Would You Move to Windows Thin Clients? 118
"Most users will be running basic MS Office apps, Groupwise for e-mail, and accessing some Oracle databases. A consultant hired for preliminary recommendations is saying that we should run Windows XP on the thin client boxes, not even the embedded version but the full one. Additionally, some of our users have more powerful applications like AutoCAD and ArcMap. We have already determined that those users will not be moving to the thin client machines.
Our department has spoken with a Citrix support/sales person who claims you can support up to 1000 clients on a single Citrix server. That seems so far from what I have generally read that I have a hard time buying it. Can anyone corroborate that claim? Again, most users will be using Office, Groupwise, and accessing Oracle DBs.
Does anyone have any experience with a workplace making this sort of migration? I would love to find a way to make it work, but from the research I have done so far, it doesn't look like we are going to get any cost-savings (unless they miraculously decide to go with Linux)."
A couple of considerations (Score:5, Insightful)
The savings would be better with Linux, but they may very well be worthwhile anyway. Determine how much IT time you're going to save against the cost of the setup.
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:1)
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:2)
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:4, Informative)
Ever had to flash the damn firmware on 1000 dumb terminals, because the vendor made a coding error? Better yet, ever tried doing all that when a power failure during the upgrade processes requires an RTB repair because of the lame implementation?
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:2, Insightful)
Both of these options mean that whilst everyone would still be running windows as far as they are concerned, you could save a lot of money on the thin client front. Maybe even re-using your old PC's (always a good option to tell the bean counters!)
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:2)
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:2, Interesting)
I've always heard Windows thin clients described as a moving around of costs, not a cost-saver. The money you would have spent in desktops gets spent in servers+Citrix licenses. You don't have help desk people going out into the field to troubleshoot as much, but you have people spending time troubleshooting the servers. The real payoff is with the centralization.
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:2)
I wonder if the reader could get a spare server, some old machines and try out 20-30 clients?
I doubt you'd be disappointed. If all went well, you could try a next step of a limited or incremental test in one department, though I'm not sure of the poster's environment
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:1)
What about while "troubleshooting" it?
Instead of pissing off one person at a time... you end up pissing everyone off.
Very bad for your career.
Re:A couple of considerations (Score:4, Insightful)
Bingo! At a company I did IS/IT at quite a few years ago they (hmm as there were only two IT guys I guess I could say 'we') would buy random clone machines and switch gray market vendors to shave $50 off the price of a $1200 486DX/2-66 box. The proliferation of different hardware brands, interfaces, etc. was a tech support nightmare and we ended up needing to hire another IT guy just to keep everything running.
The minute you need one more guy to support your infrastructure it costs you $50,000 plus benefits and HR overhead to make up all the times you save $50 on the price of a machine. Ouch.
If you (through centralization) can support all those end users with the same number of IT staff, instead of adding ten more guys, over the course of three years (lifecycle of an operating system, machine, etc.) you are looking at a savings of $1,500 per desktop.
There is Still a Linux Option (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:There is Still a Linux Option (Score:2)
Re:There is Still a Linux Option (Score:2)
I can't say if this will be better or worse though, since I've never used Groupwise.
Re:There is Still a Linux Option (Score:2)
The biggest beef my users have with the web-based client is you can't access your archive.
er.. isn't moving stuff from your GW account and into a file somewhere else the whole point of archiving? How else should it work, in a way that allows the WA gateway to get at an archive that may be on another fileserver, or even the user's PC?
Re:There is Still a Linux Option (Score:2)
Our system has a system volume and post office volume that groupwise runs on. After 30 days, messages get archived and moved to a user directory on a file server elsewhere. Our clients can access the archive volume via a mapped drive (could be done any number of ways though, I think.)
If a client is remotely connected via GW web though, there is no link back to the archive, allowing the person to research a message history or something. (We deal with a fair amount of
Re:There is Still a Linux Option (Score:2)
If people need stuff that's older than 30 days, it's senseless to force them to archive it, especially as you're not saving any space on the GW
Re:There is Still a Linux Option (Score:2)
btw, if you're stuck in archiving hell, there's a nifty program from Nexic called Personal Publisher [nexic.com] which takes archives and spits out nice, WA-styled HTML pages from them (or ASCII, or several other formats). Not free - it's about $60 iirc - but very useful.
ps. my users' biggest gripe about WebAccess is the way that "Work in Progress" items just don't show up in WA. Now _that_ is something that's broken :)
Re:There is Still a Linux Option (Score:2)
Even if I am a moron, at least I can formulate my thoughts into more than three words while still saying something.
