Going with a single vendor most of the time saves a huge amount of money. Discounts are based on total sales volume. If I spend 1/5th of my budget with 5 vendors I end up paying more than if I went with one vendor and overpaid for certain products because we end up getting a 25% flat discount along with the advantages of only having to deal with a single supplier.
Not really viable for an enterprise. Using $50 thin clients and "old XP machines"? And how should I manage my several thousand machines spread across the U.S.? How do I run my Windows based apps?
Depends on the developers. Sysadmins and DBAs you're wrong 95% of the time. I'm a sysadmin and I prefer using a virtualized windows desktop. It's right where I left it when I get home, and if a thin client fails I can be back up in the time it takes to walk to and from the storage room to get a new one. What type of tools does a sysadmin or DBA use that don't work well in a virtualized environment? Are you under some kind of misguided assumption that virtualized desktops perform poorly?
Because the cost of building an infrascture to manage what is essentially fat-thin-clients is really expensive and time consuming. Thin client management tools are exceptionally easy to use. No GPOs, no imaging, no gigabytes of WAN bandwidth. Enterprises don't just decide to change their infrastructure over night. Building out a large deployment of thin clients isn't something you do over night. It might take a year or two to complete a deployment. By then you're half way through to a hardware refresh. You sit on your current infrastructure and if you decide to change it out within 1-2 years you're already planning your new deployment that might include fat clients. And if you followed that model you'd spend your entire life just managing desktops and never adding any actual value to the business.
VNC is garbage compared to ICA/Session Reliability/HDX (and even RDS) . I can watch flash movies over VPN via a Cable modem with 100ms+ latency with zero loss in performance via the aging ICA protocol. I don't really have any experience with NX so I can't compare. But you cannot even begin to compare VNC with something like HDX or RDS. Not even remotely close.
We use a combination of XenApp and virtualized desktops here. If you really look at the total cost of ownership, thin clients and virtualized desktops (or Citrix) is actually less expensive. The cost of a real (fat) workstation is about the same a thin client + terminal services client access license + citrix/vdi license. The difference is how much you save not having to manage all those physical devices. Spending hours imaging workstations over a WAN or the shipping costs back and forth. Not to mention skipping a hardware refresh because your 6 year old thin clients still work great. This isn't only ITs time, this is the time you've got employees out of commission, waiting to get their PC up and running again. Also we can provide incredibly an identical experience remotely, over VPN from a home PC or laptop. And of course there's the security considerations. I work for a mid-sized healthcare company, and not storing ePHI locally on any of these machines dramatically reduces the amount of regulatory concerns we have regarding all those workstations scattered across all those sites. Also disaster recovery, not from the datacenter perspective, but from the remote site. We're in the southeast and battle hurricanes. Having a site know they can access their desktop from anywhere is an incredible peace of mind. And let's not even think about OS upgrades. Now you have to tie your OS upgrades to hardware upgrades. I mean really who takes working XP machines and upgrades to Windows 7? You don't. You either refresh desktops early or have to sit on your hands and wait for the next refresh while the entire business yells at you about being "way behind the technology curve" (even though they can never quite explain WHY they need that shiny new OS or Office Suite).
Me, personally, I can't move to a thin client fast enough. The new linux based HP thin clients we just bought (~$199-$290 depending on model) support dual monitors and every protocol you can imagine (Anything from ICA and Leostream to Xdmcp to VNC, etc, etc etc). I plan on replacing the two aging desktops under my desk (win7+fedora13 with synergy-plus) with a single, tiny, HP thin client. And the best part is I can just reattach to my desktops over VPN from the house or when I'm on vacation (haha) and pickup right where I left off. I don't like windows anymore than the next slashdot reader, but I have a lot of windows based tools I still have to use. It's like screen for graphical desktops.
