couple of £15k RPM hard disks. So, total cost about £6.5k.
jamesfed Posted March 15, 2012 Posted March 15, 2012 What would the software/licences costing be for your setup? How much for the server? Thanks The latest figures we have had (based around 30 VDI seats) were around- £178/thin client (10zig with 3 yr warranty) £4220 - HP DL385 G7 - 2x16core AMD Opteron, 80GB RAM, 240GB OCZ PCI-E SSD £100/VDI lic with upgrade protection for 3 years (£55/VDI lic without any upgrade protection) Personaly I would mix it in with App-V as well which is dirt cheap from Microsoft. The VDI software is Citrix VDI-in-a-box and it uses the same HDX protocal as XenApp does.
mirojr Posted March 15, 2012 Author Posted March 15, 2012 Is there a lower priced server that would be sufficient, without making my boss throw his hole punch or stapler at me wen I mention the cost?
localzuk Posted March 15, 2012 Posted March 15, 2012 Is there a lower priced server that would be sufficient, without making my boss throw his hole punch or stapler at me wen I mention the cost? This is why I mentioned budget earlier. Is the one I listed too expensive? If so, how about one of these? HP ProLiant DL360 G7 Base 579240-421 | Insight UK If you talk to a reseller, you'd probably be able to get that, plus a couple of disks for £2.2k I'd guess. It has a single CPU and 6GB RAM. For 20 users in XenApp, this would be plenty. If you want VDI, then you'd probably want to add some more RAM and another CPU.
jamesfed Posted March 15, 2012 Posted March 15, 2012 (edited) A HP DL165 (1U rack) with 1x12 (2.4ghz) core processor, 44GB RAM and a PCI-E SSD would come to about £2.2k as well - none of this Intel stuff here and it would do full on VDI. We run our current 20 seats off a 8 core 2.0ghz with 44GB RAM and 4x15k SAS. Edited March 15, 2012 by jamesfed
localzuk Posted March 15, 2012 Posted March 15, 2012 (edited) A HP DL165 (1U rack) with 1x12 core processor, 44GB RAM and a PCI-E SSD would come to about £2.2k as well - none of this Intel stuff here and it would do full on VDI. I'd be *very* surprised if you could get that at that price. What make SSD? The DL165 doesn't have 6GBPS SATA, so it'd have to be a PCI-E SSD, and the only ones of them I know of at any affordable price would be OCZ, and putting one of them in a server is not something I'd do. Edited March 15, 2012 by localzuk
jamesfed Posted March 15, 2012 Posted March 15, 2012 I'd be *very* surprised if you could get that at that price. What make SSD? The DL165 doesn't have 6GBPS SATA, so it'd have to be a PCI-E SSD, and the only ones of them I know of at any affordable price would be OCZ, and putting one of them in a server is not something I'd do. Server cost - £1100 5x8GB RAM sticks - £575 OCZ RevoDrive PCI-E 3x2 240GB - £400 (we have tested this drive with VDI and are using one in a production enviroment at the moment with no issues what so ever in the past 3 months - OCZ utils are reporting none of the spare blocks have been used yet and the performance is 100x better (random IO) than our 4x15k SAS) Add in a little extra for a HDD or 2 to boot of and boom £2,200.
localzuk Posted March 15, 2012 Posted March 15, 2012 (edited) Interesting. I'm just really unsure about letting an OCZ device anywhere near a production environment! However, the system as a general virtualisation box, hooked up to a SAN would be a brilliant setup at rock bottom pricing (not relevant to this discussion but relevant to me at the moment). Edited March 15, 2012 by localzuk
jamesfed Posted March 15, 2012 Posted March 15, 2012 Interesting. I'm just really unsure about letting an OCZ device anywhere near a production environment! They have come a fair way in the past few years (after the dodgy RAM stick days) and now that they are using Sandforce on their PCBs things are looking up. Heres a link to a post I did about it on my blog - What happens when you put a OCZ PCI-E SSD in a server? | my world of IT Will do another update sometime in April when we move our current and new VDI server onto these drives.
mirojr Posted March 15, 2012 Author Posted March 15, 2012 Thanks. I am not sure of budget constaints I just get told to 'get a price'. I do not want to be frivolous with money, but I would like to have the capabilities to run a virtual environment maybe from the outset or maybe at another juncture. I really need to read up on servers and know what I am buying is fit for purpose. In regards to licensing I am not sure about prices for just a Microsoft RDP setup, i will have to look, have never had a terminal server setup so not sure how licensing works, or rough costs. Also server software, I will need 2008 R2 with Hyper-V I presume, would I be better waiting for 'Server 8' I am also pondering. Windows server being the way to go so I could use RDP or citrix.
localzuk Posted March 15, 2012 Posted March 15, 2012 Do you use a schools agreement or EES agreement? If so, RDS licenses are a couple of quid each per year. If you want to do full VDI, you really need to speak to a specialist supplier such as The Cutter Project, as they'll be able to guide you on specific requirements for software etc... Pure RDP isn't great with multimedia still, so Citrix would be more advisable. 1
mirojr Posted March 16, 2012 Author Posted March 16, 2012 The latest figures we have had (based around 30 VDI seats) were around- £4220 - HP DL385 G7 - 2x16core AMD Opteron, 80GB RAM, 240GB OCZ PCI-E SSD Search results for DL385 G7 - Misco.co.uk I see there are some other DL 385 servers, but 8 core, would these be sufficient for thinclient setup 20 clients, possible VDI? am just comparing with the other 8 core example DL165 which you already said would prob be sufficient. Search results for HP DL165 G7 - Misco.co.uk Is it imperative to have more than 1 CPU when running VDI? Thanks
PotNoodleTech Posted March 16, 2012 Posted March 16, 2012 Is it imperative to have more than 1 CPU when running VDI? Thanks Think of it this way. When you deploy a desktop fat client each user ends up getting one, two or even four cores and 2 to 4 gb of RAM to themselves. An 8 core server with 20 concurrent users means you are running at 0.4 cores per user averaged. Adding a second CPU so 16 cores would give 0.8 cores per user - much more useful.
jamesfed Posted March 16, 2012 Posted March 16, 2012 Is it imperative to have more than 1 CPU when running VDI? We are running our 20 VDI seats at the moment off of one 8 core processor - clock rarely goes above 50%. The thing you have to remember is that a normal PC spends most of its time idle (well below its max) - only every now and again will it go to 100% and then again how often will all the PCs in an entire room hit 100% usage?
mirojr Posted March 16, 2012 Author Posted March 16, 2012 Ok the thinclient count was incorrect, we are actually looking at 35 thinclients. How much more of an impact are the extra 15 ? Is this a definite 2 x 8 core cpu setup, or is this inadequate? RAM requirements guestimates would be useful if anyone could help with that also? Thanks.
jamesfed Posted March 16, 2012 Posted March 16, 2012 Yeah I would be looking to bump that up to either one 16 core (might need to go CTO on that) or a dual 8 core if running 32. For RAM assume min 2 GB (which I find Windows 7 runs fine on) but allow for expansion as best as you can - after all RAM is cheap as chips
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now