binaryzero Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Thoughts? The past week I've had the fun of building a new image to deploy to around 150 thin clients in the organisation I'm currently working onsite at. The previous image that was deployed roughly 18 months ago had a crappy Citrix receiver client on it that caused user logins to take a long time (up to 30 minutes). First time I've really used Wyse Device Manager to package and deploy apps. Seems pretty straight forward. Overall experience hasn't been too bad. New SOE is currently being tested on a number of clients, so far results are good. Will be interesting to see how WDM handles multicast image deployment - might spread it over a week. Clients are running WES7. Woops, plz move to general discussion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Not used one yet myself, but we are piloting the use of VMs and thin clients instead of regular desktops in our work environments, since we all have access to soft phones using the Cisco Jabber client, it's being seen as a way to save money. One of our permanent telecommuters is using a test one at the moment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted March 21, 2015 Author Share Posted March 21, 2015 They end up costing more than regular desktops due to the licenses I've found. 1 x Windows license per Server. 1 x Citrix License per Server. ?? x RDS cals ?? x Citrix user license Not to mention if you've got Office installed, $$. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 They end up costing more than regular desktops due to the licenses I've found. 1 x Windows license per Server. 1 x Citrix License per Server. ?? x RDS cals ?? x Citrix user license Not to mention if you've got Office installed, $$. We already have volume licensing for all that, Citrix being the only pain on my end of the deal, I do support, but the team that does testing is next to us and we are a great testing source for them Should have mentioned I work for a rather large multinational health insurance company Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted March 21, 2015 Author Share Posted March 21, 2015 Too bad this particular client doesn't have Volume license. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted March 21, 2015 Veteran Share Posted March 21, 2015 I haven't done this in quite a few years, but from what I remember, you need a windows domain cal (these are named users not concurrent users), a rdp/ts cal (named users again), and a citrix user cal (these were concurrent users not named users)...didn't matter how big your server farm was but each server had to have a citrix server license on top of all that. Although, the benefit of citrix is becoming less and less with remote deskop server becoming more and more powerful each revision, but they seem to be about 2 steps behind citrix in the long run...at some point you need to determine if you are using everything that citrix can give you or if you can dial back to the windows remote desktop server. If you can get away from citrix, that would save you a ton of money. For Office, you have to have enough licensing for every user session, there are ways to limit your usage so that you don't exceed your licensed amount. I recall a license monitor that would release licenses as needed and stop you from using it once the license count has been exceeded until the next user was no longer using it. You would be purchasing office anyway, so that really shouldn't be a factor into the cost of a thin client vs a fat client. Windows AD cals would also have to be purchased, so that should not factor in either. The only things that you should be factoring in is the cost of the entire farm, the cost of rdp cals, the cost of citrix user cals, the cost of the windows os that citrix sits on, and the cost of the citrix server licensing that you need...all other licensing you need anyway fat or thin. You don't always need all of the bells and whistles, even though they may be shiny and pretty. I have never needed to really manage the thin clients much, just configure for the full desktop or load up the applications in the ica client software that was built in, then lock the crap out of them so that all they could get to was the ica client and run what they need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
123456789A Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I don't know but with these thin clients I was able to crash everyone on the same server as me. I don't think that should be possible to do. I think I made the system run out of memory but I'm still not exactly sure what I did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted March 21, 2015 Veteran Share Posted March 21, 2015 That is entirely possible to do, you are using the same server as everyone else. While you logon with an individual desktop from the next guy, you are on the same server and depending on the type of crash it could wipe out everyone else who is on the same server (this is why it is good to have a server farm, not just a single server, with groups of servers running special apps and other servers running standard apps). If you only run the apps vs the whole desktop, the chances of crashing the entire system is smaller as that specific app is loaded vs the entire desktop giving the user an full desktop experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aergan Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 HP thin clients (ThinPro/Ubuntu & Windows Embedded) worked out cheaper, so we're phasing out Wyse devices (on Wyse OS). Wyse works very well if you're prepared to pay licenses for their features on top of RDS CAL's & Citrix user licences - for us it was a lot of outgoing for not a lot of gain. That being said, we're looking to roll out Storefront very soon and trying to use a web browser method of access via HP ThinPro 5.1 rather than their propriety configuration for their thin clients has proved to be quite a task. Got there in the end, but we've even had a Unicorn crop up which is not ideal on a corporate device. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Just hit me our implementation uses VMs not Citrix for the main client, we try to avoid using Ctrix as much as possible, ours servers tend to be laggy and crashy when pushed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kBWarrior Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 We deploy thin clients (Dell models mostly) across various clients for virtualization projects. When you are looking for security they are great - Especially the really dumbed down Linux based ones. When you start going higher end with the Windows embedded operating systems, YMMV. They are great when it comes to control. With all users using RDP or ICA to access a remote server it provides a security layer that is not there with a regular desktop. Internet can be filtered, installed applications can be controlled, Windows Group Policy really shines. I'm all about them. We use them across the healthcare and manufacturing segments, and they've proven rugged and reliable. Definitely check them out. Yes, they require licenses (RDS CALs, for example), and that costs $$$. But when you're working on a budget, it can end up working cheaper to go this route then roll out desktops everywhere as your support overhead will skyrocket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted March 24, 2015 Author Share Posted March 24, 2015 Well my CR got approved to upgrade WDM to 5.0, so guess that's on my to do list tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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