Linux was only as stable as Windows 98? Wow. Troll of the century. What exactly is the linux equivilent of a blue screen? A kernel panic? Maybe you forget how bad windows 98 was, but using it for a couple of days without rebooting and it not crashing was basically a miracle.
Depends on the web app. If you're refreshing entire pages against a slow web server I'd agree. Well designed web apps using DHTML (Javascript, CSS, et al) that reload only portions of the page (using things like AJAX and Comet) can make for great applications. GMail is a pretty good example.
Rotating cube is nice because it helps me visualize what desktop I'm on, like you pointed out. Translucent windows is helpful because it allows you to work from a document behind (or slightly overlapping) a terminal without spending a lot of time managing windows (resizing, moving). Wobbly windows are just annoying.
I'm a lefty at work too (and right-handed at home). Took a few weeks to get really comfortable using it, but I hope over a career in IT it will save my wrists splitting time between both hands.
You have to remember who Anonymous is. It's a group of 14-24 year olds who by and large aren't what we would call "highly technical". They use a volunteer DDoS tool for christ's sake (LOIC) not some sophisticated botnet. They're basically like a retard with a missle launcher stumbling through town.
Most botnets are in the US because it's easier to deliver mail to your target when it's sitting in the same netblock, instead of crossing a couple continents and an ocean. The question isn't where the infected machines are, it's who's running them.
Yeah I'm sure a bunch of state employees can run a datacenter more securely than microsoft. I hate microsoft as much as the next slashdot poster but have you ever met a state government employee? i'd rather have the security of my data in the hands of a middle school class.
I think you pointed out the fact conveniently missing from Comcast's argument. They're trying to act like this is a TRANSIT peering agreement. It's not. This isn't TRANSIT traffic. This is traffic DESTINED for Comcast's network that THEIR customers REQUESTED. The whole thing is absolute insanity.
We're both generalizing way too much to have a real conversation about this. Yes, both the things I described and the things you described happen. Where I work (medium-large healthcare organization) we either provide or compensate employees for both the devices and the service.
Unfortunately it's the best thing we've got. It's really worse case scenario. We also have the option of just doing a remote lock while we're looking for it. But once we've abandoned all hope we can just remote kill it.
I pretty much agree with everything you said. Where I work (mid-size company, 6.1k+ employees) we either provide the device and service or we compensate the associate for it.
As far as wiping the device, unfortunately right now, it's binary. I'd love for there to be a "only-wipe-sensitive-company-info" button but it just doesn't exist, so the best thing we've got is the nuclear option. This is why we should all learn a valuable lesson: please, please, please backup your smartphone.
Forget the fact that it can be accidentally wiped by IT. The reality is, for every ONE accidental wipe, I've seen at least 100 blackberrys dropped into public toilets or left at airport terminals.
Of course one reason such "massive security breaches" happen is that companies have stupidly draconian policies which make "normal" operation so annoying/dangerous that clueful employees bypass it as a matter of course.
...and the other half of the time it's because some entitled manchild thinks the rules don't apply to him, doesn't understand regulatory requirements or the possible legal consequences of information disclosure.
And I'm sure you would understand how we couldn't possibly let you store sensitive corporate information on a device that could be lost or stolen. Right? So either you agree to let us protect the company against the potential liability from the possible information disclosure or you don't get to hook your phone up to Exchange. Pretty simple, no?
Usually when people talk about "private clouds" they're referring to large organizations building their own cloud infrastructure, internally, "behind the firewall" so to speak. Although you can also build partitions of public clouds and then extend your network into that "private cloud". That let's smaller organizations leverage some of the features (scalability, remote access, etc) that you get from cloud based services.
Like most buzzwords, there's actually some real value to it, which is a pity because marketing will shove it down your throat for the next 10 years and make you instantly gag at the sight of it (and me too).
Slashdot Mirror
Going with a single vendor most of the time saves a huge amount of money. Discounts are based on total sales volume. If I spend 1/5th of my budget with 5 vendors I end up paying more than if I went with one vendor and overpaid for certain products because we end up getting a 25% flat discount along with the advantages of only having to deal with a single supplier.