Re:There is Still a Linux Option (Score:2)
And I don't know if you just didn't read my post, or missed this, but I am desktop support. Not a GW admin. If it's set up wrong, blame my admins, not me. I personally do not like GroupWise, and a lot of my customers complain about it. That is what I was saying. If you read any
Probably not (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Probably not (Score:2)
Increase Admin Staff? What? (Score:2, Troll)
It is possible that thin clients are going to require hiring. Possibly, all of the current support staff is probably going to be fired, and people with thin client support experience are going to be hired.
Maybe it's time to update your resume.
I must be stupid (Score:2)
Your users are still going to be using Microsoft Office, Groupwise, and the custom-written applications to access the Oracle DB, right? Isn't most of your cost supporting these applications? Isn't supporting these applications on Linux going to be just as difficult?
Re:I must be stupid (Score:2)
Re:I must be stupid (Score:2)
Meanwhile, the user types in his password and starts working again. To the user, the machine is 100% identical. File shares, ema
Re:I must be stupid (Score:2)
Think of it this way: maintaining one server is a hell of a lot easier than maintaining 100 regular Windows systems, even if you just ghost each of them at the slightest sign of problems -- short of hardware failures on either the server (which
Re:I must be stupid (Score:2)
Also, our hardware is not all identical, and each unit pays for their own PCs from their budget code, so we can't pay for identical spares for them to have. We do keep some old PCs as emergency loaners though.
In our situation, I think lightweight
Re:I must be stupid (Score:2)
If "users can install any software they choose" and "users are encouraged to store files anywhere on the harddrive and not keep backups" are two of your business requirements, then nothing you've described -- not thin windows clients and not thin linux clients -- should even be considered for your environment. They don't match your business requ
Re:I must be stupid (Score:2)
Re:I must be stupid (Score:2)
Yep, it'll be just as difficult as going thin-client, but there are no licenses to buy, or hardware to upgrade.
Running Citrix or TS isn't the same as running plain-jane MSWindows - there are a ton of issues trying to make a single-user OS in
I'm going to keep this short and simple. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why change?
What do you need to 'fix' in the existing system?
Continue to use per-desk PC's, albeit cheaper/better/easier to administer, and continue to utilize 'upgrade' licensing schemes - the cheapest you can possibly get from Microsoft, is, probably, very cheap - to maintain the OS upgrade/fix end of things, and you can probably do this all very cheap.
"Thin-client" is just another word for extremely small/light/cheap PC-in-a-box. So maybe the simpler option to 'considering remote client solutions' is simply, put it all into better hardware (new CPU/more RAM/*standard* video for all systems/etc.) and don't change your existing software standards
If you maintain your existing stance with regard to how well your business problems are solved by your software systems, and give it a 'boost' with periodical hardware upgrades for key areas/servers every now and then, there is little reason to drastically change everything at all.
When the PC is akin to the size/heft of a block of printer paper, 'administration' becomes relatively trivial - particularly in an organization of 2,000 people or so... if you've got your software worked out.
Just get smaller, lighter, cheaper PC's, and refresh them every now and then. Convert as much as possible to cheap laptops and monitors, even.
They are out there.
Neither thin nor clients (Score:2)
That's the current usage, but it's always irritated me. Originally, "thin clients" were just simple diskless network computers [com.com] designed to run server-based Java applications. They were a little cheaper than PCs, but most of the savings was supposed to come from "cost of ownership" savings, since only the server would need ongoing maintenance.
Then Sun dropped the ball on producing a Java VM capable of supporting desktop applic
Re:Neither thin nor clients (Score:2)
Re:Neither thin nor clients (Score:2)
Wow... NEC must have a time-machine so, cause I remember using a thin-client back in 95 or 96 or so when Java was still at the neat idea stage.
The original thin clients were the old tele-typewriters, followed by the CRT terminals of course, followed by the X-terminals. Of course, you meant thin client in the Windows sense, where indeed, many do run Java
Re:Neither thin nor clients (Score:2)
Re:Neither thin nor clients (Score:2)
By your definition, the traditional network client/server computing definition, a teletype/terminal is not a client. You could though make an argument that client should be read in the more abstract sense, ie the terminal acts as a client to the server for the user. Indeed, that would make more sense, as a thin client tends to imply hardware being involved
With the qualifier thin applied, the traditional network client/server def
Some observations and rules of thumb. (Score:5, Informative)
You will definitely want Citrix here for the advanced management and capabilities over Terminal Services alone (application publishing, advanced load balancing, managment console, etc).
