jamesfed

All too often people look for a technical solution to what is a disipline issue which could (as others have said) be resolved with a freindly but firm talk.

Kaviza is long gone its all about VDI-in-a-box now.

Yep 2GB for a DC works fine here as well - going to be looking at moving to a more Server Core based network with Server 8 so I guess that might even get lower.

Making more sense now Personaly I will opt for VDI in most uses these days as it gives a bit more flexiablity than traditional RDS and also the Citrix HDX protocal in VDI-in-a-box is great for video playback ect (send me a PM and I can send you some YouTube links). Mix it in with something like App-V and you will have a rock solid thin client network for years to come. There is a aditional cost in VDI compared to RDS though in the fact it needs more CPU cycles, more RAM and more IOPS but with things like SSDs and Windows Server 8 Hyper-V with memory de dup on the way it could be the thing for you.

Just to reiterate I think we are going to need to know a little more about what you want to accomplish before suggesting anything further. Is this for a IT room PC refresh or something?

Part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (give it a Google and it will be there to download as a trial) – as with all things Microsoft its dirt cheap for schools. We use it here for about 90% of our applications and there is quite extensive guides on the internet to get some of the more tricky programs to work with it.

That sounds a little more like Remote Desktop Services than VDI. In RDS you have a server which allows multiple users from multiple devices to login at the same time - they can't see each others 'sessions'. In a VDI setup you have a server which hosts virtual machines - each virtual machine has a single user from a single device logged into it.

Ermm.......good old App-V appears to do just the same

I guess you would just point your MFD at the SMTP relay for Live@Edu - don't know if its possible and you might even need to talk to your LEA to check that the SMTP firewall ports are open.

By multiple connections do you mean multiple thin clients (or whatever endpoint you are using) to connect to a single virtual desktop? If so as far as I'm aware its not possible and isn't one of the normal uses of VDI. Again if so could you let us know what you are trying to accomplish and we can see if there is a better option for you

To save me re inventing the wheel could someone with Lync 2010 share with me how they got their dial plans/normalization rules (for the UK) setup? Cheers!

What hardware/software do you use to provide your 802.1x auth? Some options I have seen can whitelist a MAC address - not suggested though as people could in theory spoof a MAC address of one of the dm1s and get onto your network.

Never used it but I think this is what you need - Windows Server | File Classification | Information Protection

You haven't mentioned your deployment size but could I suggest you take a look at Citrix VDI-in-a-box 10x as simple as full on XenDesktop with all of the key features (linked clones, Citrix HDX, CAG support ect). All you do is load up their pre setup VM and boom you have a VDI network - no mucking around with config settings and very easy to get going as a test deployment.

For some strange reason a lot of people think that having a SAN and multiple VM hosts means you have a resilient VM infrastructure - personally I tend to opt for internal storage as much as possible and in many smaller sized deployments it works out pretty well. Go with 2 or 3 HP DL380/DL385s G7s use internal high capacity SATA drives for your data storage and then DFS-R for redundancy on your file storage. The DL38x series can also quite happily take a OCZ RevoDrive 3 SSD PCI-E card – you could then use that for a lighting fast RDS server. The term in Hyper-V you want to look for with your file storage servers is passthrough disks if you want to look direct into the storage without using a VHD. Personaly though the storage overhead won't be noticable in small deployments. Although...............NEVER EVER EVER use dynamically expanding VHDs in a production environment - its in the Microsoft best practice.

We use Citrix VDI in a box and 10zig thin clients in our classrooms and would imagine they would work just as well in a admin PC kinda area. One of the things you can do is set persistent desktops which aren’t refreshed on logout - that way your admin staff have a personal machine even though its VDI hosted. Another option is to just setup Windows 7 VMs on a Hyper-V server and then offer a direct RDP connection into the VMs - you would need Windows Embedded thin clients (which are nearly as much as a normal PC) to offer the best possible 'experience' though. Either way PM if you would like to know more!

Maybe something like this could help - Overview - Enkompass

Lets remember that just RAID on its own (even RAID6) isn't 100% sure that you won't loose data at some stage due to drive failure/ect. No system will ever be 100% but a good backup system is always a must - ideally a mix of both disk (for high speed backup/restore) and tape (for offsite).

Min number is 4

Scrap them fast - we always get rid of kit like that asap on the grounds of it only cloggs up the place and also as other have said it looks like you have 'spare' PCs.

I would imagine a certin level of control would be possible through exchange active sync (remote wipe ect). In a world of BYOD I don't see many companys handing out Windows 8 ARM tablets to people anyway so as long as as Citrix puts out a XenApp plugin for metro and RDP is included I will be going WOA (Windows on ARM) asap

You dont

Going to be moving to Lync 2010 on SIP trunks over April, have been looking at 3cx for a primary we support as well.

I can see what others saying about it being a terriable desktop OS and I agree - but on a tablet I think this is going to tick all the boxes If its possible to turn off Metro (as it was in the dev preview) then I will be happy though!

6 mins to download - running at about 8.11MB/s over IE9 atm