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SMS is costly and difficult. Depending on the size of your IT department, SMS is probably overkill. After investigating SMS, we went with Citrix, which provides an architecture for Windows which is similar (please forgive the gross generalization) to X (client-server remote apps).

Install the software once, and all users have remote access. Citrix allows for all sorts of OSs to connect, as well. There are Windows, Mac, Linux, Win CE, PocketPC, etc clients, so all of your users have access to a Windows Desktop with Windows apps.

If you have no need for non-Windows clients, check out Microsoft Terminal Server. Same thing, but only Windows clients. The benefit is cheaper licensing -- if you buy Citrix for Windows 2000, you have to pay Terminal Server licensing as well. (Sorta like paying the mob for "protection").

Citrix is much easier to manage than SMS, and does not require an entire Windows infrastructure -- just a few servers. Figure 50 users (Office, Internet, Custom Apps, NOT streaming media or video games) per server. An office of 150 people will need ~3 servers (give or take, depending on usage.)

Combo Citrix with a good Windows X server (Cygwin is free), and you have a great cross-platform solution for any desktop using apps for Windows and Unix, simultaneously!!!!

The nice thing about this license, the license is in an editable text field: if there's a term of the license you don't agree with, just delete it.

In fact, before I downloaded the stuff, I deleted the entire license and replaced it with something like "No restrictions; anything goes." I'm sure there are even more clever edits out there. Heck, visit today just to accept the license.

Your imagination may vary.

Yeah, Never going to happen

And, of course there is not a citrix client for any unix varient

Thin-client technology in the Windows world is getting pretty robust these days, between Microsoft's Terminal Services, Citrix Metaframe and competitiors like Tarantella and New Moon's Canaveral.

Also, Citrix Metaframe for Unix allows you to run Unix apps remotely using the ICA protocol, which is a bit "thinner" than X11.

So using one of the products above, a several of which have clients for PocketPC, you can run Windows or Unix apps. No sweat. To take it one step further, you can serve up the apps to the thin-client server using something like Softricity's SoftGrid which "virtualizes" the applications - they run in a little OS "bubble" so you don't actually have to install them on your app server - so you won't have old crappy legacy apps stomping on eachother when you run them on the same box.

I hope this company has a few more tricks, because I don't see anything new or special in their products.

-Jeff

Citrix has a client for Pocket PC, and there's a VNC client for PalmOS.

Is it just me or does the four years these guys spent perfecting the code they "stumbled upon" seem like a huge waste of time?

How about Citrix? Other thin client/heavy server applications?

Windows uses the much smarter RDP protocol for thin-clients. RDP is hooked into the GDI at a low level, and transfers only the minimum information required to clients. Clients can cache images, and expose their local files and devices to the server. There are clients available for every platform imaginable.

The new Mira technology is basically a dumbed-down version of the professional thin-client stuff for home users. Some friends already have similar networks running at home, and I've experimented too. It's amazing to access your full desktop from any computer, anywhere, anytime. Over ADSL it's fast enough to do most typical office tasks like reading email or writing documents.

The Windows XP "Remote Assistance" tool uses RDP, so it can give you an idea of what Mira will be like.

Win2k server have something called "Terminal Services," which are fairly similar to the product Citrix offers. It's even multi-user.

This is just a new spin on thin-clients...look at the specs

Citrix® ICA® Client 6.0
Microsoft RDP 5.1

http://www.citrix.com/products/metaframe/default.a sp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/technologies/ terminal/default.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/ProductInfo/term inal/default.asp

Yes, yes, it rides on top of Terminal Services or Windows 2000. But before you go off on a rant, it supports everything as a client from Dos to windows, to Unix, to OS2/warp, to Irix. It has Java clients, Web clients that imbed into a browser(netscape or IE), and did I mention anything that will run JAVA?

NFuse rocks, and guess what they don't just do this kind of thing for windows shells and *nix clients. They have pure java platforms running on linux and solaris. Citrix is way way way out on the power curve when it comes to this stuff. Coming from and admin that supports a multi-national 400+ Citrix node it central administration and control are just wonderful. Anyway I am not hear to get you to use Citrix because it will not be cost effective for most here and I will get bashed for the dreaded Microsoft, but anyone that says that Citrix sucks either never spent enough time working with it, or does not have a clue.

Give it a look.