If you take the benchmark numbers I mentioned earlier and add 20% or so for redundancy, you are looking at a farm of about 24 servers vice 100. Using the management capabilities of Citrix and server cloning techniques, administration of this farm will be be pretty easy. A single, experienced Citrix administrator can handle most of the level 2 and 3 support for this farm. With server cloning, adding additional identical servers for growth/redundancy down the road is easy.
You have correctly identified users of AutoCad and ArcMap as poor candidates for this type of environment due to the heavy requirements and graphics of these applications.
I disagree with the consultant that full blown XP is the best solution for the client. He/she may be hedging their bet for any Windows based applications that would not run well under Terminal Services/Citrix. If this is not the case, there are several Linux-based thin clients that would work well and would have a lower cost.
Re:Some observations and rules of thumb. (Score:2)
As long as the servers got what you need, and the power users got full on machines, you shouldn't have a problem.
Re:Some observations and rules of thumb. (Score:2)
Re:Some observations and rules of thumb. (Score:2)
Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
10-25 users? Gimme a break!
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
Microsoft, with all it's billions, hasn't been able to match the quality of Linux. It's sad, really.
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
Bollocks.
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
Wow, that's the best argument I've ever heard! I guess I'll just have to stop using Linux, since you're obviously right.
Sorry to waste your time.
Dumbass.
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
Tell that to my printer, that started printing without any configuration, all I had to do was plug it in (and reboot).
Ever heard of kudzu?
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
"...whenever I install hardware on a windows box, I need some obscure driver disk, but whenever I install hardware on a linux box, it Just Works[tm]."
What you actually mean is:
"I plugged a printer into my Linux box and it worked."
Well done! May you never have to install a USB ADSL modem, webcam, or firewire video camera.
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
My system has a printer, cd burner, ethernet card, video card (ATI radeon 9000), and a sound card (creative sb live), among other things.
When I used to use windows, all these things would require a separate driver disk, or going to the manufacturer's website to get the drivers. When I installed linux, it all just worked without any driver disks.
Go figure.
Re:Would you move to windows thin clients? (Score:2)
With recent versions of Windows, No, they wouldn't.
Looking at it as well (Score:5, Insightful)
That puts you at 12 Citrix servers.
Next, according to the Citrix folks I've worked with, Windows Server 2003 handles Citrix MUCH more efficiently than Windows 2000 resulting in -- according to them -- a doubling of the number of users possible on each server. Since I don't quite buy that, let's go with a factor of 1.5 times the users rather than doubling. But let's stick with 12 4-way Citrix server to account for redundancy which you will surely want for this solution. Heck -- let's go with 15 even. It's still a lot fewer than 100.
I agree that -- at the beginning, using old hardware would save money initially. But, consider the support angle for a second. Rather than new, identical thin clients, you'll still have whatever you currently support for desktops. If you just maintain the copy of Windows that's on there, when one breaks, it's a total reload. If you use the new thin clients, it's a matter of swapping out the unit and they're less expensive to buy initially as well as more reliable due to fewer moving parts. You should see support costs drop dramatically with this rollout.
The Citrix guy that mentioned 1000 users on a single box had to be talking about something much larger than 4 processors... personally, I would recommend a cluster of 4 ways servers for teh redundancy that it would provide in the event of a hardware failure.
Going with Linux won't necessarily save in the long run. Sure -- you'll save on the initial software acquisition. But consider the support, end-user retraining and other problems that could crop up. Even if you use Cross Over office or something like that, your users WILL require retraining and you will suffer a productivity issue initally.
Not going with a Linux solution won't automatically doom the project nor will it prevent savings from the implementation.
I'm all for Linux (I have it deployed where it makes sense), but am wary of making generalizations that it automatically saves money.
Re:Looking at it as well (Score:2)
Re:Looking at it as well (Score:2)
Re:Looking at it as well (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a definite win, and certainly something that would be difficult to do for everyone overnight, but you need your IT staff for something after all those thin clients get rolle
Re:Looking at it as well (Score:2)
The post said:
I would love to find a way to make it work, but from the research I have done so far, it doesn't look like we are going to get any cost-savings (unless they miraculously decide to go
Re:Looking at it as well (Score:2, Insightful)
And our experience with Citrix is that it adds a whole lot of $$$ to the equation without bringing much to the table. If you aren't using non-RDP client
Re:Looking at it as well (Score:2)
sounds like a mess. (Score:3, Interesting)
In my experience, the big benefit of having a Citrix server is being able to run Windows applications from clients that are not x86-based. For example, if the client is running Solaris on SPARC, but needs access to a Windows-only application, then that client can just access it through Citrix. Then any slowness from the network or the (loaded) server is somewhat acceptable, seeing as how you couldn't otherwise run the application. But that doesn't sound like the case at all in your scenario.
