Is Citrix too much for this?

[robatwork]

Hi,

At the moment we put our software onto a Windows PC - "Main PC", share the relevant directory, and run this software from between 1 and 5 other PCs on the network. They only have 1 local file related to our software - this checks for existance of the network drive, and starts up a batch file, which in turn starts up the menu system - all hosted on the Main PC.

This works fine, but now we want to introduce things like remote access, and hosting the sofware on a server.

One solution that springs to mind is using a server with thin clients (or other PCs with terminal services client).

I have a couple of questions regarding this, as I don't have that much experience in this area:

Would Terminal Services running on the server be adequate for this? I've tried TS on Windows 2003 server, and it just feels "clunky". Not sure if it will handle our printing requirements.

Our customers are very price sensitive - would Citrix be overkill for this scenario?

Either way - what would this cost, approximately, for say 5 users in total?

Remote working is important - can we setup a remote PC to think it's printing on a server-attached printer, but in fact print on one connected to the remote PC?

Can a remote site simply have a thin client and broadband router, and VPN into the server, or would it need a PC?

I'd appreciate any advice about this.

Many thanks
Rob

 

[TravisM]

What kind of remote access are you looking at? If you're thinking broadband + VPN then I don't really see wy you'd have to change anything, you could have them VPN, authenticate to the domain and run the program just as the do now, probably.

 

[fs483]

In Quebec, a 5 user Citrix XP goes for 6000$ if I remember correctly...

 

[williambishop]

It's way overkill for that small an environment. Terminal services would be more than adequate for that task.

 

[arthurliz]

You could also put "PC Anywhere" on a machine and have it act as a simple remote control machine.

Of course, if you have lots of remote users at the same time, this will not work, but for the one or two working from home it is fine and less expensive that a Citrix solution.