With SpeedScreen2 the refresh rate is great, I have 40 people per dual proc machine surfing, mailing, and using the office suite. Hell you can even install a rouge copy of citrix and never register it but it will only work for one user tho it will last forever. This is very nice to set up on the box at home for remote access when your out on the road.

Enjoy

Both Citrix ICA and Tarantella do this. Citrix is proven on the Windows platform and is all in all a nice program. we have had great success with it here. there are plugins and clients for Linux, Solaris, Apple, and others. Tarantella i know less about, but its server runs on multiple OS, and has clients for several as well. Both applications give you a full remote desktop over the network on local clients or web plugins. they run on a server, so you can have several users on the same server doing different things at the same time. they also scale well and have load-balancing built in (citrix does anyway). they also provice straight up remote application support. These programs are much better than VNC for a remote-desktop purpose -- VNC is bad over slow connections and handles images and screen-redraws horribly. It would be really nasty to develop anything over it. and then there is the whole problem of multiple users, and what if my connection dies and i forget to lock my desktop? its just not worth the risk.

just my $0.02. hope this helps....

Citrix Metaframe running on top of Terminal Server.

If you're looking to pay through the nose for software licenses, take a look at Citrix. You can load balance servers for high application availability. It's stable and proven software, but it's also very expensive. There are Citrix ICA clients for most Operating Systems, thus allowing you to access your applications remotely from most platforms.

On the other hand, if you're looking for a more cost effective solution then just use VNC to access your workstation(s) remotely.

There are plenty of thin client solutions available, it's just a matter of making sure you pick one that suits your a) needs and b) budget.

But Citrix , with MS Terminal Services, provides the technology to make this a resonable goal. It's not cost-effective for one user, but if you're a business and you want to provide this to a group of users, it's a good solution.

Using NFuse (Citrix's web portal solution, free if you already own Citrix Metaframe) and their "web clients", you can connect to apps, or a "desktop in a window" from just about any type of client - Windows, Mac, Unix, and CE to some extent. You can do a lot of this with just Windows Terminal Services, but Citrix adds the non-MS client support and a lot of better features. I'm sure there are some ASPs out there somewhere providing what you need using Citrix. A lot of them died a horrible death though.

Standard disclaimer - I don't work for Citrix, but I use their stuff a lot.

-Jeff

That's interesting, because Citrix wrote a BIG check to license Microsoft's codebase for OS/2 and NT when it first started. Citrix basically "went to bed" with Microsoft and created a multi-user version of OS/2 (Citrix Multi-user) then further created a multi-user NT with WinFrame.

Then Microsoft decided there was something to this Citrix thing and decided to put the technology directly into the OS.

Citrix was wise enough to take the money and license their code back to Microsoft rather than go head to head against them. (After all, they kind of need MS, don't they?)

At that point, Citrix repositioned themselves to be an add-on provider and started working on ways to diversify their "thin-client" mission.

They're doing well at it. And frankly, just like most other Microsoft initiatives, Terminal Services SUCKS without MetaFrame.

For the Citrix spin on where they've been: read me

Use a small Linux distro if you don't want to but any of the precooked terminals.

TinyX handles X for Linux, Unix and BSD
RDesktop handles Terminal Services for NT4TSE and Windows 2000
The Metaframe Client does, obviously, Metaframe on your Windows and Solaris app servers.

Here's how we solved the multi-home problem despite CIDR. We wanted to make a web service (Citrix ALE) available over our T-1, or over our DSL (from a different provider) if the T-1 fails. The solution was to get a cheap Web hosting service that will use our (already registered) domain name to host a couple of static pages that point to our servers by IP address. One set of pages points to the address we got from the T-1 provider, the other points to the DSL address.

When Big Brother thinks the main connection is down, we ftp over the backup connection to the off-site web host, make the other set of pages the default, and our users now come in on the other circuit. We change the Alternate Address on the Citrix servers, and we're back in business.

Your out of luck I'm afraid buddy as this is a "feature" of TS.

Adding Citrix XPs with give you more colours, better management tools etc.

The trick with Office applications is the document formats need to be 100% compatible with the standard, which for many is Microsoft. As long as you can maintain compatibility like that in the Linux office suites, Linux has a chance to catch up and win. I remember when Word Perfect was the standard in an office I worked. Because MS Word could read WP files, we were able to switch over very fast. Granted there is a little bit more work invoved in changing your whole OS, it can be done.