Also, you might want to see what VMWare [vmware.com] has to offer; they are also in the x86 Server virtualization market.
Re:sounds like a mess. (Score:2)
IMHO, thin clients are good for call centers, where you want to keep the application locked down, and ease of administration. There is no reason to replace everyone's PC just for thin clients, in fact all those older PC's make great thin client machines. Then you just have to upgrade the power users machines, and they can still use thin client softwar
Preliminary Research (Score:2)
"From my preliminary research, there is very little savings when moving to a thin client environment that isn't based on Linux."
At least that was preliminary research.
I know Linux is "out", but... (Score:4, Interesting)
The server itself was considered too slow to run Windows. It had been retired from the Windows domain, and the bean counters have written it off the books. Yet there it is, serving a vital business function to my users that is about to scale up to another ~30 users in the next couple of weeks.
Every bit of software involved in making this happen was free. The hardware was, effectively, free. And I'm already handling more users than the newfangled expensive Windows 2000 Terminal Server that is parked in the same rack.
This move was made to stave off the sudden onslaught of requests for a second machine (linux) at every desk. The corporate standard desktop has been and will be Windows for some time to come. But setting up a Linux box with lots of RAM, fast disk and Xvnc has already saved us over $45,000 that would have otherwise been spent on dedicated Linux machines at every desk.
It depends depends depends (safest thing to say) (Score:3, Interesting)
What do korean Cyber Cafe owners do? Theres some korean software better than PCSecure that allows access to all programs but renders the entire system read-only except the directories where you need to write. And then the admin remotely deletes those directories.
So admining over 70 systems, I can really understand your need to be in full control of all those systems without hiring a team of highschoolers. Its much worse if various clients need different software, many expect full control of their system and noone tolerates a slow boot. UNIX fixes these problems so beautifully.
I did some research years ago on remote-booting Windows98 maybe on gigabit ethernet and powerful servers. Theres a linux howto on how windows can be copied on a freshly made partition after a net boot, then booted. So it all really depends on each situation.
You mentioned XP. To decrease maintenance on hundereds of machines, use something more reliable and tested, like Windows98 or Win2k.
We use terminal services on all the 70 workstations with about 20 working at any time, and it works perfectly. To be fair, I'll tell you the server is an IBM eSeries with 2x PentiumIIIs and 2gigs of ram and 10k cheetah disks. On Pentium1 clients, the apps run much better on TS than native.
For any network based solution make sure your pipes are fat. Get good switches, tune them and do ethereal to test the switch-based traffic, make sure all clients have the good 3com NICS, should be all PCI 100 speed at least, and if you can help it, start with gigabit ethernet.
Oh yeah, since you're asking slashdot for help, if you do succeed in a new solution, you're obliged to submit a howto.
Cheers.
Re:It depends depends depends (safest thing to say (Score:2)
What's Wrong with This Picture? (Score:1)
Re:What's Wrong with This Picture? (Score:2)
"saving money, microsoft, windows, easier admin."
There aren't 100's of people denying it simply because they hate Microsoft?
Re:What's Wrong with This Picture? (Score:2)
Is it really that hard to believe? It's been said before here that linux admins tend to be a lot more skilled than Windows admins. More skill = higher pay. If any Windows monkey can keep Windows machines going, then yes it will be cheaper to maintain them. It doesn't hurt that most people have a Windows computer at home, so they're already fammiliar with it. No retraining here.
You should be able to support more users... (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC, the server was a low end Dell Poweredge (the ones that come standard with a 7200RPM IDE drive). I think a single PIII in the I've also had 60-70 users on dual processor servers running database apps and custom software. At 75 users, the server would start to drop connections, and we had to put another server in. It really all depends on the apps.
My advice would be to set up a test server. MS has scripts you can use to load test. I'd guess that with a dual processor, 1GB RAM, Ultra160 server you should be able to serve 100+ office users. Up it to a quad Xeon, 2GB RAM and you should approach 200 users/server. It could be higher or lower depending on the applications and usage patterns of your employees, of course. If they all use the same apps (Word, Excel, etc.) then one nice thing is that the EXEs and DLLs only get loaded once, so you'll really save on memory. But if they're all working on 250 page documents, then you'll still have to worry about RAM. I assume, of course, that these will be dedicated terminal servers, since you're talking so many users.
