Thin Clients

[KenGr]

Good Evening:

My network at work has not had any upgrades in about five years. As a result, I am looking at upgrading a server, and at the moment, three workstations. There will be more workstations needing upgrading in several months.

Currently, all the workstations are Gateway E-Series systems. Since, money will be a big issue I am considering switching to "thin clients." In addition, I think it would be great if the clients would run Linux.

Here are some of my questions:
1)Can you build your own thin clients?

2)What software do you need to enable the clients to connect to the
server?

3)Our high-end accounting program must run under Windows NT. How do you enable the program to work with a Linux client?

4)How does the server configuration change?

Thank you!

[aussieolie2]

Hi KenGr,
As your questions:
1. You can develop a thin client environment on your server (this can be customised either as a webbased front end or java or Windows). Depending on what you want available will determine the hardware requirements. Such as CDR's, Disk Drives etc... Developing your own thinclient from scratch is quite expensive. System servers such as (2)MS Termainal Server provide a Metaframe webbased frontend that allows thin networking from any type of client with a browser - this is the most popular today as its just like working on a pc, except remotely. You go to the site and connect, you can then work on your Terminal Server desktop and run applications e.g MS Word.
I dont know much about Linux, and unless you do I would avoid it. (If you dont know anything about it etc...). (3) I do know you can run a NT/Windows emulation program in Linux (not sure what it is called) to execute Windows applications.
For info on Citrix Metaframe: http://www.citrix.com/products/metaframexp.asp
(4) To initiate this popular setup, you will be required to have atleast a T1/Cable modem connection, 100Mbs LAN, Powerful Sever (you say 6 years...)you would need somethign over 1000Mhz and 265RAM to have it run smoothly.
Then you have to ask yourself...Do you need to develop a thinclient system??

Hope this helps,

Olie