Thin Clients in Education
Stephen (Trey) Repetski – Sun Administrator (2009) William Yang – Sun Administrator (2008)
25 June, 2009 Overview
Background Use at TJ Pros and Cons Demonstration
Feel free to ask questions at any point during the presentation! What is a Thin Client
Epitome of server/client relationship Server does ALL the work Client forwards input devices to server Server forwards display and other output to client Client possesses no local operating system or storage Major Implementations
Sun Ray LTSP (http://www.ltsp.org/) Citrix RDP/Microsoft Terminal Services Sun Ray • Sun proprietary technology • Past versions run on Solaris 8 & 9, current version runs on Solaris 10, and future versions will run on OpenSolaris • Software and hardware are developed specifically to be compatible • Upgradable firmware
Template and some images © Sun Microsystems, Inc. Used with permission. Sun Ray[TM] Virtual Display Client Portfolio
Sun Ray™ 270 Sun Ray™ 2FS Virtual Display Client Virtual Display Client All-in-one client with 17” screen Ultra-secure, fiber, dual-head Sun RayTM 2 Virtual Display Client Low cost, low power, small footprint
Template and some images © Sun Microsystems, Inc. Used with permission. TJ Implementation • Equipment from Sun Grant program or inkind from industry • Multiserver FailOver Group (FOG) • Multiple FOGs for special purposes
The Network
Template and some images © Sun Microsystems, Inc. Used with permission. Template and some images © Sun Microsystems, Inc. Used with permission. Major applications • StarOffice – support available OR • OpenOffice – free for everyone • Mozilla Firefox, Opera • Java, GCC, programming support in general • Apps generally available for about every purpose you can think of
Template and some images © Sun Microsystems, Inc. Used with permission. Sun VDI Software Solution
SSL/AIP ALP ALP AIP Internet SWC Sun Ray Secure Global Server SW Desktop SW RDP RDP Solaris™ 10 x86 Virtual Machine
3270/ X11 VMware/VirtualBox 5250
x86/x64 Server
Mainframe/ AS/400 UNIX
Template and some images © Sun Microsystems, Inc. Used with permission. Administering
• Patches using PCA, smpatch • Binary packages from sunfreeware.com and blastwave.org • OpenSolaris IPS: network package repository • Compile your own programs from source code • Manage Sun Ray software using web interface or CLI
Template and some images © Sun Microsystems, Inc. Used with permission. Operating System support
• Solaris 10 • OpenSolaris (coming soon!) • Linux (SLES 10, RHEL 5) > Community efforts to run on Debian, Gentoo, Ubuntu, others • Windows (using Remote Desktop from Sun Ray server) • Mac OS X (AquaConnect)
Template and some images © Sun Microsystems, Inc. Used with permission. Uses similar client/server model Runs on a variety of Linux Distributions Project aims to utilize old outdated computers as thin clients Basically network boot + XDMCP Benefits
Reliability! Centralized Administration Hot Desking, Sun Ray at Home (VPN) Total Cost of Ownership Only servers are replaced regularly Clients are inexpensive, easy to replace Minimal wasted computing power Cost to use
Educational discounts, grants, trade-in
Let's build a simple 30 station general use Sun Ray lab: $4030 for 4 core Intel Xeon E5520, 12 GB RAM, 2x146 GB HDD, DVD, dual PSU, slide rail kit, cable management arm $442.56 for Sun Ray 2, 22" monitor, Sun keyboard/mouse, server license TOTAL = $17,306.80 $576.89/station
Now it's time to refresh the lab with a new server: TOTAL = $3627 (after trade-in discount) $120.90/station More Benefits
Cooling savings Energy savings (15* W vs. 50 W conservative) Intangibles! (quiet environment, small units, less electronics waste)
*Note: This is a liberal estimate, assuming a 500 W server. Scalability
System size is mutable Increase total power by adding servers Increase number of users by adding terminals Many users for limited resources or few users for high performance Drawbacks
Network intensive Graphics/video – demo, VGL Less redundancy User reactions
Fast, especially login time - Demo JDS (GNOME + Sun interface) is like Windows interface “Power users” sometimes use other desktop environments (KDE, Fluxbox, Xfce, etc.) Future of Thin Clients at TJ
Continue to improve user experience More teachers requesting stations Good way to keep systems new without spending as much Implementation of VDI – preview demo Wireless Resources
http://www.sun.com/sunray http://www.sun-rays.org/ http://www.ltsp.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client Try it!
Username: josti
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