Here [citrix.com] (PDF) is a good whitepaper on the subject. It's part MS propaganda, of course, but there's alot of good info in it and the numbers aren't too far off reality. Like I said though, the only real answer is it depends on your usage patterns.
As for increasing IT staff, I don't know how many you have (staff or servers) now, but adding 5-10 terminal servers shouldn't be a very large burden. I'd set up the terminal servers identically, and then you can script or Ghost a new install. Data would be stored on existing file servers, so you don't even need to back up the terminal servers.
Thin clients would be your least hassle option, but as you've no doubt found out...they're expensive. Yesterday's hardware running Windows 2000 or XP Pro should be more than sufficient though. Unfortunately, it doesn't release you from the patch management cycle, but with 1000+ users you should hopefully already have something in place to handle that already.
So, you're question is can you save money doing this? I'd say no, not right now. I'd guess that your current hardware is sufficient to run your current apps (Office, Groupwise, etc.) so you won't save money in that respect. 1000 users demands some sort of patch and application management. You'll still have the patch management issues, and whatever you're using for application management (GPOs, SMS, etc.) is already licensed. No costs savings there. You'll need 5-10 more servers + operating systems to purchase and maintain. You'll need to keep some desktop support staff to deal with the underlying OS on your client machines, as well as your users who won't be running terminal services. So, unless you have an abundance of desktop techs, I don't think you'll save money there either. Your admins will still need to maintain the current servers, plus the additional 5-10. A server outage will take down 100-200 users, though they can be load balanced to running servers on reconnect, but they'll still lose their current state.
On the positive side, desktop issues can be taken care of quicker and with less legwork. Software upgrades are easier and quicker, requiring less staff. Backup is centralized (if it's not already).
On the whole, I'd say unless you regularly upgrade your PC's or software, are due for a HW/SW upgrade, or have a lot of desktop techs you'll be out about the cost of the servers. But, that's just a guess. I only tend to use TS in remote user environments, or in no admin remote offices to avoid most travel issues. I've never been convinced of a benefit to most companies in using it in place of desktop PC's.
the laptop issue... (Score:1)
joelja
I won't do anything else with Windows in Business (Score:2, Interesting)
We have all 80 staff around the country (currently) connecting to 1 Terminal server for Office 97, Outlook, membership system. We do have a second TS that runs PageMaker and PhotoShop. And a third waiting to be rebuilt to create a wee bit of redundancy
Although our desktops are Win 2k Pro (cut right back and run the ICA and RDP clients) we have only 2 appli
Missing one big point (Score:1)
TS for Windows should be ea
Test first (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at costs and ROI and decide on a minimum acceptable ratio before you start. Is 10:1 worth it? How about 20:1? 50:1? 100:1?
The important thing is that you TEST before you deploy across the company. Find a few people IN DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS who are willing to help (or be coerced) with your testing. Different departments are important because you want all of the pieces tested. For the salespeople, Powerpoint matters; for the bean counters, Excel. Buy one decent server. Worst case is that you get to replace the oldest machine in the shop a year sooner than planned. Convince Citrix to give you a trial license for a few months. Tell them that there'll be plenty of other purchases if the trial goes well.
Dedicate at least one full-time person to setting up the server. Remember- you're on the clock with the trial license. Get a client set up ASAP. Do what work you can through the client -- it's more testing. Deploy 5-10 clients for a week (few enough that you can visit all of them in-person in a short amount of time if there are problems) while you iron out replication and performance issues. If all's good, add another 10 each week in a controlled test roll-out until things bog down. If things are looking good, pull in any documentation or training people NOW, before the test users get too comfortable with the system.
Once things have bogged down, look at your target number. If you beat it, great! Run with it. If you didn't, how close were you? If you need 100:1 and you bogged down at 20:1, it's time to give up. If you bogged down at 90:1, maybe it's worth looking at tweaks to the server or network. Remember that at this point, Citrix is hoping to make a pile of money from you, so they may be willing to lend engineering help to your cause.
Reading and research is good, but not sufficient. Your environment is like nobody else's except perhaps your closest competitor -- and they're not going to help you out. You need to test YOUR setup and YOUR users.