Not really viable for an enterprise. Using $50 thin clients and "old XP machines"? And how should I manage my several thousand machines spread across the U.S.? How do I run my Windows based apps?
We use 19" monitors with 7-9 year old thin clients at >1280x1024 and >1440x900 resolutions. Nice attempt at trolling using a strawman argument.
Depends on the developers. Sysadmins and DBAs you're wrong 95% of the time. I'm a sysadmin and I prefer using a virtualized windows desktop. It's right where I left it when I get home, and if a thin client fails I can be back up in the time it takes to walk to and from the storage room to get a new one. What type of tools does a sysadmin or DBA use that don't work well in a virtualized environment? Are you under some kind of misguided assumption that virtualized desktops perform poorly?
Because the cost of building an infrascture to manage what is essentially fat-thin-clients is really expensive and time consuming. Thin client management tools are exceptionally easy to use. No GPOs, no imaging, no gigabytes of WAN bandwidth. Enterprises don't just decide to change their infrastructure over night. Building out a large deployment of thin clients isn't something you do over night. It might take a year or two to complete a deployment. By then you're half way through to a hardware refresh. You sit on your current infrastructure and if you decide to change it out within 1-2 years you're already planning your new deployment that might include fat clients. And if you followed that model you'd spend your entire life just managing desktops and never adding any actual value to the business.
VNC is garbage compared to ICA/Session Reliability/HDX (and even RDS) . I can watch flash movies over VPN via a Cable modem with 100ms+ latency with zero loss in performance via the aging ICA protocol. I don't really have any experience with NX so I can't compare. But you cannot even begin to compare VNC with something like HDX or RDS. Not even remotely close.
We use a combination of XenApp and virtualized desktops here. If you really look at the total cost of ownership, thin clients and virtualized desktops (or Citrix) is actually less expensive. The cost of a real (fat) workstation is about the same a thin client + terminal services client access license + citrix/vdi license. The difference is how much you save not having to manage all those physical devices. Spending hours imaging workstations over a WAN or the shipping costs back and forth. Not to mention skipping a hardware refresh because your 6 year old thin clients still work great. This isn't only ITs time, this is the time you've got employees out of commission, waiting to get their PC up and running again. Also we can provide incredibly an identical experience remotely, over VPN from a home PC or laptop. And of course there's the security considerations. I work for a mid-sized healthcare company, and not storing ePHI locally on any of these machines dramatically reduces the amount of regulatory concerns we have regarding all those workstations scattered across all those sites. Also disaster recovery, not from the datacenter perspective, but from the remote site. We're in the southeast and battle hurricanes. Having a site know they can access their desktop from anywhere is an incredible peace of mind. And let's not even think about OS upgrades. Now you have to tie your OS upgrades to hardware upgrades. I mean really who takes working XP machines and upgrades to Windows 7? You don't. You either refresh desktops early or have to sit on your hands and wait for the next refresh while the entire business yells at you about being "way behind the technology curve" (even though they can never quite explain WHY they need that shiny new OS or Office Suite).
Me, personally, I can't move to a thin client fast enough. The new linux based HP thin clients we just bought (~$199-$290 depending on model) support dual monitors and every protocol you can imagine (Anything from ICA and Leostream to Xdmcp to VNC, etc, etc etc). I plan on replacing the two aging desktops under my desk (win7+fedora13 with synergy-plus) with a single, tiny, HP thin client. And the best part is I can just reattach to my desktops over VPN from the house or when I'm on vacation (haha) and pickup right where I left off. I don't like windows anymore than the next slashdot reader, but I have a lot of windows based tools I still have to use. It's like screen for graphical desktops.
