Using Thin Clients with PeopleSoft?

lsmft2001 asks: "We're busy implementing a big ERP project with PeopleSoft. We currently run a mixture of Windows 95, 98 and 2000. These machines run most of the time, but all too often they fail for various reasons. Our IT department spends too much time fixing these machines, basically patching them enough so staff can get back to work. It's frustrating for them and for the users. PeopleSoft only requires a browser to run. Has anyone implemented PeopleSoft without Windows machines? What I would really like to see is some kind of plug and play solution. If a PC fails, the maintenance folks replace the whole machine or the hard drive and everyone is back to work. I would like to see this solution for the 'power users' as well, where they could log on to any machine and have all their files and applications available to them. Everything here runs Novell Netware. Has anyone implemented PeopleSoft with minimal client software? Could it be done with Novell and SuSe?"

Comments

details?

[OmniVector]

If it runs in a browser, why can't you use firefox, galeon, konqueror, etc inside linux? the only thing that would make it heavily windows dependent is if it required activex. if it does, then i have to say you're shit out of luck. if however all they need is web to access peoplesoft, most distros are more than adequate and can fix the patching issue by automation through the network and in general better security, less viruses, adware, worms, etc.

Re:details?

[Pantheraleo2k3]

If all you need is Web access, then you could netboot a sub-100MB image (Google for Damn Smal Linux, a 50MB knoppix-based distro) with PXE or equivalent and have the image mount user homedirs via NFS. If your net can handle it, it would work very nicely for patching (test a patch on a copy of an image, then use a script to copy it to your tFTP server at night). Otherwise, you could use a 64 or 128 MB CF card and IDE adapter to boot the boxes, storing user data and non-essential (rarely used) programs on the network.

Can't comment on NetWare though

If all you need is a browser, why not PXE it?

[millisa]

A year or so ago, setting up a PXE linux based system took a little bit of effort, but today? It's cake. Check this out. Its a simple to setup PXE environment. The documentation is fantastic and it 'just works'. You can setup a simple browser only xwindows type environment or do what I prefer to avoid weird windows issues: Setup a Windows terminal server and use Rdesktop in that pxe environment to give everyone a real microsoft desktop. I had difficult making the sound pipe down to the local machine but . . .who needs that anyways? With the money you save on replacing those hard drives buy that staff IPod's (and two or three for yourself) (though getting stuff on the ipods with those pxe boots might be challenging).

The things that fail most often are things that move . . . it is absolutely possible to eliminate every fan and drive with this type of environment. Ram fails, but its a whole lot less often that the drives . . .and so what if it does?

"What? Your system is just beeping. Oh. Well just use this system which I have magically moved all your stuff to already"

Go Ultra Thin

[Kevin Burtch]

If the issue you're trying to solve is desktop maintenance, then I strongly suggest going to an Ultra Thin Client like the Sun Ray architecture.

I have installed Sun Ray networks at universities, and they absolutely love them. Yes, I work with Suns as a profession, so if you feel you must, take this with a grain of salt. Then again, I'm very much pro-Linux and would love to see an LTSP installation as well, that doesn't reduce the maintenance as much as the Sun Rays will.

If you aren't familiar with them, think of a telephone... if it breaks, you unplug it and put a new one in place and as soon as you plug it in, it's working. Same thing. No hard drive. No fans. No noise at all. Nothing mechanical to break, nothing to fix.

They are effectively a remote display (+kb+mouse) to the Solaris system running the Sun Ray Server software... so everyone shares the same (remote) box. Suns are designed to be much more efficient in multitasking "server" environments than the typical PC, so you can run quite a lot of Sun Rays off one server without anyone noticing a degredation in performance.

Browser choices include Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, and I'm sure others.
Desktops include CDE and GNOME (recommended) and soon, JDS (Java Desktop Environment = slicked up GNOME).

Another plus is "hot desking".
Say you get a page and have to run to the other end of the building, but you're in the middle of something, or remotely logged into the server you need to work on with tasks running you don't want to stop, etc. You either disconnect the display with a simple command or button push, or if you're using the available smartcards, you yank your card out and run. You get to the other end of the building or server room (whatever), you plug in your smartcard (if you're using it) or you just log in, and the display you had at the former location is now in front of you still running and active. I've done exactly this on many occasions, having something running on a console of a box, with the serial console controled via minicom in an xterm... but I needed to be in the server room to do something then get back to the console again. You get the idea.

Ports on the incredibly simple devices include: VGA (DB15); 4 USB (for keyboard, mouse, etc.); ethernet; power; audio out (in case the internal speaker isn't loud enough for ya); audio in, and video in.
Yes, you read that right, it has composite video (and audio) in, so you can do video-conferencing using these Ultra Thin Clients.

I'm leaving a lot out... these things are much nicer and more versatile than I'm describing.

I seriously think Sun should market these things more, everyone who I've demoed them for has loved 'em.

Anyways, just to prove I'm not just trying to sell new Sun hardware (I'm not a sales-droid, I'm a tech), check out the used ones on ebay. I'm running some Sun Rays at home on an old Ultra 10... got the former for $30/each and the latter for around $125.