Would you move to Windows Thin Clients? (Yes!) (Score:3, Informative)
Individual users have different ways of working --not everybody is going to slam the farm in the same way at the same time every time they need to use a published app. Even with all one hundred of my client access licenses checked out, CPU utilization and paging on individual boxes in the farm stayed well below my alarm thresholds.
Generic productivity apps for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and email just don't demand much from a CPU. Given the apps you intend to support (Groupwise, MS Office, and some Oracle front ends) I can't see you needing even 10 Citrix servers. Your best bet is put up a test farm and then perfmon your CPU utilization and swapping. Baseline it and then start adding users. Citrix have a very liberal demo program and you should take advantage of it.
As far as corroborating the claim of 1000 clients on a single Citrix server, I supported over twice that many (2270 to be exact) UNIX users with a single Citrix server, a PII running at 233MHz with 768MB of RAM. I started with 15 concurrent access licenses and 512MB of RAM. I added 15 more access licenses and another stick of SDRAM after the early users started spreading the word to the rest of the users how useful it was to be able to take care of company documentation right on your HPUX box and not have to wait for one of the five bull-pen NT workstations to open up. I published the MS Office 97 suite, plus Lotus cc:Mail and Visio, and the server never bottlenecked at the CPU or in paging. I also got to surplus those 5 bull-pen boxes and save the company the annual support fee we were paying to our out-sourcer, half of which, btw, showed up in my xmas bonus that year.
If you are going to publish apps with low CPU utilization like Word and Excel, I think you can easily support your thousand users with a handful of Citrix boxes.
Re:Would you move to Windows Thin Clients? (Yes!) (Score:1)
Always curious--where do you work that has 1100 Macs? I thought i knew most of the major Mac install sites, but that doesn't fit the profiles that I know.
Would be happy to discuss this off-list if you prefer. Email addy is above.
Re:Would you move to Windows Thin Clients? (Yes!) (Score:1)
-Rocket Rancher
Not Citrix / Do you Due Dilligence (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you NEED Citrix? or are there other applications out there that does what Citrix does at a lower cost? Look at Newmoon Systems [slashdot.org] they have some excellent solutions that are very cost effective and superior to Citrix in environments.
Call you IBM Direct representative. They have some excellent whitepapers regarding server virtulization and Citrix (from a company called Conseco Finance I believe)
Do your research and talk to LOTS of people. Maybe even hire a professional consultant to help you with this project.
My office uses a combiantion of Thin and Fat Clients in carefully monitored and locked down environments to provide applications to 30 medical offices in 18 states. Thin clients don't do everything and Fat Clients are not always better, but Citrix is an expensive licensing beast.
Good Luck. Write a How-To when you are done!
6 vs. half-dozen (Score:3, Insightful)
Based on the above, lets call initial costs a wash, or perhaps thin client costs twice as much compared to normal PCs.
Now it comes down to whether you believe the gartner TCO b*llsh%t. Make some wild-assed assumptions and you can come up with a 'cost model' that will support any position you want to take.
Our experience:
Citrix/WTS works well for remote access and for running apps from non-windows platforms. It's also good for remote offices where the function is well defined and there's a small number of users (e.g.: retail locations).
Problem: Security is essentially non-existant. There is a veneer of what appears to be a 'locked down' environment, but there is always some way to open a help window or somesuch and pop into IE and then *bam* you've got the ability to browse the file system and run just about anything.
Another problem: Because Citrix/WTS allocates memory per user and does not share between users, vast amounts of memory are needed per server. We have an app that uses 180MB per user, so for 10 users we need around 2GB of RAM. This puts a hard upper limit on how many users can use a memory-intensive application.
We also use Linux and X-Windows. Running a java swing app that takes about 80MB per user, around 70MB is shared, so each user takes a delta of 10MB. That same 10 user mix uses around 170-180MB of RAM vs. 800MB+ if it ran on Citrix. Also, since much of the app is shared, CPU cache is much more effectively utilized and performance is much better as well.
Perhaps you could concentrate on migrating apps to X-Windows and running them on Linux servers. This won't work for everything, but it may end up providing a lot more business value.
Good luck. You'll need it.
A view of our MF farm, a few steps back... (Score:3, Interesting)
- Printing can be a nightmare. The individual Win print spoolers hang, eating cpu and stalling print jobs for all users on that server. The solution to print jobs going just anywhere was to create an initial default printer eqivalent to
- Roaming user profiles are insane. Add another server to collect them; it _must_ be up or the entire farm is useless. Need to make a global change? Everyone loses all customizations after all profiles are reset to the default. Try to find what svr a user is on? Enjoy browsing the uselist on each machine.
