Would You Move to Windows Thin Clients?

mcck asks: "My workplace is getting ready to study this problem in depth. From my preliminary research, there is very little savings when moving to a thin client environment that isn't based on Linux. Current thinking is that we will have to stick with Windows, so Linux is out for now. Citrix maxes out at around 10-25 users per server. I haven't studied Windows Terminal Server as deeply, but it looks to be about the same. Once we buy the 100 servers we would need to support 1000 or so of our users that would be migrated, plus increase our system administration staff to adequately support those servers, it looks doubtful that we would save much money at all, if any. Plus, if we upgrade all of the related desktop hardware to snazzy new official thin client boxes instead of trying to get more life out of old hardware (which is what they want to do right now), costs go up even more. So here's a question for anyone who has studied this issue, or seen its consequences at their workplace: Is thin client really a cost-saving approach to a large user environment?"

"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)."

Comments

A couple of considerations

[Future Man 3000]

Thin clients have less hardware to break. By their nature, it isn't likely a person using a thin client can mess it up from the software side such that a reboot won't fix the problem. The whole setup is more centralized, making it easier to address Windows patches and virus updates.

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.

Some observations and rules of thumb.

[sybarite]

I deploy and support this type of environment for a living (until I can earn my living with Open Source). While the number of users per server depends largely on what applications that you are running, a good (conservative) average number is about 50 users per dual-processor server. I tend to deploy dual-processor machines as their are diminishing returns on quad-processor servers (For example going from dual- to quad- processor increases your user count per server from 50 to only about 75 or so). These rules of thumb are on your average Pentium III server with about 1.5 to 2 GB of RAM. The Office software and Groupwise will conform well to this rule of thumb. Not sure on the Oracle apps, but if they are well-behaved 32 bit applications (read no DOS, 16Bit) they will run fine. Obviously you will want to pilot this environment to bench mark your specific results. Servers with Pentium IV Xeons will probably scale much better.

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.

Would you move to windows thin clients?

[nocomment]

No.