I actually do quite a bit of work at home using my Linux box. For those apps which I need that are only available on Windows, I run those through my Citrix ICA client.

Yes

It seems to me this article seemed to illustrate many keypoints of what Citrix Metaframe can do, minus the fault tolerance.

Is it that you don't know Citrix MetaFrame exists or are unwilling to accept that it works?

If Citrix's website was up right now, I'd point you to a demo page where you could run a remote desktop over the web. Wow, intrestingly enough, the site just back up (or maybe it was my connection). The demo login is here. The UNIX/Linux client download page is here.

Is it that you don't know Citrix MetaFrame exists or are unwilling to accept that it works?

If Citrix's website was up right now, I'd point you to a demo page where you could run a remote desktop over the web. Wow, intrestingly enough, the site just back up (or maybe it was my connection). The demo login is here. The UNIX/Linux client download page is here.

For WinNT 4 you could use software from Citrix that allowed for thin clients. With Win2000 and beyond that functionality is incorporated, as long as your thin client is running a minimal win32 setup. With Citrix, which had support from Microsoft you can run it on all Win3.x and up, DOS, Mac, and *nix. Not a dream, a reality in the Windows world.

You want to see software as a service, through a web browser? Check these guys out. They've been doing what you just patented since around 1995, and I guarantee you they are MUCH better at it. Application hosting and services, through a web browser.

Let's see... Besides http://www.hummingbird.com/products/nc/exceed/inde x.html, there's X-Win32, WinaXe, and MI/X"

If you run VNC over SSH compression I find it to be a decent soultion. I usually use the viewer with the -bgr233 (xvncviewer) or restrict pixels to 8-bot (for windows).

Someone on the rdesktop mailing list mentioned creating a RDP server for UNIX, similar to the VNC server. How well it works, if it works with MS RDP clients, and where to find more information I do not know.

Lastly, Citrix has created versions of MetaFrame for Solaris 2.6, 7, and 8 on SPARC and 7 and 8 on x86, AIX 4.3.3, and HP-UX 11.0. Too bad they don't do Linux.

Unisys modifed the NT code? arf arf arf!

Explain to me just what is so unbelievable about that? The windows source code CAN be licensed in case you weren't aware. They only do it for selected partners who are in bed with them and can pony up the cash. How the hell do you think Citrix created WinFrame in the first place!? THEY LICENSED THE CODE.

On top of that, it is painfully obvious that you have never even STUDIED OS programming. Why don't you go read up on my pack of lies, hm?

If I hadn't already posted I'd mod you down as a troll.

Citrix

-JPJ

Not only is Citrix a cheap hack of what X11 has been doing for about a billion years. but you might want to check out this http://www.citrix.com/products/metaframe/unix/defa ult.asp

Most of the companies building Xterms jumped on the Network Computer (NC) bandwagon. The only major player that survived the fiasco was NCD. They've made Xterms for quite a while. If you are interested I have about 30 of them sitting in my garage. You will need to buy the server software about $300 from NCD, but I'd be happy to sell you (or anyone else) some of them for $25 each (+s/h). (Note: These do not have screens, but have a standard VGA port). Also, you can check out places like CRA that sell (hell they give it away sometimes) used Xterms, WinTerms, NCs, and whatever else you need.

If you want windows, Citrix has teamed up with NCD to make WinTerms that work with Windows 2000 Term Server.
--
He had come like a thief in the night,

You could also do a web demo of Citrix Metaframe and run Win2k and Office apps over the internet. Seriously though you can look at their Metaframe for Unix product. It does everything X does but is supposed to be more managed, secure, portable, etc. Their screenshots are mostly a Unix version of StarOffice 5.1 running on win2k. It a little more money than I can justify.

You could also do a web demo of Citrix Metaframe and run Win2k and Office apps over the internet. Seriously though you can look at their Metaframe for Unix product. It does everything X does but is supposed to be more managed, secure, portable, etc. Their screenshots are mostly a Unix version of StarOffice 5.1 running on win2k. It a little more money than I can justify.

This approach does help with admin costs, and is handy for places where maintaining a "real" workstation is out of the question, like a factory floor. But I'd hate to run any serious apps on such a system. Except for limited demo apps, your server and network never provide real responsiveness, and the immediate feedback that makes a GUI app work goes out the window (no pun intended).

