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tigergal38
Instructor
I am looking for anything I can find on Citrix solutions for schools..or examples of thin client computing in education
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Citrix solutions for schools.. 1
- Thread starter tigergal38
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What are you particularly interested in?<br>
<br>
It occurs to me that a Winframe server (or server farm) might very well cover more than one school - depending upon load. There might very well be significant cost savings there.<br>
<br>
Mike<br>
<p>Mike Lacey<br><a href=mailto:Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com>Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com</a><br><a href= Cargill's Corporate Web Site</a><br>
<br>
It occurs to me that a Winframe server (or server farm) might very well cover more than one school - depending upon load. There might very well be significant cost savings there.<br>
<br>
Mike<br>
<p>Mike Lacey<br><a href=mailto:Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com>Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com</a><br><a href= Cargill's Corporate Web Site</a><br>
I am currently looking to install Metaframe 1.8 into our school district of 2500 students, 130 Teachers, and 50 administrator type clients. Within this district we have 5 labs of 30 students. We are going to intall Thin-Client in the labs and on the desktops of every teacher and administrator. We are going to license for 300 clients. Using Metaframe 1.8. on 4 Proliant 6400R PIII Xeon 550 Mhz Servers, configured into a Farm with application load balancing. We plan to install this in July 1, 2000.<br>
Gary
Gary
Gary,<br>
<br>
Sounds interesting - keep us informed would you?<br>
<br>
I think we're going to see a lot more use of this technology in schools - it is likely that there is some cost saving mileage in there.<br>
<br>
Mike<br>
<p>Mike Lacey<br><a href=mailto:Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com>Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com</a><br><a href= Cargill's Corporate Web Site</a><br>
<br>
Sounds interesting - keep us informed would you?<br>
<br>
I think we're going to see a lot more use of this technology in schools - it is likely that there is some cost saving mileage in there.<br>
<br>
Mike<br>
<p>Mike Lacey<br><a href=mailto:Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com>Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com</a><br><a href= Cargill's Corporate Web Site</a><br>
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- Jan 1, 1970
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I work with a school district somewhat larger than yours. We are now installing a Citrix farm of five servers in a particular school. We have run into a problem though... We need to deploy applications to specific thin clients. Right now, Citrix and NT don't have a way to associate an application to a specific thin client (only fat clients). Do you have any suggestions?
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
Richard,
Surely you'd want to deploy applications to users rather than clients?
Or have I read you wrong?
Surely you'd want to deploy applications to users rather than clients?
Or have I read you wrong?
Pritch5000
Technical User
To CitirxEngineer:
Cooh! don't bite his head off!
Perhaps he has a specific PC with a specific purpose that many users use. Or have I read you wrong?
To Richard:
1. could you not put all relevant users in a group that has the right to run the pub app.
2. could you not create a specific user that all relevant people use, only on that PC.
Pritch5000.
Cooh! don't bite his head off!
Perhaps he has a specific PC with a specific purpose that many users use. Or have I read you wrong?
To Richard:
1. could you not put all relevant users in a group that has the right to run the pub app.
2. could you not create a specific user that all relevant people use, only on that PC.
Pritch5000.
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
Pritch,
Yes, you have mis-read me!
What you have said is a repetition of what I was suggesting.
Although a user profile could be created on a Windows 9x or NT - based PC, this is not possible on many other clients, and would not necessarily affect the Citrix/NT login profile.
Anyway, this is to miss the point of thin-client computing.
It is better to publish programs to groups of users - or even individuals, where necessary, since everything is done over the network on the server. If you just wanted a certain app to run on a certain PC, you might just as well install the app on the PC!
If there is a good reason for wanting to do it another way, however, thin-client computing is flexible enough to allow this.
The Citrix solution is absolutely ideal for an educational scenario because of the way the system can be tailored for individual needs.
I have designed, project managed and implemented many local authority systems from specific departments such as education, to public access kiosks in libraries. In each scenario, the dividends in savings related to TCO were evident within the first year.
Yes, you have mis-read me!
What you have said is a repetition of what I was suggesting.
Although a user profile could be created on a Windows 9x or NT - based PC, this is not possible on many other clients, and would not necessarily affect the Citrix/NT login profile.
Anyway, this is to miss the point of thin-client computing.
It is better to publish programs to groups of users - or even individuals, where necessary, since everything is done over the network on the server. If you just wanted a certain app to run on a certain PC, you might just as well install the app on the PC!
If there is a good reason for wanting to do it another way, however, thin-client computing is flexible enough to allow this.
The Citrix solution is absolutely ideal for an educational scenario because of the way the system can be tailored for individual needs.