- MS apps are the worst-behaved. Heavy memory footprint, cpu monopolization, cross-user flakiness & registry weirdness. What fun!
- Vendors tout MF compatibility, it will be your problem to make it work (at all).
- Install mode, execute mode and uninterruptible install reboots.
The MF admin now takes a fanatically strict approach about what makes it on the farm. Any slight weirdness, it don't make it on.
Hell no! Don't go there! (Score:5, Informative)
Let me reiterate one point: This is a user's perspective of Citrix from someone with a predominantly UNIX and networking technical background. I do *not* have a clue about the finer points of managing Citrix installations, nor do I wish to after the last few hateful months with it!
The big selling points of thin clients are supposed to be a lower TCO and better security and management. In short, for WinTerms at least, this is pure marketing bullshit. Sure, it's a couple of hundred bucks a seat cheaper for your hardware and your end users can't install a macro virus or whatever. Well, actually, that last point is wrong. It's perfectly possible to have a user trash your Citrix server if the code happens to get executed there because your AV vendor wasn't on the ball or a patch was broken, only now they can effectively take down twenty other users at the same time.
Another thing that they don't tell you is that software licensing is a fricking nightmare - 1,000 users and 500 seats still equates to 1,000 licenses in many cases. We use Microsoft apps a lot, and they are totally inconsistent in their licensing requirements for thin clients, so much so that we now have full time staff just looking into thin client software licensing issues. Some other vendors are better, others are worse. Others are MUCH worse. More $$$ on the TCO.
Let's look at that TCO a little, while we are here. A tier 1 Windows corporate PC (after bulk discount) is roughly 1000 for us, including all of your office apps (cheap because they are bundled). A Wyse term is setting us back around 700, including your hopefully per-seat software licenses (not as cheap because they are unbundled, but on a bulk purchase scheme). *But* for each 10-20 users, you need a server. We run at 15 and still have performance issues, and we are talking dual Xeon boxes with 2GB of ECC RAM here; not cheap. The hardware/software costs are, in fact, about the same per seat, if anything thin clients are more expensive.
So, that leaves the management aspect of TCO. OK, there's less patching to be done, right? Well, actually no, since all the updates on our traditional desktops and laptops are handled either by the AV application directly or via a systems management package. No savings there. Warranties? Nope. That evens out in the same way that the hardware costs do. First line support costs? No, users still have the same problems with Office and what not. Second and third line support costs then? Ah! Finally a difference; you get to cut back on all your school leaver PC techies at near minimum wage and hire some Citrix Consultants instead, sure you only need half as many, but they come at three times the salary.
Citrix itself comes across a horrible hack to anyone who has used UNIX thin clients over X11. Performance sucks if you try and do moving video; even VNC managed to do better. And by moving video, I mean a flash animation like you get in a web page, not DVD quality FMV. The screen update code is nothing short of appalling; quite often a webpage is unreadable because the *entire* screen is updating to display one lousy Flash advert, and I've even seen mouse rollovers on links cause this. Whatever happened to atomic updates? While I'm slating the Citrix code, lets take a look at some of the other issues I've had the misfortune to experience:
Fire your consultant ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Your consultant is an idiot, fire him. Besides that, you have to decide if you're going to seriously persue a thin client strategy or not. If you're doing this for cost savings and don't want to move to Linux on the client side, look into VNC or TightVNC. However, this is a not a real thin client and to be honest I wouldn't do it becuase it's probably going to fail.
If this was my shop and we were serious about saving money, I'd go with Linux or BSD on the existing client side hardware and run an X server based thin client. If your hardware is a fairly standard configuration, you could even go with a diskless setup and remove all admin needs on the client side. The windows application server could be implemented using VNC running on W2K -or- Win4Lin terminal server on Linux -or- Crossover Office Server on Linux. This won't allow your CAD user to migrate however, unless a Linux flavor of their software exists, they're stuck on Win.
Back to your consultant, the key to saving money with thin clients is to reduce costs on the client side. Springing for XP and hardware upgrades on the client is 180 degrees from your stated goals. My guess is he's merely reciting his MCSE crap to ensure he can come back for future billable work.
Re:Fire your consultant ... (Score:2)
Controling Windows via VNC works but is slow. The VNC team acknowledges this and blames it on the fact that Windows isn't open. Anyway, going the other way, controling a Linux box from Windows (or Linux for that matter), is quite snappy. But since this guy is after Windows apps I don't see how a VNC solution could really help.
