nut-ed

You may find this reference interesting. As per Dave-Os observations, it does seem VDI is much hyped as the next big thing, but most users seem to end up using "traditional" tried and trusted Terminal Services or Citrix. http://www.axesssystems.co.uk/pdf/casestudy-stretford.pdf Whatever you do - you could be advised to wait till W2008r2 SP1 is released, with its new RemoteFX technology - this promises to address the "multi-media" issue in low cost thin clients.... Is there anyone reading this who uses WMware Viewer in a school environment...? It seems many people virtualised their servers (successfully) and feel the obvious next step is to virtualise desktops - where in reality existing thin client technology has been doing a pretty good job of this for years.

OK- it's the silly season... Dragon Den's Peter Jones shows his knowledge of thin clients and skewers a salesman on his (un)green PC's made out of standard PC parts. I 'specially like Theo's question "What makes your machine special" and the salesman's answer: " Nothing at all - its all off the shelf" ...and Peter Jones is right about the green-ness of terminals over PCs, he just got a little confused between green-screen terminals (RS232?) and Winterms - but his power consumption argument would stand either way... Enjoy !

....rather than start a new post - I thought I'd recycle this one, in keeping with the subject... Things have moved on since the posts above - with feed in tarifs and more more expensive electricity/gas etc. Does anyone have any direct experience of solar power, it "looks" on the surface to be feasible now - Has anyone taken up these "free" PV solar systems where the installer gets the FIT tarif and you just get the free power ? I suppose if you sequentially run your dish washer, washing machine, immersion heaters this is pretty effective in summer - but in winter ? All the sales spiel says PV still generate power on cloudy days, but not so forward saying how much, anyone know how much power you can expect from a short, dark, cloudy English winter's day.... Any info from actual users would be very interesting... (Am considering this for home use, not work/school)

...at these prices a PC must look pretty tempting, costs less, more flexible, more powerful (?), and have same downsides as a PC in terms of manageability, virus implications, Windows updates, local user accounts etc). ThinStore - Thin Clients - Wyse - Windows XPe - R Class

This 10Zig product you're promoting and trying to sell on Edugeek is the generic clone product manufactured by Thin Client Provider somewhere deep in Taiwan, and re-badged by several wannabe instant thin client "manufacturers" yeah...? As a clone manufacturer they don't bring anything new to the party so please stop ramming it down our throats... Thanks

Has anyone tried Promethean on Terminal Services / Citrix. On paper the serial models should work using serial port re-direction... Anyone actually tried it....?

Out of interest is a warning issued before users are banned for "selling" on Edugeek - are are they zapped and don't know what hit them - this particular post does seem to have attracted more than its fair share of manufacturers touting their "me-too" products - good on the moderators for trying to limit the manufacturers spin/spam - it is appreciated !

...I read RemoteFX as being applicible to VDI AND regular old terminal services (W2008r2). VDI is overly complicated and expensive, does anyone actually use it ? - but TSE isn't expensive or resource hungry

The whole ballpark could well change when Microsoft's RemoteFX product emerges.... RDP has so many advantages over other methods, the one problem it does have is multimedia performance. (I've not done the maths - but I don't think cost is a factor "one server and bunch of TCs" should be about the same as "bunch of PCs + bunch of graphic cards +bunch of USB hubs - at the end of the day, one running one operating system and having all applications on a single server has got to be more efficient in terms of hardware than multiple PCs - even if you were able to 100% maximise each PC's hardware) RemoteFX is billed as being able to solve the multimedia issue, whether is does or not remains to be seen.... Microsoft announces "RemoteFX," the Calista-based Hyper-V-requiring PC-over-IP competitor. Here's our full analysis. - Brian Madden - BrianMadden.com What is pretty certain, with all these new technologies emerging there will be winners and losers - and no one wants to be stuck with a loser. Microsoft seem to normally end up on the winning side..!

A thought to share.... ...all these new technologies based on multiple clusters of PC + various bits of hardware... Maybe one day someone will come up with a technology where you just have one PC supporting dozens of users - and be able to lock the PC far away from the kids, and not be constrained by cable lengths, and use nice thin cable that can be embedded in walls and just use generic Microsoft products - and not be constrained to one vendors technology.... and supposing such a technology could operate over WANs and be aplicable for home users, and support all sorts of peripherals, and centralise all the virus, content, update management to one server (ooop I mean PC).... ..and be greener in terms of total power consumption... Oh well, one can dream.....maybe one day!

There is a parallel/similar discussion on another thread about the licence/legality of Ncomputing on XP, and from a licencing point of view its hard to see how/why MS would differentiate between multiple users hanging off a PC by a VGA cable or a USB cable or any other kind of cable for that matter http://www.edugeek.net/forums/thin-client-virtual-machines/50790-n-computing-anyone-using-3.html#post470974 Microsoft did provide a definitive answer to their licencing issue. (of course in favour of MS) It is hard to see how this thread is going to resolve without a similar formal quote - whether you feel it is necessary or not, the claims of one lone salesman are not very convincing.

Fair point - it remains to be seen if Multipoint/USB provides "sufficient" graphics performance - if it's not significantly better than "tried and tested" thin clients the whole thing may just fizzle out.

..... the HP Multipoint solution is based on a chip developed by a company founded by the engineer who was core to the team who invented VNC. Their main technology is video transmission/compression, so there is more "intelligence" to it than just supporting multiple virtual video cards and sending out VGA content. The link below gives more information - including something quite rare these days - some technical info about how it works... DisplayLink: Technology Overview So - generic VGA may work for Multipoint - but without whatever "Displaylink" bring to the party, presumably higher performance....

hmmm: a lot of nice sales blurb, but did he actually answer any of your questions..?

This could be an interesting product, as the company was formed by the guy who invented VNC and the main graphics engine for HP Multipoint thin clients. Not seen in it action personally - but he obviously knows a thing or two about transmitting graphics over networks... CODA Digital Signage for Education | Camvine