I have designed, project managed and implemented many local authority systems from specific departments such as education, to public access kiosks in libraries. In each scenario, the dividends in savings related to TCO were evident within the first year.
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
Our company is spread out in several different states and we are looking to publish the same desktop to some of our end users. We are running NT Terminal Server and Metaframe 1.8.
I have created a published application called Desktop and left the path to the application blank. I want a standard desktop so I guess I am confused on how to get only the published applications I want the users to have access to on this desktop. I will give a group of users access to the published app Desktop. This may not make sense to anyone but me but if it does I would appreciate some advice.
I have created a published application called Desktop and left the path to the application blank. I want a standard desktop so I guess I am confused on how to get only the published applications I want the users to have access to on this desktop. I will give a group of users access to the published app Desktop. This may not make sense to anyone but me but if it does I would appreciate some advice.
Pritch5000
Technical User
Hey.
What you need JanieP, is a System Policy.
Set up your Citrix servers with all required applications, publish the desktop, assign rights to users and/or groups and servers, allow yourself some time to test and toy with policies, use them in conjucntion with profiles.
Basially you create a policy file using system Policy Editor for TSE, save the file as NTConfig.POL in the export directory on your PDC, setup replication between your PDC and your BDC's to replicate this file to all import directories (you will need to create a service user).
If you have site across states, you may have traffic issues regarding high graphics and random connections to local and remote servers, but then I expect you'll already be aware of that.
Make sure you use the TSE editor as it has some specific fields for TSE.
With this you can setup customised start bar, desktop, wallpaper, etc. You can more importantly remove upto and including EVERYTHING! Make it exactly as you want it.
Microsoft do a 100 page bible to profiles and policies, its a white paper available on their website, I dont remember the exact location. Its not indexed though which is a shame, but then it is a white paper and not a book! It isnt however geared to TSE. Good reading.
One thing make sure you thoroughly test and give it due time, its quite easy for a 'policy' beginner (as I assume you are) to leave gapping big holes in security, for instance thru what can be seen in applications.
There is one field in particular that may interest you. 'Run Only Allowed Windows Application', I never really investigated this very far. See MS knowledge base article Q156699 about its limitations. If you do, let me know how you got on, pritch5000@altavista.com. Thanks.
Pritch5000
What you need JanieP, is a System Policy.
Set up your Citrix servers with all required applications, publish the desktop, assign rights to users and/or groups and servers, allow yourself some time to test and toy with policies, use them in conjucntion with profiles.
Basially you create a policy file using system Policy Editor for TSE, save the file as NTConfig.POL in the export directory on your PDC, setup replication between your PDC and your BDC's to replicate this file to all import directories (you will need to create a service user).
If you have site across states, you may have traffic issues regarding high graphics and random connections to local and remote servers, but then I expect you'll already be aware of that.
Make sure you use the TSE editor as it has some specific fields for TSE.
With this you can setup customised start bar, desktop, wallpaper, etc. You can more importantly remove upto and including EVERYTHING! Make it exactly as you want it.
Microsoft do a 100 page bible to profiles and policies, its a white paper available on their website, I dont remember the exact location. Its not indexed though which is a shame, but then it is a white paper and not a book! It isnt however geared to TSE. Good reading.
One thing make sure you thoroughly test and give it due time, its quite easy for a 'policy' beginner (as I assume you are) to leave gapping big holes in security, for instance thru what can be seen in applications.
There is one field in particular that may interest you. 'Run Only Allowed Windows Application', I never really investigated this very far. See MS knowledge base article Q156699 about its limitations. If you do, let me know how you got on, pritch5000@altavista.com. Thanks.
Pritch5000
Janiep,
We kind of have the same setup. We also have a common desktop and limit some applications to users. We do it by groups. We just change the permissions to the shortcut on the desktop to "no access" for a particular group. All this does is change the icon on screen to the default windows flag icon and the user can not access that application but still has the common desktop. Works well, but one draw back is that you have to set the permissions on each server, so if you a lot of servers in a farm or mutliple farms I would suggest investigating what Pritch5000 is proposing. Hope that helps you some.
We kind of have the same setup. We also have a common desktop and limit some applications to users. We do it by groups. We just change the permissions to the shortcut on the desktop to "no access" for a particular group. All this does is change the icon on screen to the default windows flag icon and the user can not access that application but still has the common desktop. Works well, but one draw back is that you have to set the permissions on each server, so if you a lot of servers in a farm or mutliple farms I would suggest investigating what Pritch5000 is proposing. Hope that helps you some.
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