But suppose you can de-bloat your GUI? Impossible if you're running Windows or CDE, but Linux-style desktops are more flexible. (I say "Linux style" because they run fine under any Posix OS.) Consider, for example, the plugable widget themes in KDE. So far themes have mostly been used to implement graphic overkill -- but they can just as easily go the other way.

As for GIMP: do you really want to do graphic editing on a 3-inch screen?

__________________

Citrix MetaFrame for Windows allows the Administrator to take control of other user's sessions, with permission (implicit or explicit). I would imagine the Unix one would work similarly, but I think it's only available for Solaris.

Obviously You've never heard of Citrix Metaframe (www.citrix.com) for Unix. On Windows, Citrix Metaframe sits on top of NT Terminal Server, or Windows2000 Server and basicly allows for the deployment of any application, or whole user desktop.

Metaframe for Unix (avalable for Linux, HP UX, Solaris, IBM AIX) does exactly the same thing, but with the Unix system, allowing deployment of Unix Applications and desktops to users. It even lets you do it cross platform using Citrix's Idependant Computer Architecture, so I can access xemacs from a palmtop running windows CE, or I can run MS Word on my linux box, totally seemlessly, I can even access the local drives of my client machine, if I wish (or rather if I as administrator let myself!!).

An administrator can shadow a users desktop, or individual application, this means that support is easy, because the user can see what your doing with the mouse, I have demonstrated procedures to users using a phone call and a shadow session at other offices... but I could do it all over the world if I wanted to, I can even pick up the shadow session somewhere else other than the server, from another client device... So I could support a user in office B, who is logged into an Application server in Office a, while I am sat on the train using my palmtop and a GSM mobile phone.

The possibilities are endless, it's complete freedom of movement, it even makes outsourcing of Helpdesk staff easier when we're short staffed.

This is the future, this is what we'll all be doing in about 2 years.

I work for a company of roughly 500 people and we only have one full-time help-desk person. With Citrix Metaframe remote administration is done through "Shadowing" allowing this one person to efficiently manage everyone in the company. The bandwidth requirements are much smaller than X and easily workable with a 28.8 Kbps dial-up connection. Although there's not currently a server version for Linux, they do have clients which run on just about every platform known to mankind. Currently there are only server versions for Windows Terminal Server and Solaris. I don't mean to sound like a commercial but even a UNIX dork like myself was rather impressed by it's functionality.

X is not the best in every situation, but if with "bloated" you mean "large bandwidth", I'd suggest you having a look at dxpc (Differential X Protol Compression).

If with "bloated" you mean it has a complex low-level API because of backwards compatiblity, well, it may be the case. But unless you are a toolkit developer, this shouldn't affect you

On the other end, if you just want ICA, you can buy Metaframe for Solaris from Citrix. But probably is not what you want.

The problem with X is that it usually is good enough (i.e. office applications on a 10Mbps LAN) and it can be extended, so competitors have to work really hard just to catch up.

There is also a large set of X application out there that must be supported, so a replacement should really also provide X compatibility (i.e. at least with a gateway X -> other protocol, like VNC server on *NIX).

What about remote GUI login? Unix had it, and Windows never caught up (no, pc anywhere doesn't count). People still don't know that they should be able to log into their home computers wherever they are.

Um, Citrix has been around for almost a decade. And what abuot Windows Terminal Server? A standard feature of Windows 2000 servers.
If consumer windows has remote gui login, you'd prolly be complaining about how insecure it would be.

Citrix has already announced wireless LAN support for Psion EPOC32 machines including Series5, Series7, and NetBook. The product is available already. Too bad Psion doesn't have any marketing or someone might already know this.

Steve "Disgruntled Psion user: Love the machines, too bad they don't know how to publicize or distribute them." Rapaport

Citrix has already announced wireless LAN support for Psion EPOC32 machines including Series5, Series7, and NetBook. The product is available already. Too bad Psion doesn't have any marketing or someone might already know this.

Steve "Disgruntled Psion user: Love the machines, too bad they don't know how to publicize or distribute them." Rapaport

I know it's not for everybody, but if you have a great employer like I do who will buy you a whole server and expensive software to run on it, then citrix metaframe is a wonderful solution. All I need to run is a very light-weight Linux client (works on BSD too with linuxcompat), and I have all the MS software I need right there in my X server. I can do all the Outlook/Word/Excel crap I need to, without ever worrying about rebooting or hogging resources or not having the full functionality of the software. I can even cut and paste from an xterm to NT without any extra effort.