Yes (Score:2)
Also, a light footprint on the client side means less games, spyware, security patches, etc that need to be handled by deskside support.
Maintaining 100 servers is cheaper in terms of manpower than maintaining 15 desktops, and labor costs are probaly the largest component of your firm's overhead.
DIY Windows 'Thin Clients' (Score:1)
The kiosk boxes used pxe and nfs mounted root. The systems used autologin to an account that would only load a full screen rdesktop session to our central terminal server. Any of the linux diskless web kiosk type instructions would work, j
Win4Lin Terminal Server? (Score:2)
Desktop Refresh Myth (Score:3, Informative)
Citrix works where it works, in a stable single app environment (think call center). It is more trouble than it's worth (time,effort,$) in an envionment that requires the barest minimum of flexibility.
We have a citrix desktop that loses user files, has monster security hole (browse the servers files any one) and barely changes year to year because our admins don't know how to work it (we use $$$ consultants).
Stay away unless you are braver than I.
SD
License Agreement (Score:2)
Before any jackass makes a comparison to the GPL, remember that Microsoft's EULA is a license on usage while the GPL is a license on distribution. Huge difference. Read this [slashdot.org] comment for more information.
It would be rather simple to point out to the
Thin clients belongs to 1980 (Score:1, Troll)
a) Animations at 50fps (flash etc)
b) No CPU limit
Central computer mainframes are a big mess, and they become outdated very fast, and this updating is very expensive. It's just an excuse for admins that do not know how to automate updates for his/her clients.
No (Score:2)
The performance of thin client solutions such as Citrix sucks big time if people are dedicated users (i.e., more than ocassional PC users). Just scrolling rapidly through large documents in Word can slow the server to a crawl (and strangely this is process rather than network related) so say each power user = at least 4 Citix standard users.
Citrix is slow but it is a g
Thin Client Farms (Score:1)
In my experiance the big catch with this sort of migration is software compatability. There are a lot of Windows application where only one copy can be run at a time, shared memory conflicts etc. To get round this people are starting to look at a 1:1 client server ratio, using blades or virtual machines. In this way user A ca
Cost savings (Score:4, Interesting)
Is thin client really a cost-saving approach to a large user environment?
In my experience, yes. Look at this:
At a customer site we have the following implementation, fully Linux: every location has one or more application servers where people log in with their thin clients. There is a master application server. At every location on application master is promoted to be a local master. Every night the local masters synchronize with the global master, and later the remaining application servers synchronize with their local masters.
This means that you have to install an application server only on the global master, the next day all other servers have that application as well. Zero point of administration when it comes to that. The configuration files are not synch'ed from the global master, but at every location the application servers synchronize their configuration (/etc directory with a few exceptions) with their local masters, which means for example that configuring a new printer just has to be done on the local master, the next day all servers at that location know about that new printer.
Users' home directories are mounted via NFS from another server.
And now for the Windows part in this picture: we use VMWare and their persistent disk images (I think they're called like that; they throw away all changes and remain constant). On these VMWares we run Windows 2000 servers to which people can connect via rdesktop (RDP). We are now able to administrate just the Windows image of the global master (by temporarily switching off the persistance option), and the next day all other Windows images are the same. That's also pretty resistant to viruses and worms: just reboot in case of infection :-)
This saves money, since the only points to administrate are the global master and sometimes the local masters (site specific configuration stuff like printers).
wyse (Score:1)
Whats the load? (Score:2)
I've seen ~300 users on a dual processer box (2 years ago whatever was current). However these were primarly UNIX people who had a unix thin terminals, and only used the windows to check their outlook calander, and once in a while open a word document. All their normal work (including non-calander email, and non-microsoft word processing) was done on a unix machine that only managed ~10 users before lack of CPU slowed it down.
In other words you need to figgure out how much load you will have. If everyon
Windows and thin? (Score:1)
I side with Citrix (Score:2)
Do a pilot program to test server loading
PXE boot a client? (Score:2)
Re:PXE boot a client? (Score:3, Informative)
It gets us off of Windows for the PCs, and will give us RDP. (using rdesktop - http://rdesktop.org) pxes also supports X, ssh, text terminals, and more.
Ideal for migrating to a new app perhaps? (Score:2)
A common complaint from faculty is that we just show up one day and install new apps. Providing a term server so they can learn on the new software before deploying might pacify them.