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Converting Desktops to Thin Clients?
tfiedler asks: "I manage about 3500 desktop computers and was recently asked by my CIO to begin looking into thin client computing, something like WYSE terminals. I'd like to know, what are some good functional, and more importantly, manageable options to convert existing desktop computers into what would essentially be a Citrix terminal? I was thinking some brand of Linux that starts up an X11 session, starts the Citrix client and connects to our server farm. The user would see a Windows logon, our apps would function as normal and I'd get the benefit of performing a LOT LESS client-side maintenance. Any suggestions?"
Even 20 years ago, we were using rdist on Solaris (or is it rsync?) to totally automate updating of clients, and then we were NFS mounting the home directories, so that they are on the server and backed up. So you get most of the benefits of local computing with local CPU etc, and the benefits of no client maintenance because it's all automated and the home directories are backed up. Why does Windows make it so hard?
What you're asking for is what the citrix-loaded WYSE terminals do automatically. You choose which model terminal (and which OS, they have both linux and windows based ones) and then set the level of local access (allow local apps, allow local USB drives, allow local streaming media, etc).
You then set up your citrix farm and away it goes. You can either have a full session, so that the user thinks they're using windows on a workstation, or you can have each app running 1 by 1 as the user launches them from the terminal.
Last I checked the terminals were about $200 each if you go with the linux ones since you skip having a windows license for the local box.
Thin clients are supposed to lessen the management of PCs. All apps would reside on a central location and depending on your implementation, either run on a beefy central server or on local machines. The problem with the former is that you have a very expensive central server that's usually completely inadequate for desktop applications. Now this may work for the subset of users that don't need the traditional desktop tools. But in this case it would likely be cheaper to web-enable those critical apps or look at some of the web application suites (I think Google just released one).
The problem with the latter (run on local machines) is that this is taking a PC and crippling its functionality. If your users' PCs are just glorified terminals then this is easy. If not you'll get all the cost of a PC and little of its benefits.
If your boss insists on thin clients there are a few things you can try:
1) Set up a fairly powerful server with vncserver instances with locked configurations.
2) If you're trying to reduce PC maintenance, try running applications from a central server. This works for almost 6 different applications that don't require local registry settings.
3) Take the PCs and throttle down the speed to 800MhZ to simulate running apps remotely. To be fair, only some apps will slowdown. These apps include those that require graphical output or user interaction.
4) Replace your network. RFB is chatty and puts a tremendous load on your network. Simulate it by running all NICs at 10Mbit/half.
A lot of problems associated with thin client computing have little to do with the computers and terminals themselves; if you ignore the fact that your dependancy on the network is going to be an important part of keeping your thin clients working properly, it will likely cause more problems than solve them.
Redundant switches and network cards in servers will help increase the available bandwidth and avoid leaving possible single points of failure. Also, if your budget allows, try to seperate the network the users access the servers on from the one that serves file shares, backups and administrator access. It will go a long way to improve the service available to users of the thin clients.