Linux was only as stable as Windows 98? Wow. Troll of the century. What exactly is the linux equivilent of a blue screen? A kernel panic? Maybe you forget how bad windows 98 was, but using it for a couple of days without rebooting and it not crashing was basically a miracle.
Depends on the web app. If you're refreshing entire pages against a slow web server I'd agree. Well designed web apps using DHTML (Javascript, CSS, et al) that reload only portions of the page (using things like AJAX and Comet) can make for great applications. GMail is a pretty good example.
Rotating cube is nice because it helps me visualize what desktop I'm on, like you pointed out. Translucent windows is helpful because it allows you to work from a document behind (or slightly overlapping) a terminal without spending a lot of time managing windows (resizing, moving). Wobbly windows are just annoying.
I'm a lefty at work too (and right-handed at home). Took a few weeks to get really comfortable using it, but I hope over a career in IT it will save my wrists splitting time between both hands.
You have to remember who Anonymous is. It's a group of 14-24 year olds who by and large aren't what we would call "highly technical". They use a volunteer DDoS tool for christ's sake (LOIC) not some sophisticated botnet. They're basically like a retard with a missle launcher stumbling through town.
Most botnets are in the US because it's easier to deliver mail to your target when it's sitting in the same netblock, instead of crossing a couple continents and an ocean. The question isn't where the infected machines are, it's who's running them.
haha damn where are my mod points when I need them. can I drive the backhoe?
Yeah I'm sure a bunch of state employees can run a datacenter more securely than microsoft. I hate microsoft as much as the next slashdot poster but have you ever met a state government employee? i'd rather have the security of my data in the hands of a middle school class.
We're already there and that computer is called "the Internet".
I think you pointed out the fact conveniently missing from Comcast's argument. They're trying to act like this is a TRANSIT peering agreement. It's not. This isn't TRANSIT traffic. This is traffic DESTINED for Comcast's network that THEIR customers REQUESTED. The whole thing is absolute insanity.
So where can I buy one? You said Toshiba is selling it?
We're both generalizing way too much to have a real conversation about this. Yes, both the things I described and the things you described happen. Where I work (medium-large healthcare organization) we either provide or compensate employees for both the devices and the service.
Unfortunately it's the best thing we've got. It's really worse case scenario. We also have the option of just doing a remote lock while we're looking for it. But once we've abandoned all hope we can just remote kill it.
That sounds too good to be true! Link?
I pretty much agree with everything you said. Where I work (mid-size company, 6.1k+ employees) we either provide the device and service or we compensate the associate for it.
As far as wiping the device, unfortunately right now, it's binary. I'd love for there to be a "only-wipe-sensitive-company-info" button but it just doesn't exist, so the best thing we've got is the nuclear option. This is why we should all learn a valuable lesson: please, please, please backup your smartphone.
Forget the fact that it can be accidentally wiped by IT. The reality is, for every ONE accidental wipe, I've seen at least 100 blackberrys dropped into public toilets or left at airport terminals.
Of course one reason such "massive security breaches" happen is that companies have stupidly draconian policies which make "normal" operation so annoying/dangerous that clueful employees bypass it as a matter of course.
...and the other half of the time it's because some entitled manchild thinks the rules don't apply to him, doesn't understand regulatory requirements or the possible legal consequences of information disclosure.
And I'm sure you would understand how we couldn't possibly let you store sensitive corporate information on a device that could be lost or stolen. Right? So either you agree to let us protect the company against the potential liability from the possible information disclosure or you don't get to hook your phone up to Exchange. Pretty simple, no?
Usually when people talk about "private clouds" they're referring to large organizations building their own cloud infrastructure, internally, "behind the firewall" so to speak. Although you can also build partitions of public clouds and then extend your network into that "private cloud". That let's smaller organizations leverage some of the features (scalability, remote access, etc) that you get from cloud based services.
Like most buzzwords, there's actually some real value to it, which is a pity because marketing will shove it down your throat for the next 10 years and make you instantly gag at the sight of it (and me too).