Those guys at Citrix really did a great job, it's saved my uptimes and the NT guys can worry about all the email viruses I open with Outlook. HA!

Word is the standard for sending documents

Unfortunate for you and unfortunate for others. Eventually, they may have customers that will prefer other formats.

annoys me having to go to another machine to read these files

Setup a Terminal Server with Citrix and MS Office installed. You can then run MS Word and other Win32 apps on your Unix boxen with the appropriate ICA client installed. Works for us.

Microsoft and Citrix came late to the thin client market with proprietary offerings that don't make too much sense to me financially, in terms of long term market viability, or in terms of performance.

Rather than investing a lot in ICA and RDP-based clients, I think companies should invest in thin clients that are based on open, well-documented standards like HTTP, HTML, XML, and Java.


The sad thing is that we are living in a Windows desktop world. You can't run Word and Solitaire in web pages.

The interesting part is that Citrix is making ICA servers for *nix - and clients for most platforms out there. Those of you that bothered to read the Finding of Fact knows that MS' most important tactic has been to maintain a high application barrier to entry. If you can run X/*nix applications just as easy as Win* applications you remove (most of) that barrier. Check it out

Unfortunately, this is just going to replace the Win32 API monopoly with an ICA monopoly.

MS has had deals before that seem to
contradict their "us or nobody" approach.

see citrix

js

Just speculation:

These are Thin-Client Terminals which probably means that they will have the Linux ICA Client and Linux will only run as in an embedded system. Fixing an X-Server into them is possible I suppose. But my bet is that these will be marketed for Citrix Metaframe or Microsoft's RDP Client for Terminal Server. As is usual, for these things to normally run as an X Server they have to boot a separate OS from a TFTP server.

But those protocols would seem to require reverse engineering, ala Samba..

The best solution you'll likely find (interum) is either VNC from AT&T (free, semi-opensource), or one of the commercial ones listed on this X resource site.

Citrix has a download site with some multi-platform clients for their servers, but nothing for Linux (although there is a Java one).

I'm afraid that's the closest you'll get. Even then, they're not the best solution as Win32 API (and 99.99999999999, yadda, % apps) really were not designed with anything other than the assumption that 1) they'd be on the local machine, and 2) there's only one user ever on the machine. This is why VNC is a bit slow, and things like Winframe and NT:TSE don't scale well.
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But those protocols would seem to require reverse engineering, ala Samba..

The best solution you'll likely find (interum) is either VNC from AT&T (free, semi-opensource), or one of the commercial ones listed on this X resource site.

Citrix has a download site with some multi-platform clients for their servers, but nothing for Linux (although there is a Java one).

I'm afraid that's the closest you'll get. Even then, they're not the best solution as Win32 API (and 99.99999999999, yadda, % apps) really were not designed with anything other than the assumption that 1) they'd be on the local machine, and 2) there's only one user ever on the machine. This is why VNC is a bit slow, and things like Winframe and NT:TSE don't scale well.
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Yes, this is interesting. Windows 2000 Server has built-in terminal services, and Citrix does indeed offer a free Linux client. Once you get past the cost of Windows 2000 Server itself, you've got a free (beer) thin-client Win32 solution. Contrast with GraphOn, where you need to buy the Bridges software itself, in addition to any Windows server costs.

The question is, do Citrix clients work with Microsoft Terminal Services? I'm pretty sure I read somewhere some time ago that MTS is a wounded version of Citrix that only supports Win32 and Win16 clients. If that's no longer the case (or if it never was the case) then this is significant. If this is still the case, then (all other things being equal) the GraphOn solution becomes more attractive, because its licensing is better (Citrix metaframe is a per-client license on the server, IIRC).

FWIW, the URL for the Linux client download is http://download.citrix. com/cgi-bin/license.cgi?client=linux. Maybe someone with an existing MTS setup can see if this works?

The fact is that Corel has historically (and rather tragically) always tried to offer its own solutions rather than use anything even remotely associated with Microsoft. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it may have influenced their decision to go with GraphOn rather than Citrix, assuming the products are functionally identical. But until somebody can confirm that the Citrix Linux client works with Microsoft's MTS, I'm not sure that's true.

Tenement
--

Citrix WinFrame