Thin Client Setup list

[dave.81]

Now i've read through a few of the posts on here as i have no idea about thin clients etc but our HM has seen it running at another school and likes the idea. He likes the idea of small boxes on desktops and that we might be able to make the older pc's run a few years more.

 

But i'm trying to get together a rough price list and hardware list to show him. From what i can work out we'll need is;

 

Beefy server with plenty of RAM 3kish

20 Thin Clients £150ish

Licensing for older pcs?

Re-cable IT suite with CAT5e rather than current Cat5

 

Are there any other extra cost's i've missed or have i got the idea completely wrong?

[budgester]

Not really needing the recable, but decent switches are a must.

[dave.81]

The only reason i put cabling in there was due to the fact the main IT suite is running old Cat5 cable rather than Cat5e which is listed as a requirement on most of the site's i've seen. Or are they just doing that cause it's industry standard now?

 

I'd look at replacing the current Netgear switches with HP ones as everyone raves about them, and the Netgears are a good 4 years old now too so about time for replacement.

[andyrite]

If you want gigabit to the desktop then you need cat5e. If not don't bother. It would be a waste of money.

[Butuz]

And you certainly don't need Gigabit to the desktop for the thin client. Not much data at all is sent back and fore. You do need a good connection between the terminal server (s) and your other servers though. Preferably at least a gigabit.

 

Standard cat 5 cabling should be fine - we are running a mixture of old cat5 and new cat5e and to be honest there is no difference at 100mbit/s.

 

Each thin client needs a Terminal Server Client Access Licence (about £8 each).

 

Andrew

[dave.81]

Ok scratch the cabling and add in TS CALs which is cheaper anyway lol...

[dave.81]

Ok i've booked my self to go see a local school who are using thin clients to see there setup.

 

I guess what i'm after now is horror storys or yes it's wonderful we should have done it sooner. Admittely it will be an experiment in one room to see how things go but i've got to make the decision between spending 10k on this or 10k on normal pc's.

[Lee_K_81]

Ok i've booked my self to go see a local school who are using thin clients to see there setup.

 

I guess what i'm after now is horror storys or yes it's wonderful we should have done it sooner. Admittely it will be an experiment in one room to see how things go but i've got to make the decision between spending 10k on this or 10k on normal pc's.

 

lol, experimenting would have been good here. We're jumping in to it. We've bought 100 thin clients and 2 beefy servers to handle them. I'm hoping it works as expected otherwise i might be looking for another job!

[dave.81]

Braver than me thats for sure lol... what kind of software and hardware have you bought? Pricing, suppliers etc? Sorry for asking so many q's but dont want to get it wrong when one of our SMT is looking for a way to get rid of me lol.

[CyberNerd]

We've bought 100 thin clients and 2 beefy servers to handle them.

 

50:1 is a bit high. Especially with no redundancy. I'd go 30:1 max or plan 20:1 then the site should still run if you loose a server.

[dave.81]

One thing how will this intergrate into the current domain, secuirty etc. Can i just run it as a SDC and use all the same settings?

[Geoff]

One thing how will this intergrate into the current domain, secuirty etc. Can i just run it as a SDC and use all the same settings?

 

Software/GPO-wise, treat it the same way as your desktop PCs.

[Lee_K_81]

We've bought 100 thin clients and 2 beefy servers to handle them.

 

50:1 is a bit high. Especially with no redundancy. I'd go 30:1 max or plan 20:1 then the site should still run if you loose a server.

 

I know 50:1 is a bit high, i was only expecting it to be 30:1 to start with and then slowly phase more in, and increase servers if needed. They are both 2xIntel Xeon 3GHz Dual Core, 4GB Ram. SLT tend to make the decisions without asking though.

 

@Dave.81 we bought HP DL380 servers and HP thin clients. SW wise we're just getting TS licenses and office licenses. The TC's will only be used for basic MS office / web browsing, maybe some maths software called headstart (anybody got experience of this over thin client?). I've explained to SLT that we may need to look at citrix or buy more servers within the first 3-4 months depending on the workload. It's so hard to judge in advance as every situation is different. I've had people suggest that 40:1 would be fine, MS whitepapers say 100:1 (or similar). I think for us its a case of suck-it and see.

[linescanner]

A lot of the scaling docs out there are based around corporate usage. ICT in schools is the most hostile environment to deploy thin client and is way away from the coporate usage models used to write the white papers. Work on a 30:1 ratio on a server that has

 

Dual Procs (Dual Dual core is best)

4 GB RAM

Disk requirement is small (centrally hold you TS profiles)

 

Due to the packages running in modern schools you are more likely to become processor bound than run out of memory. More procs is good. Over 4 GB RAM is not the best way to go.

 

Our recommendation would be to look at Sun Ray and SGD should you want to invest further in thin client. However the Citrix route is also perfectly viable.

 

The danger of trying to run too many users off each box is that the thin clients will get bad press. It is not a fault of thin client computing, just under provisioning. It may set your cause back a long way if the end users experience suffers by trying to do too much with too little.

 

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As I am my employer these comments do reflect the views of my employer

[djm968]

One thing how will this intergrate into the current domain, secuirty etc. Can i just run it as a SDC and use all the same settings?

 

Software/GPO-wise, treat it the same way as your desktop PCs.

 

I would suggest that this depends on your current environment. If you are running RM, Viglen or Ranger etc, some GPO’s may cause issues. Profiles can also sometimes be problematic and you will certainly want make sure the shutdown computer option is removed or disabled which is not always the case on "desktop PCs"

 

I usually spend some time with a client, going through their current configuration, looking at the GPO’s etc, then configure a separate GPO, Terminal Server profiles and create scripts to meet the exact requirement.

[Geoff]

I would suggest that this depends on your current environment. If you are running RM, Viglen or Ranger etc, some GPO’s may cause issues.

 

True, I was presuming a vanilla system.

 

Profiles can also sometimes be problematic

 

Indeed, we've discussed this before.

 

you will certainly want make sure the shutdown computer option is removed or disabled which is not always the case on "desktop PCs"

 

Yes, I forgot about this too. Citrix does this 'automagically' by setting the options in the local security policy during installation. Amongst other things.

[dave.81]

After a lot of research over the past few days i'm starting to think this isn't the way forward for our school. I've spoken to a couple of schools that have had problems doing the DIDA course on thin clients and seen we have a large take-up of that in college not sure it's a good way togo.

 

Also not running a vanilla system at the moment this could then cause more issue with GPO's etc. Seems a lot of my time would be spent this summer doing this over other important things. Think it will be best to leave it for now and look again in the future.

 

Thanks for all your advice though guys it was very helpful

[djm968]

I wouldn't rule it out altogether though Dave. Thin client is a viable option if deployed effectively and it is understood that (at the moment) it will never be able to cope with the diverse software demands required in an educational environment.

 

I am seeing an increasing amount of interest in thin clients, particularly for school administration where there is often a separate network, security policies are less of an issue and the software demands are more realistic.

 

Also RDP is a remote access protocol and opening port 3389 to the Terminal Server(s) offers very cost effective (free) remote access solution for staff, providing the same desktop/environment they currently have in school, from home.

[dave.81]

It's not off the list completely... it will be looked again for next year to see how it has improved.

 

I do agree that for the Administration side it would be ideal but we run one network for the entire school so no real benifit at the moment.

 

Yes the RDP is a wonderful tool but as we already offer all staff and pupils access to their work from home, all be it not same desktop etc, we'd not gain anything from that either lol...

 

As for this summer it's off the list but that doesn't mean it wont fit our needs next year, although it would have been nice buying a new server to add to my growing collection