Question for IT people who have deployed Terminal Services...

[MysticLlama]

Terminal Server does work great in that situation, but as an interesting test, why don't you build a machine and try Virtual Server to accomplish the in-between?

With Virtual Server being free now, all you have to do is buy the Windows licenses for XP for the various users.

You end up in-between because of the following:

One machine sucking electricity/taking up space vs. several

One user can't really crash the system (I suppose it's possible, but I use it to virtualize web servers in production because of software limits and haven't seen that yet)

Still multiple instances of Windows to install vs. one on TS. (Though you could be clever and get around this with roaming profiles and a master machine image that you simply upgrade and then copy over their virtual server files)

Need a lot of RAM (it reserves RAM by machine in blocks, not dynamically like TS, so it might take a little more, but RAM is cheap)

It's at least something free to try that gives you a middle ground, and I bet it would work out really well. I'm using it in a lot of places and it works great.

[87coupe]

If you have the bandwidth your current TS machine should have no problems handling 2-3 users and more. I ran 32 thin clients off a old dual P2 server with no performance problems.

[HardDrive]

Wayne,

I think you kind of answered your own question. It comes down to licensing. Add up the costs for the server license, TS Client licenses....it all adds up rather quickly.

I would upgrade to XP.

MysticLlama is correct, Virtual Server has gained great popularity. As with terminal services, this puts all of your eggs in one basket, so make sure a solid backup strategy is in place. VMware has been around for ages, and will run on a Linux box.

[cstreit]

We get a lot more than 2-3 users on a decent sized intel server using remote terminal, etc.. In fact when I deployed sing Citrix/Metaframe we were getting over 10users per CPU on these machines when they only used lightweight services. The benefits of remote terminal as I saw them.

1. Single distribution point for software and maintenance. No remote troubleshooting!
2. Absolute control over user experience. No worries about virii, non-standard sfotware mucking up the works.
3. Simplified billing for access, etc..
4. No offsite data storage (security security security!)

However the downside was:

1. One more thing you're responsible for.
2. Aquisition cost of the server is initially much higher
3. Network latency creates huge fustrations for even basic app. operation.

I don't know the whole story, but those are some of the things we used to consider...

[Clay Perrine]

I have a number of Terminal Servers where I work. I would recommend that if the person on the far end doesn't have a PC, or it is an old one, you get them a thin client box. They can be picked up for a couple hundred dollars, and they connect to the terminal server.

If you go to Microsoft's website, there is a calculator that will allow you to compute the required memory and processor power needed on a terminal server relative to the number of users.

Remote admin mode is different from Application Server mode. Remote admin mode does not isolate the processes on a per user basis. Application server mode will isolate each user so that if one user crashes an app or their session, it won't take down the other users.

You can also set it up so that they can only run specific apps on the Terminal Server. That keeps them from spending your dime surfing the porn sites and playing solitare or nethack when they are supposed to be working.

As for licensing, I worked for Microsoft for 5 years, and I supported Terminal Server licensing (amongst other things) for 4 of those years. If you need to know how to set it up, just drop me a note. I will be glad to help.

[slodave]

You don't need XP to RDP. There is a client for 2000 as well. I have it on my laptop. It is not installed by default on 2000, but can be added later.

Dave

[MysticLlama]

The other nice thing about RDP on the client end is that they can use their own machine for some tasks (web research, listening to music, etc.) that you can't always do with a thin client, or that would be slower on the remote system.

Also, if the link is down for some reason, they can still get *some* stuff done with a working fat client on the other end I'd imagine.

[slodave]

Wayne,

Misinterpreted your first point. Wasn't clear. My company has one client that has a single 2000 server and has a number of employees that TS in. They all use Act, get email, and a few other things. The server was recently upgraded, but no one complained when they had their slower server.

Dave

[svandamme]

in this type of enviroment , i'de go terminal as well
that way you need not to worry about delivering a pc, and supporting that pc, or the users having virusses and trojans and other security issues that might affect your data

this way, you deliver a screen , of an application you control
nothing more nothing less, only thing they need to do , is get a connection , so your support of their enviroment , is limited to that and that alone

if your only dishing out 1 app to 3 users , you won't even need much hardware a medium range desktop pc allready has what it takes

[beepbeep]

I'm running 130 users using heavy applications on 4 heavy-duty Terminal Servers with 2 Xenon CPU's ang 4GB of RAM each. We are using both Citrix Metaframe and Terminal Server.

There is built-in "Remote Desktop" client with XP and there are clients for W2k and Win98/95 as well.

I think it's a good idea to let them work with "remote desktop" and do the job. It will ease the burden of handling their equipment at home. If some of home computers crashes, you can replace it with boiler-plate PC w/o need to re-install anything.

3-4 users using light-weight applications can be easily handled by consumer-grade PC with 1GB of RAM, no problems there.

I do see another potential problem though. Having Terminal server hand unprotected on internet is major security hole. I let my tele-commuters establigh encypted VPN pipe to company network trough Cisco VPN-client first. When that is done they are free top use Remote Desktop. Packet overhead of VPN + Terminal Services vs. just Terminal Services isn't worth relaxing security for.

You should at least bind your Terminal Server to users IP's. If they have dynamic IP's you should consider using firewall and VPN.

Performance for 5-10 users is not an issue, but security might be.

Terminal Services RDP uses slightly more bandwith than Citrix ICA-protocole but I don't think you'll notice the difference.